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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPB Minutes 2018-10-02TOWN -(F I'F HACA PLANNING BOARI) Shirley A. Raffensperger Board Room, Town Hall 215 North Tina -au. Street Ithaca, New York 14850 Tuesday, Oct ober.2.2.0.] .8. AGENDA 7':00 1),M. Consideration ota sketch plan for the proposed Schilckel Road Subdivision pro ' ject located at 1145 Danby Road (NYS Roote 9013), Town of lthaca'Fax parcel No.'s 36.-2-2.1 and 36.-2-3,55, Medinin Density Residential and Low Density Residential Zones, The proposal involves ,I +/- 44 unit clustered residential development of townhouses arld attached ranch units, The proJect will use the future Schickel Road foraccess and will also include parking and a central community park. Westview Partners, LLC, Owner' Visurn Development Group, Applicant, 7;45 P,M_ Discussion cif the proposed Cornell University North C.'arripus Residential Expansion pro.ject. Cornell University proposes to construct two residential complexes (one for sopho mores and the other for freshmen) located on North Canipi.is betweenTripharniner Road, Jessup Road, Pleasant Grove Road and Cradit Farrar Drive, The sophomore village will have four residential buildings with 800 new beds and associated prograna space totaling 299,900 Sl-�"and a 1,2()0 seat, 66,300 SF (filling facility. Buildings for the sophornore village will be located entirely in the city, while as small portion of the Site W(:)T'k is proposed for the Village of 14eights. The freshman village will have three new residential buildings, each sparming the City and Town of Ithaca municipal 141C, with a total of 401,200 SF and 1,200 new beds and associated program space - 223,400 SF of which is In the city and 177,800 SF of which is in tile town. The building heights will be between two and six stories. The project is in three zoning districts. the LJ4 zoning district in the city; Low Density Residential zone in the town; and the Multiple Housing District within the village. The pro,jec( also includes varlons outdoor arrienities, including a plaza, amphitheater, open lawns, landscaped spaces, and walkways. Cornell University, Owner/Applicant; Kiniberly Michaels, Trowbrid(: : , 'e WolfMichaels Landscape Architects 11.11, Agent. Applice"ition inateriaIs are avaihible at the following link: Nt ' I J, ��cts,/HCIV. J .... . ...... .. . Persons to be heard 4. Approv,al of Minutes: August 7, 2018, ALI-LISt 16, 2018 and Septernber 4, 2018. Other Business - r)iscussion of upcoming Planning Board'Training Z, 6Ad.fc)nrnment Susan Ritter Director of Planning 273-1747 NOTE. IF ANY NIE'VIBER OFTHE PLANNING BOARD IS UNABLETO Al"VEND, PLEASE NOTUY SANDY POLCE A,r 273-1747 or I 'S — ------ -- ------ (A quorunt of four (4) members is necessary to conduct".._.._ onduct Planning Board business.) Accessing MeetingMaterials Online Site Plan and Subdivision applications and associated project materials are accessible electronically on the Town's website under "Planning Board" on the "Meeting Agendas" page ms/ aa c Gaits arc Margas). TOWN OF ITHACA PLANNING BOARD MEETING Tuesday, October 2, 2018 215 N. Tioga Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 Town Planning Board Members Present: Fred Wilcox (Chair), Joseph Haefeli, Yvonne Fogarty, Liebe Meier Swain, Jon Bosak, Melissa Hill Town Staff Present: Susan Ritter; Director of Planning; Bruce Bates, Director of Code Enforcement; Chris Balestra, Planner; Dan Thaete, Town Engineer; Marty Mosely, Code Enforcement Officer; Susan Brock, Attorney for the Town; Paulette Rosa, Town Clerk Call to Order Mr. Wilcox called the meeting to order at 7 p.m. AGENDA ITEM Consideration of a sketch plan for the proposed Schickel Road Subdivision project located at 1145 Danby Road (NYS Route 96B), Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No.'s 36.-2-2.1 and 36.-2-3.55, Medium Density Residential and Low Density Residential Zones. The proposal involves a +/- 44 unit clustered residential development of townhouses and attached ranch units. The project will use the future Schickel Road for access and will also include parking and a central community park. Westview Partners, LLC, Owner; Visum Development Group, Applicant. Laura Mattos, Visum Development Group, said they created three different scenarios in order to figure out how many units they could fit into the clustered design. The one they're proposing is to take cars from the front of the houses to create large open spaces in front where children could play and be away from cars. There would be six townhouse buildings with attached ranch homes with two units in each. They received a recommendation from the environmental review board to move the development a bit south to reduce the impact on the natural environment. In term of the design, they're proposing facades that are different from one another and garage doors in back so they're not the main face from the street. A community space will create a sense of space and community for residents. Mr. Wilcox stated that they provided three drawings showing a conventional subdivision, and lie doesn't think the board would be happy with any of them. The drawings show all straight roads, or drag strips, that create the opportunity to drive faster. The primary access is off Schickel Road, not 96B. Why? Ms. Mattos responded that it was a request from the owner, but she can ask him to consider different options. Mr. Wilcox also thought it would be important to have more than one access point. It would be a problem if there's only one access, and emergency vehicles are somehow blocked from getting in. Regarding the access off Schickel, lie's assuming the development group controls that vacant lot, and suggested that it could be used for an access point. He said there have been issues with water next door at the Westview subdivision, and wondered whether the same conditions exist on this property. Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 2 of 16 Ms. Balestra said the soils are similar. Ms. Fogarty said it’s a beautiful piece of propertywith beautiful trees; she would like to see as little tree cutting as possible. She asked what the rents would be and whether they’d be affordable. Ms. Mattos said the proposal is for for-sale units and the plan is to sell them for $300,000. Ms. Meier Swain asked where $300,000 falls in the affordability scale. Ms. Balestra thought that figure was above 120 percent of median income. Mr. Bosak shared his concern about the water – the same as always – and told the applicantthatthey are going to be required to conform to our regulations about water, but those regulations are out of sync with what’s actually happening with rain, so if they build to those specifications, there will come a time when the homeowners will be in deep trouble. The condition of the soil is a real concern. Mr. Bates said they want the center area to be carless, but pointed out that they need to make the path in front at least be able to hold the weight of a fire truck. The way it’s designed with the units connected together, the fire department is going to have to be able to get on both sides of a structure. Mr. Haefeli said he liked having the primary access off Schickel Road because Danby Road is congested enough and it’s getting worse. He thinks an emergency lane off Danby is needed. He likes the concept of the development. Ms. Meier Swain pointed out that the townhouses will be three stories tall and asked if the materials they bring to site plan review will show impact views, because from King Road and down, you can look right across to that area. Mr. Bates asked if the development will be on municipal water because the townhouses will need to be sprinklered if they’re three stories tall. Mr. Thaete cautioned the applicant that these types of developments are often constructed without much thought to infrastructure and the money involved in doing it correctly. Right now, the fire flow is not sufficient, and although there are several options to get the water flow where it needs to be, they range from $700,000 to $1.2 million. The water main sizing is insufficient so they don’t have the appropriate flow. There are two options: one would be to enlarge the main from King Road up Danby Road to the development and the other would be to cut northerly across the top of Larisa Lane to King Road to loop it. Ms. Mattos asked whether reducing the height of the townhouses would help with that issue. Mr. Thaete responded that the sprinkler issue is a code requirement. We require 1500 gallons per minute at 20 psi minimum; right now that doesn’t exist. So we wouldn’t necessarily allow even a development of single-family homes at this point in time. We need to sit down and talk. Mr. Bates said that if the townhouses are going to be three stories high, they’ll have to be sprinklered. If they’re apartments, that’s another issue. Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 3 of 16 Mr. Wilcox noted that affordable housing is a goal in the comprehensive plan, something the town encourages, but it isn’t a requirement. Since the town is encouraging it, the planning board is following their lead. Although it’s not required, we would look more favorably on the project if one or more unit were priced affordably. Ms. Ritter said we’ve had conversations with developers and understand that the costs in Ithaca are particularly high; it’s difficult to create a house for sale in the median income level. Labor is expen- sive, along with a whole realm of other things. Following up on the road issue, she said the ERC is looking for this development to be moved closer to Schickel Road. What they’re proposing is a loop road. There’s a regulation in the subdivision requirements that if you have a road more than 1000 feet long, you need a second access, but she didn’t think this development would warrant that. We had encouraged them to minimize their disturbance, so she wondered whether Mr. Wilcox and Mr. Haefeli felt it was really necessary to have another road, which would cause a lot of disturbance going off 96B. Do we want to encourage people to use one road to get out to a main road, like they’re proposing? Since it wouldn’t be required in our subdivision regulations, she didn’t know if there was anything else that would mandate it. Ms. Fogarty noted that when you look at the map, it doesn’t look like there’s a good place to put a road off Danby Road because of the pond. Mr. Wilcox responded that he believes a second entrance is necessary for emergency access, so it could simply be a trail built to the standard to accommodate a fire truck, with a chain in front of it in case the main road is blocked. It’s common sense. Ms. Mattos said she thinks the recommendations they got prior to the meeting are extremely plausible and she thinks they could be implemented. She personally would try to get the affordable units because it’s something important to her. It’s expensive to build in Ithaca. They have other projects in the city where they’re doing affordable housing, because it’s part of their values and something they care about, but it’s not something they can do in all their projects. Mr. Thaete said that if they plan to dedicate these roads to the town, the radiuses seem awfully tight, so we’ll have to work on that. Aside from fire trucks, we look at things like the maintenance, where snow plows will turn around, where the snow will be pushed, how the drainage will be worked into the road system. Mr. Haefeli asked whether a water line upgrade would be solely for the benefit of this development or whether it would benefit others in the neighborhood, and, if so, who foots the bill? Is it entirely up to the applicant to make that happen if others are going to share in it eventually? Mr. Thaete said he’s discussed this with colleagues and there are two modes of thought. One is that if they want to build, they should upgrade. It will definitely benefit the surrounding neighborhood. The other is if we want this development to happen and the taxpayers are for it because the housing fits the need, and if the town board is okay with it, the town might contribute to the upgrade. It’s a negotiation process. Mr. Wilcox said that will be up to the town board to decide. Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 4 of 16 AGENDA ITEM Discussion of the proposed Cornell University North Campus Residential Expansion project. Cornell University proposes to construct two residential complexes (one for sophomores and the other for freshmen) located on North Campus between Triphammer Road, Jessup Road, Pleasant Grove Road and Cradit Farm Drive. The sophomore village will have four residential buildings with 800 new beds and associated program space totaling 299,900 SF and a 1,200 seat, 66,300 SF dining facility. Buildings for the sophomore village will be located entirely in the city, while a small portion of the site work is proposed for the Village of Cayuga Heights. The freshman village will have three new residential buildings, each spanning the City and Town of Ithaca municipal line, with a total of 401,200 SF and 1,200 new beds and associated program space – 223,400 SF of which is in the city and 177,800 SF of which is in the town. The building heights will be between two and six stories. The project is in three zoning districts: the U-I zoning district in the city; Low Density Residential zone in the town; and the Multiple Housing District within the village. The project also includes various outdoor amenities, including a plaza, amphitheater, open lawns, landscaped spaces, and walkways. Cornell University, Owner/Applicant; Kimberly Michaels, Trowbridge Wolf Michaels Landscape Architects LLP, Agent. Ms. Meier Swain recused herself from the discussion. Mr. Wilcox said it’s important that the board have time to begin our discussions. At the last meeting, members of the public were given the opportunity to address the board without time limits and we ran a little long. We have received public comments that were submitted in writing. It there’s time, the public will be given the opportunity to address the board. Ms. Wolf said the presentation would follow the three components to ensuring that the project delivers a low carbon footprint: 1) Energy-efficient systems;2) high-performance, energy-efficient building design; 3) sustainable behaviors, or initiatives that will be put in place following the con- struction. The benefits of the project are that it will meet the current and future demand for student housing, improve the student experience, and support municipal and county housing goals, and the the project will be located entirely on areas that were previously developed and in a way entirely consistent with existing zoning. Cornell has a goal of carbon neutrality by 2035, and this project is designed to fit within that framework. By the time the buildings come online, there will actually be a decrease in the use of gas on campus as a result of continuously implementing energy conservation measures. Cornell is working to increase the percentage of renewables. Today, ten percent of campus electricity is generated from solar and hydroelectric. If the grid becomes carbon free before Cornell can be carbon free, then Cornell will switch to the grid. Energy-Efficient Systems Ms. Wolf stated that Cornell is proposing to use the combined heat and power plant for heating and electricity and lake source cooling for cooling the buildings. In the combined heat and power plant, gas is burned in a combustion turbine to generate electricity. That electricity powers the campus. The hot exhaust or waste heat from the turbines is captured to make steam and that makes hot water that heats the campus. Because the gas serves the dual purpose of electricity generation and heating, the fuel efficiency is drastically increased. In addition,some of the waste heat is converted to high- pressure steam that generates more electricity to power the campus. Lake source cooling is five times Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 5 of 16 more efficient than heat pumps. Today,the combined heat and power plant and lakesource cooling are the best option. This combination produces less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than other alternatives being suggested; heat pumps will create more GHG emissions than this system. This has been determined by an independent study by Taitem Engineering. Why is that? Heat pumps operate on electricity; electricity comes from the grid. The New York State grid is one of the greenest in the country. Forty percent of electricity in the grid comes from gas, oil, and coal; 32 percent comes from nuclear; 24 percent is hydro, 3 percent is from wind, and 2 percent is from photovoltaic and biomass. The latter four sources of energy are maxed out in terms of their use, so whatever additional loads are put on the system comes from gas, so gas use goes up. If heat pumps are used, there would bea greater amount of gas used because the Cornell plant is so efficient and because lake source cooling uses no gas, so there are less GHG emissions. The grid will become more green over time, and at some point in the future, there will be a greener alternative than the power plant. That’s why Cornell is designing the project to a new campus standard, which is to include infrastructure in the buildings that allows them to be switched over to other renewable energy systems when they become available. Energy-Efficient Building Design Arvind Tikku, Ikon.5 Architects, said the main goal of the project is to provide a great living and learning experience for the students. The second most important goal is to meet the energy goals of Cornell’s 2035 carbon neutral initiative. The project is being designed for LEED Gold certification and within that certification, they’ll garner 20 energy points. Through envelope design, glass technol- ogy, and energy-efficient mechanical, plumbing, and electrical systems, their project is 30 percent more efficient than the latest ASHRE 90.12013 code requirements. The buildings are more efficient because their energy model doesn’t account for the efficiency of the district plant. If they were to incorporate that plant, they believe their efficiency would increase to over 35 percent. Their peak load demands are based on professional standards, good professional practices, and engineered calcula- tions, and they’ve also been adjusted based on the actual energy consumption of similar buildings on the Cornell campus. Cornell has a trove of data that they harvest on their existing buildings to see how they’re performing and how much energy they’re consuming. When you cross reference the professional values with how the buildings are performing on their campus, they were able to drop their original estimate of 1200 tons of cooling to 640 tons. They originally thought they needed 27,000 \[inaudible\] of heating and were able to drop that down to 19,000. That has a tremendous impact on the sizing of the pumps and the lines that are running on the campus and the energy savings. Another goal is to create a great living and learning environment that builds on the large, open quadrangles and develops a relationship between exterior programs and interior spaces. The architectural design reflects the above-mentioned goals and therefore the amount of glass, walls, and windows are driven by the program and are proportional to the exterior wall surfaces. You need a certain number of windows for the health and wellness of the inhabitants. Where there are social programs on the first floor, the window wall is designed as a colonnade for solar shading or an energy efficient curtain wall to provide transparency and connectivity to the outdoor spaces. The reason they’re four to five stories is to promote stair travel. The stairs are located to be easily accessible and to discourage elevator use. The design elements that are essential components of their high-performance energy-efficient buildings are high-performance glazing with a U-value of 0.27 and a solar heat gain of .25; ceramic fritt on the second surface of the glazing to deflect sunlight and to reduce heat gain on the south and west exposures; canopies at entrances for shading and to limit solar gain; the transpar- ency that lets the daylight in reduces power consumption because you can turn the light off and use natural daylight; horizontal louvres (sun screens) on the curtain wall to shade and lower solar gain; insulating glass with low iron composition, because it’s a clearer glass with low heat coating, and Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 6 of 16 argon gas within the gap space for more insulating value; manual roller shades inside the residential rooms to reduce solar gain and energy consumption; a typical wall section is a terra cotta panel which is embedded on an insulated precast wall system; a high-performance roof system of R49 (ASHRE 2013 requires it to be R20); high-performance wall insulation of R25.5 continuous, eliminating thermal breaks. The walls are 12 inches thick: 3 inches of terra cotta, 4 inches of insulation, and a 5- inch thick precast structural panel. Thermal mass energy savings of the wall system is not included in achieving the 30 percent below ASHRE 90.1 2013 energy code. They’ve incorporated a number of mechanical strategies to achieve the high-performance design: 100 percent of the ventilated air includes heat recovery; a minimum of 60 percent of air from the dining hall will be used to balance the kitchen hood exhaust, which reduces the total makeup air requirement; they have variable-speed fans for makeup air units to modulate air flow to meet instantaneous demand; variable-speed pumps for modulated hot water and chill water flow to meet instantaneous heating and cooling demands; demand-controlled ventilation for densely occupied spaces; occupancy-based temperature and air- setback strategies for unoccupied periods. For the plumbing, they’ve incorporated these measures: low flow fixtures, Energy Star appliances, and demand-control dryer exhaust. They’ve incorporated a hot water infrastructure that is designed to operate at a lower temperature, which gives Cornell the flexibility to switch to future renewable sources, geothermal being one of them. The power saving strategies include: high-efficiency lighting, overall lighting power that’s 25 percent less than current code, lighting tied to occupancy, daylight sensors to reduce unnecessary use, occupancy and vacancy sensors in the common spaces, regenerative elevators (the motor transforms mechanical power to electrical power), and reduced the light power density. Sustainable features include: submetering of major energy end uses to facilitate transparency of resource usage and to encourage improvement of occupant habits, smart elevator controls to optimize elevator travel patterns based on actual usage to minimize wasted motion, and the site lighting output is reduced by 50 percent after hours with motion sensors to automatically bring lighting up to full brightness only when required. Sustainable Behaviors Ms. Wolf said this encompasses building management and operations and influencing behavior of the building occupants. These activities contribute significantly to the overall reduction in energy use. Cornell monitors the energy use in their buildings in real time. They have a dedicated staff to monitor the buildings, and if there’s a poor performing building, engineers intervene immediately. There are numerous programs that engage, educate, and foster sustainable behaviors among the occupants. The students are very involved in climate action and a wide range of sustainability initiatives. Gold LEED status involves enhanced commissioning, in which you bring in a third party who tests the systems to confirm that they are operating as designed. Ms. Fogarty asked how the presentation changed from the last time with the input from the town and the public. Ms. Michaels said the major change is that they’re getting better at communicating. They went in anticipating that people would want energy analysis, so they called in Taitem, and they used Maple- wood because it was held up to them as an appropriate level of investigation. So they came in too technical. This is the same information, but told as she and Ms. Wolf can understand it because they’re not engineers. LEED Silver to Gold: they were in schematic design previously because all the pieces weren’t worked out, and it was going to be LEED Silver minimum, and that was all they could commit to until they got further with the design. As they progressed in the building details, it became apparent that Gold is an achievable goal. Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 7 of 16 Mr. Wilcox said the city has not yet made a SEQR determination;therefore we still have the oppor- tunity to weigh in and provide our comments to the city regarding that decision. Ms. Brock said the board needs to focus their comments to the city on whether there’s the potential for at least one significant adverse environmental impact. It’s not whether or notthere’s a better way to do it. Mr. Bosak said he knew where we were heading with climate change over 20 years ago, so he doesn’t need to get more information telling him again what he already knows; that’s just a distraction from focusing on the issues attending this particular project. Methane is one of those issues, but focusing exclusively on that one factor is missing some other aspects of the problem, starting with the energy that would be wasted in constructing heat pumps that we’re all hoping will have to be taken out again at some point. More importantly, climate change isn’t the only existential issue that is going to be facing us over the next several decades. They are inclining him to prefer the central plant proposal over the heat pumps. However, he’s not in a position to justify that position in detail because there are still aspects of this proposal that haven’t been studied yet. So he’s been assuming that we’re now going to enter a scoping process to identify those aspects in a proper environmental review. He was flabbergasted to learn that the city is considering the issuance of a negative declaration of environ- mental significance without any environmental impact statement (EIS) at all. He can think of five things off the top his head that are wrong with this, the first being that not doing an EIS means that some aspects of the plan will not be studied in enough detail to support a considered finding, and we won’t have the hard look that New York courts have required in SEQR findings. Second, not doing an EIS means that alternatives will not be studied, such as the alternative of retrofitting the existing buildings to make them more energy efficient, which, he suspects, would have the least environmental impact of all. Third, the SEQR process is the only way we can actually require Cornell to do the right thing: once we’re past SEQR, our legal authority to require Cornell to do something is down to the level of where you put the parking spaces. For example, we might require Cornell to mitigate some of the impacts by committing to construct solar PV on some of the land it owns to provide enough BTU equivalents in the form of electricity to offset the energy used to heat the dorms. Fourth, the criterion for a negative declaration itself, and he read: “To determine that an EIS will not be required for an action, the lead agency must determine either that there will be no adverse environmental impacts or that the identified adverse environmental impacts will not be significant.” The proposition that a construction project of this size won’t have any significant environmental impacts, no matter how it’s constructed, is patently absurd. Even if the entire project were net energy neutral, there are still the 20,000 metric tons of CO2 that will be released into the atmosphere just by building the new dorms. Finally, there’s the matter of precedent: in his time on the board, we’ve consistently required an EIS for projects as small as 105 units and for the Maplewood project. This one is bigger than both of those put together. He noticed that the city has treated an EIS as disposable for all their recent projects, but they required an EIS for the Chain Works project, and the last time they considered a large Cornell dorm project, they required an EIS. He understands that the city can declare this project to be environmentally insignificant; they can find that the lawns are purple and that objects fall upward, too, but when those findings reach a \[inaudible\] jurisdiction, things will probably not go well with such obvious counterfactuals. Given the strong public pushback against the current proposal, he personally finds it hard to believe that a negative declaration in the absence of an EIS won’t be challenged in court. When it is, the lack of anything that can be characterized as a hard look, the fact that finding itself is false on the face of it, and the fact that such an action is contrary to Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 8 of 16 recent precedent in both the city and the town, makes it very likely that the plaintiffs in such an action would prevail. So he would like to say to Cornell that if they are trying to speed up the process by skipping the EIS, he would invite them to consider the effect on their schedule of going through an Article 78proceeding and then doing an EIS. In his opinion, the suggestion that we skip the EIS is unacceptable, and as an involved agency, we need to register that in the strongest terms. Mr. Wilcox doesn’t agree with the idea that the size of a project determines the need of an EIS. Every project is different and every project has its own potential environmental issues. The question is: are they significant or not? Ms. Brock noted that Mr. Bosak said he wanted scoping and an alternative study, and that if a negative declaration were issued, the planning board can’t require any energy mitigations. That’s a true statement, but you only get scoping and the study of alternatives if there’s the potential for an adverse environmental impact. If there isn’t the potential, you don’t go to scoping or force energy alternatives to be looked at. You have to do it in sequence. Mr. Bosak made a statement that the emissions from construction alone would be enough that that would be a significant adverse impact. You don’t go at it backwards and say, I want them to look at alternatives and therefore we must give the positive declaration. What you have to do is say what the adverse impacts are and whetherthey’re significant. The SEQR regulations have general criteria for determining significance. It walks you through a list of illustrative, not exhaustive, criteria, including a substantial change in existing air quality or traffic, the creation of a material conflict with the community’s current plans or goals if officially approved or adopted, the impairment of the character or quality of the existing community or neighborhood character, a major change in the use of either the quantity or type of energy, substantial changes in the use or intensity of use of land, etc. It then says the significance of a likely consequence, i.e., whether it is material, substantial, large, or important, should be assessed in connection with its setting, its probability of occurrence, its duration, its irreversibility, its geographic scope, its magnitude, and the number of people affected. Mr. Bosak observed that if we had been as careful as that implies all these years, we probably would not have required EISs on anything he’s been on the board for. Ms. Ritter said that many times, the applicant has agreed to an EIS right from the get-go and we never actually pushed the issue. Holochuck was all about traffic on West Hill, Chain Works was a huge generic environmental impact statement, Maplewood because it was plopped right down in a neighborhood. This is different in being plopped down on the Cornell campus. Mr. Wilcox asked what the environmental concerns are. For him, it’s energy usage, transportation, and to some extent, community character only because of the look and feel of the buildings facing towards the public areas. Someone mentioned sewerage. Mr. Thaete said we’ve been talking with the city, and there is a joint interceptor where the city and town flows combine together on Thurston Avenue, downstream of these facilities. Their engineer has reviewed the interceptors in a general sense. It appears we’re at or near capacity on several of the runs of this interceptor. They’re slated to be upgraded in the future, but not at this time. In order for the dorms to come online, there will have to be upgrades. The city is in concurrence. Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 9 of 16 Mr. Wilcox asked if there’s a reasonable short-term solution, and if this is similar to what was necessary for Maplewood, which was increasing the size of pipes going down State Street. Mr. Thaete said a lot of the sewer systems in this community are dealing with infiltration of ground- water. Is a short term solution to try to find the points of infiltration? In his opinion, it’s just as easy and even quicker to upgrade that sewer. As far as the Maplewood project, they had enough capacity. The East State Street interceptor was upgraded for the future, because Maplewood was getting to capacity and there’s a lot of development in the city and future Cornell development on East Hill that would push it over the threshold. The city is in control of upgrading the interceptors; Erick Whitney has a master plan. The East State Street interceptor was slated to be upgraded when it took place; the Thurston Avenue interceptor is on the list, but is not slated to be upgraded as quickly as the devel- opment wants to take place. So if it needs to be moved up the list, that’s the negotiation. Mr. Wilcox said regarding transportation, Ms. Wolf mentioned in her presentation at the last meeting various initiatives that are being talked about and which Cornell is committed to; for example, realigning Pleasant Grove Road so that it goes down Cradit Farm Road to the university rather than to Forest Home Drive and additional TCAT bus runs through the area. His concern is that Cornell can commit to these and even put money into escrow, but without TCAT, you don’t get more buses, and without the county, that road doesn’t get modified. Commitment is great, but it doesn’t solve the problem. Ms. Michaels said Cornell is part of the TCAT group and they’ve been working closely with Cornell to determine what changes will be needed to accommodate the growth in student population and that they’re working toward making that happen. She asked what the board might want the applicant team to prepare for the next meeting to feel assured. In terms of the Cradit Farm Drive piece, that’s not a road Cornell owns, and in preliminary conversations with the county and the town, the response has been that they’ve wanted to do this for a long time. She thinks there is support and initiative. There are technical things to work out, such as different alternatives for the way the intersection would be aligned and put together, and then there would need to be a traffic study to evaluate whether there would be negative impacts. The Cayuga Heights community does not want that to happen at all; however, it’s not their road and it’s not in their municipality. Both the county and town are supportive. They were thinking of an MOU to secure the commitment between the parties. She has asked Cornell to start crafting an agreement and to put some legitimate promise behind that commitment. Ms. Ritter added that there were meetings this summer with the supervisor and the director of public works of the town and the county. Mr. Wilcox said we can make resolutions dependent on these traffic mitigation measures actually being implemented. Ms. Ritter said the design itself is not part of this plan, so maybe we could say a memo of understand- ing would happen, but everyone needs to agree on what the design will be. Mr. Wilcox said that regarding community character, people talk about the look of the buildings as they face away from campus and that the current architectural look of the buildings have an academic look and feel. We as a board worked very hard for the buildings in the Maplewood project that front Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 10 of 16 on Mitchell Street to have a more residential look as part of our goal to mitigate any issues with community character,so he thinks it’s important for the architects to take a look at what the public will see along Pleasant Grove Road. Mr. Bosak said he thinks what’s bothering him most about not doing an EIS is that there’s a certain pro forma aspect of this that’s necessary to satisfy everyone. It’s ironic because he suspects he’ll end up supporting Cornell’s position, but there are things he doesn’t know: how much embedded energy would there be if we went with the alternative using heat pumps; what would the alternative where we do nothing would look like; what would the alternative where we retrofit existing buildings to be more energy efficient look like? Ms. Michaels said there are no buildings to retrofit. Balch Hall will be renovated, but only to provide swing space to have empty beds. Mr. Bosak said he’s missing the alternative of where you don’t build those buildings. Again, he has a strong feeling that if you went through this exercise, everyone would be satisfied. They’ve already done 80 percent of the work, but we’re not going to get a point-by-point accounting of how every comment from the public has been answered. That’s the sort of thing that’s necessary to make the people say, Okay, they’ve accounted for everything. Mr. Wilcox said, Here’s all the wonderful things an EIS has: alternatives, including no action, responses to public comment, etc, but we can’t go down the road of creating a potential significant environmental impact in order to get that information that we’d love to see. Mr. Bosak said he began with the assertion he will stick to: finding that there’s not even the potential for a significant adverse environmental impact is ridiculous. Ms. Brock said we just can’t say it’s ridiculous. We have to spell out why. Mr. Bosak said with anything this size, there’s obviously the potential. The legal requirement is that we have to find that it’s not the case that it may have an environmental impact. How can I know that? It hasn’t been studied. I don’t feel I have the information. Ms. Brock said you look at the setting, the probability of the occurrence of the impact, its duration, its irreversibility, its geographic scope, its magnitude, and the number of people affected. When the planning board gives its comments to the city about whether or not it thinks this should receive a positive determination of environmental significance, we have to explain the reasons based on the criteria in the regulations. Mr. Bosak said that puts the burden on us to demonstrate that there isn’t one. What the law says is that we have to find that it is not the case that it may have a significant environmental impact. Ms. Brock said you either determine there will be no adverse environmental impacts or that the identified adverse environmental impacts will not be significant. Right above, it says, “to require an EIS for the proposed action, the lead agency must determine that the action may include the potential for at least one significant adverse environmental impact.” You can take that as your standard and say yes or no to that. Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 11 of 16 Mr. Bosak responded that she was right in that he wasn’t addressing what’s necessary to say that there is one; he was challenging the possibility that the city would say that there isn’t one. He was quoting the part that relates to that. To say that there isn’t an environmental impact, “the lead agency must determine either that there will be no adverse environmental impacts or that the identified adverse environmental impacts will not be significant.” He’s challenging their ability to find that to be the case. He didn’t think he’d have to come up with other reasons for them not to have a reason to do this. Ms. Brock said you have to say why you feel the identified adverse environmental impacts will be significant. Ms. Ritter added that it’s filling out Part 3 of the EAF where you have to explain each grading: water, stormwater, all those things we address in a Type I action with the long environmental assessment form. That’s what you have to do and you have to come to a conclusion that one of those areas is a significant impact. That’s what the city will be writing and the town would be intending to provide any input. Ms. Fogarty said there are two issues that should be looked at with an EIS: energy and stormwater runoff and the amount of impervious area. She talked about that the last time and hasn’t heard anything to change that. The first-year student building goes from 23 percent impervious area to 65 percent. This is a very wet area. They’ve talked about not being able to use the fields because they’re so wet. Ms. Brock said they’ll have a stormwater pollution prevention plan. Are they able to meet the DEC’s requirements for stormwater runoff with their plan?That’s something we need to know. Mr. Thaete said there are two basics of stormwater management they have to adhere to: one is water quality and the other is quantity attenuation. They state that they’re discharging to Fall Creek, which is a fifth order stream or larger. Because of that, the DEC allows them to directly discharge the full quantity of water without mitigating it. That’s the state law. The only concern he was going to bring up is whether there are any downstream structures – bridges, pipes – that need to be analyzed to show that this additional flow won’t impact those structures. That would be something he would potential- ly comment on during the stormwater phase. Other than that, they’re doing water quality for both sites and some stormwater management for the inner development. From what he’s learned, the state has analyzed stormwater region-wide and they’re trying to get these downstream developments to discharge and get their water out of the system prior to the upstream runoff coming down. They’re trying to clear the pipeline so larger runoff from upstream won’t hit the wall of water that might be there. That’s their philosophy for why they developed that plan. He can’t go beyond that. Ms. Fogarty said that doesn’t tell us how it’s going to affect that stream. Is it concerning that there’s so much impervious pavement? Those seem like unanswered questions to her and that’s the purpose of the EIS to say let’s check this out further and see if it’s okay. Mr. Wilcox said that’s not the purpose of the EIS; you have to determine that it has the potential for a significant adverse environmental impact. You cannot use an EIS to get additional information. We can ask for additional information to help us make a proper decision. We’ve done it for other Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 12 of 16 projects.Bringing the conversation back to energy, he said when he left the last meeting, there was so much data given to us: we had numbers from the application team and alternative numbers from the public. We were inundated with numbers about energy use and what’s going to be released into the atmosphere. He’s still not sure where he comes down on this right now in terms of: does what’s being proposed for heating, cooling, and electricity create the potential for a significant adverse environ- mental impact? Mr. Bosak said the energy in these buildings that wouldn’t be used before the buildings were built is an environmental impact of energy that’s pretty big. He doesn’t see how you can get around it because of climate change and because of the effect on the environment of using additional energy in these new buildings, no matter how efficient they are. Mr. Wilcox asked Mr. Beyer what the estimated increased use of natural gas is based upon the construction and occupancy of these buildings. Mr. Beyer said the energy of this facility is equivalent to about 1.4 percent of the campus energy load in electric, heating, and cooling. He said the DEC writes SEQR rules and they’ve created a workbook to help people gauge how to reasonably judge these things. They provide specific guidance about every area of impact, including energy. He read what they wrote about the energy area of impact for bigger projects: “Small impact: Proposed projects that include land uses similar to those in surrounding areas, and that follow the NYS Energy Code, are likely to have only a small impact. Examples would be: Residential development in an already suburbanized area.” It’s pretty clear that this is what we have. We don’t meet energy code, we beat it. We don’t use energy like in a normal building, we use it more efficiently, and we have people monitoring that. For moderate to large impacts, the handbook gives these examples: “An industrial use on a rural road with electrical transmission lines designed for only scattered residential land uses. A single commercial use in an industrial park with much higher energy uses than the other users in the park. Industrial projects that require large amounts of energy during operation. Large numbers of residential units in a rural area.” So when the writers of SEQRA tried to give guidance, those are the example they used. Mr. Bosak said the handbook wasn’t written by the people who wrote the SEQR law. We have been over that handbook in the last couple of years and every time it’s to someone’s advantage to quote it, they do, and every time it’s not, someone points out that every other page says, It’s up to you how to decide. He also pointed out that in the FEAF, there is a specific number, which he believed is 125 MW hours per year, at which time we’re supposed to start paying attention. Ms. Brock said she asked questions last time about energy, and she didn’t see them answered. She read the Impact on Energy section, including the Taitem report, and summarized that through the Cornell central plant, you’re using waste heat to create hot water. Last time they said if they didn’t use the waste heat on this project, it would be wasted. Mr. Beyers said that about 90 percent of the heat for this project will come from the waste heat, but when she went through the report, it said 96 percent will come from waste heat: 81 percent comes from waste heat from the cogeneration process and 16 percent from the waste heat from the turbine’s generators. Is the extra heat needed, beyond what was waste heat, only 4 percent of the heating needs that has to come from other than waste heat? Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 13 of 16 Mr. Beyer said he didn’t know off the top of his head, but that all the numbers are based on the averages for the campus over the year, using their real energy use data. It’s at least 90 percent. Ms. Brock asked whether that 90+ percent is coming from heat that’s already being generated by what you’re already doing today and it’s not being used in any other way. On page 169, “the highly efficient Combined Heat and Power Plant heats the campus with leftover heat from electricity generation that would otherwise be wasted.” On page 192, “81 percent of the steam used for heat and hot water in the buildings for the project is provided by the waste heat from the cogeneration process. The duct burners burn gas … by utilizing waste heat from the turbine generators. They supply 16 percent of the steam needed by the site. The remaining steam use, 4 percent, is provided by dedicated heating boilers.” In Table 11, there’s a note that the source energy and emissions for the proposed fan coil system are calculated assuming that 96 percent of the heat used in the buildings is produced as a by- product of the generation of the electricity used in the buildings. It’s 767,000 feet total among all the buildings being built. Is 96 percent of the heating needs being supplied by this waste heat and is it only 4 percent that’s needed from something else besides the waste heat? Mr. Beyer responded that it’s hard to break the electric and heat apart because it’s cogeneration. For instance, the gas that goes into the duct turbine is after the combustion turbine, but it still goes into the steam turbine. So it depends on how you measure all that. The answer is: based on the average of the year, less than 10 percent of the energy used for heating the building needs to be provided by something other than what they’d be using for the electrical generation. It would be additional gas. Ms. Brock said what she really wants to know is: How much more natural gas has to be burned at the Cornell Central Plant as a result of this project, as opposed to if you didn’t build the project? Mr. Beyer said the answer is in Table 11: 42,445 million BTUs per year is the impact of this project for gas to produce electricity and heat; that includes all the energy components of the building, all the energy the building is going to use. It’s very likely that they’ll use less gas; there are a lot of ways operationally to do that. Ms. Brock asked whether a lot of that use is already covered by the waste heat. Mr. Beyer said they didn’t credit themselves with the fact that there might be some heat now that they’re not using that they could use. That number could be lower. So they’re not accused of underreporting what the building’s impact is, they’re just using the same average figures for the campus. Mr. Wilcox tried a different approach: 1) How much natural gas does Cornell University purchase today? 2) How many BTUs of natural gas does Cornell anticipate purchasing when the new buildings come online, assuming the existing buildings remain at the same level of efficiency. Mr. Beyer responded that 3 trillion BTUs of gas is used presently; this project will add 42,445 million, or 42 billion BTUs, which is roughly 1.4 percent. Mr. Wilcox asked whether that constitutes the potential for a significant adverse environmental impact. Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 14 of 16 Ms. Brock said SEQR looks at cumulative impacts. If they’re doing other energy-saving things on campus, are these the kinds of cumulative impacts we should be looking at? You might limit it to the central campus in Ithaca. Typically, when we look at cumulative impacts, we generally look at negative impacts. Should we also consider positive impacts? As part of this project, they’re also taking down a fraternity that has some emissions. Mr. Haefeli asked if they committed to not using any more because they plan to modify other buildings. How big of a view do we take? Mr. Bosak saidthat if we did an EIS, that would count as a mitigation. A mitigation is a separate issue from whether you start out with a pos dec or a neg dec. Mitigations come later. Mr. Wilcox said the issue is when does adverse become significant adverse. Projects have environmen- tal impacts; they all do. Mr. Haefeli said they’re making things better. They’re building housing on campus, and making the community a better place by bringing the students there. Ms. Ritter said we should remember that this is housing on campus. Don’t lose sight of that we’re hoping there will be a trickle effect and this will help housing in the community. Mr. Bosak said those are positive things you put on the other side of the scale, but you’re talking about that kind of process, and we’re deciding not to do that. Ms. Brock said not to balance right now. Just decide whether it has the potential for a significant adverse environmental impact. Regarding cumulative impacts, she read: “Is the project and its impacts included in any long-range plan of which the action under consideration is a part?” What about the Cornell Climate Action Plan? She would have to look at it to see how it’s been interpreted in the past, in other cases. Ms. Michaels asked the board what information the applicant could provide before the next meeting to answer any remaining questions and concerns. Ms. Fogarty remains concerned about the stormwater runoff and its impact on Fall Creek. Mr. Bosak asked about the system they’re rejecting: the air source heat pump. What would it look like if it were built and how much embedded energy would it represent? What’s the total cost in energy terms of the actual physical piece of the heat pump? Ms. Michaels said the existing proposal includes no new infrastructure, which is a savings of energy. Ms. Brock asked how it would help Mr. Bosak determine whether their proposal has the potential for a significant adverse environmental impact. It’s not something we can require. How are you going to use that to make your recommendation? Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 15 of 16 Mr. Bosak said it was not about that point. It was about the question that’s exercised the community for a couple months as to whether it’s better to do it through a central plant or through air source heat pumps. Ms. Brock said we don’t get to that unless there’s the potential for a significant adverse environmental impact. AGENDA ITEM Persons to be heard Carol Chock, city of Ithaca, said she represented the city and town in the county legislature. She addressed the census. The numbers in the city have decreased and the numbers of the town have increased. It’s something she thinks the town should pay attention to vis-a-vis the planning projects they’rereviewing so theycan put them in the context of the size of our population and the direction it’s going. Mr. Bates said she should consider talking to the county about taking over the 911 addressing because that is part of what the federalgovernment is using for the census this year. The code office is very diligently trying to make sure we’re counting every address in the town and there have been several occasions where he has expressed this to the county to take it on rather than having each town do their own. On a bigger level, it could be covered much better county-wide. AGENDA ITEM PB Resolution No. 2018-032: Minutes of August 7, 2018 Moved by Yvonne Fogarty; seconded by Melissa Hill RESOLVED, the Planning Board approves the minutes of August 7, 2018, as submitted. Vote Ayes: Haefeli, Fogarty, Meier Swain, Bosak, Hill Abstentions: Wilcox PB Resolution No. 2018-033: Minutes of August 16, 2018 Moved by Melissa Hill; seconded by Yvonne Fogarty RESOLVED, the Planning Board approves the minutes of August 16, 2018, as submitted. Vote Ayes: Haefeli, Fogarty, Meier Swain, Bosak, Hill Abstentions: Wilcox Planning Board Minutes 10-02-2018 Page 16 of 16 PB Resolution No. 2018-034: Minutes of September 4, 2018 Moved byFred Wilcox;seconded byYvonne Fogarty RESOLVED, the Planning Board approves the minutes of September 4, 2018, as submitted. Vote Ayes: Wilcox, Haefeli, Fogarty, Meier Swain, Hill Abstentions: Bosak Adjournment Upon a motion by Ms. Fogarty, the meeting adjourned at 10:20 p.m. Respectfully submitted, _____________________________________ Debra DeAugistine, Deputy Town Clerk