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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOC Minutes 2020-04-291 TOWN OF ITHACA CODES AND ORDINANCES COMMITTEE (COC) Meeting of April 29, 2020 – 5:50 P.M. – Via Zoom Video Conference Approved Minutes Digitally Present: Bill Goodman, Chair; Pat Leary, Eric Levine, Eva Hoffmann, Yvonne Fogarty, Bill King; Marty Moseley, Director of Code Enforcement; Susan Ritter, Director of Planning, Chris Balestra, Planning; Susan Brock, Counsel; Lisa Carrier-Titti, Network/Records Specialist. Absent: None Guests: None 1. Member Comments/Concerns This was the first attempt at conducting the meeting via Zoom. The committee encountered technical difficulties that delayed the meeting significantly. As a result, Bill G. announced that the meeting discussion would be shortened. 2. Approval of Minutes from March 11, 2020 meeting The committee approved the March 11, 2020 meeting minutes with a few typos and corrections. Moved by Eric, seconded by Pat. Yvonne abstained. 3. Revisions to Town Code Chapter 125, Building Construction and Fire Prevention (redlined version, revised for 4-29-20 COC meeting) Marty explained to the committee the proposed changes to the law. The amendments, which were redlined, were intended to align with the NYS Department of State (DOS) law updates. For example, the revisions include identifying the Energy Code in the law, along with the Unified Building Code provisions. Marty explained that there is also a new section that deals with parking garages. Although the town does not have any parking garages, the NYS DOS wants these provisions in local laws anyway, so there is a way to enforce parking garages in case the town ever gets one. This was the largest redlined section in the draft law. Bill G. summarized that the revised law contained a lot of very small changes, e.g. adding the term “Energy Code” in many areas, along with bigger changes, e.g. the parking garage section, operating permit and fire safety and property maintenance sections, etc. The committee decided to go through the document to talk about each redlined section as it came up. Beginning on page 1, Marty asked the committee what they thought about the part of the law that exempted building permits if a one-story accessory building associated with a single or two family residence or multiple family dwelling cost less than $3,000. Marty wondered if the cost should be increased. Yvonne noted that $3,000 was only around $20/square foot for a 144 square foot building; and that one cannot build much these days for that price. She suggested increasing the cost to $10,000. 2 Marty mentioned that a non-heated, non-insulated, prefabricated structure with no permanent foundation typically ran between $5,500-$6,500 in cost. He clarified that the $3,000 noted in the law was for the total cost of the project, which would include delivery, putting down crushed stone and/or other ground preparation, setting the structure on the ground, etc. Bill G. asked the committee if $10,000 sounded reasonable. The committee agreed. So, the cost will be increased to $10,000 in the law. The COC moved on to the next redlined section, which was on page 2. One member had a question on “(6)” related to retaining walls. Marty explained that the 2015 Residential Code change identified that retaining walls above 4ft needed to be designed by an engineer or architect (Section 404.4). He was recommending the change to Chapter 125 to be consistent with the NYS Residential Code. The committee was fine with this change. The next several redlined changes on pages 2 and 3 were minor and approved by the committee. On page 4, Susan Brock asked about item “H,” particularly the section that stated that the Code Enforcement Officer may issue an initial building permit for a term of greater than one year for projects that can reasonably be expected to take longer than one year. Susan wondered if the longer term would have a different fee than the other building permit fees. There was a separate subsection that talked about building permit fees. She asked if Marty intended for this to be somehow different; otherwise there was really no need to restate it in this section. Marty explained that the town would normally deal with a multi-year project by charging multiple years’ worth of permits at once. His intent was to send the language to the Town Board and have them decide if they wanted to allow a multi-year timeframe and fees or if they wanted the fee to be the same amount as a single work year. Susan was satisfied with the clarification. The next redlined change for discussion was on page 6, §125-5 Construction inspections. Bill G. re- read that the change involved adding a 24-hour minimum required notification to town staff prior to inspection of a project. Marty explained that this was essentially codifying the present practice; that the town currently stated this on all inspection documents. Eva suggested a correction to the redlined second sentence in that same section “A”, which now states “Inspections can be scheduled in less than 24 hours were approved by the Code Enforcement Officer.” Marty will change the “were” to “where.” The committee moved on to page 7. Marty noted that redlined item “(2)” was not a change - he was having trouble with the track changes software and could not fix the formatting. There was no change to (2). For “(3)”, Marty explained that this was already in practice now and that this was codifying the existing practice. The COC agreed with the changes. The committee left off on page 7 and will pick up there at the next COC meeting. 4. Continued discussion of Town Telecommunications Law revisions Bill described the contents of the emailed packet that went to the COC, which contained updated telecommunications law flow charts, updated aesthetic recommendations lists, an annotated Town 3 of Bedford, NY law that was modified to be specific to the Town of Ithaca, and a sample table of contents that illustrated how the law was organized. Chris explained the revisions to the telecommunications flow chart and aesthetic recommendations list since the last meeting. Susan Brock discovered another change that needed to be made to the flow chart for a facility collocated onto existing structure. Chris and Susan will clarify after the meeting and Chris will revise the chart. The committee reviewed the aesthetic recommendations list and discussed the yellow highlighted question from staff on page 3 of the list, referring to “j”- DAS systems located 500 feet from a public right-of-way. The committee agreed with the redlined language and suggested adding the words “at least” between the words “located” and “500”. Chris will make the revisions. The committee moved on to the revised annotated Bedford law. Susan Brock explained the revised law and noted that she only annotated the law up to the end of the small wireless facilities provisions. If the committee wanted to make similar changes to the large wireless facility provisions, then Susan would go through the second part of the law and provide the committee with a revised large facility section. So, although there was redlining throughout the whole document, the most recent changes were only up to page 27. Bill asked if the law included provisions that were already in our existing law for large wireless facilities. Susan said she would need to go back into our law and see if there were items that were not captured in the Bedford law. The COC proceeded to go through the annotated law, looking only at the yellow highlighted questions. On page 2 of the law, letter “(m)”, the question was whether it made sense to keep this purpose statement for DAS systems in ROWs. Chris stated that it would not hurt to keep it in, since the town would rather not have any systems very close to residential structures. Susan suggested we hold the question for later in the document, where the priority of siting facilities is discussed. The committee agreed. Chris mentioned that the definitions section should be skipped entirely because staff needed to look more closely at definitions. So the committee moved on. There was a very short discussion on the highlighted text on page 8 that refers to FCC order restrictions and additional research that staff needed to do. On page 10, item “(3)”, the committee resolved the highlighted section on that page. Susan explained that page 11 and 12 highlighting were notes for her to follow up on. The next question was on page 13, item “(10)”, related to certificates of compliance versus certificates of occupancy. Marty recommended that the law be more specific in terms of what in a building permit would apply to a wireless facility, as the NYS Building Code did not otherwise apply to these facilities. Susan will work with Marty on revising this language. On page 14, item “(5)”, there was a provision about submitting electromagnetic radiofrequency emission readings to the town. Susan wondered how to handle when as-built readings should be 4 taken and submitted. Marty recommended that they be submitted prior to the issuance of a certificate of compliance, rather than a specific number of days. The COC agreed to this. Also, on page 14, the final highlighted question in the section was related to a provision for standby power generators or batteries. Marty questioned why this was needed. Chris and Susan explained that it was something Bedford had in their law and that a lot of people were involved in writing the Bedford law, but that Susan and Chris didn’t feel like it was needed. After a short discussion, the committee decided that this item would not be needed in the town law. So “(6)(d)” was deleted entirely. The committee left off at the top of page 15 and will pick up there at the next COC meeting. Two committee members asked Chris to provide basic information and pictures of what small facilities do and what they look like. Chris will email the committee more information. 5. Other Business Next meeting is scheduled for May 13th, but due to the auspiciousness of that day, the committee decided to consider moving the meeting to May 6, May 20, or May 27. Bill suggested that the COC would consider shorter meetings, possibly one hour instead of two. Bill will have Chris email the committee with the final date(s). He asked that the COC please come prepared with specific sections of the laws that they want to discuss, as the intent will be to discuss those specific sections rather than go page by page. Meeting was adjourned at 7:17pm.