HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999-08-26TB 8 -26 -99
TOWN OF DRYDEN
® TOWN BOARD MEETING
AUGUST 26, 1999
Supv Schug opened the meeting at 8:00 p.m. Members and guests participated in a
moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance.
Roll call by Town Clerk Bambi L. Hollenbeck proved the following in attendance: Cl
Beck, Cl T Hatfield, Cl C Hatfield, Cl Grantham, Supv Schug, Attorney Perkins.
Supv Schug - In yesterday's Ithaca Journal, the 251h, it said Varna seeks residents to
voice concerns about an apartment complex. I don't know where the Journal gets their
information, but its wrong. Plenty of people are here from Varna. Everybody knows what we
are doing and what we have done. The State had nothing to do with what happened. It was
this Town Board who listened to the people, found a positive dec, and that is why we are here
today. We weren't forced to do anything. We did it because that is the right thing to do after
listening to our people. I don't know who's giving these people the scoop, but it's kind of scary
if you ask me.
Erica Evans - Jim, it's the same people that report meetings with stuff that never even
was said. It's the Journal, and you should know better than to believe what you read in the
Journal.
Supv Schug - When we go through the scope, we don't want people just to talk for the
sake of talking. We want to make some sense out of what we are doing and what we are asking
10 Lucentes and their attorneys and engineers to do to try and mitigate the problems that we
found in our Part Three of the SEQR that the Town Board did. We will have a time period that
we will allow for written comments for this scoping session before the final scope is done. I
would like to set that time for September 27. We are obligated under a time period to finish the
final written scope. It is due October 25. As far as the written comments, I gave Bambi a copy
of the letter from Mr. Weinstein concerning what we had done and that should be part of the
public record. What he did when he went through his letter was cover pretty much what we
have already put in the scope and what we want covered and corrected. That will be part of the
record (copy provided to project sponsor).
You all are familiar with the format we use. If you are going to say something, stand up
and give your name and address clearly, so that we have good comments and a good record.
Atty Perkins - I would like to make sure that we are all clear about what the purpose of
this session is tonight. Scoping, and the primary goal of scoping, is to focus the environmental
impact statement on the potentially significant adverse impacts and is to weed out
consideration of those impacts which are irrelevant or insignificant. The idea is to reach a
consensus in the final written scope, which will be provided by the Town Board, of what is to
be addressed in the draft environmental impact statement. The project sponsor gets the first
crack at the draft scope and the draft scope has to include certain items which are identified in
the regulations. After we have the draft scope from the project sponsor, involved agencies have
an opportunity to provide written comments reflecting their concerns, their jurisdiction and
information needs that should be addressed in the scope and which will then serve as the basis
for what is going to be found in the draft environmental impact statement. Scopmg requires
that there be an opportunity for public participation and that is what this is tonight, the first
public meeting on the scope. By keeping a comment period open, the public will have an
' opportunity to comment for the next thirty days or so on what the project sponsor comes up
with as its draft scope and what you hear this evening. From all of that then the Town Board
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TB 8 -26 -99
has the obligation to put: together the final written scope and that will be the basis for the draft
environmental impact statement which is the responsibility of the project sponsor. There are
additional opportunities for public comment after the receipt of the draft environmental impact
statement, but I think what is important is that we stay focused on the impacts which have
been identified as potentially significant. If you have something to say it would be appropriate
to limit it to those and as a matter of practice, it doesn't do a lot of good just to repeat what
other people have said. If you are in agreement, simply indicate that. The other thing which
carries as much weight or more then your comments are your written comments because we
can make them part of the record. It is easy then to go back and see exactly what your
concerns were and make sure that they have either been addressed in the final written scope
or at least that they are discussed and determined not to be part of it. I encourage you during
the comment period following the session tonight to take that opportunity, put your comments
in writing. They carry as much weight, if not more, than what is said here tonight. The project
sponsor has the first crack at the draft scope.
John Stevens - I think that what we want to do is because of the time constraints that
we have been operating under, we want to give this to the Board as a presentation with an
opportunity by the Board to ask questions at any point during a particular portion of the
program. From our notes and from what we have recently received, we believe the scope is
limited to discussions of density, erosion, drainage, buffering or landscaping, and traffic. Let
me address the density right now. What has been talked about is the 1968 study in which the
hamlet of Varna is described as having ideally 6 to 10 people per acre. What has been
discussed is the number of people that are going to be put in these apartment buildings per
acre, when what we should be looking at is the density of Varna in general. With this project
the Varna RC, which is approximately 320 acres, would be about 2.19 people per acre. This
increase would be with the use of only 0.04% of the available acreage in Varna. The density in
building in this way relieves the Town of an exorbitant number of services. To put the same
number of people in single family dwellings on half acre lots would require an additional 7.6 ,
miles of Town road. It would require services of about four times what this particular area is
going to require and they would be Town roads. This will be a road owned by Lucente. The
number of units in this project is designed with an eye toward the minimum number of units
in which institutional financing can be obtained. This project can not be done without
institutional financing. So the density generally with the '68 study and with this keeps Varna
well below what the general land plan was for 1968. In other words what we are saying is you
shouldn't look at it on a per acre basis. You should look at it as Varna generally for to develop
it at 6 to 10 per acre on every single acre doesn't make sense. With that, let me turn this over
with respect to erosion to Bob Harrier. He has handouts and what we are going to do is have
him explain the handout and what he is doing and please interrupt him and ask questions.
Bob Harner - What I have given you is some guidelines for erosion and sediment
control. These are standard practices that are used today. DOT uses them, DEC,
construction, etc. It will answer any questions that. you'll have on erosion and sediment
control. What I want to point out is that there are things you can do to limit the amount of
erosion that happens on a site. Certainly you can leave as much vegetation in place as
possible. You can construct swales, cesspools, utilize the existing drainage system, the
existing pond, and so forth. Certainly you can seed, try to get the vegetation to grow as soon as
possible. In the packet of information I 've given you, we use hay bales all the time. We
certainly on steep slopes can add more hay bales to slow down the flow and contain the
sediments as they run down. You 've all seen silt fences. That is very standard and they are
placed at the downstream side where the water would flow. Again, very standard practice.
Also there are certain things you can do on slopes. You can bench it in and cut it in and there
are proper methods used to stabilize slopes and so forth. There are all kinds of guidelines in
here. These are pretty much again standard practices that are used every day in construction.
Toward the end of that document I have also included a SPEDES permit. You can review that f
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TB 8 -26 -99
so that you are assured that before, during and after construction we are going to contain the
sediments, erosion and so forth.
(Copies were distributed to the Board only. Copies will be available for the public to
view at the Town Hall.)
The next thing I am going to hand out is a drainage plan. What I am trying to do is
illustrate here the flow patterns, or the drainage patterns, as they exist today. The large area
that you see here is basically the amount of area that flows to that pond as it exists today,
approximately 4.5 acres. The rest of the water pretty much flows toward 366, down in this low
spot, and most likely floods these basements. A large amount of the area is just allowed to flow
toward 366 and this is what exists today. If you turn the sheet, what I've drawn is a diagram of
what we are proposing as a drainage plan. The dark heavy line again represents the amount of
water that is going to flow to the pond. It is pretty clear to me that if you have an elevation of a
pond at 963 feet above sea level and you've got an elevation up here of 975 and so forth, it
wouldn't be too hard to grade this road to put in a swale, a ditch, a pipe to just convey the
water to the pond where it can be treated and the release of the water can be at a controlled
rate. That is what I want to stress very strongly. Also what we are proposing here is to rebuild
this pond embankment. Iire got a note there that says the embankment will be reconstructed
to meet or exceed DEC dam permit requirements. Also, we can't get all the water in the pond
obviously because it slopes toward the road here so we are proposing to put the water into the
existing state storm sewer system for our entrance at 366. I'll get into that in a blow up detail
in a moment. Again, just to recap here, currently about one -third of the area flows to the pond
as it is today, 4.5 acres. When we are done, two-thirds is going to flow to the pond where it can
be treated, controlled and released in a proper manner. I calculated 9.1 acres. Again, if you've
got an elevation here that is lower with a minor amount of grading you can get the water into
the pond. Things are built at slopes all the time, look at Cornell. It's not too hard to build on a
slope. We've got models and tools that we use to try to minimize the amount of earth that well
have to disturb.
Cl C
Hatfield - This
water
here - is that going to
be a diversion ditch so that it will come
around and
exit up here so
none
of it will go into those
backyards.
B Harner - Along Route 366 there is an existing ditch. The majority of the storm water
coming off the hill is on this side of the road, the east side of the road and crosses through a
culvert and goes into a ditch here, at which point it gets to the bottom of the hill and it does get
back into the fall creek system. So a lot of this is already going ...
Supv Schug - That's not 366. What you pointed at is Mt. Pleasant,
B Harner - Right, he was asking about this area here.
Cl C Hatfield - Not out here. Where this arrow says it is going down. Is this all going to
be routed one way, or just let drain into the ...
B Harner - Basically, that steep slope exists today. So that will exist when we're done.
Cl C Hatfield - And what runs down there is going to run same as it: always ran.
B Harner - Right, if you look at this picture, right now a larger area is allowed to run
down there and if you meet the law of the SPEDES basically we need to contain the increased
water that we generate from site. So we are going to have a net decrease going down to this
area.
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J Stevens - Bob, what's going to happen when you are done is any water that
accumulates on the embankment is going to run where it runs now. •
B Hamer - Correct.
J Stevens - But anything above, within the project area, is going to run toward the pond
and down to the road, 366.
Atty Perkins - Previously, residents living along Route 366 have told the Board that they
have experienced flooding in their basements which didn't occur prior to this area being
disturbed up there. What have you done to address those concerns?
B Hamer - Basically what we are proposing is a revised drainage plan to direct more of
the water in a controlled manner. This is what we are saying. We are going to lessen the
amount of water that is going to these residences and well meet the letter of the law by doing
that.
Atty Perkins - What happens if these basements continue to flood?
B Hamer - Currently we have a low spot in here. It has existed for I don't know how
many years. We 've got a road that is at a higher elevation and we've got an area here that is
higher.
Atty Perkins
- What I heard
these people say was
that
before this dam was worked on
and before this area
was disturbed
up there, they didn't
have
these problems.
B Harper - Right. What had happened is they changed the drainage or flow patterns of
this water. A lot of this water probably went right through this natural channel and they didn't •
have that problem. When they started disturbing this area they immediately changed the flow
or the drainage of this area. So they allowed a lot of the water to go to these people's
basements. What. I'm going to do is correct that by having a cut off area and slowing the water
down and directing it around.
area?
Atty Stevens - How much of that water are you re- directing, generally? For that entire
B Harper - 36 cubic feet per second.
Atty Perkins - Is it your opinion that the reason these people experienced the flooding in
their basements was because of this uncontrolled disturbance of the slope above them?
B Hamer - From the best knowledge that I have, yes. Because they changed the
natural course of this water shed. The water clearly enters the site here and it used to come
out and divert. Now they've constructed the pond. They've put fill. TheyVe regraded this and
they are allowing a lot of water to go there.
Atty Perkins - Have you compared older topographic maps with the existing one to
confirm that statement?
B Harper - The oldest one I have is 1949 and I did look at that.. They still show a
depressed area here. I don't know what year the pond was built, but certainly I have looked at
the contours and we have these all on disk and CD and I can zoom in and zoom out. If you
look at these on a 1 to 24,000 scale you can barely see them. But I have the capability of
looking at these on disk and yes, I have verified these areas and looked at the changes and you
can clearly see that there were some changes in the contours for this piece of property.
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TB x-2&99
® Atty Perkins - So would it be reasonable to conclude that whoever attempted to build
this pond should be responsible for the conditions which exist downslope from these people
right now?
B Hamer - I can't answer that. Certainly ...
Atty Perkins - But it's your opinion that that's what is causing the downslope problem.
B Hamer - That is correct. All of the changes that have happened have changed the
drainage patterns to these people's backyards. Yes, that's my opinion. The next thing I'd like
to address is traffic. (Handout distributed) What I have given you here is basically some
details for the intersections, entrances to the site. What you are looking at is a blowup of the
Mt Pleasant Road driveway to the site. I'm showing some of the improvements that we intend
to make at this intersection. You can see our road. We are going to put in a 24' wide road,
driveway to the site, which is currently larger than Mt Pleasant Road. We are going to do some
grading work here in the ditch and try to lessen that slope. We are going to have a road cut
and clear some vegetation. I spoke to Jack Bush and Dave Putnam to again touch base with
them. I've met them out in the field as well. Their primary concerns are safety of this
intersection, as well as drainage. We are trying to address these here by showing some
proposed contours by bringing up the elevation of the driveway to maximize the site distance
and some clearing and so forth at this intersection. If you turn the sheet, this is the one that
has a lot of information on it. This is the intersection at Route 366. If I can just point out we
are putting in a 24' driveway. Currently there is a 22' road for Route 366. As you can see,
well have a road cut to put the entrance in. We are also showing a sidewalk coming down on
the east side of the property. I was able to move the entrance over because it was a concern
how close we were to the house. We are now close to eight feet away from the house there.
Also, I'd like to discuss drainage and how we're going to handle the drainage which has
to flow toward 366 for our driveway.
Atty Perkins - Excuse me. You said you're eight feet from the house.
B Harper - I said approximately eight feet.
Atty Perkins - Right. That's house 957A.
B Hamer - That's correct.
Atty Perkins - Who is the owner of that?
B Hamer - I believe Ted Marchell. It's no different than a residential street where you
have a curb, grassed area, sidewalk and then the house.
Cl C Hatfield - Who owns 959A?
B Harper - I'd have to check the survey map.
Cl C Hatfield - Does Ted own that also?
Atty Perkins - 959A?
B Hamer - It's on the survey map. I have it here if you would like to know.
S Lucente - Ted owns 959.
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TB 8 -26-99
Cl C Hatfield - And 957. •
Supv Schug - 953 is Molly's house, right?
B Harper - Correct.
Atty Perkins - So he owns both of those, 957 and 959?
S Lucente - That's correct.
B Harper - It's John Marchell, the listed owner on the deed.
Cl C Hatfield - That's Ted's dad.
Supv Schug - Where are the apartments? Apartments next to the two houses?
S Lucente - Yeah, the old Marchell Monuments.
B Harper - I guess I'd like to discuss .chat we are going to do with the drainage. What
we are proposing to do as you come off the hill from the site, we are going to have a ditch on
either side of the road. What well do is convey the water into a catch basin and collect it by a
series of catch basins and pipes. 1 have a cross section which will show it a little bit more
clearly. It's the third page. Basically the water will come off the hill in a ditch at which point it
will collect to a catch basin. And currently there is an existing storm system that's under
utilized by the State. What I'm proposing to do is tie in this 15" corrugated steel pipe at our
entrance to convey the water, to collect the water and have it go into the pipes and go on its
way to Fall Creek. I talked to the resident engineer, Gordon Reimels. I also talked to Bill Egloff •
who is in the regional office in Syracuse. I discussed this with them and basically, what they
told me is that these catch basins that are existing on 366 only catch the water off the road.
You have a road that is high here, it dips down, and then it goes back up. So this system is
under utilized and all um have to do is in the .work permit show the detail, show how we are
going to build it and we can tie into this, and then the water goes off on its way.
Cl T Hatfield - Before you leave that area. Before you reported and we discussed that
the road, your proposed driveway, was within five feet I think of Molly's front porch. You ve
moved that. How far away is it now?
B Hamer - It think it was 25' before. Right now the edge of our road, this is to scale - 1
inch to 20 feet. If you scale to her porch, it's 30' from the point of her porch to the road. The
other house, we're 78 ", approximately 8 feet. On the other scale drawing it was hard to tell. I
think we made the statement that it was 25' or so, but in fact with this detailed survey that
was done just recently, it is 30'.
And again on the last page, I am just showing you some detail that we are going to
provide when we go for the highway work permit. Typical road sections, profile, and so forth.
And the last thing 1 have for you is a highway work permit.. I have included the entire
package of the permit, not just the application. That way you can read what. is required and
see everything that is necessary to obtain this permit. There are lots of requirements that the
State has. The State has very vigorous requirements on the materials, the construction
procedures, the maintenance and protection of traffic. Again, I have included this for your
information and use, and I've also filled out the application here.
Atty Perkins - I think it should be clear that all this is is an application..
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TB 8 -26 -99
® B Harper - That's correct, and it will encompass the drawings that you see there to
obtain this permit.
Cl Beck - Back to the drainage on the highway. How far up the road does the water
come from in order to go down into these catch basins? My concern is that a ISO" storm system
is not very big.
B Hamer - If you'll look on this sheet here, the area we are tallying about is relatively
small. We did run some numbers on this. Again, this dark heavy line represents the flow that
is going to go to the pond. If you look at the area from the road down, that is what is going to
go there. What you can do is look at the rainfall intensity for a 100 year storm, which is about
4 V an hour for this area. From that you size your ditches, your pipe and so forth. But
certainly the DOT is going to look at this very closely and as part of the highway work permit
they are going to want that exact question answered.
Cl Beck - How many feet is it from the edge of the property here down to 366, do you
have that dimension on here?
B Harper - It's not on there, but if you look the survey indicates it here. 312' So it is a
relatively small area if you picture a large parking lot. That is going to generate a lot more
water because it can't go anywhere. You've got to control it and direct it to where it needs to
go. So as far as the materials that I have, that's everything. Henry, you've got a copy of
everything there?
ZO Slater - I have almost two full sets.
0 B Hamer -1 can provide you more if you need it.
ZO Slater - I'm missing a second set of C 1 C2, Site Plan. I can make a copy, it's not a
problem.
B Harper - So if you have any other questions, I'll be happy to answer them for you.
Cl C Hatfield - What are your intentions on the pond? Are going to line that pond and
make sure nothing runs out the bottom of it?
B Harner - I think some more geotechnical work has to be done before we can make
that determination. Right now it looks like the flow patterns have changed causing the
problem. I'm not a geotechnical engineer, so I can't speak on the pond. Certainly the pond is
designed to mitigate the stormwater increase that we are going to generate from site because
we obviously have roofs and impervious surfaces.
Cl C Hatfield - But if that pond was dug and you hit a sand bar in the bottom or a
gravel streak that could leak and ...
B Harper - Certainly we'd have to line the pond. In fact we are proposing a wet pond so
we want to make sure that it stays wet. So certainly lining the pond is done easily today with
all these synthetic liners and so forth.
Cl T Hatfield - So youll be doing some geotechnical engineering work to determine if the
pond ...
0 B Harper - We have a person on board.
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TB 8 -26 -99
Cl T Hatfield - That is part of your proposal.
B Hamer - Definitely. We can't build a pond embankment without geotechnical advice. •
Cl T Hatfield - That is part of the DEC permit process.
B Hamer - That's correct, and it will also tic into the SPEDES permit.
J Stevens - The geotechnical study is part of the record. I think it is here.
Cl C Hatfield - Going back to this elevation line around here, it runs level across behind
there. It would just seem like it would make good sense on the developer's part to make a
diversion ditch. You could move half the water that way and half the water this way and that
would ensure those houses more protection, I think.
B Hamer - For what little bit it would take to put a swale in...
Cl C Hatfield - It's all on the same line. It wouldn't take a bulldozer a day's work to
make that work.
B Hamer - Certainly we could look into that. We'd have to get an easement granted
from all those.,.
Cl C Hatfield -
No, it's on your property. You
wouldn't have to get on those people.
These elevation lines,
if you
follow that right around,
it's all right...
B Hamer - See those are five foot interval contours, so if I were to turn onto the other
layer you'll see that that is a very steep slope at that point. It would be real hard to construct a
swale at that point. 0
Cl C Hatfield
- You wouldn't
be constructing
a swale, you'd just be building a ditch so
that the water could
run both ways
instead of down
on the properties.
B Hamer - Right now we are on a slope and it would be somewhat difficult to build a...
Cl C Hatfield - No it wouldn't. You get the right man, he could build it in no time flat.
B Harper - Certainly well take that into consideration.
Cl C Hatfield - That would be the simplest part of the whole project as far as I'm
concerned.
Cl Grantham - Maybe it's to come, but I haven't heard any mention of any storm water
treatment and in fact the runoff on the road down to 365 is just being taken straight into the
storm sewer system which goes straight into fall Creek. You are still not talking about
treatment in the detention pond.
B Hamer - As far as treatment of storm water, typically on the road surfaces you don't
treat stormwater. There is some information in that erosion plan packet that I gave you that
you can look at. As far as treatment on site, we have a detention pond so that the water flows
into the pond, it is going to immediately slow down and it will act as a settling basin before it
goes out. If you have a concentrated flow that goes through a channel and its got sediments
with it, and it continued to go obviously it would be able to go. But if you have a big pond the
sediments will disburse. It takes a long time for that water to move to get to the outlet point, so
that's where you would get. it. Again, during construction is probably your biggest concern
I'aage 8 of 34
TB 8 -26 -99
because you are going to be disturbing earth- 'That's all addressed in that eresion plan. After
is things are butt, you Ive got grassed areas. You shouldnYt have a lot of contaminated storm
water.
Cl Grantham - If it is running g across pavement you are going to have contaminants in
the storm water - --
B Harner - Right.
1 Grandiam - and it goes directly into a. drin]flng water supply.
B Harner 4 If that wt!re the case, we'd have to treat every road in the County that drains
to that area
1 Grantham T Well, we probably should be.
B Darner - Certainly, they have combination storm and sanit UT sewers and a lot of
cities do treat storm water through their treatment plants, I don't know of any requirement
that we arc under to treat storm water as it comes off a road surface, but certainly on site acre
are going to have some treatment with the retention pond and there are measures and
Mitigation t i p that we can do during construction to lime the amount of sediment that is
going to leave. All that has been provided.
J Stevens - What percentage of the water are you going to intercept that enters the
property nova.
B Hamer - As I mentioned several times in the past (project plan displayed) were got a
70 acre watershed or drainage area that flows through this site. The only point it can enter is
right here at this creek. So everything comes dawn aria it gets concentrated at this point. We
are not required to treat everyone else's storm water. We are required to treat, I mean mitigate,
the amount of flow coming off our site We are required through the SPEDES permit to
mitigate our stoma water. 'What we are proposing to do is, the water will enter the site at this
point. Before it gets to the ditch well insert a manhole and well have a pipe that will come
around and it will discharge approximately M/h of the water i r to this creek where it currently
goes today, The other '20°16 will go into the pond and will be retained. This will help maintain a,
wet pond axid will also help reduce the amount of storm water that is coming off of this hill.
There are a couple of reasons that we are doing that. One, if we had a large storm and all this
water goes through the pond, the pored immediately floods and it just bypassesr o what we
would like to do is try to hold on the site the additional water that weU generate from the roads
and the impervious surface. We don't want to discharge any more wader than what exists
today. Certainly we are going to generate more storms water that will be held in this pond.
Certainly if you have a large amount of water you can pick up sediments and it can continue
on, whereas if you have a properly rived pored you can actually have the sediments settle.
Atty Perkins - So in other words there is o ri to have to be available capacity in this
pond to handle a certain level of storm, and the runoff from the impervious surfaces that you
I
ntend to divert toward the pond-
13 Harrier - That's correct.
Atty Perkins - Now are going to arrive at how much capacity you are going to need?
13 Harper - What we did early on is a storm water run off calculation, Again, it is very
detailed, very technical, but I summarized everything in a statement krere to try to make it as
clear as possible in a design summary - Again, this is stamdard methods that have been used.
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TS 5 -26-99
They have been used for a long, long time. What we dry is go through and we model the
watershed and we look at how much water is ooming into the site. We look at how much water
is flowing from the site and we also 2 d up the impervious areas and figure out hDw much
more storm water we axe going to increase, Then what we can do is size the pored to hold that
storm water to give you equal or less than what exists today. There is a detention pond
analyc;is which you have in here and again, it talks about the areas, the elevation, it plots out
graphs for you showing what is going to happen during the pear storm event, and what area of
a pond you need, and tons of things that are going t.n bf4 scrutinized and looked at very closer
by the DEC because we cannot have more storm water leaving this site than what c3dsts today.
And everyone will agree that if you have an impervious surface you are going to have more
storm outer. And that's how we're going to use the pond and we're going to bypass it to
mitigate that.
CI Beck - We 've been provided with a couple of conflicting opinions -regarding the
amount of storm water being generated and specifically sno pack melt in times of rain- Have
you attempted to look at those other points of view and see if there I'S some validity there and
provide us with some assurances that that's a valid number?
B Harner - I have had. this reviewed a third time by our senior partner, the founder of
OUT Firm. He stands by it as much as I do and the only thing I can offer is that we do these all
the tome. The DEC reviews theta. They go through therm very thoroughly u*ith a fine toothed
comb, so my assurance and your assuranoe is going to be that DEC is going to go through it
thoroughly. They are gumg to run their own models, they are goirig to look at it independently.
They are not going to take this and say OX, that's it. They are going to run their own models
and generate similar reports such as this.
Atty Perldns - Did you do a calculation as to what the rate of runoff from the site now is
in the existing ditch? 0
B Hamer - Well, wt� know what's leaving the site, so, to answer your question, yes.
Atty Perkins - And hove many cubic feet per second is that?
H Harner -ale are looking at 125 cubic feet per second
Atty Perkins - That's what currently leaves the site?
B Harmer - For a 100 year storm event. That's the 1a, gest stvrza that we are rewired to
look at. The Town requires dw we look at a 25 year storm event, but DEC supercedes that
and they say 100 year storfn event.
Atty Perkins , $o far a 1.00 year storm event then, are you sayi
ng that this plan
provides that that rate of discharge will not exceed that 100 year storm evey"t?
B darner - This plan for our site yes, does not exceed the 100 year storm event. The
way we were able to do that was by diverti179 thus, uslrsg the pared to mitigate, to control how
much water flows out of this, I didn't have tire, but I was going to brim in a detail and
picture of a standard outlet structure to try to give you a better fee n . for how these work so
we can better visualize it. But certainly wish a concrete structure, pipe, and so forth and
looking at the size and the slope of the pipe, you can easily control how much water can leave a
pipe based on inlet control, outlet control, and you size them. We do it everyday. It's pretty
much routine for what I do,
J Stevens - What percentage of the current water that hits tkkat site is going tv be
diverted by this project? 0
Pap 10cf34
TB 8 -26-99
• B Harper - 809/6,209/o will remain.
Supv Schug - Are you planning to address that 80% of the water that is coming down
and the effects of the stream that is down below it? Are you going to take care of the water
from that site to the creek, Fall Creek?
B Harper - We did contact DEC and the Corps of Engineers and looked at cleaning out
this ditch. We have looked into that. I don't know if it has been resolved, whether Lucente is
willing to clean the ditch from this point out. But in order to meet the SPEDES requirement
and the letter by the law, if you will, we are only required to contain what is on site. He is not
required to clean this ditch from this point on. We have looked into it, but again I can't speak
for Mr. Lucente if he is willing to clean the ditch from this point on. But we have looked into it.
We have contacted the DEC and the Corps of Engineers. I sent them a USDS map. I sent
them calculations, photographs, and what we are proposing to do. Whenever you say well I
just want to clean out a ditch, it sounds simple, but the Corps of Engineers regulates every
ditch that there is. I work with the Corps regularly. I could go into horror stories about it..
Atty Perkins - What good does this elaborate plan do if all of a sudden when you get off
site the ditch isn't capable of handling it, it hasn't been maintained properly or isn't ready to
receive it?
B Hamer - Again it is a private owned...
Atty Perkins - I understand that, but answer my question.
0 S Lucente - I can speak. I've met with several of the landowners and we've agreed to go
in and modify the capacity of the stream so that in the event of the 100 year storm it will have
capacity to deal with the flow without overflowing.
Atiy Perkins - So in other words you are willing to make sure that the stream is capable
of handling this after this elaborate plan?
S Lucente - Yes.
Supv Schug - And maintain it?
S Lucente - Yes.
B Harper - One other thing that I'd like to point out. The stream is easy. You can
widen it and do things and change the slope to increase the flow, but we have some culverts
that it passes. Just to let you know, I've checked the inverts of the culverts, the size of the
culverts and was in fact trying to see if we could in fact pass this amount of water and in most
cases we can. There may be one instance a need to take some better field measurements to
determine), but again we 've looked into it. I 've walked it, I've taken photographs, I 've been out
to the site. Certainly when it comes by the Varna Inn it goes to the ditch and then down the
road and then it crosses. I 've looked at all that and it is plenty big enough.
Atty Perkins - How does
this, or Mr.
Lucente's
offer to work in
the ditch here, tie in with
the grant. Wasn't there a grant
made
to the
owner of
the motel to do
some work?
Supv Schug - Yes.
B Harper - I'm not aware of the grant. What is that?
Page 11 of 34
TB 8 -26 -99
Supv Schug - $3,000 from the County. Chens have to put up $3,000 and they are
looking to the Town to put up another $3,000. 18
B Harner - To do what?
Supv Schug - The corner of their motel is on the edge of that creek and it is starting to
cave in. They are afraid if the water keeps running the way it has been, it is going to take that
part of their motel out. The trailer park owner also has the same question on his edge of the
property and I know he would be willing to have you make sure that the water gets down to the
road and away from his trailers.
S Lucente - We met with him and pretty much went through the detail of the entire
thing that we would do near his property. We didn't speak to Mr. Chen. I thought that all that
was Mr. Ray's property.
M Case -
Mr.
Lecoq has
problems with the
water
there too.
It comes down between his
property and he
had
to do a lot:
of work there and
it cost
him a lot
of money.
Supv Schug - I'm sure he'll talk with Mr. Lecoq, too.
Atty Perkins - Can you show me that property on the map?
B Hamer - Is that along Route 366?
Supv Schug - No, it sits back.
B Harner
- Then it probably won't
be shown
on this survey map then.
Lucente -
Right before it goes into
where the
trailer park is. •
Supv Schug - So you have addressed or will address formally the rebuilding and the
maintenance of the creek and take the runoff water. Now you are taking responsibility for the
water that is coming from somebody else's property because 800% is going into that creek also.
Right, Steve?
S Lucente - I think what I would be willing to do would be to go by whatever the
engineers say is the 100 year event and bring and maintain that stream to that level because I
can't control people's maintenance on their own properties. If they are not maintaini g their
own drainage systems, I don't see how someone else can be held responsible.
Atty Perkins - Steve, just so that I'm clear on this. Initially you are saying though that
you would be willing to get that stream to a point where it is prepared to accept discharge from
a 100 year event.
S Lucente - Yes.
Debbie Lecoq - You guys didn't contact us at all?
S Lucente - Is Art here?
D Lecoq - He's not here at all.
$ Lucente - We ran into him. He was out on the lawn and we talked to him. It was last
Fall and we had quite a conversation. 0
Page 12 of 34
TB &2b -99
D
Leeoq -
Oh, well you
can contact us again.
S
Lucente
- You can be
sure we will.
D Lecoq - That is a big problem already. The creek barely holds the water there is now
and we did a lot of work just in our part.
Cl Beck - Is
there
any chance upstream of
putting in
coffer systems that would mitigate
some of that flow. I
have
no idea
what's involved.
Obviously
its on somebody else's property.
B Harper - Mainly its all Cornell land.
Cl Beck - I guess I'm thinking about downstream from your property, but before it gets
down to these. Is there any room to put in a small coffer system that would reduce the volume
and velocity of that stream.
B Harper - It being a steep slope it would certainly be hard. Currently we are going to
have to look at this point out to Fall Creek.
Cl Beck - Lots of times just making a ditch deeper and wider could make the problem
worse. It may help somebody's problem, but then maybe you can't get it through the culvert
and it takes out a road downstream or somebody else's property on the next bend, or
something like that and its worse.
B Hamer - Certainly if you get a flood like 72 or 73 whenever it was. You can't design
these things. You're got to head for the hills and I hope people understand that. We can do
what we can to mitigate here. We can do our best to mitigate these ditches and make sure
there is proper suing and slope on the ditch, and the size of the channel, that it is lined
properly, certainly. A 70 acre watershed is a lot of water that comes down through the site, so
I just want to make it clear that we'll look at mitigating that and do the best we can with it.
J Stevens - What I'm tying to do is figure out water that normally would be heading
toward the peoples' houses on 366 is going to be diverted by a portion of that, correct? How
much of that is going to be diverted? As far as area.
B Harper - There are currently 4.5 acres that flows to this pond, or basically 1 / 3 as it
exists today. One -third of the area flows to the pond. When we build these roads on 2/3 or 9
acres approximately is going to flow to this pond. So a substantial amount will go through this
pond and I feel that will alleviate a lot of these problems. And certainly I have noted and will
take into consideration your point on the slope, the possibility of diverting more of that water.
But certainly if you could see this in a 3 -1) model, you're got a site that is up here, you're got a
steep slope, you've got a flat area and then it comes back up for the road so they are sitting in a
pool. No matter what you do if you get a heavy storm, even if this didn't exist, you are still
going to get water that will collect and it has no place to go. The way the storm system was
designed for the State, they only designed to take the water off the road. They don't like to take
additional storm water unless there is no other place to put it. Unfortunately, what they did is
put it in here at a point where it is higher than this area so it is not going to much affect
anything in this area here. When we came through this road and I looked at the elevations,
certainly we can correct it, pipe it and then it goes in and on its way. Again, I can give you the
names and numbers of the people I talked to about that. Again, they are going to want to see
our calculations and so forth showing that the system can handle it, seeing how much exists
today, what we are increasing and so forth. Similar to the study that you see here.
® Sugv Schug - You've got 70 acres up above that is going through one little channel and
coming down on the site, bringing all that water down that way.
Page 13 of 34
TS 8 -26-99
B Harper - Correct. •
Supv Schug
- Why can't
that channel be plugged and
run that
water up
to
Mt.
Pleasant, across the
two roads
that way.
and
then
down
to the
creek?
Grade
or
elevation
or
what?
B Hamer - Depth is the biggest thing because it doesn't actually form a channel or a
creek until it gets to this point. It just kind of V's up and one option that you could do is
channel it here and around, but that is not going to help you. The only other option is that you
could pump it to there, which would probably not be ...
Cl
C
Hatfield
- According to this
elevation line it is quite a straight line along the
railroad.
It
might be
able to be diverted
that way.
B Harper - Right. We can look at the elevation here and see if that is in fact possible.
D Putnam - As far as
bring
the water down
Mt Pleasant Road, it won't take much more
water, it's pretty full
as it is.
They
cross under 366
there.
B Harper - I believe it is a 36" pipe there at that point.
D Putnam - 30" at the intersection.
Cl C Hatfield - This is quite a lot of water coming down each side.
Cl Beck - You think that without putting an additional culvert size under 366 you
couldn't really divert any of that upslope water in that direction?
Cl C Hatfield - Might not be legal anyway to change the flow of the stream, if they call it •
a stream. It was pretty dry the day I was there.
Cl Beck -This summer hasn't presented many drainage challenges.
Supv Schug - Does anybody have anything else?
D Sutton - The other impact to consider was landscape and there seem to be one major
concern. One is how this thing will appear from Route 366 or Mt Pleasant. What we will do is
we'll shoot some sight lines. I didn't do it for this meeting because I want to go in and spot
actual vegetation in addition to what we have. The intent is to keep as much of the natural
vegetation that exists there. So well shoot those. The other two issues arc one, coming in the
entrance from 366 affecting this house here. The intent is to build a fence, put in evergreens,
and currently, there is a shared road into this home. It comes up here and turns in. What
Steve is proposing to do is build a driveway into that. garage.
Supv Schug - Off of your road?
D Sutton - Yes, right.
Supv Schug - Whose garage is that? Is that Molly's?
D Sutton - Yes.
M Case - Mine?
D Sutton - The driveway that goes in there that both of you have?
Page 14 of 34
TB 8- 26-99
® M Case - Yes.
D Sutton - What Steve is proposing is to build a driveway in to your garage off of this
road when it gets built.
M Case - I don't think so.
S Lucente - Well, it's up to you.
D Sutton - It's a proposal. It's a thought. Because currently it is a shared driveway.
And a fence and evergreens. The other issue in landscape was some kind of buffering between
the trail that Steve is going to give to the town, the right of way to build the trail, and well
provide something along here. These yellow dots are a diagram of where the trail goes, but also
we are proposing to build a trail through here down along the pond and connect down here at
the VCA. Also to the Gazebo here. The other things with the landscape are playgrounds and
site lighting. Well provide you with all the details on light. We plan to keep all the light on the
site, not spill it onto everybody else's properties, not to have a big intensive kind of light. Not
that big yellow sodium lighting at all. Are there any other questions on the landscape? Well
provide a full plan.
M Case - Why can't you tear down the houses further away from me instead of
infringing on my privacy?
D Sutton - You'll have to ask Steve about that. All I know is where is right of way came
in to access ...
M Case - Well, I know where my right of way comes in, too, and his doesn't come only
as far as that barn, not on this side of the barn.
D Sutton - That could be, because I know that is proposed to be torn down.
M Case - That is the end, right there, of the shared driveway.
D Sutton - If he builds this and puts the trees in, something is going to be negotiated
with you, that works for you.
M Case - They are not going to come in and infringe on me, not one little bit.
D Sutton - I don't think that's the intent.
B Harner - And I think everyone is aware we have a licensed land surveyors map here
which researched all the deeds, went out and check the pins, and it clearly labels all the
property lines so that we know where we stand with that.
Cl C Hatfield - Let's go back to that road. Why couldn't that road go right down
between those two houses Marchell owns? Or move the second one and put it right down
through there so it: would be 75 - 80 feet away from Molly.
S Lucente - He wants to keep them. We don't own that land. He will continue to own
the land and those houses. All we've got is a right of way.
Cl C Hatfield - Yeah, but you could own one, couldn't you?
Page 15 of 34
TB 8 -26 -99
B Hamer - Well, another impact that I see right off the bat, if we were to put the road at
this location, we are going to have to push everything back and lose a lot of these parking •
spaces. I believe we agreed to a parking plan. You can't just come straight down the hill, so
everything would be pushed back and the slope gets steeper the further down you go so it
makes it more difficult to put a road. That is the best place to put it for the site.
C1 C Hatfield - Yeah, but you could still come off the site and bend it a little bit and still
end out on 366 to the north farther.
B Harper - I guess if I could quickly show* you this here, if you don't mind. You see how
the spacing is in the contours, it is very, very steep there. So what I was saying to you is they
would have to push ...
Cl C Hatfield - Where does your road come down now?
B Hamer
- Right now apparently the
road comes
down right at this location where it is
much flatter and
less transition, so what I was
saying to
you is if I push the road over, I can
come at an angle
and build
a road there
...
bit
of a curve in
Cl C Hatfield - Right here.
If you come right
around here,
these elevations are the same
and
you can swing the
end
of it over with
a
little
bit
of a curve in
it...
B Hamer - and then through the garage and meander it down through, is that what you
are proposing?
Cl C Hatfield - Right down through here. Get away from Molly.
Supv Schug -
Mr. Lucente
says
that Marchell still owns these properties.
C1 C Hatfield
- Yeah, but I
don't
think he's married to them.
Cl T Hatfield - Right now he still owns all of it doesn't he?
S Lucente - Yeah, and after the project, too.
C1 T Hatfield - I mean the whole thing.
S Lucente - Oh, upper, yes.
Cl T Hatfield - You've got to negotiate your own deal.
Erica Evans - I just have a question about lighting. Do you think you might be able to
put lighting with shaded .... So it doesn't shine out.
D Sutton - Yes.
B Harper - If I could show you this here. This is similar to the church down the road,
but this is a very low intensity light. It is not like your typical 1,000 watt bulb at your Home
Depots, Walmarts, etc. It is a lower base, less intense, but it is a. bright light where it will
provide safety. They also make this type too, for your walkways and so forth, so you can pretty
much see your path. One other thing I'd like to note, it is very easy to do. You can basically do
a light intensity graph to see how much foot candles of light you have and where it spreads out
through the project. So we can control this and work with manufacturers and youll see this
information. So the lighting will be controlled. It is not going to be bright, intense, like sodium •
Page 16 of 34
TB 8 -26 -99
light fixtures which give off that very bright yellowy light. We are going to do more natural
lighting to fit in with the upscale community.
Supv Schug - The gentlemen in the back corner had a question. Name and address
please.
Charles Hanley, 151 Baker Hill Road - I didn't hear too much talk about the effect on
automotive traffic in the area. I think you mentioned briefly 366, but if I understand the
nature of the target market for this development, it is students who will be living in Varna and
therefore wanting to travel obviously from Cornell to their homes. Students like water seek like
paths and my guess is that you are going to draw a lot of these people to the East Hill Plaza,
especially with the new magnet of a Burger King up there. A lot of that traffic is going to go
down Ellis Hollow and across on Game Farm or even worse, take the back entrance into Turkey
Hill. The Turkey Hill/Mt Pleasant crossroads is one of the most dangerous intersections in the
Town. I wonder what you think is going to keep people from there when they run into the daily
rush on 366 from simply turning around and taking that back road, running into those
wonderful snowdrifts by Alton Reed's place on Turkey Hill and then making that turn on the
four corners of Mt Pleasant and Turkey Hill. Especially for a development of this size.
Students can not have seen the nice charts that are supposed to send them down 366 and the
Town can end up with an extremely hazardous situation.
Supv Schug - Thank you.
Susan Ashdown - Has there been a new traffic study done?
B Harper - Basically, the only thing I can offer you is that detailed study. We looked at
every scenario woe could come up with. We also analyzed Mt Pleasant Road and again, I can't
stress enough that it was scrutinized and went through several revisions and we submitted
more calculations, more information. We did more traffic counts to get the most updated
information we can. We received a letter from the State Department of Transportation stating
that well have no significant impact on the level of service at 366. I guess one thing I would
like to stress is that we didn't simply say well, the traffic is going to go here, the traffic is going
to there. We looked at every possible scenario that we could to give you the worst possible
conditions for the traffic on the site. So again, we have approved calculations and the letter
from the DOT. Again, you are welcome to look at these.
C Hanley - All I would suggest to the board is that we all know that there are tables and
statistics and you can do the traffic counts on the road you specified, but I certainly wouldn't
suggest or tell you your own business, but certainly part of the planning process is to
anticipate what humans will do under different situations. I think anyone familiar with that
area has to know that we will be creating large streams of traffic on Ellis Hollow and we also
have to look at the town's exposure at those intersections which are quite dangerous. That
stretch of Turkey Hill in the winter is almost impossible to keep open. While their report I'm
sure has dotted every I and crossed every T as per what they have anticipated, your job, of
course, is to see what maybe they didn't anticipate. I think this situation is a disaster waiting
to happen.
B Harper - I could add one other thing. Safety is a big concern with DOT and they did
analyze this intersection and looked at signals and so forth to see what improvements could be
made at the Mt Pleasant, Freese Road, 366 intersection. So they analyzed that. They also tell
me that they have a long range plan in process to look at the safety along this corridor. When
they do that they don't .just look at 366, they look at every side street to see what
improvements could be made. So the DOT is constantly looking at safety, volumes of traffic,
® they take counts every other year at the site at different locations and again, DOT is looking
into safety along that road.
Page 17 of 34
TB 8- 20-99
Ken Finkelstein - I live on 366 at 944 Dryden Road. I just want to point out two things
about the DOT. One is that, as Jim and you folks on the Board know, we, you, asked DOT if
they would consider lowering the speed limits, or putting up signs because of the fact that kids
get on the bus at a time of day when there is hundreds of cars, a thousand cars per hour,
going by. They wouldn't do that. They didn't deem it necessary. This letter that is being
presented as proof that the DOT has looked at the situation. They were concerned about that
the traffic level would not go over a certain threshold, a threshold that they 've set, that this
road can handle. It's not the same thing as living in the neighborhood and finding that 100 or
200 cars per hour increase is happening because of a project. The DOT does not live on my
street and I don't think that they appreciate, as you probably can appreciate yourself, that they
really understand our situation.
S Ashdown - I'd second that and also say that we are talking about community along
the road. It is a community along the road. The DOT is interested in volumes of traffic and
how many cars they can safely (for the cars) accommodate, but they are not considering
children boarding buses, people who must cross the road to their mailboxes, people who are
Transit riders and must cross the road to get to a bus stop, the whole consideration of the
livability of the road, not the just ability of the road to carry cars, but the livability of the road
is left out of considerations.
Marshall Taylor, 61 Turkey Hill Road - At the last meeting I said that this is the type of
project that I could favor because of the fact it could concentrate in perhaps a reasonable way
effects that would otherwise be spread out over the town. What I have listened to tonight in
terms of the scope of the EIS brings up a number of concerns that I think need to be
addressed. First off, I have looked carefully at the documentation they prepared before looking
at storm water and the drainage off of the 70 acres up stream and so forth. They were very
careful and the gentlemen was very careful tonight talking about "on our site" or `our site" and
I think perhaps he'd want to revisit the question that Mahlon asked him and take another look
at that because his previous analysis does not address that question. I think that question has
to be addressed in the draft environmental impact statement.
It really concerns me that not a word has been said about what could be one of the
benefits of this project and that is in terms of handling non -point source pollution in the Fall
Creek watershed. They completely ignored this. We know with high density residential
development, for example, that we have concentrations of oil and grease pollution, herbicide
and pesticide pollution, animal fecal matter, particularly from domestic animals and so forth,
and what bothers me is that there's a number of BMPs that address this types of things that
have not been addressed here at all, not even mentioned. They talked about the pond design.
They didn't mention any infiltration versus just running through a wet pond in order to
increase the efficiency of the treatment of storm water. They didn't talk in their drainage plan,
they didn't discuss, obviously I haven't been privy to the drainage plan yet. They haven't
talked about any of the standard BMPs like curb cuts that gets water off of the paved areas,
back on to lawn, where it can infiltrate and so forth and then be moved out in a slower, more
orderly manner through the pond. There is a whole number of technologies and so forth that
can be applied there.
I would hope this board would realize that what we have is an opportunity to do
something positive in terms of development of the town, but if the draft Environmental Impact
Statement ignores this portion, non - point source pollution issues, is it better with the project.
What can be done on the project space to handle non -point source pollution issues, oil, grease,
fecal matter, herbicides, pesticides and so forth, then that opportunity would be lost.
Jim Skaley, 940 Dryden Road - A couple of comments I'd like to point out. Mr.
Lucente's lawyer made a statement about density spreading out over the whole hamlet and so
Page 18 of 34
TB 8 -26 -99
forth. I'l1 address that. 1 also wanted to address an issue that was discussed at the EAF
presentation in terms of impact on the character of the community or neighborhood. The
board decided that that was not applicable with regard to the issue of permanent population.
The reason given was that the definition was defined that the community was equivalent to the
town of Dryden. I talked with the DEC permits office in Albany and asked their opinion
regarding what constitutes community or neighborhood and there is nothing in the SEQR law
that states anything about the municipality being defined as equivalent to the community. The
action in this situation would be that the community would be in terms of the hamlet of Varna.
That constitutes the neighborhood. That constitutes the community structure that they're
talking about here. So in terms of increase in population, this project would then significantly
increase the size of the community of Varna. The other point, spreading out the density over
the whole area of Varna doesn't make much sense. We are talking about an RC Zone where
there is a situation in the General Plan that specifies a density of a certain amount and that
was implied, I presume under the subsequent zoning, that that would be on basis of the type of
parcel development we're talking about. If that is then the case, well then 2.9 per acre density
doesn't make any sense. The second point on that would be you can't take what you are
bringing into a site, a high density situation, and then distribute that across the remaining
area That would be the same argument if you were retaining water or not retaining water or
distributing your water around the whole area The impact is to the localized area, not to the
whole township or even the broader area.
Supv Schug - Does anybody else have any comments they'd like to make?
Peggy Walbridge, 123 Hunt Hill Road - When I started hearing the concerns on Mt
Pleasant Road and Turkey Hill Road intersection, and Turkey Hill Road and Ellis Hollow Road,
for about 15 years at least the Town has been trying to get DOT to put a four -way stop on Mt
Pleasant and Turkey Hill Road, and DOT in its wisdom, excuse my cynicism, never thinks there
® is enough traffic. I was at a meeting that was held in the Ellis Hollow Community Center last
Fall over widening Ellis Hollow Road and the same concern of the danger of Turkey Hill Road
and Ellis Hollow Road came up and the same replies that people haven't been killed, all we
need to do is raise it to get a better site line, and everything like that. Are we as a Town just
going to wait until we kill people at intersections because of bad planning and because of
DOT's unwillingness to look at rural towns. They look at us in the same way they measure
New York City or very crowded suburban areas so that we really don't get, in my opinion, a
very good deal from DOT in these sort of rural intersections. They just don't have the capacity
and 1 think the Board really has to address this because I agree that students go in the path of
least resistance and you are going to have a lot of traffic that is going to sort of stream through
the western part of Ellis Hollow.
Supv Schug - Thank you. Does anybody else have any other comments? If not, what I
would like to see happen as Mahlon pointed out to their attorney, to do a brief description on
your proposed action .I I
Atty Perkins - Actually, so the public knows and can be involved in this. What the
project sponsor is supposed to do is to submit a draft scope containing certain items which are
identified in the regs. It seems to me that that has not yet been done, that this process tonight
was instituted at the request of the applicant to find out what the concerns are to sort of get
public input and to hear an outline of what the project sponsor thinks should be in the written
scope, the draft scope. So the actual time table doesn't start to run until the Town Board
receives that draft scope. The sponsor is free to use the comments tonight, that it has heard
from the Board and from the public to come up with the draft scope. That draft scope must
contain at least five items and those five items are (1) a brief description of the proposed action,
(2) potentially significant adverse impacts identified both in the positive declaration and as a
® result of consultation with the other involved agencies and the public, including an
identification of those particular aspects of the environmental setting that may be impacted, (3)
Page 19 of 34
TB 8-26-99
the extent and quality of information needed for the preparer to adequately address each
impact including an identification of relevant existing information and required new •
information including the required methodologies for obtaining new information, (4) an initial
identification of mitigation measures and (5) reasonable alternatives to be considered.
Now when that draft scope is submitted to the Town it then has to be given to all the
involved agencies and anyone who has requested a copy of it in writing. Then you have your
opportunity to comment on that: draft scope. That period for the Town to come up with a final
written scope will not start to run until it has that draft scope from the project sponsor. So the
Town Board may want to consider not casting its time tables in stone at this point since it
doesn't actually have a written scope which we anticipated we would have this evening. The
project sponsor certainly has heard concerns from the public, from the Board and has
identified a number of them so that he can come up with something to start the process with.
Supv Schug - You have a copy of our Part Three.
J Stevens - Was that in the packet we got yesterday?
Supv Schug - Yes. So all the people know, the impact on the land and what happens
and part of it is the erosion, siltation, and runoff. They are large impacts, a physical change to
the property, disturbance levels of treating runoff on site, which I think covers some of the
water issues. The impact on water —will the proposed action affect any nonprotected existing
or new body of water. Yes, it will. A manmade pond on the property. Please take a good look
at that and in writing tell us what you are going to do about it. The water itself, effects on
surface and ground water quality and quantity. It's in this report. We'd like you to address
that. I think we would ask you how you plan to get the water from the top of the hill to the
bottom of the hill without going through somebody's backyard or house, or kitchen or
whatever. •
P Walbridge - I'm not clear exactly what I heard, but I heard a lot about yeah, we're
going to follow State regs, but I hope that the Board is going to insist they are going to show
how they follow state regulations doing the drainage plan, because it seems a little easy to just
say we are going to follow regulations. I think everybody is very concerned about how did those
regulations apply to the slopes and everything.
Supv Schug - That's why I was just running through the stuff that we picked up and
that this Board said that were positive, difficult problems that should be addressed by the
sponsor. Change of water flow and the surface runoff, open space and recreation, impact on
transportation, noise and odor, growth and character of the community. Among others is the
traffic situation and I believe we also talked in here about the effect on the school district.
K Finkelstein - Can I comment about the school district?
Supv Schug - You already have, but go ahead.
K Finkelstein - I wanted to tell you that I followed up on the school district thing, and
from what I gather you are not going to hear anything from the school district because the
school district has to take the state position that they offer a uniform quality of education for
all kids in the district and therefore, although it is very likely that they will have to redistrict if
there are a large number of increases in the children in Varna, they can promise us that the
education will be the same no matter where they put our kids. So Judith Pastel stated at the
last Board meeting that the school cannot take any position on any project because they are
here to provide a uniform quality of education. So they are kind of aware of this and my
understanding is that they can't do anything in terms of input one way or another. But it is
still clear to me that the school will basically change in some way. Either the kids from West
Page 20 of 34
TB 8 -26 99
Hill won't be able to go there or our children won't be able to go there. Something has to give
because the school is full now.
Supv Schug - You don't believe the school district either?
K Finkelstein - No, that's not it. I just know that the school district will make a
decision about redistricting when they have the kids, the numbers, and that is not going to
help me because then I'll be the victim of it if I live in Varna, or perhaps maybe they'll wind up
sending my kids to, I don't know, Harvard or something like that.
Cl Grantham - Mahlon, were your comments just now the gist of the whispered
conversations with Jim and ...
scope.
Atty Perkins - Yes. I told the Supervisor that what we had does not constitute a draft
Supv Schug - Those are the five criteria, page 20.
Cl Grantham - Why only five, not all seven? Can you explain that to me?
Atty Perkins - Because that is what the
are what the lead agency must consider. We d
written scope and make that available to other
Cl Grantham - Okay, right.
Supv Schug - So, project sponsor, your
the...
J Stevens - In narrative form.
Atty Perkins - Look at the regs.
J Stevens - Yeah.
regulations require. Actually the other parts
o�n't get a crack at that until we receive the
involved agencies and the public.
homework assignment is to go home and write
Supv Schug - Just read them and do what they ask. Take into consideration what
you've heard people say. How you are going to address those problems. It will make life a lot
easier on you and the people in the audience and on the Town Board if you can sensibly
answer those questions.
Cl Grantham - So we are not having a meeting on ...
Supv Schug - We are not having meetings those days. I asked for September 27 for any
written comments that the people have. If you have some, get them in.
Atty Perkins - I think that that date really needs to be re- evaluated because we don't
know when we are going to get the draft scope. We anticipated we'd have a draft scope tonight,
but if you are using this as a session to feel out ...
J Stevens - To narrow it.
Atty Perkins - Then you still have to submit that document.
® Supv Schug - But if you have something, please put it in writing. Dave did a nice job
with his letter. He reiterated pretty much what we had gone over at the last meeting.
Page 21 of 34
TB K -26 -99
K Finklestein - How will we know when the clock starts ticking and all the information
is in your hands so that we can then review that information and make any public comments
we want? There wouldn't be an announcement: in the newspaper. Is it possible for you to put
it on your web site?
Supv Schug -When we know, well notify the Varna Community Center. You can get
ahold of the people out there. We'll ask Casey Stevens to put it on the radio, if you listen to
him in the morning. And we'll tell the Journal, but if you read it in there and if you have any
questions, call us and find out what the real scoop is.
J Stevens - We can also do a mailing of at least notice to all those people who have
signed in at each of the meetings that we've had.
Supv Schug - If you'd like to, that would be very nice.
P Walbridge - Jim, did you say earlier that people could write in, if they made a request
in writing for a copy of this draft that they would get it?
Atty Perkins - Yes.
Supv Schug -Yes.
P Walbridge - So in other words, anyone here who wants a copy of the draft...
Supv Schug - Even those who aren't here.
P Walbridge - But they need to write to the Town I assume for it and then those copies
will be made for the community.
Atty Perkins - The Town will provide a copy of the draft scope to all involved agencies
and make it available to any individual or interested agency that has expressed an interest in
writing to the Town Board.
Cl Beck - Any one.
Atty Perkins - Any one, individual or interested agency, as opposed to involved agency.
Erica Evans - A letter to the Supervisor?
Atty Perkins - Yes, or to the Town Clerk.
Cl Grantham - And then I think my last question is we have our minutes and we have
this document from you, Mahlon, dated August 17, do we at some point have to accept that?
Not tonight.
Atty Perkins - No, actually that is the positive declaration which was prepared from all
the board's comments and the notes I took. I hope I've got it reflective of what the consensus
was on those issues.
Supv Schug - That's what I just asked them to take a look at and address all of the
things that are in that and anything else that they've heard tonight or feel is appropriate to
address.
Cl Grantham - Okay.
Page 22 of 34
TB 8 -26 -99
® J Stevens - Thank you.
Supv Schug - Dave wanted to talk about the painting and repair of the NYSEG tanks. I
think I sent you a copy of the letter.
D Putnam - They started today and they may even get it done on time, but in case they
have weather problems or delays in delivery of steel, they have requested an extension.
Cl T Hatfield - An extension to when?
D Putnam - To have it painted by the end of September and done by the middle of
October.
Atty Perkins - In other words, the first day they started work they asked for an
extension of time.
work.
D Putnam - They asked for an extension of time Monday or so, before they started
Cl T Hatfield - Are they concerned about the weather?
D Putnam - The
only concern is
the paint and I would recommend that
we grant the
extension if they would
provide a faster
paint if the weather does turn cold and
they could redo
that
at no extra cost.
Cl T Hatfield - You are saying that would have been in increased cost, but they are
iswilling to bear that cost?
D Putnam - Yes. I'd like your formal approval tonight and I'll get you the formal
paperwork to the regular Town Board meeting.
Supv Schug - They'll use a better grade of paint at no extra charge.
Atty Perkins - But that is not what they're promising to do. They're only promising to
do that if the weather gets bad.
D Putnam - There's no need to change the paint unless the weather gets bad.
Cl Grantham - What if the weather gets bad half way through the painting?
D Putnam - The paint needs a certain temperature to cure and the fast cure paints will
cure at a lower temperature, down to 35, but they are much more difficult for the contractor to
work with and they cost more.
Cl Grantham - How long does it physically take to paint the tank?
D
Putnam - If we
don't have to do an extensive
interior
tank repair, they've probably got
a week of
steel work and
a week of sandblasting and a
week of
painting, three weeks.
Cl Grantham - So it could be that they'd be half way through the painting and the
temperature changes.
D Putnam - Then they change the paint. It is the same paint formulated to cure at a
colder temperature.
Page 23 of 34
TB K -26 -99
Cl
Grantham -
I don't care
about the difference in color. If the paint doesn t have a
chance to
cure... how
many hours
does it need to cure?
D Putnam - It needs 8 to 10 hours to cure, but it's the temperature that they apply it
at. It can get cooler once its applied and on the tank. The temperature as the paint is applied
is critical.
Atty Perkins - When does the contract call for completion now?
D Putnam - September 15, so its two weeks.
Cl C Hatfield - He's a week behind.
Atty Perkins - More than that because he hasn't gotten started. Isn't the idea to keep
the pressure on them to get it done?
D Putnam - The idea is to get: it done and get it done right. If I put too much pressure
on them, I'm afraid they'll rush and try to take a short cut. if I don't do that, we are going to
get a quality job.
Atty Perkins - How are you going to know that he gets the right paint on there unless
you inspect it?
D Putnam - I will.
Atty Perkins - So you are going to inspect it anyway.
D Putnam - That's correct.
Atty Perkins - So aren't you going to insure that we get the quality job?
D Putnam - Yes. The other thing...
Atty Perkins
- I
don't
see what the upside to the Town is when he's only been on the job
one day and you've
got
all of
September yet to go.
D Putnam - But his contract is done September 15.
Atty Perkins - Well, let's find out where he is on September 15.
Cl T Hatfield - Or September 7. It's the next time we meet. I think we need some sort
of window.
Cl Grantham - That's what 1 think. Webe got two weeks til our next board meeting
practically.
Atty Perkins -
Isn't it better practice
to get
him going and see where he is and if he's
worked diligently and
so forth to get to that
point,
or had weather delays or not had weather
delays. Won't wre be in a better position to evaluate at that point?
Cl T Hatfield - We've got a meeting September 7. Youll know more by then.
D Putnam - I had the opportunity tonight and I wanted to talk to you about it. The
second thing is the tank that eve are painting in Lansing, the last time it was painted the
Page 24 of 34
TB 8 -26 -99
painters hid some stuff in the tank which we've discovered and had fused and it is going to cost
the Village of Lansing some extra money. I hope we don't find that this time. The first time the
tank was painted, 2 paintings ago in the Village of Lansing, apparently the contractor did not
do a good job of sand blasting and there are a lot of pits from milscale in the steel. The second
contractor came in and kind of filled those all in with pitfiller instead of welding the bad ones,
so we spent three days in there welding up the ones that should have been welded the last
time. It shouldn't have occurred if it was sand blasted right the first time.
D Putnam - What I'm saying is were got an allowance.
Atty Perkins - But you don't know yet.
D Putnam - We don't know yet, and it was a complete surprise once we started blasting
the paint of.
Supv Schug - September 7, that's a full two
weeks away and by
that time you ought to
have it all sandblasted and be welding and
be ready
to paint on the 8«1,
right.
D Putnam - I don't know, it sounds good.
Cl C Hatfield - These are covered tanks, with a manhole in the top?
D Putnam - There is one
manhole in the
side,
we're putting another one in to make it
OSHA compliant and
there'll
be
two manholes in the
roof.
Cl C Hatfield - So they're sandblasting in kind of a dusty atmosphere.
Cl Beck - If they get it partially done and run out of weather, where does that leave us?
D Putnam - They'll be able to get it done. With the right paint we can apply down to 35
degrees.
Supv Schug - Okay, we are all aware of it. Let us know on the 7u, exactly where we are.
D Putnam - I will do that.
Supv Schug - These two people, especially the Malepe's called. These are people we
talked about and who got a grant from the County for one - third of the cost of Malepe's project
and they expect the Malepes to put in a third and they have been told by Soil & Water that the
Town should be expected to put in a third. The same with the Chens and their project is
$3,500 each, the County, the Chens and the Town. Both of these require going off site. The
gentlemen here tonight is Craig Schutt, the Conservation District Manager, who was involved
with these projects and talking to the people. I talked with the contractor today that is going to
do the work for Malepes and he said the best thing he would ask us is if we could haul or get
the rip rap. That is going to cost money. Do we want to spend $2,222 and have Mix's haul the
rip rap over there and whatever and Chen's, I don't know. I really don't want our crews and
people going off the roads.
C1 T Hatfield - Can we legally do it?
Supv Schug - We're not supposed to. We've done it in the past and under certain
circumstances. That's why Jack had the project where people and he had to sign. We'd have
to be held harmless if any of our equipment or men went on the property. Does the Town want
to be part and help these people out? I did one thing though, Craig. I took a ride down to
Malepe's house. Their house is at 25 West Malloryville Road and they are the furthest house
Page 25 of 34
TB 8 -26 -99
away from the bridge going up toward the hill toward Fall Creek Road. Three years ago a lady
bought the house that's down in back there and asked us if we could haul in dirt or whatever
to fill along the creek. If you do Malepe's, how about the rest of the people that are on the
creek.
made.
Craig Schutt - They have the opportunity to apply to this program.
Cl Beck - Did we realize our involvement with this thing initially?
Cl T Hatfield - No.
Cl Beck - And it's a legal obligation that we are held to?
Supv Schug - We are not obligated to do anything. It was just a suggestion that was
CI Grantham - Can you talk about what you are going to do on these two sites?
C Schutt - On Malepe's basically we are going to armor the bank. (Displayed photos)
Supv Schug - This brings back the issue on Kimberly Drive. He had his water problems
and we refused to fix his.
C Schutt - The creek curves right at Malepe's, they are right on an oxbow.
Supv Schug - But there are six other houses that are also in trouble.
Cl Grantham - So what are you going to do exactly? •
C Schutt - The plan is in there. It tells what is planned ...
Cl C Hatfield - Just rip rap, basically.
Cl T Hatfield - I think the County is trying to railroad us into being part of this.
C Schutt - The Town was sent all the information in the Spring. That's all I can say. I
apologize if the information never got to you people.
Cl T Hatfield - There's a difference between getting this information and spending our
money. I'm talking about the people's money and the Town of Dryden and the taxpayers that
we represent. If we do it for one taxpayer, why don't we do it for all roughly 20,000 people. I
just don't quite understand where we got into this position. It doesn't mean it is wrong, I just
don't understand it yet, okay. It's fine for the County to put money up and make grants in
conjunction with municipalities that are in fact then doing things that they are allowed to do
with their money. I can buy into that and I think we made an application for such a grant,
Yellow Barn. What happened to that? That makes sense to me.
C Schutt - The committee felt that with the amount of money we had to use, that that
project was way beyond the scope. The County only put up $25,000 and the idea is to help
individuals out, landowners, where they have problems.
Cl T Hatfield - The County has the legal authority to do that?
Page 26 of 34
TB x -26 -99
Supv Schug - No, I don't believe so. Here's the thing that Ron asked. The first thing on
the application: The project has been evaluated and prioritized by the municipal watershed
committee for funding. Now, is that the Town's watershed committee?
C Schutt - Yes.
Supv Schug - That is made up of myself, Reba Taylor, Jack I believe, and Jon Bradley,
and we have meetings and we have agreed to do the work in the Village on Penny Lane and to
use the County funding for that. The village wanted to use it for two years and I said okay well
give up two years because we're not ready. Then we got to the Yellow Barn and I said from
then on we would like to have a couple years to put some money in for the Yellow Barn project.
We never knew about these until the day they were applied for.
Cl C Hatfield - So they didn't come before the committee is what you are saying?
Supv Schug
- That's what I'm saying,
which is fine, but it's the first
thing
they ask.
Then a sketch plan
and design and whatever.
You must have done that for
these
people.
C Schutt - Right.
Supv Schug - Breakdown of funding sources and matches, landowner, municipality
and county funds.
Cl Grantham - I would like to help people in these kinds of problems, but the problems
that I see with it are first of all that it is piece meal. It is one property owner's streamfront
here. It doesn't address the entire stream stretch...
isC Schutt - No, it doesn't.
Cl Grantham - It doesn't address the watershed. Another one is here, same issue. It is
not coordinated with other things like the Yellow Barn Road or this particular application that
we were reviewing tonight and it just,..
C Schutt - But if you go out on Six Mile Creek which Caroline has been working with
this program for years, it is getting coordinated because we are doing projects here and the
next year we are doing projects here and the next year here.
Cl T Hatfield - We understand that. We've heard that argument before. That's why we
felt Yellow Barn made sense. There is some extensive work there that makes sense and we've
gone and made that commitment. I don't understand why the left hand is trying to tell the
right hand what to do and it doesn't seem to be coordinated with things that we've been
working on and the committee that the town has had set up to look at that and work with the
unit hasn't been consulted on this particular application.
C Schutt - I
did send Jim a letter asking
to
please give us some information on how this
fit in with the total
town plan, and I never
received
a response.
Supv Schug - We didn't even know about it. We had no input on the applications.
Cl T
Hatfield
- And
what group
is it that
you
work with that rejected the Yellow Barn
application
because
it just
didn't make
sense to
you
guys?
Supv Schug - It was too much money.
® C Schutt - It was too much money.
Page 27 of 34
1B 8- 2649
Cl T Hatfield - You're talking about Caroline taking so much money. We're very patient,
we can do the same thing.
C Schutt - The Committee is made up of a Board rep, myself, a person from EMC, a
County engineer, and a member from the County Planning Department.
Cl T Hatfield - So there is no local input at all.
C Schutt - That's why we try to get the local municipalities involved.
Cl T Hatfield -
What I'm saying to you
is we gave
you our
municipal input with respect
to Yellow Barn which
this whole body spent a
lot of time
working
on ...
C Schutt - Why were those other people not even considered though in this process?
Cl T Hatfield - They never asked.
Supv Schug - They never came to us.
C Schutt - I believe they came to you and asked for input.
Supv Schug, - They called up and said they wanted to put their applications in. I said I
can't stop you from doing it, but it hasn't been reviewed by anybody.
Cl T Hatfield - Understand, I'm not trying to give you a hard time...
C Schutt - No, I understand where you guys are coming from.
Cl T Hatfield - What I'm trying to do is get to an understanding. These are great. Don't
get me wrong, intermunicipal cooperation is very high on at least my list, and this board has
done it many times. But we can't have intermunicipal cooperation when all the
communication is one way.
C Schutt - Exactly.
Supv
Schug - The tough part
of this
Malepe one, and I understand where they're
conning from,
but there are six other
houses
between them and the bridge.
Cl T Hatfield - And a couple of them have come to us and asked for help, I guess.
C1 Beck - I've seen water across that road enough times though. Every property down
there is in danger.
Cl T Hatfield - That area is just as valuable and just as important as Yellow Barn.
Okay, so get some more money and well sit down and work with you on both of them. But
don't reject Yellow Barn out of hand. Were already done a lot of work there.
C Schutt - The application came in for $485,000. We had $25,000 to work with.
Supv Schug - We only asked you to fund $8,000 for the engineering work that was
done.
C Schutt - And I think it said very plainly that this money was for implementation. You
requested $21,000. That's your application right there. The total project cost was $486,850
Page 28 of 34
TB 8 -26 -99
and you wanted $21,0000 county funds and we had $25,000 to spread around the county.
That was the biggest reason I think that it got rejected. It's such a big project. If we spent
$21,000 there, what would we do in the rest of the county.
Cl T Hatfield - I think the biggest question that you are begging me to ask is what are
you going to do with $25,000 that is going to make an impact when a project like Yellow Barn
requires that kind of money based on engineering studies.
C Schutt - If you leverage that $25,000, then you are doing $75,000 worth of work.
Cl T Hatfield - But it is not coordinated. You are doing a piece meal approach, like Deb
just said.
C Schutt - We don't disagree with that statement. We're saying to the County we need
more money because this isn't enough to do big stretches.
Cl T Hatfield - I'll leave you with this thought since we're beating a dead horse a little
bit. Look at the Virgil Creek dam project where the County, the Village and the Town
leveraged money and really did something that has a major positive impact on the entire
community, not just a single property. It seems like you're almost throwing money away.
Cl Grantham - You know the way to make an impact county -wide with that $25,000 is
an educational program on stream site management for landowners.
C Schutt - But the County appropriates that money for implementation on property.
We are following the guidlelines that they are giving us.
Supv Schug - The problem is the County is giving money and saying we can do in -kind
services with our highway equipment and whatever. The problem with that is the County is
not going to go off in somebody's back yard and fix it. They'll give them money to do it.
Cl T Hatfield - Or take the risk of going across a septic tank or sewer line and water
line. It's like Pandora's box.
Supv Schug - Dave did a big study on the Pinckney Road area Don Gilbert and I, and I
believe Deb, visited the site. There's a guy there who wants us to do his backyard. It took
forever, and we told him no, we can't afford to do it. We have a responsibility to protect the
highway, and there we spent a bunch of money from Lower Creek all the way up to where the
creek bends into it. It's all rip rap up through there, but we can't go in the guy's back yard and
put rip rap in his yard. If we do his, we've got to go all the way around the circle and do
everybody else's. You can only do it so far. It's up to the Board, if you want to spend the
money.
J Bush - What exactly are you trying to do as far as enhancing the bank? Is that
raising the edge of the bank up?
C Schutt - No.
Cl Beck - Just rip rap.
J Bush - I don't see how it is going to solve the problem. That whole area floods.
Cl T Hatfield - It addresses a single property. It's great to want to start somewhere, but
it seems like in this instance it is throwing money away. By the time you get back to it if you 've
Page 29 of 34
Tl3 8 -26 -99
had any kind of major water event some of that stun' is going to be laying in somebody else's
yard. 0
Cl Grantham - Well, that's exactly right and if the whole stretch is not done, then
anything that happens anywhere else in the watershed is going to ....
Supv Schug - You're an engineer more than I am, but if you do the guy at the tail end of
where the water is going, because he applied for it, how about the other houses up around the
bend? When that water is coming down and his is all stabilized and the water comes up over
the bank it is going to be in everybody's back yard.
Cl Beck - I don't think it's going to raise the water level. I guess I'd suggest a proposal
for how they want to use the money, and if we can use our equipment and stay on the road to
deliver some rip rap or something without getting on the guy's yard or pavement to haul it
down there to do these projects, then maybe have some input in to the adjoining landowners
for them to apply for next year's situation. We could approve that too, to get out of the mess
we're in. There's no sense in sitting here and beating it to death. It looks like we're kind of
committed at this point to do something, but I don't want to see us commit to take our trucks
and stuff off the road. That guy has a long driveway and backyard and that property is pretty
mushy and I can see everything buried in there.
Cl Grantham - The cost of getting agreements to let us do that is going to have us
spending way more than $2,000.
Cl Beck - Or let someone else take the liability and well provide the cash or something
for the project.
Supv Schug - Remember, you supply these people with cash and you're going to have to
supply every homeowner who has a creek going through his back yard. He will pay one -third
of the cost.
Cl Beck - I understand. If the County comes up with the same sort of program, and if
these properties really need fixing that bad, maybe we should be providing some small
assistance to the ones that really need it.
Cl Grantham - But I don't think we should be doing it without looking at the whole
watershed or subwatershed that these streams are in because if you do one part of it and you
don't look at the whole thing, you may not be doing what really needs to be done.
Cl C Hatfield - We could spend a fortune going the whole length of Tompkins County on
Fall Creek.
Cl Beck - I don't think the whole watershed is within the scope of the Town.
Cl Grantham - The subwatershed, that part of the stream could be looked at. I'm not
convinced that rip rapping the tributary along Yellow Barn Road is going to work either. I don't
think that rip rap is necessarily the answer. I think you need to look at the whole thing. So -I'm
just concerned with doing one property and one there and not taking a look at the big picture,
not doing a good hydrologic study of these areas and doing it right.
Cl Beck
- Even
if you had
an engineering study for just that section of Fall Creek, a half
mile or quarter
mile, it's
going to
cost us $20,000 just for the engineering study.
Page 30 of 34
TB R -26 -99
Cl C Hatfield - These people that bought land and knew the Yellow Barn stream ran
through it, the people that bought on Fall Creek, they knew that was there when they bought
it. They're got to take a little responsibility on fixing their own problems.
Supv Schug - They are paying a third.
Cl C Hatfield - Yes, but they aren't paying 1001/o.
Cl Grantham - You're right. They built there.
Cl Beck - And if it was you and I and it was bad enough, we'd fix it, and we wouldn't
ask the Town or the County to help us.
Supv Schug - People who buy on Cayuga Lake build their own breakwall, and pay for a
permit to do that.
CI
C Hatfield -
If the funds are
there and
they can ask for a grant and they get it, I
guess you
can't blame
them, but yet it
has to all
mesh
together.
Cl T Hatfield - Personally, I'm against it at the moment.. Primarily because it is just too
piece meal. I'm in favor of doing generally this kind of effort, but it has to be available to every-
body and it has to make sense in the entire picture. To pick out one in middle? If it is was one
on either end, I think I'd have a little different attitude.
Cl Grantham - It's no better.
Cl Beck - You say Jim that we have done it in certain instances.
Supv Schug - To protect our own roads only. Maybe 20 years ago I understand that the
Highway Superintendent took fill from someplace and put it down behind those very houses
and built like a berm. If you've been down there you know what I'm talking about. What
happens when the water piles up down there and hits the bank on the far side, it goes down
the stream and comes back into their yards and Malepe gets washed out because the stream
has to turn sharper there. I'm sure that's what Craig wants to protect. That was a long time
ago when the Town did that and as I remember, seeing the drawings, they only did it from the
bridge down about two or three of the houses.
J Bush - I also think we have to be careful of how we use the highway funds, and really
for us to be involved we would have to find a reason that basically we were getting involved
because we were trying to protect the highway itself. Right now, knowing the way that floods
and how that comes up, I can't see how enhancing the bank would help protect the highway at
all.
Supv Schug - I think Craig that you should take a ride out tomorrow. I went today to
check and see which house was Malepe's and right on the bridge on the right hand side going
past their house, the guy on the right hand side at the creek has cut down three or four big
trees right at the edge of the creek. I guess if he owns the property he can cut down anything
he wants, but you know what that is going to do when the roots dry. You know that happens
to the bank then and it won't be long and the bridge will be washed out.
ZO Slater - One of these long range studies for Fall Creek or Virgil Creek might be ideal
submittals to help us pick up a grant from F1MA. They can sometimes be substantial, seven
or eight hundred thousand dollars. There you could undertake a large project such as this and
® you could still apply our other funds from our share of the $25,000 annually. These types of
Page 31 of 34
TB 8 -26-99
plans might help us very well in securing the r EMA support. That looks like a much better
place to take the Malloryville situation as a whole. 0
Supv Schug - I really think, and I told you the other night, when we talked to Lucente
we asked him specifically, and you heard it, that we want him to care for the water in that
stream from his property above and all the way to Fall Creek, not just off his property.
C Schutt - Right, and that should help the Chen property.
Supv Schug - But I told Angie that way back and Deb and I talked about it last week.
Cl C Hatfield - Now is the chance to get him to do it too. To prove his project, he's got
to take that channel and maintain it.
C Schutt - That's a great way to do it.
Cl Grantham - If we are going to say no, we should take a vote. Otherwise you are just
writing a letter and there is nolhing to back it up.
Cl T Hatfield - I think it would be good for Jim to have that. It's more than just saying
no on financial grounds. It's not the money to me, it really isn't. It's the whole concept. What
we are trying to do, where we're going, how we are trying to get there. I think if the County
wants to go in this direction, let's sit down and figure out a way that makes sense and make
sure we're on solid footing, from an environmental stand first and then legal point of view
second.
Cl C Hatfield - It puts Craig in kind of a bad spot.
Cl T Hatfield - Absolutely. He's trying to make things happen for the public and he's
trying to serve the county legislature which clearly wants to help things get moving along and
provide some matching funds. I applaud that, so don't take the wrong message out of here.
Cl Grantham - Maybe with our decision should go a recommendation that the County
rethink how they use that money, these are our issues with the applications and these are
reasons for not agreeing to the Town part, and this is what we think the County ought to think
about.
Supv Schug - Their committee and their rules call for the project to be done this year.
The Village has asked that they carry the money over.
C Schutt - We have for two years for the Village. They haven't done the project and
they may lose that money.
RESOLUTION #166 - REJECT COUNTY'S REQUEST FOR MATCHING FUNDS
MALEPE & CHEN PROJECTS
Cl T Hatfield offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption:
RESOLVED, that this Town Board hereby rejects the request of Tompkins County for
matching funds for flooding project work on the Malepe and Chen properties in the Town of
Dryden, and hereby directs the Supervisor to correspond with the County detailing the reasons
for the Town's rejection, and requesting that the County sit down and discuss the program
with the Supervisor.
2110 Cl Grantham
Page 32 of 34
Roll call vote
Cl Beck Yes
Cl T Hatfield Yes
Cl C Hatfield Yes
Cl Grantham Yes
TB K -2G -99
M Taylor - I agree with everything I've heard about planning and looking at the
watershed. Unfortunately, I haven't heard any of you say that we could improve the
communications from the Town's side by forming a committee or whatever...
Supv Schug - We have a formalized committee. We had to have one in order to get any
funding at all. That's why we did it and why these projects are on the burner. The County
failed to contact our committee with respect to these applications. Yes. The Town will
communicate. We haven't had a meeting of that group for probably six months. Last I knew
the Village was pressing forward and was working with Schickel. I haven't heard anything
different until tonight and Henry says he backed out.
Cl Grantham - The committee was formed just to respond to this source of funding?
Supv Schug - That was part of it, and the other was to look at projects down the road
where people were having problems.
Cl Grantham - Primarily drainage and flooding types.
Supv Schug - Water related problems.
Cl C Hatfield - We wouldn't help Rhoades on Kimberly Drive and he sued us and
I* everything else. It's the same thing. If you helped him, you'd have to help the rest of them.
It's not our job to do those things as a Town.
Cl Grantham - Marshall represents us on the Tompkins County Water Resources
Council. They are talking about a Fall Creek Watershed Committee. We have this committee,
we have Dryden Lake Committee, and Joyce on the EMC and it seems to me we need to talk
about bringing that all together and talking about comprehensive town wide environmental
planning.
Supv Schug -
I think
that's great
and I think
Marshall ought to be invited, Henry, when
you get talking about
those
projects with
FEMA and
stuff, along with Craig.
Supv Schug - One other comment, Deb said we should bring it forth. That is the Virgil
Creek Dam project. The County was sued for more money. The judgement by the Judge was
in favor of the plaintiff and he is going to get a settlement over and above what the other people
have received for different portions of the property. Therefore, as you may have remembered,
way back I promised the people in that flood plain that if they signed the agreement when they
did (and 98% of the people signed up front) that if somebody was paid more money they would
be reimbursed the difference between what they had been paid and what this other person got.
That's got to be worked out about how much money it is going to be. What's happened is the
County, and we wrote letters if you remember, asking the State law makers for dollars to help
the state side of the dam project. They got money and they gave it to the County. It was put in
the bank. There is enough money in that account to pay, and we haven't put any of our money
in that yet, to pay off the lawsuit with some left over. I asked them to break down what it is the
other people should get. So you know, Mahlon was the person who lost the rights to the creek.
He had access to the creek and the access was taken away from him when the federal soil and
® water conservation designed the dam and then came back and told us at the 11th hour that we
Page 33 of 34
TB 8 -26 -99
needed a bigger spillway. So we took his property away from him and he now has no access to
the creek. .
Cl C Hatfield - Another example of the state getting us to do their homework, treat
everybody the same, and then come back and say "oh, we need ten more acres". It made us
look like idiots to the people we did business with.
Supv Schug - the settlement awarded is $60,000, in that area, and I believe there is
$1.50,000 in the kitty.
ZO Slater - Today Joe Lalley and I met with the Cornell University City and Regional
Planning class group. They signed the contract. We talked at some length. They got some
history from us. The process has begun on the long range planning process. There are about
40 kids in the class. Meetings for public comment have been scheduled for September 15 in
Varna and September 22 here. The Planning Board secretary is making those arrangements.
Casey Stevens will be announcing it on the radio, Channel 7 will have it, and hopefully the
Ithaca Journal will do a story or at least put it in the community meeting schedule. It will be
«ell publicized.
Supv Schug - For the Board's information, the work on Parks Park is coming along real
well. Jack and David and I met with the gal from the Plantations and they are going to let us
take down the center tree which is really in the right of way. It creates a hazard and will
probably dic because of where it sits next to the road. Well dig them a couple of holes and
they will put in a couple of other trees and there will be a good, finished, clean project. It will
open that area a little bit, but will be safer walking and driving through there.
Next Wednesday we are going to meet with the President of the Plantations with regard
to the stone wall on Game Farm Road. 0
On motion made, seconded and unanimously carried, the meeting was adjourned at
10:35 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
16.,?Ox w
Axl"X-1�Z
Bambi L. Hollenbeck
Town Clerk
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