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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1998-07-15 544 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES JULY 15, 1998 PRESENT : Chairperson Arch Dotson Planning Board Members : William Farrell , Laurene Gilbert, Linda Hansen, Robert Roe, Nancy Weitzel ABSENT : Olivia Vent Chairperson Arch Dotson called the meeting to order at 7 : 00 P . M. and anounced that we have a very ambitious agenda and we will proceed in order. Privilege of the Floor: Councilperson Joel Gagnon said that he would like to comment on the proposed residents survey that the Planning Board is drafting . Additions to the Agenda : Susan Beeners asked whether people attending from the public could see the draft survey with the understanding that it was clearly marked draft to be returned at the end of the meeting. Chariperson Dotson said that we are not only through the draft stage and the Town Board has already met about it amoung other things . We have been discussing the draft and have some serious proposals from Board Members and have a only tentative reply from the County . Susan Beeners said that in respect to the County the hand written draft may be back soon but she is not sure what she has in respect to the additions made by the Planning Board . She will be meeting with the County later this week . Chairperson Dotson said he is concerned that when something is unfinished, under consideration, not even draft form, that there were meetings with the Town Board about it and there are further meetings of our own about it he is not assured by copies to be distributed and looked at and then returned . Let us get it to a point where we are comfortable about its merrit and then let it be seen publically. We have scheduled meetings at which members of the public are invited . This becomes like a public hearing and to have people present (selected) disturbs him because it seems to him it may be unfair. He said that he just does not feel the assurance just distributing it . Linda Hansen really thinks that people are making a bigger deal about this survey than is necessary . It is an information gathering that will be important and certainly is a very small piece of the pie at this point in the whole over-all functioning ov revisiting the comprehensive plan . There are many more pieces of information to be obtained . This is only one tool in the process . Chairperson Dotson addressed the public and asked them to let the Planning Board bring things to a point where they are willing to put them out to the public . We have a distance to go with respect to the proposed survey . Laurene Gilbert said that she would feel more comfortable if it was more refined before the public viewed the proposed survey . Robert Roe said that since it has already been transmitted and shared with the Town Board it should be their decision. The Town Board ultimately have the final yes or no on all aspects of the comprehensive plan . Councilperson Gagnon said that there is an answer to when a document becomes public information under the "Freedom of Information", laws . Once it is part of a public meeting the public has a right to ask for copies after the meeting . Tompkins County Planning Report : Revitilization Task Force Linda Hansen reported that at the last meeting of the Tompkins County Planning Council , Tom 545 Chafelo gave a talk on County Community Revitilization Program . The County is really interested in getting plans submitted for a Community Revitilization Grant. The DEC is a very helpful to Towns for planning in many areas . Revitilization Task Force : Susan Beeners reported that she is the Chair of the Danby Revitilization Task Force . The other members are Nancy, Rice, Naomi Strichartz, Laurene Gilbert, Esther Dotson and Susan Hautala with Ken Horst as ex-officio . They have had one meeting and the next meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday afternoon . They hope to get input from interested citizens . TELECOMMUINICATIONS LEGISLATION FOR DANBY Chairperson Dotson said that the Planning Board must make a recommendation to the Town Board on who will prepare the legislation for telecommunication towers for the Town of Danby . Representative from Monroe Telecom came to the Town and gave a presentation on June 24 , 1998 of the services that they could provide related to telecommunication legislation. They are going to propose a contract for the Town of Danby . Discussion : Robert Roe said that it is a boiler plate type of ordinance and the cost is in the neighborhood of $ 1 ,500. The only advantage of going with Monroe Telecom is that they would be willing to attend hearings if there is a submission of a request for a telecommunicatin tower and is definately to our advantage . Motion for Recommendation to the Town Board to Contract With Monroe Telecom A motion was made by Olivia Vent and seconded by Laurene Gilbert that the Planning Board recommends that the Town of Danby enter into a contract with Monroe Telecom for the purposes of drafting and customizing a draft ordinance for telecommunication towers . A roll call vote on the motion resulted as follows : Farrell Aye Gilbert Aye Hansen Aye Roe Aye Vent Aye Weitzel Aye Dotson Aye Carried Unanimously Review of Residents Survey Review Bob Roe asked the chair to report to the Planning Board on what occured at Monday ' s Town Board Meeting so that we know where we are starting from . Chairperson Arch Dotson reported that there was a very sensitive and useful discussion at the Town Board Meeting. The Town Board raised and sighted questions . The meeting was incomplete and the discussion will continue on July 20 . Questions were raised about the survey itself, its construction, its format and other particular things were asked . The Planning Board intends to take them into account. Bob Roe said to be more specific, the question was posed to the Town Board whether or not this was going to be assigned to the research project, or the type of project that would yeild a conference paper or a publishable paper or whether it was designed primarily as an instrument to elecit and solicit public participation in the planning process . This was put to the Town Board because it is literly a political decision and the Town Board recommended that we indeed go with our sampling procedure using the Danby Area News, that we cast our net as wide as possible to give people a feeling of participation and to ilicit as much information regardless of the confidence we ' ll have in the outcome and the confidence of intervals around our statistics and variables . The Board actually passed a resolution to rcommend we do that as it was our initial goal . 546 3 Planning Board Minutes July 15 , 1998 The Town Board recommended that the questionnaires would contain the following : 1 ) Two (2) numbered questionnaires enclosed per issue 2 ) Two (2) postage paid return envelopes 3 ) A cover letter from the Planning Board Chair and the Town Supervisor 4) Consider a dark colored paper that cannot be copied to avoid duplication . The following questions and suggestions were raised by the Town Board : wJ 1 ) Wording of the No . 1 question 2) Choice - B relating to a viable rural community 3 ) Item to be included -- section on whether residents would be willing to pay increased taxes to obtain--tax monies used to reimburse private land owners if the value of their property was lowered through zoning restrictions . 4) Would the residents of Danby like a referendum on any comprehensive plan proposed for the Town of Danby. Possible referendum for public input discussed : Olivia Vent said that if we want to encourage a lot of public participation and have many more tools besides the survey to get that input that we should be relatively confident by the end of two or three years that there really is a community initiative and she would feel very uncomfortable about a referendum . Laurene Gilbert said that if they chose to have a referendum there would have to be some effort made to educate the public as to what a comprehensive plan so that there is no misunderstanding . A lot of people think that a comprehensive plan is zoning . OCouncilperson Joel Gagnon interupted and said that the Town Board allocated one half hour to spend on the survey . Twenty minutes was spent on the meaningful discussion on the beginning on whether and how it should be done . The Board came to a consensus on that which was an agreement that we should go along with the Planning Board ' s recommendation regarding the Danby Area News . The Board barelly got into the issues to be discussed and decided that we would pick it up again and the meeting was recessed to July 20 . Bob Roe said that we actually spent an hour on the discussion on the survey. We can deal with the input as we have it . Chairperson Dotson said he would invite members of the Planning Board to raise any questions regarding to Olivia' s comments sent to him via e-mail . The Planning Board reviewed the Residents Survey Draft and made the following changes to the document . Bob Roe explaind the survey draft for the Board . 1 ) Questions A - C -- are to imprecicely worded to yeild any meaningful information for the purposes of copy of the comprehensive plan . This is to be a thinking question and not a question about specifics and is designed to be an over-all life style question to get people thinking about what the community might be like 10 years from now. In terms of a comprehensive plan he dosen ' t think is will get so specific that it obviates the need for zoning. They are zoning issues not comprehensive plan issues . The assumption that residential opportunities means more home sites is not necessarily so . In (A) the words redidential opportunities was deleted and bedroom community inserted . It is to vague and means more homes but for the purposes of planning we are talking about houses on large acreages , subdivisions , trailor parks, cluster housing, apartment buildings , etc . Residential opportunities can be interpreted into many different ways . With residential development some 54 ? 4 Planning Board Minutes July 15 , 1998 commercial development will follow. In (B) The term "rural community culture", means many different things to many people such as a culture where there is no zoning or regulation rather than a place of open spaces and what is to be understood as commercial opportunities . This wording is too open, too subjective to interpretention to be really valuable in comprehensive planning . Either these statements need to be refined so that the language is perfectly clear and unimbiguous or we should drop them from the survey . Olivia Vent said that her understanding of the survey was to get feedback from the community as to how they would like the community to evolve and eventually the Planning Board and the Town Board meet to take that information. They do need to interpret it in more concrete ways . What is the value of putting these questions in the survey and how are they going to help us at some point in structuring the comprehensive plan.. Bob Roe said that this is the base picture in which the specifics must fit . Susan Beeners said that County Planning has not seen the latest draft survey but Tom Chefalo said that beginning question bothered him because you could check all of those things or none of those things . He basically said why not have either an open ended question that says "What would you like Danby to be like in 10 years" . She said that she thinks it should be taken out entirely because it ' s not going to be solveable and will be a sore point with everybody . Many suggestions were made by the Planning Board members regarding the question "Which of the following most represents your own beliefs concerning how Danby should change over the next 10 years" . Bob Roe said that commercial opportunities are covered in both retail and work and job opportunities . A member of the public asked to see a copy of what the Board was discussing . The Planning Board Chair said that this was a work session on a draft document that was not ready to share with the public as it was not a complete draft. After much discussion on the wording of the first question the Planning Board agreed to the following changes . "How do you think Danby should be in 10 years?" Susan suggested the following : A . A residential suburb of the Greater Ithaca Area . B . A rural community providing work, social , and commercial opportunities for its residents . C . Remains the same . Item No . 6 - Municipal Day Care Services for Youth Municipal Day Care Services for Seniors Discussion on other items : Olivia ' s responses by 3 -mail for question ' s No . 4 and 7 were reviewed by the Board related to suggestion to include examples or definitions of what is light industrial and where is North Danby . Bob Roe said to keep in mind that this is designed for statistical analysis . Chairperson Dotson said that the Town Board would continue discussing this survey and the Planning Board will respond to that and the discussion we have had tonight and then we will have to look at it again and see if we can get a consensus among the Planning Board to recommend to the Town 548 5 Planning Board Minutes July 15 , 1998 Board . Susan Beeners made the following comment and suggestions : Public input -- she did not think that the intent that there be a public information meeting to review the contant of the draft survey because it must be mailed to residents . It is in a rough state at this time and will change . Question 1 - insert the words related to after aspects ; should be Outdoor Recreation/Parks ; ._ delete (elementary) add public school Question No 3 - delete the word (Anywhere) add nowhere . Question No . 5 - add colum Don ' t Know Queston No . 7 - delete the word (existing) from Stores & Retail Businesses . Councilperson Gagnon was asked to make his suggestions in writing . Susan said that it was suggested by Councilperson Steiner to include include a question related to area of Danby where the resident lives who is submitting the survey . Bob Roe said that it is necessary for the survey committee to meet after the meeting of the Town Board . Members of the Planning Board and the Town Board should submit their suggestions and ideas in writing. A sub committee meeting will be scheduled after the Town Board meets on July 20 . Update on Who Does the Work Susan Beeners submitted a revised " Who Does the Work", section of the Comprehensive Plan Schedule . It is a minor revision of a draft that was received in May and has been reviewed with the County Planning Department. An attached fax from Tom Chefalo dated July 8 , 1998 is attached. She said that this might clarify to both Boards what the project intends to be . She said that the Comprehensive Plan is a draft and the Planning Board is preparing the draft for the Town Board . Workshop - 1998 NYS Conference for Environmental Management Council Bob Roe reported that the 1998 NYS Conference for the Environmental Management Council will be held in September in Ithaca. Among the workshops and field trips that are scheduled there is one on "Unlocking the GIS Toolbox", which is held at the Cornell Computer Lab on how they use the GIS Mapping software and how to use it on the web . It is an invaluable tool for this committee in terms of comprehensive planning . He would like to sign up for that workshop if there is space available . There is a fee of $ 55 for him to attend as a member of the NYS Environmental Council . Non member fee for the conference is $ 65 . Susan Beeners said that it is possible to a include computer upgrade and GIS software in the upcoming 1999 budget request as a Planning Board expense . She recommended that the Bob attend the conference . Chairperson Dotson said that he would send copies of the conference flyer and distribute it to the Planning Board members. Other Items : Rural New York Planning Federation Grant Reapplication Susan Beeners reported that the Planning Federation Grant Application has been revised from the last application. She asked for input and help from the Board with the reapplication document. Motion to Approve the Application for a Rural New York Planning Federation Grant A motion was made by Olivia Vent and seconded by Chairperson Dotson to recommend to the Town 549 6 Planning Board Minutes July 15 , 1998 of Danby Town Board that the Town reapply for the Rural New York Planning Federation Grant" as transmitted to the Planning Board with cover memo dated July 9 , 1998 . A roll call vote on the motion resulted as follows : . Farrell Aye Gilbert Aye Hansen Aye Roe Aye Weitzel Aye Vent Aye Dotson Aye Carried Unanimously Chairperson Dotson said that we have come to a stage were we are beginning to see the schedule for the comprehensive plan. As we move through the schedule it will express itself under eight topics . We have each of us particular interests and skills and asked the Planning Board to indicate what areas they are interested in and participate in the research for the background materials . We will need a research coordinator and will need to relate to the timing and the interdependence of each particular topic . He suggested that the best person to act as coordinator is Sue as she knows the sources and developed the catagories . He asked the Board members to call or send him a note telling him what your interests are so that a research plan can be formulated. He referred the Board to the information obtained from the January 21 , 1998 meeting to refresh them on the topics to be considered . ADJOURNMENT : On a motion the meeting adjourned at 9 : 15 P . M . ateia)/9 e.._ afredAY Carol W . Sczepans i, Secreyary min- 7- 15 -98