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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTB Minutes 2011-07-25r Study Session of the Ithaca Town Board Monday, July 25, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. 215 North Tioga Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 Agenda 1. Call to Order 2. Review Draft Agenda for Regular Meeting 3. Town Official's Reports 4. Report from Committees a. Budget Committee b. Codes and Ordinances Committee c. Comprehensive Plan Committee d. Operations Committee e. Planning Committee f. Personnel Committee g. Public Works Committee AdHoc Committees Fire Protection Police Protection Asset Management Youth Services 5. Discussion Item a. West Hill Study b. Road Preservation and Road Use 6. Discuss Town of Ulysses and Trumansburg Water Situations 7. Discuss Air Quality Proposals 8. Consider Consent Agenda Items a. Approval of Town Board Minutes of June 27, 2011 b. Town of Ithaca Abstract 9. Review of Correspondence 10. Consider Executive Session to discuss the proposed sale real property and the employment history of a particular person 11. Consider Adjournment f ' r i Study Sessionof the Ithaca Town Board Monday, July 25, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. 215 North Tioga Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 Minutes Call to Order Supervisor Engman called the meeting to order at 4:35p.m. Review Draft Agenda for Regular Meeting The agendas were reviewed with no changes. There was a discussion regarding the Ithaca Beer PDZ and the Fee Schedule(s) for mobile homes and heating units which th are on the August 8 agenda for approval. Town Official’s Reports Mr. Engman reported that there have been numerous complaints from Penny Lane area residents regarding swimmers, safety, aggress parties, drunkenness, speeding etc. He organized a meeting with a sheriff’s deputy, city chief, a city legislator and a representative group of Penny Lane residents. Different options were looked at and both enforcement agencies stated they were stretched very thin and would do what they could, but, the easiest way to enforce the area would be to ban parking. There are a few types of bans and the Town is looking into the options. Mr. Engman also reported that a meeting was held regarding the Grippi property with some local historians and other interested parties. No one group can handle or take on the property, but he is organizing a tour for those interested and another meeting will be held to discuss options or a plan to move forward. Report from Committees Budget Committee – Mr. Levine reported that they discussed the property tax cap but not in detail since the details are still unknown. They are also going to meet with Mr. Weber regarding the Public Works budget since it is the largest and then they will schedule a meeting to go over the other departments with the Department Heads. Codes and Ordinances Committee – Mr. Goodman reported that they reviewed the comments from the Planning and Zoning Boards regarding the new Garage law. Comprehensive Plan Committee – Mr. Engman reported that the Committee is in a good place right now. They have not met to give staff time to work with the rest of the plan and integrate the Committees thoughts and comments and get a whole picture of where we are and where we are going. Operations Committee – Mr. Engman reported that they discussed the new fee schedule for mobile home parks and forwarded a recommendation on to the Town Page 2 of 6 TBS 7-25-2011 Board for the August meeting. They also discussed the Town Hall Roof project and the challenges with staging during the project. Parking will be a challenge and alternative parking will need to be found, and there are some safety issues and security issues for the products being used. They also reviewed the Air Assessment proposal. Mr. Engman added that the ribbon cutting for the Safe Routes to School was held and the sidewalk is really quite impressive and Planning Committee – Mr. DePaolo reported that they met with the Conifer Senior Living proposal stakeholders and discussed what the town wants versus what they are used to doing. They were asked to submit a draft PDZ as a starting point. The Committee also met with Mr. Macera regarding the Ithacare Townhouses. Mr. Macera indicated that they are not interested in subsidizing any of the townhouses because they subsidize now at Longview. Personnel Committee – Ms. Hunter reported that the Committee met with the Town Clerk, First Deputy Town Clerk and the Receiver of Taxes and discussed the appointment of the Receiver of Taxes and associated duties. The point factor system and the weighting levels of positions were also discussed. Public Works Committee – Mr. Goodman reported that they talked about the West Haven Dr drainage issues and the options available to the affected resident. There is not much the Town can do at this point. AdHoc Committees Fire Protection – Mr. Engman reported that they talked with Tim Bangs, owner of Bangs Ambulance Service and he explained his role in emergency response for the town and city. He did note that he has not had a problem getting through West Hill area for calls. Police Protection – Mr. Engman reported that there have been no meetings of this committee because patrols by the Sheriff and State Police have been increased collaboratively and they are waiting for that experiment to run its course. Asset Management – No meeting Youth Services – Mr. Engman reported that the committee met with Cornell Cooperative Extension personnel and 39 youths have been placed in jobs. Ms. Hunter added that she will be contacting the person who did the needs assessment for the Town of Dryden in August to discuss having an assessment done for the Town. Other Committees RecPartnership – Mr. Levine reported that they approved a budget with no increase in costs to town. There was some discussion about cutting football Page 3 of 6 TBS 7-25-2011 due to the cost, but other adjustments were made and football is staying in the curriculum. Joint Sewer Committee – Mr. Engman reported that the State has cut the inspectors and the training from the NYS Budget. The inspections and training will still be required, but not provided, which is yet another unfunded mandate handed down by the State. DISCUSSION ITEM West Hill Study – Mr. Engman started the discussion noting that the Comprehensive Planning Committee has gotten to a point at which they are not thrilled with focusing on what the County’s idea of what a nodal development was and instead would like to concentrate on the tow neighborhood approach that had been suggested and making those mixed neighborhood iatrical to each other and focus future development to those neighborhoods. So the question is what should the study study? Should it focus on some design components of that area or broader? He added that he and Sue Ritter had spoken about the need for a SEQR on the Comp Plan and maybe we should plan on not duplicating. He suggested the Board focus on outcomes. Ms. Ritter added that the level of detail needed for the Comp Plan and then the possible zoning changes from it will be duplicative and she is looking into the legal answer to whether we could do a gEIS on the two instead of or complementing a SEQR. She went on to say that the Planning staff are really interested in doing a neighborhood plan with form-based zoning which will require a consultant to actually design and create a regulatory plan for the neighborhood which would then need a SEQR and a transportation plan and it would involve the landowners, residents and the Town. This would also work for the other “hills” and then could all be rolled into the SEQR for the Comp Plan with these rolled into them. With the limited resources, both time and money, she is thinking of the best and most efficient way to get everything done that follows the Comp Plan. Just looking at West Hill during the moratorium, maybe the way to go is to move right into the study for a regulatory plan for the form-based zoning and the accompanying SEQR could be used as part of the SEQR for the Comp Plan. Mr. Engman asked how we would add the SEQR for the rest of the areas and Ms. Ritter said the other areas are mostly staying the same or decreasing which are easier impacts if any. The neighborhoods would be up-zoning and that is the SEQR trigger and we need to get an idea of the density so the study(s) can be done. Discussion followed with Mr. DePaolo noting that the idea(s) for study have gone through a number of variations, starting out as a traffic study, then a nodal development feasibility study focused around the hospital, and now it is more or less an EIS in conjunction with Form-based development and he understands that the tenets of this upzoned philosophy are still nodal development tenets in that you would still have to define the areas and potentially downzone areas around the upzones to minimize sprawl, but there are questions that are still outstanding on Route 96. Is the assumption Page 4 of 6 TBS 7-25-2011 that the zoning is going to remain what it is or would the densities be changed or tinkered with to down-zone portions around the planned neighborhoods? Ms. Ritter said they would tinker and we would want to downzone the northern areas where we want to protect farming and Mr. DePaolo asked if that tinkering would rely on information and studies already out there or would that become part of the study we are discussing. Ms. Ritter thought that would be part of the SEQR for the whole Comp Plan but in her mind it is much easier to say in a SEQR that you are making the impacts less when you are downzoning and when upzoning, that is where the studies need to happen to analyze where people are moving, and how much can you influence public transportation and how are the routes going to handle the density. Mr. DePaolo said that the question that comes to mind is what are we doing to address the original question of how are we going to address a pre-existing condition. He added that her points are very viable and obviously if you are going to upzone and enact a whole new zoning philosophy you are going to need to figure out the ramifications of that, but at the same time, the preexisting condition that was the impetus of the study in the first place still needs to be addressed. Ms. Ritter asked if that was in the Comp Plan and that is where the pre-existing conditions can be discussed as opposed to a study. Ms. Hunter added that she was wondering about when in the process we are going to feel comfortable discussing all these nodal areas and whether they are feasible. All this energy and time spent designing and studying these areas, there has to be some place in the process to take a hard look at the practicalities and to figure out if the vision is feasible. Is dense development feasible on West Hill given our infrastructure constraints? It will be the same question on East Hill or any place we are considering a node. Ms. Ritter responded that in her mind we should not adopt the Comp Plan until the study is done to answer if what we are proposing in the Comp Plan is 1) are residents and property owners in agreement that we can go down this road and see how it goes. We need some more outreach on the Comp Plan. Mr. Engman cautioned that the Comp Plan is very important in terms of zoning for gas drilling, for example. We don’t say much about that in the 1993 Plan and it is important to state that in the Comp Plan because the State has indicated that existing Comp Plans will have some weight. Ms. Hunter suggested considering amending the current Comp Plan with a statement regarding drilling to fulfill that need while we continue on the revision. Discussion followed. There are different philosophies on Comp Plans being general or detailed. Ms. Hunter noted that the Comp Plan includes a Land Use Map and if we haven’t assessed the implications of those uses, how can we decided. Ms. Leary stated that she doesn’t want West Hill to change the entire Comp Plan for the Town, rather, the Comp Plan should set the principles for the Town and then be specific in areas of the Town and she didn’t want to wait years to adopt the Plan. Discussion followed. Mr. Engman asked the Board to focus on what specifically we want to learn, what specific outcomes the Board wants and write them down so we have something written to work with and merge and propose. i ^ I s Page 5 of 6 TBS 7-25-2011 Road Preservation and Road Use - Mr. Engman started the discussion noting that the Town has passed a road cut law so that no industry can curb cut or cut under our roads. What we need now is the road preservation law to give us the authority to claim damages caused by heavy industry which would dovetail with a Road Use Agreement that would be signed with any contractor that does a high volume use on the road. There are discussions going on at the Public Works Committee level because many roads in the Town are not Town owned but we need to get the law going so we can inspect for the beginning level when a permit is pulled and then reinspect at the end to get the level of damage and recoup those costs. Another municipality is close and uses a mutual attorney so there may be some options and/or savings there. Discussion followed regarding the TCCOG progress, timelines and options. Ulysses Water agreement update. Mr. Engman referred to the emails and handout from the Town of Ulysses regarding the Town of Ulysses and Trumansburg Water Situations. Discussion followed on the proposed settlement of the past billing and water loss situation with the Town of Ulysses and the Village of Trumansburg's request for a backup water source from the Town to allow for the issuance of building permits. Right now the Health Department will not allow any permits because their water source does not have a backup. They have tried to drill new wells but none have succeeded. Discussion followed with no commitment from the Town. / \ I \ Discuss Air Quality Proposals - Pulled Consider Consent Agenda Items TB RESOLUTION NO. 2010-122: Consent Aoenda BE IT RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Ithaca hereby approves and/or adopts the resolutions for the following Consent Agenda items: a. Town of Ithaca Abstract b. Approval of Minutes of June 27, 2011 MOVED: Herb Engman SECONDED: Bill Goodman VOTE: Ayes: DePaolo, Horwitz, Engman, Leary, Levine, Goodman and Hunter Motion passed unanimously TB RESOLUTION NO. 2011-122a: Town of Ithaca Abstract WHEREAS, the following numbered vouchers have been presented to the Ithaca Town Board for approval of payment; and WHEREAS, the said vouchers have been audited for payment by the said Town Board; now therefore be it Page 6 of 6 TBS 7-25-2011 RESOLVED, that the governing Town Board hereby authorizes the payment of the said vouchers in total for the amounts indicated. VOUCHER NOS. 793 -886 ' 1 ^ 1 General Fund Town wide 45,265.73 General Fund Part Town 6,910.83 Highway Fund Part Town 13,741.90 Water Fund 9,080.98 Sewer Fund 3,708.30 Warren Road Walkway 84,543.50 Snyder Hill Water Improvement 381.88 Hunqerford Hill Pump Station 38,091.28 Fire Protection Fund 264,792.00 Risk Retention Fund 270.00 Forest Home Lighting District 42.79 Glenside Lighting District 17.00 Renwick Heights Lighting District 22.63 Eastwood Commons Lighting District 30.95 Clover Lane Lighting District 3.93 Winner's Circle Lighting District 5.86 Burleigh Drive Lighting District 13.66 West Haven Road Lighting District 54.28 Coddington Road Lighting District 31.60 Trust and Agency Debt Service TOTAL 467,009.10 MOVED: Herb Engman SECONDED: Bill Goodman VOTE: Ayes: DePaolo, Horwitz, Engman, Leary, Levine, Goodman and Hunter Motion passed unanimously Review of Correspondence none Motion made by Mr. DePaolo, seconded by Mr. Goodman at 6:46 p.m. to enter Executive Session to discuss the proposed sale of real property where publicity may affect the outcome and the employment history of a particular person. Unanimous. Motion made by Ms. Tee-Ann Hunter, seconded by Mr. Bill Goodman to reenter regular session at 7:21 p.m. Unanimous Motion to adjourn made by Ms. Tee-Ann Hunter, seconded by Mr. DePaolo at 7:23 p.m. unanimous. f %