HomeMy WebLinkAboutPB Minutes 2008-02-19FI LE
DATE
REGULAR MEETING
TOWN OF ITHACA PLANNING BOARD
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2008
215 NORTH TIOGA STREET
ITHACA, NY 14850
7:00 p.m.
PRESENT
Chairperson: Rod Howe
Board Members: Eva Hoffmann, George Conneman, Larry Thayer, Susan Riha, Hollis
Erb and Fred Wilcox
Absent: Kevin Talty
STAFF: Jonathan Kanter, Director of Planning; Susan Ritter, Assistant Director of
Planning; Mike Smith, Environmental Planner; Dan Walker, Town Engineer; Paulette
Neilsen, Deputy Town Clerk.
OTHERS.
Howard Blasdell, Moody Nolan
David Herrick & Matthew Hendren, TG Miller
Ron LeCain, LeCain Environmental Services
Corey Greene, SRF & Associates
Brian McCarty, Musco Lighting
Sam Kuderle, Public Archeology Facility
Melissa Baldassarre, CU Real Estate
Rick Couture, Ithaca College
Carl Sgrecci, Ithaca College
CALL TO ORDER
Chairperson Howe opens the meeting at 7:05 p.m., having accepted for the record the
Secretary's Affidavit of Posting and Publication of the Notice of Public Hearings in Town
Hall and the Ithaca Journal on February 11, 2008 and February 13, 2008 together with
the properties under discussion, as appropriate, upon the Clerks of the City of Ithaca
and the Town of Danby, upon the Tompkins County Commissioner of Planning, upon
the Tompkins County Commissioner of Public Works, and upon the applicants and /or
agents, as appropriate, on February 13, 2008,
Chairperson Howe
states the Fire
Exit Regulations to
those assembled, as required by
the New York State
Department of
State, Office of Fire
Prevention and Control.
Persons to be Heard
Chairperson Howe — We will start with anyone who would like to address the Planning
Board on an item not on our agenda ... is there anyone who would like to address the
Planning Board for an item not on our agenda? There was no one wishing to address
the Planning Board at this time.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 2
Recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals regarding a sign variance
new sign at the Ithaca Community Child Care Center
Chairperson Howe — Is there anyone here representing the Child Care Center this
evening?
David Herrick, Member, Board of Directors, IC3
I was asked by our Executive Director, Sheri Koski, to just sit in and address any
questions you may have with respect to the request for your recommendation for the
sign variance.
Chairperson Howe — I think we know who you are David, so you don't have to give your
name and address.
Mr. Herrick — I'm sorry, I forgot. David Herrick, TG Miller Engineers and Surveyors, 203
North Aurora Street.
Chairperson Howe — Is there anything you would like to say? I mean, it's pretty clear
what's in front of us, but is there any statement you would like to make on behalf of the
Child Care Center?
Mr. Herrick — Well, I think that if you were to visit the site and acknowledge the location
of the present sign and understand how the new sign fitting in with that terrain requires
the variance in height ... I think it's all straightforward. Looking at the details, you do
understand that one side of the sign will be less in height above ground than will the
other when you look at the average in the middle of the sign, it does meet the 6 -feet as
required, but one side, namely the west side of the signpost, exceeds the 6 -foot height
limit and then naturally, the size of the sign needs to be sufficient so that our families
recognize the sign or anyone visiting. The current sign is larger than what the proposed
sign will be so there will be some reduction in signage.
Chairperson Howe — Questions?
Board Member Conneman — I was wondering about the 7 -feet. I went past it today, and
I'm sitting in my car, it seems to be the right height at the moment. It's my eyesight, I'm
not standing up or sitting down on the floor, but, I was curious why you want it to be
higher. It seems to me the visual line for the sign is where it is now.
Mr. Herrick — Well, again, we're meeting the 6 -foot requirement on the east side but
failing on the west side because of the mound that's there where the sign will be reset.
So, therein lies the variation in height. It's 5 -feet on one side and 7 on the other. It's an
average of 6, but the long side is triggering the height issue.
Board Member Wilcox — So visually it will be similar to the existing one.
Mr. Herrick — Yes.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 3
Board Member Conneman — Just want to be sure. I know you big guys sit way up in
your SUVs and can see 7 foot....
Board Member Hoffmann — In our papers there was an indication that there were some
photos supplied ?, and I didn't have any in my packet...I was just wondering if you had
any ... where you could show the current sign compared with the proposed sign?
Mr. Herrick — Well, the best we have to help you understand the location is the plan
C101 that was attached.
Board Member Hoffmann — Yes I see that on the plan, but the memo we got talks about
"enclosed site plan and photos" and I just didn't see any photos so I was wondering if
you had...
Mr. Herrick — I didn't have any photos, but there are illustrations of what the sign is
intended to be...
Mr. Kanter — Let me go back and see if the file has any photos ... I didn't bother looking
at it beforehand, but, there might be some in there ... so while you're ...
Chairperson Howe — Any other comments before we open the public hearing? This is a
public hearing relating to, again, it's a recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals
regarding a sign variance ... is there anyone who would like to address this issue? Okay,
we will close the public hearing at 7:08p.m. and bring the matter back to the Board.
Any further, we will wait to see if we have any photos, but, any other comments? I'm
not opposed to it.
Board Member Wilcox — If there are pictures, I don't need to see them.
Board Member Riha — Me neither.
Board Member Hoffmann — Yeah, I don't have a problem with it either because I think
the existing sign must be very unobtrusive because it certainly hasn't popped out at me
when I've gone by.
Chairperson Howe — We do have pictures...
Board Member Hoffmann — Good. Thank you. I just would like to see if there's a way of
comparing it with what's proposed. This one is very unobtrusive, it doesn't even have
any color and it's dark...
Board Member Erb — I feel like the new sign is going to be more visible but is not out of
_ character.,_ necessaril ..y.,- fo.r_the neighborbood or —the usage.,
Board Member Hoffmann — Yeah, I agree with that too.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 4
Chairperson Howe — Would someone like to ... Susan moves the resolution, seconded
by Hollis. All those in favor, say aye, any oppositions? Anyone abstaining? It looks like
it was unanimous.
ADOPTED RESOLUTION: PB RESOLUTION NO 2008 — 015
Recommendation to the Town of Ithaca Zoning Board
of Appeals
Sign Variance — Ithaca Community Childcare Center
579 Warren Road
Tax Parcel No. 73 -1 -1.4
Sign Review Board (Planning Board)
February 19, 2008
Motion made by Susan Riha, seconded by Hollis Erb
WHEREAS.
1. This action is consideration of a Recommendation to the Zoning Board of
Appeals for a sign variance to permit the placement of a new freestanding sign
for the Ithaca Community Childcare Center, located at 579 Warren Road, Town
of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 73- 1 -1.4, Medium Density Residential Zone. The
proposal includes the replacement of an existing sign with a new 7 foot tall, 10 +/-
square foot non - illuminated freestanding sign. Ithaca Community Childcare
Center, Owner; Sherri Koski, Applicant, and
2. The Planning Board, at a Public Hearing held on February 19, 2008, has
reviewed and accepted as adequate a site plan and sign details showing the
proposed location, dimensions, materials, and details of the sign, along with
other application materials.
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Town of Ithaca Planning Board, acting
as the Town of Ithaca Sign Review Board, hereby recommends to the Zoning Board of
Appeals approval of the request for a sign variance for one 7 foot tall, 10 +/- square foot
freestanding sign, where signs in residential districts are restricted to four square feet in
area and six feet in height, such approval subject to the following conditions:
a. The proposed sign shall not exceed 10 square feet in total sign area, nor 7
feet in height, as defined in the Town of Ithaca Sign Law, and
b. The applicant must obtain a sign permit prior to installing the new sign.
A-vote -on the motion was as- follows: --
Ayes: Howe, Hoffmann, Conneman, Thayer, Erb, Wilcox and Riha
Nays: None
Absent: None
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg, 5
The motion was carried unanimously.
Consideration of Prelimina and Final Site Plan Approval
Demolition of the buildings at 958 Mitchell Street & 380 Pine Tree Road
Chairperson Howe — Would you give us your name and address please.
Melissa Baldassarre, Cornell Real Estate, 15 Thornwood Drive
Chairperson Howe — And Melissa, would you like to give a brief presentation?
Ms. Baldassarre — Well we are seeking approval, site -plan approval for the preliminary
and final site -plan approval for the demolition of 958 Mitchell Street and 380 Pine Tree
Road, 958 Mitchell Street has been vacant since 2002 and the Courtside building has
been vacant for approximately one year. Both of these buildings are in bad condition
and are an eyesore for the community and they are inviting to unwelcome guests and
Cornell wishes to demolish the buildings and clean the site up.
Chairperson Howe — Any environmental issues that you would like to...
Ms, Baldassarre — There's an asbestos abatement in both buildings, There's, in the
house, there's linoleum and some fake brick paneling. Also, at Courtside, there is
roofing material, a little bit of roofing material on the boiler and some felt around the
foundation.
Chairperson Howe — Well, I think we will just open it up to questions, initially. We'll start
at this end first, Fred...
Board Member Wilcox — I'm all set. I'm waiting for Eva to go and then we will try a bit
after.
Board Member Riha — This is the SEQR we're doing?
Chairperson Howe — This is a SEQR, right, so if we have environmental questions right
now...
Board Member Erb — I simply had a question about whether the fact that the addresses
are wrong on everything from Kingsburry Associates matters? Because it says 928 Ellis
Hollow instead of 958 Mitchell,
Board Member Hoffmann — I think it says underneath "also known as Mitchell Street".
Board Member Erb — 928 is also the wrong number, and I just thought, for the record,
we should say something about that.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 6
Mr. Kanter — I think we probably should require that the plans be revised to include the
right reference. I think the hearing notices were proper.
Board Member Wilcox — 958 Mitchell Street is the correct address of the house? Okay.
Board Member Erb — I'm just pointing it out that everything in this package, from
Kingsburry Associates, that's relative to the house ... and if I read your map correctly, the
deciduous tree that is closer to the corner where the house sits, is going to remain, for
now?
Ms. Baldassarre — Yes.
Board Member Erb — Good, it's -a nicely shaped tree.
Ms. Baldarrarri — The only tree that I'm concerned about is there's a leaning pine tree
that's right up against the house and usually their root system is pretty shallow and.. so
that tree might be lost.
Chairperson Howe — Susan?
Board Member Riha — I'm fine.
Chairperson Howe — I'm just waiting for Eva to comment on the pictures.
Board Member Riha — But is that part of the SEQR or site plan?
Chairperson Howe — I think it can be included in SEAR.
Board Member Hoffmann — Yes, and there also are a couple of things in the memo that
we got from Sue Ritter that I think...
Board Member Conneman — Ripping down that ugly house will improve the environment
quite a bit. I've driven past that house with people who say to me, "whose house is
that ? ". I've always been embarrassed to say "That belongs to Cornell."
Ms. Baldassarre — (inaudible) --
Board Member Conneman — Well, I have another comment, but that is not part of the
SEAR.
Board Member Hoffmann — Well, I have some photos, and you're welcome to look at
them if you like, but I wanted to show them to the Board, and you can look at them too,
here ... I took a series of photos of all that land before Rite Aid was developed, before all
the trees were taken down for that, and then, I was quite disturbed to see in late March
or early April 2007, there were two big trees and at least one smaller tree, perhaps two,
taken down just between, on the land I believe belongs to this house, between the
house and the HSBC bank. One day there was a little pickup truck there and- a man
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 7
cutting down the trees and then hauling away the wood. I have photos taken April 5 th
and I was wondering who took those trees down and why?
Ms. Baldassarre — Actually, there was only one tree that I know of, it might have been
branched out, but that tree had been severely damaged during a storm and SB Ashley
Management, who manages that property for us, approached us and the tree was just,
had been broken and we asked them to clean it up. That's what happened to the tree.
Board Member Hoffmann — You'll be able to see on my photos there were two big trees
that were actually cut down because I have photos of the logs lying on the ground,
where they were cut, before they were hauled away...
Ms. Baldassarre — Well it could have been two trees that were damaged.
Board Member Hoffmann -- ...and a couple of smaller trees as well. Anyway, those
trees were perfectly healthy looking to me and that's why I couldn't understand why they
were cut, and now I'm very concerned that more trees might be cut in connection with
demolishing these buildings and I'd like to see as few as possible.
Ms. Baldassarre — The only tree that may be affected is the one that's right up against
the house. The conifer that's right up against the house.
Board Member Hoffmann — Well, it may not survive having that much work done near it
anyway. But, that is one of my concerns. Anyway, the other thing that I think we need
to talk about, having to do with environmental impact too is, we don't know what the
truck - routing plan is and you perhaps don't know that either, but, if you have anything to
tell us about that, it would be useful to know that. And also, the memo says, that we
got, that Engineering Staff noticed several insufficiencies in the erosion and
sedimentation control plan and it would be interesting to hear what you have to say
about that.
Ms. Baldassarre — Those changes will be made. The recommended changes will be
made to the plan.
Chairperson Howe — And just so everyone knows, we did include some, related to this,
in the resolution, is "submission -of truck- routing - -plan for - review - and- _approval.by the
Director of Engineering" and then we also addressed this approval of... "submission of a
revised erosion and sediment control drawings" but I see there is a ... you've seen the
memo that Kristin Taylor put together?
Ms. Baldassarre — Yes, yes and that can be supplied prior to the building permit being
issued.
Ms. Ritter — They aren't difficult things for them to change.
Board Member Hoffmann — But could you tell us anything about what the possible truck -
routes might be?
PS 2 -19 -08
Pg. 8
Ms. Baldassarre — The truck - routes will be on the approved roads for those vehicles. I
know that there have been situations in the East Hill Plaza area for large trucks trying to
come underneath the overpass there on Pine Tree Road, but it will be the approved
truck- routes.
Board Member Hoffmann — Can you tell us what those approved roads are?
Ms. Baldassarre — I cannot at this moment, but, I will submit, prior to obtaining a building
permit, a plan.
Board Member Hoffmann — Well, yes, that will be required. I just thought that it would
be nice to know tonight. I also have some comments about the environmental
assessment form itself. In point 10, it talks about the present land use in the vicinity and
as often happens, I find other things that I would like to see marked, in addition to
what's marked. This is on page 1. Residential and commercial have been marked, but
there is also a cemetery adjacent to this parcel, and I believe that should be marked as
present land -use in the vicinity. And there's also, there's this category of
"park/forest/open space" which I think should be marked too because right diagonally
across the intersection there is a large grazing field ... big, open space, and there's open
land and woods and a stream across from Mitchell Street, from the corner and going
west. So, I think all of those need to be included and marked here.
Chairperson Howe — It looks like there's agreement here...
Board Member Riha — Well,
agricultural.
technically I think that field would be considered
Board Member Hoffmann — Then we should mark agricultural too. So we have three
additional categories to mark here. But there's actually a very nice woods not too far to
the west from across the street, Mitchell Street, from this area, and that woods has
some protection too I believe. That's what I had.
Chairperson Howe -- Any other comments, questions about the environmental impact?
Board Member Thayer — I'll move the SEAR.
Chairperson Howe — Moved by Larry, seconded by George ... all those in
favor... aye... any oppositions? Any one abstaining? Looks like it was unanimous.
ADOPTED RESOLUTION
RESOLUTION NO. 2008 - 016
SEQR
Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval
--- Building- Demoiition- P- r-oje.ctsT .._.__
Tax Parcel No's. 62 -14 and 62-1 -5
958 Mitchell Street and 380 Pine Tree Road
Planning Board, February 19, 2008
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 9
MOTION made by Larry Thayer, seconded by George Conneman
WHEREAS:
1. This action involves consideration of Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval
for the proposed demolition of a house located at 958 Mitchell Street and a
commercial building, the former Courtside Racquet and Fitness Club, at 380
Pine Tree Road; Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No.'s 62 -2 -4 and 62 -1 -5,
Community Commercial Zone. The proposal involves the removal of the
existing structures, to include approximately 1,935 square feet for the house,
and +/- 20,000 square feet for the commercial building, with the resulting
materials and debris to be hauled and disposed of off -site. The project will
involve asbestos removal as well as the retirement of existing utilities on the
site. The excavated areas will be backfilled, with the property at 958 Mitchell
Street graded and seeded to lawn while 380 Pine Tree Road will be graded
with gravel spread throughout the former building footprint. There are no
plans for new construction or development at this time for either property.
Cornell University, Owner /Applicant; Melissa J. Baldassarre, Agent and
2. This is an Unlisted Action for which the Town of Ithaca Planning Board is
acting as Lead Agency in this uncoordinated environmental review with
respect to this project, and
3. The Planning Board, on February 19, 2008, has reviewed and accepted as
adequate a Short Environmental Assessment Form Part I, submitted by the
applicant, and a Part II prepared by Town Planning staff, a set of drawings
with a cover sheet entitled "Cornell University Building Demolition, Town of
Ithaca, New York" dated 10/3/07, prepared by Kingsbury Architecture, LLC,
and Erosion and Sediment Control plan drawings (C100 11/20/97, C101
11/28/07, and C102 10/29/07) prepared by Cornell University PDC, and other
application materials, and
4. The Town Planning staff has recommended a negative determination of
environmental significance with respect to the proposed demolition project,
-- NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: -_
That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby makes a negative determination of
environmental significance in accordance with Article 8 of the Environmental
Conservation Law and 6 NYCRR Part 617 New York State Environmental Quality
Review for the above referenced actions as proposed, based on the information in the
EAF Part I and for the reasons set forth in the EAF Part II, and, therefore, a Draft
Environmental Impact Statement will not be required.
A vote on the motion was as follows:
Ayes: Howe, Hoffmann, Conneman, Thayer, Erb, Wilcox and Riha
Nays: None
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg, 10
Absent: None
The motion was carried unanimously.
Chairperson Howe — If you'll have a seat for a moment, we'll open the public hearing.
We'll open the public hearing at 7:20p.m. Again, this is to:
Consideration
demolition of t
of Pre
ildinas at
and Final Site Plan A
:hell stree
>val for the
380 Pine T
M— 1k
Chairperson Howe — Is there anyone here who would like to address the Board on this
- issue? There -being no one, we will close-the public - hearing at 7:21 p.m. and bring the
matter back to the Board.
Are there other comments that were not environmental...
Board Member Wilcox — I have some questions that I would like to ask.
Chairperson Howe — Sure. Do you want to come back up please?
Board Member Wilcox — The proposal is to seed the location where the house is as
lawn, but, where Courtside presently is, is to fill, is to cover with gravel.
Ms. Baldassarre — So it would blend with the surrounding blacktop.
Board Member Wilcox — Why not put, why not seed it as lawn?
Ms. Baldassarre — I just thought it would look ... with a little lawn square in the middle of
all the blacktop around it, I just thought it would be more aesthetically pleasing just to
have the gravel to blend and then that way you didn't really see anything.
Board Member Wilcox — Is it an indication that the present Courtside location is more
likely to be developed sooner rather than where the house is?
- -- Ms:- Baldassarre — There are -no- current plans to develop that site. I mean, there's you
know, of course you know that there's the Cornell Master Plan, but there's nothing in the
works on that site.
Board Member Erb — If it were grass, wouldn't that count as pervious surface rather
than impervious?
Board Member Riha — Well, it's just not that ... leaving all the tarmac around that
building, there's a lot of it...l mean,_leaving-it there for the next ten years with a gravel
thing in the middle ... I mean...
Board Member Erb — Ugly.
Ms. Baldassarre — My thought was given to the site because, of course, you know, you
have the blacktop all the way around...
Board Member Riha — Right, so ideally, it would be nice...
Ms. Baldassarre -- ...the footprint and the road in the back and I just thought it would
blend better...
Board Member Riha — So there's no plan to remove the blacktop, put in topsoil and...
Ms. Baldassarre — To remove all the blacktop? No. There's an easement there for
ingress and egress for Rite Aid,
Board Member Thayer — Is it going to be compacted gravel?
Board Member Riha — So they're going to maintain the blacktop?
Board Member Thayer — You can drive on it?
Ms. Baldassarre — No, it's not going to be compacted.
Board Member Thayer — So, what's going to keep cars from driving out on there? It's
going to be a problem I would think.
Board Member Hoffmann — Especially if you have blacktop all around and there's this
rectangle of gravel in the middle ... it's an invitation to park there.
Board Member Thayer — Really.
Board Member Wilcox — I'm concerned about leaving the blacktop around. Agreed,
there is an easement between Rite Aid and what would now be Cornell University as
the owner of the property for the area which is to the south of the current Courtside, just
that area around there, parking spaces, etc, etc ... But the front, the back, the north side,
you know ... that's, that's...I would love to just tear up all that asphalt and seed it.
Board Member Hoffmann — Yeah, there's a whole area of asphalt between the current
Courtside building and the cemetery property and then there's more to the west of the
current building and southwest of the current building which is part of the parking for
Courtside.
Chairperson Howe — I guess for me it would depend on how soon there might be other
plans.
Board Member Riha — Does that mean somebody has to maintain it?
Ms. Baldassarre — It's, well, it's on Cornell's property, but...
Board Member Riha — So Cornell would maintain it?
Ms. Baldassarre — But it's just ... you don't have to maintain it;
for that Rite Aid site, on the back side.
it's just ingress and egress
Board Member Riha — So you're saying you have no right to remove the blacktop. But
you have no need to maintain it. In 10 years, when it's not functioning anymore, that's
okay?
Ms. Baldassarre — Again, I'm not that familiar with the Master Plan and what they have
planned for that site, so I'm not...
Board Member Riha — Well, it just seems that the plan right now is just over the years it
will just crack up and ... fields will reclaim it, or something, right? I mean, that's the plan.
For that spot in the community, that doesn't seem like much of a plan. It seems like a
big eyesore.
Ms. Baldassarre — Well, Cornell... when... we can maintain it as a parking area, you
know, and maintain it that way, but this... currently there are no plans to re- blacktop it...
Board Member Conneman — Part of the Master Plan has, does something with that site,
if I remember correctly. The big vision of that firm from Toronto, or wherever they came
from, had some vision about what they wanted to do with that whole site. At least the
meetings I went to.
Board Member Riha — Yeah. It just seems it's one thing if the plan is to do something in
the next 2 years but another thing if it's not going to happen for 10 or 15 yyears and...
Board Member Conneman — The other thing, Melissa, that I want to say is, I think this
Board would look unkindly on Cornell trying to develop that piece project by project.
You want to have a plan. I certainly would feel strongly against developing pieces of
that as we go along. It ought to be comprehensive so it is pretty and fits in and all the
things that it goes there. I'm saying this mostly because it will be in the minutes, you
can take it back to whoever runs the Master Plan, but it seems to me we will not, or I
would be opposed to approving a piece -by -piece development of that property.
Chairperson Howe — And of course, George said that's what's in the minutes, but that's
not what we're here for...
Ms. Baldassarre — (inaudible)
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg, 13
Chairperson Howe — We're without a lawyer tonight so I can't turn to Susan Brock....
Board Member Conneman — It's in the minutes anyway....
Chairperson Howe — Would a reasonable condition be; if this goes beyond a certain
period of time we would expect then to break the blacktop up and plant some grass.. .1
don't know whether we're allowed to put a condition like that in. Jonathan, do you have
any thoughts on this?
Mr. Kanter — Yeah, I think that if there's a concern about the maintenance and the use
of the property we could come up with some kind of a condition that could deal with that,
a timeframe. I suspect that knowing the value of this area, and the property in this area,
that it's not going to sit idle very long and George does accurately refer to the Cornell
Master Plan. That is a long -term plan, it didn't really address site - specific development
but more the general idea to develop the whole east Ithaca, you know, East Hill Plaza
and surrounding area with a number of different uses. So, I would think that whatever
happens with this site is going to be consistent with that vision but that it wasn't very
specific in terms of what would happen specifically on this site.
Chairperson Howe — So would some sort of timeframe address...
Board Member Wilcox — I still have one more problem, and that was brought up, and
that is, I don't want this to become a parking lot.
Board Member Riha — Right.
Board Member Wilcox — It could become an unofficial "parking lot" by covering it with
gravel and that could be spill -over from the East Hill Plaza, that could be ... I don't know
if it would be people visiting the Rite Aid would park there, that I don't think would
happen...
Board Member Conneman — You think students would park there Fred?
Board Member Wilcox -
permit? Well, we know
people have come in. an(
has been dealing with it,
I mean, if they want to
parking lot, but...
So they don't' have to pay to park on campus, don't have a
that's been a problem at the East Hill Plaza. We know that
I taking a bus to campus...We know that actually, management
trying to deal with it, but I do not want cars parked there either.
put a parking lot in, come in and get site -plan approval for a
Chairperson Howe — So be thinking about how to word some of these things in terms of
manageable conditions. Eva...
Board Member Hoffmann —You mentioned something about an easement ... Do you
have some specifics to give us about where those easements area? I noticed you were
looking at the plan, but the plans don't say anything about easements.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 14
Ms. Baldassarre — No, what I'm looking at is the survey showing the properties all
around, that's what I was looking at, because I knew that there were numerous
easements on the property.
Board Member Hoffmann — Do we have a copy of that survey? As part of the
application?
Ms. Baldassarre — This is my only copy. I can bring this up there and share it with
you...
Board Member Hoffmann — I was just wondering if you sent in a copy of that as part of
the...
Ms. Baldassarre — No I didn't, I actually just received a copy of this ... I mean, we had
bits and pieces, but this is for the parcel behind, but it includes all the parcels around.
Board Member Hoffmann — I think I would like to know exactly where those easements
are before I make a decision about what I think about...
Chairperson Howe — We must have those on ... when Rite Aid submitted all their
materials... are the easements reflected...
Ms. Baldassarre —That should show up...
Mr. Walker — We did have that plat in here at one point and I believe there were cross -
easements between the bowling alley and the Courtside for parking along the edge of
Courtside because the boundary line was very close to that, or the original boundary
line went very close to that building, and that would be shown on that plat...
Board Member Hoffmann — Well, that's between the buildings, but, I believe...
Mr. Walker — The access easements they are referring to is the driveway that comes
from Mitchell Street, which is in very poor condition right now, between the grass, or the
disturbed area where the stormwater detention pond is and where they demolished the
other house, and then what was going to be the phase two or three outbuildings along
side of Rite Aid ... That driveway comes up, there's an entrance to the south side and
into the Rite Aid parking lot and then it goes all the way up to the Courtside area. That's
all paved area, but you just dealt with that sign as an off - premises sign, the Rite Aid sign
right there at that driveway. So that, that driveway, basically, I would imagine most
people would only use it up to the point where it goes into Rite Aid, which doesn't really
show on either of these maps too well.
Board Member Hoffmann — Well, I just, I may have misheard but I thought Ms.
Baldassarre said that it was the paved area between the Courtside buildings and the
cemetery too ... is that right?
Ms. Baldassarre — Along the front ... I can give you a copy of this, but it's the front
entrance along here that also goes across on the side of Rite Aid...
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 15
Board Member Hoffmann - When you say here we don't know what you're talking
about...
Board Member Erb - On the first map in
that the more northern driveway, the one
into the car wash, so it's the farther north
the word easement there, for "ingress ar
others." So that implied to me that on
expectation of maintaining that driveway.
the Kingsbury package, there's an implication
that's almost across from where you would go
driveway that's actually...this map actually has
d egress asphalt drive shared in common with
the Pine Tree Road driveway, there was an
Board Member Hoffmann -- Yeah...
Chairperson. Howe - I think the question is though; there might be other easements
behind...
Mr. Walker - that easement I believe was put there when Courtside, when the bowling
alley developed some of the property that was considered another entrance into that
commercial space the bowling alley had, so, this property has a long and sordid history,
easements and crossings.. and this one does have the property line on it, you can see
how close that property line is to the Courtside building there.
Chairperson Howe - So, I just want to, because we could probably spend a long time
just trying to sort through this ... two issues I think; we don't want to see this area used
as a parking lot...
Board Member Erb - As de -facto parking lot...
Chairperson Howe - Right, and we may want to think about a time frame ... that if
something doesn't happen in two years ... I'm not so concerned, but others, tell me, are
they concerned like Eva is about, like they want to see it where all the easements are
on a map?
Board Member Riha - I don't care.
Board Member Hoffmann --Well-,-I just don't want to hear that it can't be done because
there are easements and then we're not being shown where the easements are.
Board Member Erb - I'm very pleased that the derelict buildings are going to be taken
down, and taken down safely, rather than in a bad ice storm or in a fire when someone
breaks into them. So, I'm actually very happy about those.
Ms. Baldassarre - Actually, Courtside was broken into last week.
Board Member Erb - I'm very glad that the one deciduous tree on the corner is going to
be maintained for now, and I would like to see the area where Courtside's footprint...1
would really like to see that either grass or native wildflowers or something not parkable,
rather than just packed gravel, if it were possible to make that sort of change. And I
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 16
would also like to hear that something was going to be done about all of that pavement.
Something was going to be done to lessen the amount of pavement sitting there if
there's no active plan before us within like two years. I'm making that up; two years..,
you can change it ... two years.
Chairperson Howe — How do others feel about what Hollis is suggesting?
Board Member Hoffmann — I think that's a good suggestion ... I think two years is a little
long to leave it in that kind of situation because there's a lot of pavement up there, not
just under this building and if nothing is going to happen up there...
Board Member Wilcox — The applicant would argue that two years is very short because
by the time you figure out what you want to do and get the funding together and get the
engineering drawings and architectural drawings, that could take 2, 35 4, 5 years so 2
years is going to push them, I think 2 years is going to push them.
Board Member Conneman — If it is parkable, unless they tow it, students will find it
within six months; they're smart...
Board Member Hoffmann — It's not just students, its faculty and staff who also find it
convenient to take a bus and not have to pay for parking on campus. Park there and go
over and catch the bus at East Hill Plaza. The other thing that I would like to see, on
the property on the corner, which is going to be demolished, where you said it would be
reseeded in grass, I would like to see, if you do take down that evergreen, that you plant
some other trees, instead of that, as well as the other ones that you have taken down,
and you have a chance to look at the photos that I took if you'd like, they're somewhere
over there now. So, I am also glad that the buildings are taken down because they are
eyesores as well as unsafe, but I am concerned that we do the right thing with what
remains.
Chairperson Howe — Any other support for what Eva is saying about replanting a tree?
It's hard for me to think about landscaping now, because who knows what's going to be
coming down the pike, so it sounds like we're suggesting that the area where the
current Courtside is be reseeded with wild grass or something, that, if, within a two year,
and Jonathan, if you caught all this and just want to read back language that you've
-- captured, we can go that way.
Mr. Kanter — Well here's a shot at that.. .
"If the site at 380 Pine Tree Road, after demolition, is not redeveloped by" and I just put
March 1, 2010, "then the site of the demolition shall be re- landscaped and a landscape
plan and planting schedule shall be submitted to the Planning Board for review and
approval." I'm not quite sure ... I mean, that would mean we would have to track it,
.monitor it, a trigger would have us contact Cornell and.. the thing is, once the building is
demolished and the demolition permit is issued, there isn't much that can be done about
it ... you can't have the building put back up because they didn't comply with the
condition, but, still, it would be an ongoing monitoring, and Cornell would want to follow
the condition because they will be coming back in at some point for some future
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 17
development. So I would think at least as a good - relationship kind of a thing, that
condition should be okay.
Chairperson Howe — The only thing that doesn't address is seeding of grass nbw...l
don't feel that strongly about it because I think Cornell's probably going to come back
soon with some ideas.
Mr. Kanter — I think so too and I think this, if it's seeded in grass now, I think you would
have to do more in the way of topsoil and other types of treatment.
Chairperson Howe — So, are we willing to go with what Jonathan has drafted as a
condition?
Board Member Erb — Yeah, it's a nice compromise.
Mr. Kanter — I have one about the use issue also if you want to hear that one.
Chairperson Howe — Yes, that'd be great.
Mr. Kanter — The site at 380 Pine Tree Road shall not be used as an interim parking lot,
construction storage area, or any similar use without a site -plan for such use first being
submitted to the Planning Board for review and approval.
Board Member Erb — That's good, because I was going to raise the construction site
also...
Board Member Conneman — For example, in Redbud Woods, you store a lot of stuff
down there now, at least you did two weeks ago when I went by there, so...
Chairperson Howe — Is there any further discussion, about other items we haven't
covered related to this? Would someone like to...
Board Member Riha — I'll move the motion.
Chairperson Howe — Made by Susan, seconded by Hollis. Do you want, Jonathan to
reread...
Board Member Erb — And we're seconding his conditions also, right?
Board Member Riha — Right. We're seconding his conditions that he just read.
Chairperson Howe — All those in favor...
Board Member Hoffmann — But there's a word missing...in the second whereas, I think
it should say this is an unlisted action. It says "this is an unlisted ", it should say "unlisted
action."
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 18
Mr. Kanter — Do you want to address the question that Hollis raised about the reference
to the incorrect address? (yes) I have something quick on that. Actually, I would do this
as a further resolved, instead of a condition because it's really not a condition, but, I
would just say, after all of these conditions„ `Be it further resolved, that the Planning
Board acknowledges (for lack of a better word) that the reference to 928 Ellis Hollow
Road on the Kingsbury Architecture LLC drawings received January 15, 2008 is
incorrect and that the correct reference should be 958 Mitchell Street.
Chairperson Howe — Hollis, that's fine...
Mr. Walker — and just, on that, they'll have to get a demolition permit from the Building
Department and we will make sure that the plans have the correct addresses on them
before -any permits are issued.
.
Board Member Hoffmann — Could we also ask that we get a plan, or whatever
document, that shows where the various...what were they called... easements are,
since we don't seem to have that.
Board Member Wilcox -- What purpose does it serve now?
Board Member Hoffmann — Well, if they are going to, for instance, do some reseeding
or something like that, well, of course, we are saying that we'll require another plan...
Board Member Erb — Right. So that will handle that.
Board Member Hoffmann — Okay, so there is no other reason to have that at this point?
Okay.
Chairperson Howe — We have a motion and it's been seconded ... are we ready to vote?
Board Member Wilcox — No, I gotta complain about Ashley Management letting this
building deteriorate. I don't know how Cornell controls Ashley Management, but for this
building to get to this shape over 30 -40 years is just atrocious. Done. Now we can...
Board Member Hoffmann — Well they haven't owned it that long. It was owned by the
Ide's Bowling Lanes...
Ms. Baldassarre — Gen -X...
Board Member Hoffmann — Until just a couple of years ago, right?
Chairperson Howe — Are we ready to vote now? All those in favor ... any
opposed... anyone abstaining... it's unanimous.
ADOPTED RESOLUTION RESOLUTION NO. 2008 - 017
Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval
Building Demolition Project
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 19
Tax Parcel No's. 62 -1 -4 and 62 -14
958 Mitchell Street and 380 Pine Tree Road
Planning Board, February 19, 2008
MOTION made by Susan Riha, seconded by Hollis Erb
WHEREAS:
1. This action involves consideration of Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval for
the proposed demolition of a house located at 958 Mitchell Street and a
commercial building, the former Courtside Racquet and Fitness Club, at 380 Pine
Tree Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No.'s 62 -2 -4 and 62 -1 -5, Community
Commercial Zone. The proposal involves the removal of the existing structures,
to include approximately 1,935 square feet for the house, and t/- 20,000 square
feet for the commercial building, with the resulting materials and debris to be
hauled and disposed of off -site. The project will involve asbestos removal as well
as the retirement of existing utilities on the site. The excavated areas will be
backfilled, and the property at 958 Mitchell Street is proposed to be graded and
seeded to lawn while 380 Pine Tree Road will be graded with gravel spread
throughout the former building footprint. There are no plans for new construction
or development at this time for either property. Cornell University,
Owner /Applicant; Melissa J. Baldassarre, Agent and
2. This is an Unlisted Action for which the Town of Ithaca Planning Board, acting as
lead agency in environmental review with respect to the project has, on February
19, 2008, made a negative determination of environmental significance, after
having reviewed and accepted as adequate a Short Environmental Assessment
Form Part I, submitted by the applicant, and a Part II prepared by Town Planning
staff, and
3. The Planning Board, at a Public Hearing held on February 19, 2008, has
reviewed and accepted as adequate application materials, including a set of
drawings with a cover sheet entitled "Cornell University Building Demolition,
Town of Ithaca, New York" dated 1013107, prepared by Kingsbury Architecture,
LLC and Erosion and Sediment Control plan drawings (C100 11/20/97, C101
11/28/07, and C102 10129107) prepared by Cornell University PDC, and other
application materials, and
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
1. That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby waives certain requirements for
Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval, as shown on the Preliminary and Final
Site Plan Checklists, having determined from the materials presented that such
- waiver will result in g of-site plan
control nor the policies enunciated or. implied by the Town Board, and
neither a si nificant alte�atio ^�n �f a pur purpose
o
2. That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby grants Preliminary and Final Site
Plan Approval for the proposed demolition of a house located at 958 Mitchell
2. That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby grants Preliminary and Final Site
Plan Approval for the proposed demolition of a house located at 958 Mitchell
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 20
Street and a commercial building, the former Courtside Racquet and Fitness
Club, located at 380 Pine Tree Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No.'s 62 -24
and 62 -1 -5, Community Commercial Zone subject to the following conditions to,
be accomplished prior to issuance of any demolition permit, unless otherwise
noted:
a. Submission of a truck routing plan, for review and approval of the Director
of Engineering, and
b. Submission of record of application for and approval of all necessary
permits from county, state, and/or federal agencies, and other approvals
relating to the abatement, transport, and disposal of regulated and
hazardous waste materials, and
c. Submission of revised Erosion and Sediment Control drawings (C100,
C101, C102), for review and approval by the Director of Engineering, and
d. If the site at 380 Pine Tree Road after demolition is not redeveloped by
March 1, 2010, then the site of the demolition shall be re- landscaped, and
a landscape plan and planting schedule shall be submitted to the Planning
Board for review and approval, and
e. The site at 380 Pine Tree Road shall not be used as an interim parking lot,
construction storage area or any similar use, without a site plan for such
use first being submitted to the Planning Board for review and approval,
and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED.
That the Planning Board acknowledges that the reference to 928 Ellis Hollow Road on
the Kingsbury Architecture, LLC drawings (received January 15, 2008) is incorrect and
that the correct reference should be 958 Mitchell Street.
A vote on the motion was as follows:
Ayes: - Howe, Hoffmann, Conneman, Thayer, Erb, Wilcox and Riha
Nays: None
Absent: None
The motion was carried unanimously.
Presentation
Draft Environmental Im
and Events Center
:ement for 1
nosed Ithaca
PB 2-19-08
Pg. 21
Athletic
Chairperson Howe - People are certainly welcome to come up behind us if they would
like to see the presentation more fully. So feel free to pull chairs up behind us. We'll
take some time doing this presentation. This is not a public hearing tonight. The public
hearing will be on March 4th to address the DEIS and I believe this preliminary site plan
at the same time. Certainly, if we have questions as they are going through the
presentation, they're not going to call up all of their resource people, but the resource
folks are here if as Board Members we have questions, we're going to ask them for
clarification as they go through their presentation.
Rick Couture, Associate Vice - President for Facilities
Carl Sgrecci, Vice - President for Finance and Administration
Mr. Couture - I want to thank you all for allowing us the opportunity to come back here
and do a presentation tonight. As you can tell, we have a large number of guests with
us as Rod was saying before, we have here to help answer questions you might have
as we go through our presentation, and if you don't mind, I'd just like to take a quick
second to introduce those folks and so you know who they are and what firm they
represent. In addition to Carl and myself, we have:
Jeff Paddock, Director for Planning, Design and Construction
Howard Blasdell, Lead Architect, Moody Nolan
Tim Schmalenberger, Landscape Architect, MSA, Columbus, Ohio
David Herrick & Matt Hendren, TG Miller
Brian McCarty, Musco Lighting
Corey Greene, Traffic Engineer, SRF & Associates
Ron LeCain, Wetland Restoration, LeCain Environmental Services
Sam Kuderle, Public Archeology Facilities
Tim Colbert, Herman Sieverding and Linc Morris, IAD, Owner Representatives
We'd like to ask...our format ... Carl has a statement'that he'd like to make in a second,
and then at that time, we'd like to ask David Herrick and Howard Blasdell to come up to
the table and kind of walk everyone- through the presentation, and then as Rod started
out by saying, if you have questions as we're presenting, please, ask because we have
everyone here and we will try to answer you're questions to the best of our ability,
Mr. Sgrecci - Thank you Rick. Thank you for the opportunity to present this. The
project is a big one for Ithaca College as well as for the community as I am sure you are
aware. It actually is a facility that Ithaca College has had on its wish list, if you will, for
literally the last 25 years. For a campus of 5,000 students we have relatively modest
physical education facilities _ in -the form -of- Hill- Center and- Ben_Light G_ymnasiu.m_ which
simply are proving to be inadequate for our student population.
And so, while we've wanted this for a long time, it really became a possibility for us
about five years ago and we wanted to incorporate it into the master - planning exercise
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 22
that the College went through with Sasaki Associates, some of you were on the
Planning Board at the time and participated in that, but I wanted to give some
background material in terms of how we arrived with the location and came to the
conclusions that we have in terms of this being the appropriate site.
What we have here is basically an aerial view of the Campus; I think many of you are
familiar with it. In the master plan exercise, really at the end of the day, there were four
principles that we are using to guide future development of our campus. The first of
those is the one I would characterize as a qualitative one which is that we want to have
any development that takes place on our campus to enhance and maintain what we call
a "sense of campus community". We're fairly blessed with a compact campus where
you can transverse across the campus in a relatively short period of time which a lot of
other colleges and universities don't have the benefit of, and we like that. It does
maintain a sense of campus community and we want to enhance that as we go forward.
That basically will mean that while the campus is pretty densely populated in this core of
it that we will continue to maintain density in the core of the campus in order to maintain
that sense of campus community.
A second principle that is guiding what we do is what we refer to as a "ten- minute oval ".
I've referred to that here in prior meetings. Basically, when we were studying the Master
Plan, we developed about a ten - minute oval and the principle of that is that in our
business, it takes ten minutes, we allow students 10 minutes to exchange classes, and
so we want to be able to get to and from the major academic and residential life
buildings within that ten - minute time frame. And the reason it's an oval is because the
campus is relatively flat, when you go from east to west, but as you know, it's quite hilly
when you go from north to south. And so you can't go quite as far north to south,
downhill you might be able to go but you can't go as fast going uphill as you can going
east and west. So the ten - minute oval became a critical guiding principle as we plan
future buildings on the campus.
The third principle was that we want the .core of the campus to be pedestrian - friendly.
We liked not having vehicles in the middle of our campus. We've restricted even our
own use of vehicles in the core of the campus so that basically people can walk across
on the sidewalks, other than standard snow removal and that type of thing, not to have
to be worrying about interfering traffic when crossing major intersections on campus.
Some of-you-may recall about -ten,- fifteen years. ago, the main campus. road used to
actually ran between the chapel...there's the chapel, and right by the what was
William's Hall and went across the campus this way, and that put the Park School of
Communications on the other side of the highway, and we went through a relatively
major investment on our campus to relocate this loop road around all of that so that this
area of the campus, as much a s possible, was one again more pedestrian- friendly and
we didn't have people worried about crossing any major intersections as pedestrians
and competing with cars.
So, keeping it pedestrian - friendly is quite important to us and a corollary of that really
dictates the fourth principle is that we are forcing the vehicular traffic and the related
parking on the peripheral areas of the campus, which are all these large, white areas.
So what we are trying to do is keep this core of the campus pedestrian- friendly and
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 23
recognizing that cars are the way most of our employees get back and forth to work and
they have to have a place to park them as we do have about 1,000 commuting students
in addition to the, actually, more than 1,000 students, in addition to the residential
students.
So once we had the Master Plan in place, we began to think more seriously about
possible site locations for this Athletics and Events Center. It is a big building, we can
not afford to build it all at once, so we're trying to plan in advance and outline the
various stages, as money becomes available. It could be 10 years, it could be 20 years,
but we want to plan as far as possible so that this facility has been well thought out from
the very beginning and not have to do it as an impulse at a later time.
So we studied a number of sites and one of the original sites was to look at the whole
area of Butterfield Stadium and where we have up here, called terraced playing fields
and look at those sites. The one on Butterfield Stadium, because this facility is big and
it will have to "be built in stages, there just simply wasn't a footprint large enough right
here to be able to accommodate it without what we would call stacking the facility. It
would be multi - stories tall and given that we can't build it all at once, that would mean
that every time we wanted to add on to it, it would literally mean taking the roof off and
adding another level and doing it two or three times before we ever got to where we
ultimately wanted to be. So that site didn't prove to be very practical. And then we also
looked at the terrace playing field site. That would accommodate allowing us to build
the building in stages, but, even a partial project, or the completed one, and the same
was true with the Butterfield site, we don't end up with any convenient parking for
visitors to events that might take place that would draw off- campus visitors. To
reasonable accommodate, they would have to climb hills from existing parking lots to
get there, which isn't very convenient for the public. In addition, the other big factor with
these sites is that it was well outside the ten - minute oval and really puts it on the
periphery of the campus. I would emphasize that we are building this building, the
primary reason we are building and proposing this structure, is for the use by Ithaca
College students. We are building it so it can handle other events, but those are really
an ancillary feature of the building. Its primary purpose is for us and for our students
and that the ... So, it's important for this ten - minute oval to play into this so that the
students can reasonably get back and forth between that and other facilities on campus
in a reasonable time frame.
So we moved on from those two sites and we actually, for a short period of time,
considered the Axiom or now South Hill Business Park site across the road. That was
available for sale at one point. We thought that was a possibility, but that pretty much
violates every one of the principles that we had outlined, for us, it was definitely outside
of the ten - minute oval, it was not only on the other side of the campus roadway, but it
was on the other side of a major, 96B, and it would require at a minimum a bridge or a
tunnel or something, and the uphill /downhill...it just basically was not ... and, it didn't
foster a sense of campus community, it basically would have been on the other side of
the road.
So then we moved on and looked at the area across from the Park School of
Communications' parking lots. This area here. Once again, we ran into some of the
PB 2-19-08
Pg. 24
same issues in terms of parking. This is primarily employee parking in this area and
student parking is used. There could be some accommodations for parking in this are if
an event was at night, but lots of times it's like, we would, anticipate that maybe some
local high schools would like to have some events there that would create some people
coming to campus mid- to late- afternoon, before the employees had left. It wouldn't
give us the opportunity for additional parking. It's outside of the major campus roadway,
once again, so that would create a conflict between pedestrian traffic and vehicular
traffic. It was outside of the ten - minute oval, and at the end of the day, we didn't feel
that that was going to support a sense of campus community, which is our first
objective.
So we moved on to the site that we're proposing. We refer to it as the Raponi property.
This is the parcel, about 80 acres of property that --the College purchased about 15 years
ago from the Raponi family. It was identified in the Master Plan as the logical place for
future development of the campus to take place. The future was undefined, and the
more we thought about, we said maybe the future is now, because when we looked at
this site and what it gave us, it gave us an opportunity to create an anchor facility on the
east side of campus that in many ways counter - balances Dillingham Center on the west
and it's the two ends of the ten- minute oval are complemented by each of these two
buildings. It gave us opportunity to provide adequate parking, replacing existing parking
places that will have...the building is actually on some existing parking places but it
provides the opportunity for us to do this. It was in the ten - minute oval and is very
pedestrian friendly. We're looking at a major entrance to this facility running right down
through ... the core building on our campus is the Campus Center. Philips Hall, Egbert
Union, and that will, the entranceway will go right past it and it'll be a very nice
complimentary facility and we think it will foster a sense of campus community and it will
take vehicular traffic, as you will see in the plans, out of this area so there aren't
conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles here, in this area of the campus. So we felt
it was the ideal, it was the best solution for us in terms of the options that were available
to us and it still leaves some portion of this property available for future use for future
generations of the.. that might have to have additions to the campus.
So I think...once again, I would reiterate that it is...the facility is being built primarily to
serve our students but we also recognize that there might not be similar facilities like
this in the community and to the extent that we can make it available, we fully
acknowledge that we would - like- .to. -se -other groups in the community be able to take
advantage of it and that will create some concerns about when the, when events break
out, where the traffic goes, and you'll see that we feel we've addressed those as part of
the Environmental Impact Statement.
So with that introduction, I'll entertain any questions, or turn it over to David Herrick.
Mr. Couture -- I just have one other thing, The other part too, in terms of consideration
of the location is, the other spots that Carl had mentioned, eventually they would have
impacted current playing fields on our campus and we would have probably relocated
those playing fields at the Raponi property where the Athletics & Events Center is being
sited right now, and so, part of our reasoning was, why not focus in on that particular
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 25
area as opposed to disturbing a number of different areas on campus and ending up on
the Raponi property anyways.
Chairperson Howe - It looks like you're ready to go on, I don't see any questions yet.
Mr. Couture - I guess we'll ask David Herrick and Howard Blasdell to come up and start
walking through some specifics.
David Herrick
I think probably more for the benefit of the public that's here tonight, and there are some
new faces, I would go back to how we started our process over a year ago now and we
brought to the Board, a sketch plan, which is to the left. This is the plan that shared with
the Town and with the Public what the College's future - plans were going to be and it
triggered the evaluation of environmental impacts. And it was this plan and associated
other infrastructure that allowed us to focus on what we knew impacts were potentially
going to be, or significant impacts that had to be identified and reviewed through the
environmental review process.
The Scoping Document that was produced as a result of looking at those potential
impacts became our outline for developing the DEIS. Those impacts were shared with
the public. There was public opportunity to comment on what ought to be included in
the EIS and those comments that were received by the Town were included and
evaluated in our document.
Along the way, we realized that new constraints would dictate modifications in the
original sketch plan. And, the middle drawing is a plan that you have seen several
times since January of '07 and it acknowledged that we could not aggregate all of our
parking for the full build -out of the project in one location, behind the residential
properties on Coddington Road, for several reasons, and one of them was a significant
change in the identification of Army Corps. designated wetlands. Strangely enough, in
a seven -year timeframe, there had been enough change in hydrology within that side of
campus that the outline of wetlands had morphed and as we had consultants go out and
redefine those wetlands for us, we found that we had a larger impact to disturbed
wetlands than what was originally believed to be the case with our sketch plan.
Together with comments that were received from the public about the proximity of the
project to Coddington Road neighbors, we pulled back the parking and we pulled back
the loop road and we pulled back the building, the building now being sucked in closer
to campus. We also found that in doing so, it was necessary to rethink our strategy for
surface parking. We accommodated the same number of spaces as the original sketch
plan, but losing the opportunity to space adjacent to Coddington Road, we used a
distributive approach of expanding existing parking lots or modifying them to be more
efficient. Those locations are the Z Lot which is adjacent to Emerson Hall, and
extension of S Lot which is right next to the existing stormwater pond, the expansion of
°the F -Lat- which - currently- houses -a - temporary- building,— office - building, - -and then the
conversion of the existing tennis courts near the main Danby Road entrance in to a
surface parking lot. The tennis courts are being replaced by the new facilities in Phase
1 A of the A &E Center.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg, 26
Now, we have yet additional modifications since the development of this plan, which you
will be seeing, .as will the public, in the preliminary site plan, and we have identified for
the Town what some of those modifications are. They are not significant but I think they
are worth pointing out at this time such that the public will understand what the final
scope of the project will be.
And very quickly, in an earlier version, we had contemplated a pedestrian trail that
linked up the intersection of Coddington and Hudson Street through the site in a
serpentine fashion here, up to the tennis courts. What we have recommended now in
the latest site plan is maintaining the configuration of the path from the entrance out to
Coddington /Hudson, but incorporating a sidewalk now, along the loop road and adding
a bike lane in the geometry of the pavement section, all the way up through the A &E
site and continuing up to_Rowland' Hall. - And -the reason for doing- ttiat-was to avoid -the
disturbance of this wooded area, between our stormwater detention pond and
immediately adjacent owner. We will be able to save vegetation there and also co-
locate facilities that for security reasons, need to be lit, pedestrian paths need to be lit,
blue lights installed, so we've made that modification.
With respect to the building, there has been an interest in expanding in Phase 1A the
potential for a weight and strength conditioning facility. This was something that we had
not incorporated in the understanding of the Phase 1A building, but, we do now want to
bring that to the Board for your review during the preliminary site plan review.
Other changes were with stormwater management. We had initially conceived a dry
detention practice here where the majority of the watershed is being managed from a
quantity perspective. We now want to incorporate some permanent water features in
that basin, so it will be a wetland -type design as opposed to being a dry basin. There's
also an expectation that some of the roof runoff from the first phase roof will be
harvested for recycling purposes, to help with some irrigation and support the water use
for the water feature that extends parallel to this main walkway.
So that's, I think, in essence the sum of what I think are minor changes in the site plan,
but you'll be seeing those and we will be speaking more to those in the coming months.
We do have a lot of folks here with us tonight, and, if through the presentation you'd like
to interrupt and have any one -of our -- consultants -- address -a-specific question, we'd be
more than happy to handle the presentation in that manner. Otherwise, we will just
continue with a general summary of how we've evaluated the environmental impacts.
So at this point, is there anything that I've explained that....
Chairperson Howe — David, just so I'm clear, the map to the, the diagram to the farthest
right is the most current thinking...
Mr. Herrick — Yes, this is the most current thinking. Been detailed and represented in
preliminary site plan review drawings.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 27
Chairperson Howe — And the middle one, just so folks who are looking, that's sort of a
phase, you've made some modifications from that....
Mr. Herrick — That's correct. Now, I don't believe at all that we have in any way
changed the extent of the project or have changed those environmental factors that
would be impacted significantly. They're just recognition of how efficiencies need to be
worked into designs as we evolve.
Any questions at this point? We'd like to have Howard Blasdell with Moody Nolan,
explain our built environment and what the community impacts are of what we've been
discussing and to share with you some additional information on material types,
specifically roofing materials that we know were of interest with respect to visual impact.
Howard Blasdell, Moody Nolan
Couple things related to the overall building plan that we identified in the' DEIS
statement, we thought we might just mention for the general public. The building is
looked at being in multiple phases, as Carl Sgrecci mentioned. The first phase is
labeled throughout the process as Phase 1A. It represents an indoor field house,
related potential rowing area, and the weight training facility and related support areas.
Phase 1B is an auditorium which could be anytime based on fundraising. Phase 2 is
looked at as a future gym recognizing that the Hill Center is aging and as the needs
need to be changed and looked at in terms of long-term growth and use that that is a
potential possibility in the plan. Phase 2 also includes potential indoor tennis courts.
What we did in terms of master - planning this site was to really look at this whole site
and envision everything that might go on in terms of athletics on this area and portion of
the site so that we are not looking at this as a piecemeal and saying "at this time we
want to do the field house" and then coming back in thee to five years and saying "now
we want to do a pool", we're looking at it as one cohesive plan.
In terms of the building design, as you see on the building, we have ... the main field
house holds a 200 - meter indoor track which also serves lacrosse, field hockey...men
and women's lacrosse, men and women's field hockey, soccer, track & field, potential
baseball, softball and any other sport, intramural and recreation use that can be used
within the facility. It truly is a multi- purpose athletic and events center for the facility.
When we look at the main building, the size of the building is based on the minimum
requirements for track & field, so we've tried to keep the building mass down and the
height of the building down. Our initial plans actually showed the eave- height, "eave"
being the height at the edge of the building, at about 62 -feet. We went through a
redesign to bring that down to about 40 -feet so we saved about 20 feet of exterior wall
to try to minimize the impact of the size of the building. The elevations have, are
divided vertically in sections to break up the length of the wall. The building is identified
-in the EIS -planes we've -put some - dimensions.on _theaplans,Tand _ it„is roughly about 350-
360 -feet across the main length and about 240 -feet across the other. It is in the actual
information. When we look at the building site, one of the things about the building site
is we are stepping down into, along the hillside as we go through the process. So when
we come in from the entrance of the building, we're actually coming in on an upper level
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 28
and we actually come down to the field house as we come through the building to the
filed house level. On the back side of the building, we're actually entering at the field
house level, so we're actually taking advantage of the site and stepping the building,
sitting the building into (inaudible) height to lower the effect of the building further. We
then take advantage of the hillside further and we allow the natural grade for the
outdoor field to be lowered another fifteen feet which gives us a natural embankment for
up to about a thousand spectator seats for outdoor lacrosse or field hockey events.
The building is, the main portion of the building is the field house; it does have a tower
element to it. One of the goals of this project is to be sustainable and one of the early
concepts we had in this project was to look at the building and what could be done in a
sustainable environment to take a large field house and take advantage of the natural
-winds and that natural air-to-cool the facility;- knowing that this is -a fairly large building
inside, and what could be done to improve the energy efficiency of the building. As part
of, using the USGBC LEED system, this project is anticipated to be LEED Silver, and
that is currently the goal for the project. So we actually have the tower as a working
tower, that the lower portion brings cool air into the building where it then circulates
through the building and takes advantage of the natural stacking effect of hot air with
warm air rising and cool air falling to circulate air throughout the building when the
environment and temperatures allow and then taking the hot -air exhaust up and out the
building through the top. So the height of the tower has actually, from our original plan,
was actually brought down a little bit, but it's based on the heights that are required for
the natural stack effect to work and that has dictated part of the massing.
The tower, the building has a lot of different metal panels, which are shown kind of on
this board here. What we're doing is we are taking several different colors of light gray
in terms of metal panel, from silver mica, things of that nature, to create a pattern effect
on the building, knowing that we don't want to have a building that is just one tone of
gray, we want to have different patterns to it. The base of the building is actually going
to have a stone base which is reminiscent of the stone in the Ithaca and surrounding
and college- surrounding area. The glass... actually, we have the glass samples
here ... is intended as a green- tinted glass and we've actually designed it to have a tree
fritted pattern. A frit is basically a screen, there's one sample that just basically shows
what that might look like, with the intent that we will have a tree - pattern in the glass
which has a number of effects. By using a high - quality low -E glass we get energy
efficiency, by adding the screen we prevent glare, and we also increase the energy
efficiency and create the, increase the aesthetic nature of the building. We focus the•
glass at the building entrance and on both sides of the building and really tried to
focus ... focus the glasswork where it could get, provides the light into the field house but
not providing a lot of glare at night.
When we look at the roofing materials, and we looked at the slope of the roof...we've
looked at that in terms of what the materials could be on the roof and we investigated
-metal roof -vs.- membrane- roof ; -we- looked_ at _white_roof_vs._gra -y_or_other colors, and we
arrived at a medium gray color, or actually, a light gray color, there's actually darker
ones available, that represents an Energy Star roof that provides energy savings for the
College for the long -term as it reduces heat -gain to the building and the building
environment. A dark roof can raise the temperature above the roof by as much as 50-
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 29
60 degrees and the light -gray roof reduces this energy, this heat -gain substantially. It
helps to reduce the heat - island effect for both the building and also the community as a
whole. What we're showing here is just when we compared a white roof vs. a gray roof,
we wanted to bring additional information, that a white - membrane roof is still less
reflective than a white -metal roof but we wanted to clarify that when we look at the two
colors, that there is a substantial difference between a white - membrane roof and a gray -
membrane roof. As part of this study, we did a visual impact study where we took a
look at the building. We actually raised balloons, floated balloons to represent the
height of the tower and the height of the building at various corners. We then did a
visual impact study where we took computer ... we took a computer rendering of the
building; we measured where these photos were taken from, their approximate height
and their approximate distance. We used the balloon study to locate the corners of the
building, and inserted renderings into the pictures to show approximately where the
building would be, its height, its mass, its relationship to other buildings, show it in the
correct location to show that not a whole lot of the building is really visible from a
distance or even close up on the project.
One of the other things that that did was it allowed us to look at the building and
recognize that if, you see on the Campus, the Garden Apartments that are shown in this
area here, the top of the Garden Apartments, they're about a 4 -story building, actually
are fairly close to the peak of the main center of the field house, so when we look from
the north, the Garden Apartments actually block the view of most of the field house.
And so when you think about the view from the Garden Apartments from other areas
around campus or around the community, most of the building, and in fact, if that's fairly
close to the peak the walls are actually lower than much of the Garden Apartments.
The tower itself, in thinking the relationship to the rest of campus, the beginning of the
tower here, above the building, actually is about the base of the tower of the two
residential towers on campus. And so when we think in terms of the height of the
building and the height of the tower, the peak of the tower still only comes up to about
half way of the height of the two tower dorms.
So in terms of thinking of the mass of the building, it's not a substantial mass to the
visual impact from the campus. We also then looked at the building in terms of what it
looks like at night. We included at least one night rendering of the building in the EIS
statement and looked at what we would do in terms of lighting the building and we
decided early on that we would try to minimize the lighting of the building. We would
comply with the dark -skies initiative and the Town lighting ordinances and using down -
lighting on the building. But then we went a little bit further in terms of not highlighting
the middle on the building but to really focus down - lights on various ... in the masonry, on
the east -side face of the building, some on the west -side of the building but to really
focus on creating a warm glow from the glass and focusing where that would occur
during the evening hours. The tower itself has glass that faces some to the south, some
to the north but mostly to the west for the tower which faces the campus. It is important
that this building, as we think about this time of year and six months throughout the
winter, this building is going to be used throughout the evening for students and student
athletes, it's important that the building have a warm glow and feel safe, safe and
inviting to both the students, the student athletes and the visitors to the facility.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 30
At this point, are there any questions on what we've identified on the building materials?
Mr. Herrick — I would just point out for Board members that the four panel elevations
that you see here, these are taken right out of the EIS materials. They are the same
photographs.
Mr. Blasdell — Okay. Next we're going to have Brian McCarty with Musco Lighting talk a
little bit about the field lighting. One of the things we have been looking at in terms of
the outdoor athletic field was providing a place for the athletic teams to practice and be
able to host lacrosse meets and what impact that would have on the environment and
the lighting levels required for the campus. Brian is going to show some illustrations
that show that ... when we started looking at this process, our first thought was to go to
- Musco Lighting-which is the leader in the industry-in terms of sports lighting and glare
control. He's going to show a couple of images in terms of what's been done on other
college campuses and how the lighting can best be controlled using current, latest
technology.
Brian McCarty, Musco Lighting
I brought some additional images to show you tonight, just to give you a little more
background and feel for the materials that we are going to be using and presenting for
this project. And by all means, if you have any questions, feel free to interrupt me...
This is one of the earlier images; it shows the evolution of our lighting technology over
the last 30 years. Just as a refresher, this is the original fixture that is currently used up
on the Cornell campus, the Level 8 fixture, and this is the actual fixture that we are
proposing for use on this facility. It is the new Light Structure Green Fixture.
Just a quick reminder of what we talked about before ... it used 40% less fixtures, it's
50% more energy efficient, it's 50% more spill and glare control capable than what the
old industry standard, which was our total light control fixture. It's backed by a 25 -year
warranty; we guarantee the light levels on and off the field for 25 years. It comes
complete with a multi- faceted control system that allows us to monitor the system 24-
hours a day. It allows Ithaca College to input and set up prearranged schedules so that
they can control the lights.
The actual fixture that we are going to be using, a side view, this is shown in (member
talking over him). We're going to have -a combination of visors on this project because
of the way the field is actually laid out. This is the largest visor that we actually offer.
We will have a combination of this 14 -inch and we will actually have some 7 -inch visors
as well so we can minimize some backlight issues on the east side of the field. But all
of the fixtures on the west side of the field on the 100 -foot poles will have this long visor
on it. It's caste - aluminum housing, completely resistant to hail. It is this dull -gray finish
that you actually see here. The actual inside of the fixture looks just like this. So there
are 2,000 different photometric combinations that we have available for use. The new
-fixture- has-reflector--technology-all-the- way--across -the-actual-top -of the reflector. We
start with three different reflector housings and then there are actual reflectors in the top
of the visor itself so we can kind of control and minimize and put as much of that light
back down onto the actual field.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg, 31
I will give you a comparison of how it looks with older technology... this is actually a
photograph of a project that I did last year at RPI. This is a before - and -after shot. On
the left...
Mr. Blasdell - If I may...the pictures shown here are very similar to the pictures shown
in the statement of the same facility. So these are slightly further away that are being
shown here. Just for reference, so, this information has been presented to the Board.
Mr. McCarty - Correct. These are actually highway shots that we had taken at the
same time. This is a view looking into the east, coming in on Route 7 coming into the
City of Troy. This was their existing technology that they had at the time. It was a wide -
light fixture, very uncontrolled light, a lot of up -light glare, and on the right, we came in
and we used their same poles, we basically just - took the poles off the - foundation and
modified it with this Light Structure Green technology. So we didn't change the
mounting heights, we didn't change the pole locations, we didn't change anything but
the actual fixtures and the control systems. So it is a Light Structure Green fixture that
you actually see here and you can see how the glare has been reduced in these
photographs. These photographs were taken from the same exact location, on an
overpass. It was taken by the same photographer. We made sure that we tried to
duplicate exactly as per ... we've actually made a case -study out of this for our own use.
It was a great reference. RPI did this as part of a larger campus project. Because this
was an existing facility, they weren't required to change the technology, but they did it
as a good faith effort. We've got, since this field, we also put in two fields over here and
we have a big 5,000 -seat stadium that's going to go in behind there. So it was a good
reference for the amount of glare we are actually going to be able to reduce. So, just to
try to give you an image of what it might look like when you are viewing it at a distance.
It's a fair representation.
Again, we are using a four -pole layout, we have 90 400t mounting heights on the east
side of the field, 100 -foot mounting heights on the west side and just maximum
mounting heights to try to keep those lights pointed as much downward as possible so
that you can actually minimize how much of the actual lamp you physically see. Again,
we are going to have a combination of fixture types with the different reflectors, but
that's really to try to minimize any backlight issues and the glare that you could
potentially see. So, I will kick it over to you, but if you have any specific questions I will
- certainly try to answer them. --
Board Member Wilcox - I have a question, if I may. You talked about the positives of
this system, I assume that in order to gain those positives there are some negatives,
whether it's the height of the poles or the number of the poles or something....
Mr. McCarty - Mounting height is certainly one of the biggest considerations and
certainly in a setting like this, most people think that the taller the poles ... it would
— actually -be -the - opposite--• They would - prefer= to- see - -short poles ,- but_by_actuaIly
increasing your mounting height, you're actually able to ... actually, I've got a better
board that shows that...
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Pg. 32
Board Member Wilcox — While he's looking, I think we have been through this before,
where the higher the poles the fewer there are the lower the poles the more there are.
Mr. McCarty — Exactly. This board shows that in a little better detail. You see on the
left, an actual pole, we're maintaining the aiming point on the actual field surface, being
this location here. If this, for example, was a 40 -foot pole, that fixture still being pointed
at that same aiming point on the field surface would allow that excess light to travel off
the edge of the playing surface. By increasing the height of the mounting height and
pointing the fixture downward more too direct aiming angle, we're actually controlling it
and cutting off the actual light at the edge of the playing surface so that it's much more
controlled and defined. Even a 10 -foot taller, the addition of 10 -feet makes a significant
difference in trying to keep the light on the actual playing surface. Again, as you bring
those mounting heights down,- -that aiming -angle becomes more broad -and- it shoots the
light off the edge of the playing field.
Board Member Wilcox — Of course you could mitigate that with the hoods that you've
talked about right?
Mr. McCarty — The hoods definitely help, but without the proper mounting heights, it's
not going to make much difference.
Board Member Hoffmann — I'm with you Fred, it seems to me that if you altered the way
the shield pointed, that you could have even a light on a lower pole come just on the
field instead of spilling over.
Board Member Wilcox — Yeah. Every time we see an athletic field and we look at poles
and their heights and we tend to want lower pole heights because we know the visual
impact of the higher poles, but that brings with it more poles and more visual pollution.
It's a balancing act and we will take it up in two weeks.
Mr. Blasdell — We had actually looked at using lower poles but then we ended up with 6
poles, exactly as you are saying Fred, we ended up with additional poles to have lower
heights.
Mr. McCarty — Well even if I was doing this with a 6- or 8 -pole layout, the mounting
heights would not change I would still maintain those same mounting heights on those
configurations. All you're doing by increasing the number of poles is spreading the
actual glare over more poles, exactly; you're just limiting the amount of fixtures that you
can put on those poles.
Board Member Wilcox — Height of the poles, 90 -feet and 100 -feet because of the
change in elevation...
�Mr.-McCarty --And- the-setbacks..
Board Member Wilcox — What's the height of the tower on the building?
Mr. Blasdell — Height of the tower on the building ... you caught me off guard...
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 33
Board Member Wilcox – Roughly.
Mr. Blasdell – About 170, 180 foot
Board Member Wilcox – Okay. You've given the difference... the change in elevation
isn't...
Board Member Erb – Because the base of the pole will actually be substantially below
the base of the building, also, so...
Mr. Blasdell – That's correct. The base of the pole is 15 -feet below the base of the
- building. --So we think of - the - peak of the building 6e roughly 50 =, - -60 =feet -above that
level, that represents about the 70 -foot mark on the pole.
Board Member Hoffmann – On page 92 there is a drawing, a photo that shows that the
tower is 175 -feet high.
Mr. Blasdell – That's correct.
Board Member Wilcox – So you are just trying to think about the visual impact...
Mr. Blasdell – And think that the poles are starting 15 -feet below the level of the
building.
Board Member Hoffmann – I'm trying to see that the fixture itself doesn't remind me of
Darth Vader like so many other fixtures around the Ithaca area do.
Chairperson Howe – There's still a lot to cover, so...
Mr. McCarty – Okay...
Board Member Thayer – Maybe you could go up to Cornell and sell your product to
Schoellkopf.
- -Mr. Blasdell – They are currently working on that.
Board Member Wilcox – Because we remember how bad it used to be. I remember
people on Cliff Street; I'm going back 10 or 15 years, complaining about the light shining
in their living room windows.
Board Member Thayer – It's still very bright.
— Mr.- -Blasdell --One -last-item related -to- site - lighting -. We -did- take -a -look at.-the heights of
the poles in the Z Lot and the angles and the site sections and I believe we included
some of that, but we verified that we are minimizing the angles of those lights being
visible from the neighbors. We also, as was mentioned, we had to provide some lights
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 34
along the pedestrian path for safety, but we are using residential, the residential cutoff
on the backside of the fixture to minimize any spill in towards the neighbors' side.
One last thing that had been adjusted in the preliminary, in the preliminary site plan is
the tennis court that is located here ended up being rotated just a little bit to try to meet
the NCAA standard which has the courts running north -to -south to minimize playing into
the sun. They are still not quite turned north -south because we didn't want to rotate that
closer to the neighbors' houses but we did rotate that a little bit, as much as we could,
working around the existing, trying to stay out of those and trying to stay further away
from the neighbors.
One of the next things that we wanted to talk about, and Matt and I are going to share
this, -is - talking about noise concerns of - the - building.- =From - the - build ing =there -are two
sources, potential sources, there's a couple of potential sources of noise, one being
speakers for outdoor events. As mentioned in the statement, the outdoor events center
is primarily intended as a practice facility for athletics and is a competition venue for
lacrosse and field hockey. So we have designed and are continuing to design the
outdoor speakers that are required for those events for public address systems to
announce the game. To base that sound, the sound levels and the sound system
based on the voice and not designing those for concert features. So we are designing
those for the voice for the public address system. We are locating them on the building
to focus the sound on the spectator seating and we have done a number of noise
studies to look at what the ambient level of noise is along Coddington Road and along
the various locations along the neighbors' properties and what impact the speaker
system might have on that.
As shown in the EIS statement, the sound at the edge of the bleachers is about 80
decibels, but the sound degrades as you double in distance and I believe we are at, I
think we are in the mid -50's in terms of sound level at the edge of the field, but by the
time we reached the surrounding neighbors we were actually below the existing
threshold of the existing noise levels. So at this time we determined that it was not
required to do additional sound levels. We are controlling that sound level by controlling
the speaker placement and the type and the system used for that. The second...
Board Member Wilcox - Wait, wait, before you go on ... we're going to need some help, I
-think, in two weeks ... when-you . say -65_ decibel, we need to put that in context at some
point.
Mr. Blasdell - Right. We included in the EIS statement a couple of charts that showed
the equivalent for, the decibel equivalents for various sound levels, and for example,
inside a mid -sized auto going at 60mph would be about 70decibels. Having a
conversation would be about 65; an average office is about 55. So when you look in
terms of an average residence is at about 50 and the residential boundary noise limits
—we -had -at that 55- level —So when_ we, look_ at - actual_noise _ leve.ls,- that's kind of what we
are looking at in terms of relative sound levels.
Board Member Wilcox - Any thought given to putting the speakers on the other side of
the field and having the sound directed towards the field house?
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Pg. 35
Mr. Blasdell — I think the concern on that was whether... actually, we'd have to have the
speakers be much louder to be loud enough for the spectators to hear at the edge of the
bleachers which would then allow any rebound, would actually increase the noise level
for the surrounding neighbors. Because if you look at it and think, if we had speakers
on the opposite side, it would be traveling 240 feet and then we'd need to be at 80
decibels to be heard by the crowd, which then means when the sound would bounce off
the building and back towards the community, it would not be able to degrade as much
as it would with strategically located speakers behind the spectators. So the key is to
minimize the distance between the source and the spectators, allows us to have a short
enough distance so that the sound reduces over distance.
Board Member Wilcox — If you could have some numbers on that in a couple -of weeks.
Board Member Hoffmann — Could I ask you to point out where the bleachers are and
where the speakers would be and how they would be directed to clarify this a little bit?
Mr. Blasdell — Sure. The spectator bleachers are on the west side of the lacrosse field.
They are located adjacent to the building. The center of them are close to the north
side of the field house. It's about 1,000 spectators; we are keeping it relatively close to
the building and the field as close to the building as we can, allowing for a future to go
into that location, but keeping everything as close as possible to the buildings as we
can. If the bleachers are across here, we're locating at least three different speakers,
trying to locate them to the various portions of the bleachers as possible so that we
minimize the amount of sound we have to put out of the speakers, where the maximum
level is able to come out of the speakers and minimizing that distance to the spectators.
Board Member Erb — Are you essentially using the slope and building the bleachers into
the slope?
Mr. Blasdell — That is correct.
Board Member Erb — I have one, I had a little difficulty, and I am thinking especially, I'm
on page 64, and there's a very explicit statement that says "typically, this degradation of
the noise is about 6 decibels of degradation for every doubling of the distance." But the
distance, the reference distance, wasn't clear to me. Is that starting out with a distance
that would be essentially across the width of the field, as the reference? I mean, it can't
be that .if I move 2 feet it drops 6 decibels, so there has to be some reference distance
for this 6- decibel degradation and it wasn't clear to me what that reference distance
was.
Mr. Blasdell — Right. Typically ... if you measure the sound at the source, and then you
measure it again at 20- feet...
Board Member Erb — At 20- feet...
Mr. Blasdell — I'm just using that as an example, whatever measure, you measure it at
404eet, it's going to be 6 decibels from the 20 -foot to that 40400t mark. We then look at
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 36
it from 404eet to 80 -feet and we drop another 6 decibels. We then go from 80 -feet to
1604eet and we lose another 6 decibels. We go from 160 -feet to 320 -feet and we've
lost another 6 decibels.
Board Member Erb — But the reference would be that first 204eet.
Mr. Blasdell — The reference would be that first 20 -feet, so if we look at....
Board Member Erb — So, 20 -feet is the reference, not 54eet, or a yard or something like
that.
Mr. Blasdell — It's not as close as that. It's looking at it as the design guideline from the
speaker source to where we -are looking at forthat sound level.- - - -
Matt Hendren, TG Miller
...that's the furthest receptor that we are (inaudible) to supply the guideline decibel
level. It, the edge of the spectators, the edge of the bleachers, where the speaker is
mounted.
Board Member Erb — And that would be sort of the reference.
Mr. Hendren — Right. And I think its 25 -feet.
Board Member Erb — That's what I was looking for. I, cause it made no sense to say,
well a yard and then another yard and then it's six and I assumed that there had to be
some sort of a basic reference distance for the first distance step.
Mr. Hendren — I had the same problem trying to understand it myself.
Board Member Erb — So it's on the order of 25 -feet.
Mr. Blasdell — Right.
Board Member Hoffmann — I just want to take up what Fred Wilcox asked, about turning
the speakers in the other direction, and I can't remember, did you say having them on
the other - side -of the field... - - —
Board Member Wilcox — Right.
Board Member Hoffmann — Okay, and now that you have explained to us where they
would be if they were facing to the east, I don't see why they couldn't be located in
about the same area, but located to the west, I mean, pointing to the west. And then
you wouldn't have to have such a large volume because they would be directed to the
people in - -the- bleachers but- they - wouldn't -be -all- the- wa- y- across_the_ field, they would be
closer.
Mr. Blasdell — In working with the final location of the speakers we've got to look at
where they're best located, where they visually don't block the view of spectators in the
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 37
seating area, we would be required to have additional poles in front of the spectator
seating to provide the speakers in front of that. We have been looking and studying
what all the options are on that and trying to determine what is the appropriate method
for the speaker location.
Board Member Hoffmann — Did you say you have or have not?
Mr. Blasdell — I believe we've studied that but 1 don't know if we've had that final
conclusion, but when we looked at this we said "what is our most likely design
scenario ?" and we determined based on the studies that we were not creating an
environmental impact.
.- Board -- Member Hoffmann -Well the- reason I picked -up on that -is because- even-though
you have done studies that show what the noise volumes would be with respect to the
closer residences, I'm still very concerned with what the noise impact would be across
the valley, to East Hill and further north. Where the sound would not go through a
barrier of trees and vegetation, it would go up above the tree tops and across the valley,
and as I told you last time, where I live on East Hill I can hear the sound systems from
Cornell games very, very clearly and that, I looked at the map, the playing fields at
Cornell are about the same distance from my home as this would be.
Mr. Blasdell — I don't know if we have any details on what the sound levels that Cornell
is using ... we are, I would suspect that they are using a much higher sound level than
we are proposing for the project.
Board Member Hoffmann — Right, but it depends a little bit. ..you're volume depends on
where you place the speakers. I would urge you to try to look at placing the speakers in
such a way that maybe they don't have to blast the sound out towards the east and
north and south away from the building but towards the bleacher and the buildings
instead.
Mr. Blasdell — We'll continue to look at that, but I would also like to mention that we are
pointing the, we are angling the, we are angling them downwards so that we are
focusing the sound down toward the spectators rather than straight out, so I do want to
add that, and Matt wants to add a couple of comments.
Mr. Hendren — Just to address your concern about decibel levels that might be received
across the valley, I guess...ln our worst -case scenario we are not including any
reduction for vegetative buffers, so, that wouldn't be something that is incorrect about
our noise calculation. We're being as conservative as we can be to suggest what the
worst would be, and the difference in what we've suggested will be the final decibel
calculation is only 5 decibels difference based on the shadow effect, due to the
topography. So, what you might experience at elevations within sight of the speakers
would be approximately 5 decibels greater than what those neighboring community
members might experience. But at the same time, the doubling of distance will continue
and again, those 6 decibel reductions are anticipated. That's the best we can do right
now in terms of how we understand noise in the environment, but, if more acoustic
modeling of the topography of all of Ithaca is necessary, I'm not sure we're in a position
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 38
to understand what echoes and reverberations are going to transmit through different
hilltops.
Board Member Hoffmann — I understand it's a problem, but, I think, I'm concerned that if
there is a problem at a distance it would affect many, many more people than it would
affect just being a problem for the people at (inaudible). So it's a problem, potentially.
Chairperson Howe — I wanted to start paying attention to the time because I think there
are still some big issues that we want.. transportation ... so we might want to pick up the
pace a little bit.
Mr. Blasdell — Okay.
Board Member Wilcox — It's my fault, I'm sorry...
Chairperson Howe — I want us to ask questions, but I'm also mindful there's some other
big issues that we want to...
Mr. Blasdell — We are doing, as part of this study, to do what we can to minimize that
sound impact and what we can do at the source, and really controlling the distance from
the speakers to the spectators and controlling that angle, which may not be occurring at
Cornell.
Chairperson Howe — And I think, partly what you are hearing from us will be, obviously,
probably reflecting some of the questions that when we get to the public hearing, this
will be good practice to think through these things.
Mr. Blasdell — Next we're going to have Corey Greene talk a little bit about the traffic
analysis.
Corey Green, SRF Associates
Good evening. I'm actually here this evening for Amy Dake of our office, I believe she
was before the Board last time. I'm just filling in for her tonight. She's unable to make
it. I just want to give the Board a quick overview of the traffic study, methodologies,
datas we collected and some of the conclusions that we made.
Recent turning- movement counts were done at the study -area intersections surrounding
the project. I believe there's a total of ten intersections that we analyzed. These counts
were done in 2007, some in August and some in April and all of the turning- movement
counts were done when schools and college were in session.
After we did turning- movement counts, we established basically
refer to it as, but we call that the existing conditions, where we go
note- whether — there's -a- stop -sign, whether_there's_a traffic -signa
lanes, and all of that information is included into our model so we
of Service or the operating capacities of the intersections. So
layer that you will see, is existing conditions in the traffic study.
the first layer, I like to
out in the field and we
L, whether there's turn
can determine a Level
that's kind of the first
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 39
The next step in the traffic study is to look out into the future. I believe we looked at,
assumed a 10 -year build -out period for the Center. So we wanted to look out 10 -years
in the future and try to project what traffic volumes will be on the surrounding roadways
regardless of this development. We do that two ways, two primary things are included.
We look at historical traffic volumes along 96B and along other roadways in the area to
determine what sort of growth patterns we've seen on those roadways historically. And
what we found along Route 96B was approximately 2% growth per year. So that's what
we actually layered on top of the existing conditions, 2% traffic growth through all of the
study area ten years out into the future. In addition to that, we also contacted the Town,
and we identified developments that are either currently or at the time approved and
perhaps not yet under construction or perhaps are under construction but haven't
started generating the traffic yet. One good example is the hotel, Country Inn & Suites
at the -- intersection of King -Road - =and =96B, that's -just -an example. There were four
developments that were identified that were included in the traffic study. So traffic
specific to those developments were added to that 2% growth for ten years that I talked
about, to establish another layer that we refer to as the background conditions that are
ten years out into the future.
The next step in the traffic study was to determine how many more cars is this going to
generate. Where are they going to be coming from and going to and so on and so
forth? And while this is a big project for the College, I just want to kind of remind
everybody what was stated before, this project is really intended for faculty and students
at the College. It will be primarily used by them, so a majority of the activity that we see
at this facility will be drawn from the campus. It will not be outside draws that we see
day in and day out. So what we did try and focus in on the traffic study is perhaps a
worst case scenario, or a special event, if you will. It was estimated by the College that
special events of the magnitude may happen approximately 10 times in one year. So
the traffic study really looks at that 10 times in one year and that's what our analysis is
based on. We assume that there would be 3,500 spectators in attendance at a concert
or some similar event. A majority of those spectators, again, would likely come from
campus. Certain ... the remaining percentage of them would likely come; perhaps a
small percentage would come on a bus, or obviously, vehicles. And also what we see
at these special type events, there's not only one person in one car, usually it's a couple
of friends, hey we're all going to the concert so, while you have those 3,500 spectators,
you'll see three or four people come in one vehicle. So that again narrows down the
number of vehicles we would expect to be arriving on campus. After all of our
discussion with the College as far as number of spectators, what percentage would
come from campus, we kind of narrowed it down and it's approximately 400 vehicles we
would expect to arrive during the p.m peak hour or the commuter peak, because that's
when traffic volumes around the study area are the highest. So with those
approximately 400 vehicles, most of them would be arriving on campus for a special
event because usually they are later in the evening, they usually don't start right during
the commuter peak. So we think that a majority of those people will come from Route
-9613: And -1 ®also- believe- the - campus - -is- going -to- establish - something. _with- Campus
Safety so that the back access from the College out to Coddington will be closed off, or
limited access, so we don't have a majority of the traffic coming down Coddington. We
want to keep the majority of the traffic coming down 96B where they can safely enter
and exit the campus via the traffic signal.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg, 40
So, with that, those additional 400 cars, again, we think the majority of them are going
to come from the north via 96B into the campus. That way, then we create a third level,
a third layer if you will, what full development conditions will be like. And then we did
another analysis for that. The results of all that analysis is included on page 74 in the
Level of Service table. You'll see some decreases in Level of Service from existing to
background conditions, and again, I just kind of want to keep that in perspective for you, `
we're talking 10 years into the future. So we would expect, as a traffic engineer, I would
expect that there would be some decrease in the Level of Service at intersections over
the next 10 years regardless of this development. One decrease in Level of Service
example; at Aurora and Hudson Street is from a Level of Service C to a D. It's really a
borderline condition, it's kind of a high c and it would change over to a low d, so not a
very significant impact at all. There would be a slight decrease again-from Level of
Service C to D at 96B and the main campus, at the signalized intersection, but again,
nothing this traffic signal can't handle.
There is, at the intersection of 96B and Coddington Road, again, the background
conditions we forecast out that would go out to a Level of Service F and it would stay as
a Level of Service F with the minor increases in traffic from this Center. And when we
see Level of Service F like that, we kind of take the next step and say, is there a real
deficiency here, because a Level of Service F, I don't want people to think that's
bad ... what that means is just you have to wait a little bit longer when you travel through
that intersection. I think commonly it's mistaken that people see a Level of Service F
and say it's failing. It's not, that's not actually correct; it just means longer delays at that
intersection. And we did take a look at the traffic volumes through that intersection and
they would likely not meet warrants for a traffic signal. So, there are many signalized
intersections along major roadways where motorist do experience longer delays where
a traffic signal would likely never be warranted because the volumes are so low.
Chairperson Howe — I just want to bring up, just as we did with the decibels, sometimes
we have to interpret for the public, I forget if in the materials there's a chart that
describes what these different levels mean...
Board Member Erb — There is.
Board Member Wilcox — Since you interrupted, can I say something too? You said F is
not bad and you're right, it's not bad. Here's what's bad about F. People wait and wait
and wait and then they take unnecessary risks in order to get out of the intersection
which has the potential for increasing the accident rate. You also have to remember
that we're in a ... a ... a young- driver environment, let me put it that way, where we have a
bunch of 18 -21 year olds who may be willing to take more of a risk than I might at some
of these intersections. So, is it bad necessarily? ... no, but certainly, does it increase the
risk ... yes, and that's something to be aware of.
Mr. Greene — Yup. I think that's pretty much a summary of the traffic study.
Chairperson Howe — Any questions?
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg, 41
Board Member Hoffmann — Well, just a comment. You mentioned the ten events that
are listed in here that are not sports events but then there are a number of sports events
too which would draw a lot of traffic. How many of those would there be per year, all
together. Or how many events that would draw that much traffic would there be per
year all together?
Mr. Couture — In terms of the events, special events, not athletic events, Corey was
right, we are anticipating probably about ten per year. In terms of athletic events,
there's probably no more than 4 or 5 athletic events that we would hold that would
attract more than 800 — 1,000 spectators to the event, so ... and those are already taking
place. The majority of those spectators come from our campus anyway.
Board Member Hoffmann — Well, on page 81, it doesn't say the -total number of events,
but it says "there will be competitive and indoor and outdoor athletic events that will
attract a large number of spectators. Lacrosse competitions may draw 1,000 spectators
for two home games, up to 2,500 spectators could attend an Empire Eight Track and
Field tournament, and an indoor track meet could include 1,200 -1,500 participants and
spectators. ", and that's just some examples, I imagine there are other sports events
too. So, do you have a figure for how many?
Mr. Couture — Well, for example, the Empire Eight that you ... the tournament, that you,
that would happen once every couple of years, to be honest with you, because we
would not, if we hosted the tournament it wouldn't be every year, that rotates to different
college campuses in the region. So, we are anticipating a ... not a very large number...I
don't have an exact number for you, but I think what was indicated in the material is
very close, as accurate as we can be.
Board Member Hoffmann — It just seems to me that somewhere else, and I can't find it
right now, there was a listing of how many times one would have this kind of big event
and I was just hoping you had it right there...
Mr. Couture — I'll try and find it for you...
Board Member Wilcox — Rick, before you put the microphone down, can you estimate
how many people attend the fireworks display at Ithaca College?
Mr. Couture — It's probably in the neighborhood of 800 — 1,000, something like that.
Roughly.
Board Member Wilcox — Both people up on top ... only 800 — 1,000 huh?
Mr. Couture — Roughly. We don't.really take a count; it's just a visual...
Mr. Herrick — There's a couple of hundred on my street...
Board Member Thayer — When funneling the traffic over to 96B, what are you going to
do with the Coddington Road exit, as far as limiting anybody exiting?
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 42
Mr. Herrick — Well that's one point I wanted to make., within the EIS documents we
have outlined what the College's policy will be for managing the exiting traffic from those
events and essentially, we will be blocking off the ability to exit, other than for
emergency purposes.
Board Member Thayer — You're going to literally block it then....
Mr. Herrick — Literally block the exit lane, right here. Now we're not prohibiting people
from using the Coddington Road entrance to come into the site, but we are going to limit
the exiting ability, so they will have to come around the loop road and out 96B. And
that's our management technique for those occasions throughout the year when traffic
control is required.
Board Member Erb — It occurs to me that, and maybe I should have raised this during
"noise", but this it "traffic" and maybe it's also relevant ... I don't have a clear idea of what
Ithaca College's alcohol -use policy is. For example, the noise consultants explicitly
suggested not allowing alcohol at the athletic events to help with the crowd noise as the
event is breaking up.
Mr. Couture — We follow all New York State laws regarding the sale and consumption of
alcohol, clearly we do that. And to my knowledge, I have never been at an event,
athletic event at Ithaca College where we have sold alcohol. I have been to football
games, basketball games, everything, and alcohol is not sold at those events.
Board Member Erb — And tailgating parties?
Mr. Couture — There is tailgating that goes on during the football season, that's
absolutely correct, but we do not sell alcohol at tailgate parties either. If adult people
decide to bring alcoholic beverages on campus for tailgating, that's their prerogative.
Unknown — Indoor track & field events, by the way, during January, February, March,
are not likely to have much tailgating...
Board Member Erb — No, that I figured.
Board Member Riha — You know, also, don't you think it's fair to say that part of this is
also an effort to keep Ithaca College students on Ithaca College campus, to hold more
events that allow them to stay on the Ithaca College campus.
Mr. Couture — That's correct.
Board Member Erb — Oh, sure.
Chairperson Howe — David, what topics are left? Because I know you have additional
resource people and we might have to say, okay, there's resource people that cover
these and do we have any questions about some of those issues, but what other...
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 43
Mr. Herrick — There's three topics; Stormwater Management, which I was going to
handle and I can summarize that very quickly; some discussion on the Wetlands, the
acreage that we were disturbing in the before and after scenarios and what the College
is going to do to mitigate that as is stipulated in the EIS, and then last was; an update
on the methodology of the archeological investigation that was done across the
campus, so, I can be very speedy if you'd like...
Chairperson Howe — Nope, just keep moving forward.
Mr. Herrick — With respect to stormwater, there's a couple of key issues. One, which
has a neighboring City of Ithaca concern addressed, there's an existing practice that the
College constructed year's ago just north of the Z Lot, the fill site, and swales were
..constructed -to bring runoff -from these, the northern extents- of the College into that
practice. We're going to embellish that. We're going to construct a new stormwater
wetland there. It's going to be sized not only to pick up what's currently flowing to it, but
the improvements that are going to be associated with expansion of Lot Z. So that's
one practice that will be, that's there now but will be greatly enhanced. The second
practice is the existing stormwater pond which is adjacent to the loop road just north of
O Lot. That facility was designed back in the early 90's and we acknowledge today that
methodologies for calculating runoff have changed and we are going to do two things to
this pond. We're going to make it serve as the permanent practice for the expansion of
S Lot, but we're also going to be expanding its volume for the less frequent or 100 -year
event to catch up with changes in stormwater calculating methodology. So for two
reasons, we will be expanding the existing stormwater pond and it will take care of the
quality and quantity changes from S Lot.
The real significant practice is the detention basin that has some wetland component to
it here at the Coddington Road entrance. That is picking up all of the disturbed
watershed that now drains down to the College's entrance, crosses underneath
Coddington Road, continues across the Recreation Way, and ultimately winds up in Six
Mile Creek, so filtering practices that are specific to immediately adjacent impervious
areas are being located throughout the site. There's one here, here, here, here and
here. So we have half -a -dozen of bio- retention filters that are going to take care of
immediately adjacent water- quality needs, and then a conveyance system will bring all
that down to this practice at the base of the hill for quantity mitigation. So the end result
is the pipe leaving this basin will discharge the same rate of flow that is currently
experienced here under the natural state of vegetation. So we don't anticipate negative
impacts as a result of the disturbance. There certainly are unavoidable impacts.
There's going to be an increase in the volume of runoff that's generated by any project
that increases imperviousness, but, the rates of discharge are being mitigated as will
the quality.
Chairperson Howe -- Any questions about that?
Board Member Erb — Considering how close this one practice is that is ... yes ... you have
it...is there any reasonable scenario where that could suddenly fail and wash down into
those residences?
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 44
Board Member Hoffmann — And Six Mile Creek.
Board Member Erb -- Yeah, but if I was a resident, I would care that it went through my
house first.
Mr. Herrick — There's going to be a couple of emergency spillways designed into this.
One is a natural earthen spillway that is usually constructed in an area of the site where
you don't place fill. And then the second one would just be a large structure itself, a
concrete overflow structure, so, I cannot say that there will never be such an occasion,
but, the construction of the embankments on the downhill side will certainly be done in a
way that the fill is controlled. The right materials will be used so that you don't have that
kind of piping, which piping is a common destroyer of dam embankments and we will be
designing this in a way that that- won't-happen.- -- - —
Chairperson Howe — And certainly as we look at the site plan, our Engineering Staff will
be looking at those issues as well as us.
Board Member Erb — If I lived right there, it would be a question in my mind, so I raised
it, that's all.
Board Member Riha — And it's fair, but that would be the case for all retention ponds.
Mr. Herrick —That I s true.
Board Member Erb — I'm just, I'm sitting and I'm looking at that one which is quite new
and so close to residences.
Mr. Herrick — And a lot of this is excavated into the existing slope there, so while we are
showing the presence of an embankment, a lot of it is actually cut.
Chairperson Howe — Any other questions related to storm...
Board
Member Wilcox
— The
Town received an email from a resident on Juniper
Drive,.
did you pass that
along
to Ithaca
College?
Mr. Kanter — I'm not sure if we did or not...
Board Member Wilcox — From Patti...
Mr: Kanter — I don't recall.
Board Member Wilcox — We .should just make sure that ... Patti had some concerns
about a drainage way that goes behind her yard, she's on Juniper Drive, I think we
should pass them along.
Mr. Kanter — I think Dan Walker was copied on that message and whether he
responded directly to her.or not I don't know.
PB 2 -19-08
Pg. 45
Board Member Wilcox —All right.
Chairperson Howe — David, why don't you move on to the next topic.
Mr. Herrick — Okay. The issue of wetlands, and perhaps I would ask Ron LeCain with
LeCain Environmental services to come up here and perhaps he can help us to
understand and perhaps qualify just what we've experienced with wetlands on this hilly
site. It's a bit of ... it's somewhat confusing to me how you can have such slopes and
wetlands associated with them. But I think Ron can explain just what the quality and
characteristics are of this wetland and how we are going to mitigate our disturbance
footprint. Is that reasonable, Ron, that I ask you to do that?
Ron LeCain, LeCain Environmental - -
We did conduct the wetland delineation for the project site, the entire 40 -acre project
site. We identified and formally delineated 4.3 acres of wetland on the property, so
there are substantial wetland resources on the property. We worked closely with TG
Miller to relocate a number of features, it sounds like most significantly parking places,
to avoid wetland areas. The status of wetland permitting right now was; there's been a
wetland report submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers, there's been a 404 Permit
Application, also submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers...
Board Member Wilcox — Hold on. ..what is a 404 Permit Application?
Mr. LeCain — I'm sorry, basically, that is your permit to fill wetlands, jurisdictional
wetlands that are regulated by the Clean Water Act. You need to go through the
permitting process and get the approval of the Army Corps. of Engineers. And we have
submitted that to the Corps for their review, so they are fully aware of the project and
what we intend to do in wetland areas. The next part of the process in this wetland
permitting is the design of mitigation wetland to compensate for the loss of wetlands on
the site and that is something I am currently working with Ithaca College to develop,
right now. There are some appropriate sites on Ithaca College lands for developing
mitigation wetland and we will be putting together a plan and collecting information on
that over this current growing season.
Chairperson Howe — Is it a 1 -to -1 replacement?
Mr. LeCain —Generally,. ..well, it varies. It depends a great deal on what you're going to
do, but generally it's a 1- to -1.5 at a minimum, i.e., if you fill 1 acre of wetland, you need
to construct 1.5 acres, but it could be more than that.
Mr. Herrick — In our scenario, we are also looking at potentially compensating for future
phase disturbance in a manner that once that mitigation is established, it's a ratio of 1-
to -1, is my understanding.
Board Member Riha — I just wanted to say that you did a really nice job laying that out in
the Executive Summary, explaining the difference between when the DEC steps in,
when the Army Corps steps in, I thought it was really well done. And I also appreciated
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 46
the fact that you were concerned when you were doing these replacement wetlands that
they actually succeed. Because my impression is that a lot of them don't, but yet...
Mr. LeCain — There is a pretty high failure rate but it's usually a result of poor planning.
So as I mentioned to David, we need to take some time to make sure we gather correct
background information, particularly related to hydrology. Because if you don't have the
hydrology on the site, you're not going to get a wetland. So, we'll be gathering we'll be
putting in some ground monitoring wells, probably fairly soon here, as soon as
conditions allow and monitoring during the growing season. I'd like to do it for more
than one growing season, but we will have to do what project constraints allow us. The
more information the better.
-Board Member Riha - Bu-t'af this point, because you mention somewhere that you were
planning to do some of this construction over the winter, '07, '08, but I assume that's
because at some point in time this project was going to move ahead more quickly
because you indicated you wanted to do some of the construction when ground was
frozen, to minimize...
Mr. LeCain — That can be preferable, it can result in a lot less damage. At this point,
your earliest would obviously be next winter.
Board Member Hoffmann — For the benefit of the public, could you show where the
areas are where the wetlands might be impacted and where the replacement ones
might go.
Mr. LeCain — I don't think we have the area where the replacement ones might go.
They are to the south on this same piece of land but I don't believe they are on this
map...
Mr. Herrick — Yeah, they are all off this map.
Chairperson Howe — That will be something you bring to us on the first part of site plan.
As part of the site plan review, will you have a better idea of where some of those
replacement wetlands will be?
-Mr. Herrick-- -Y-ah, we can identify for the Town what those selected areas are, where
they are and their scale.
Board Member Hoffmann — And can you point out where the ones that will be impacted
are?
Mr. Herrick — Well that's a little toughen..,) wouldn't do very well at trying to stroll around
here. We need a ... there is...
Board Member Hoffmann — Right, but we have the public here and you are doing a
presentation for them as well as for us, so.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 47
Mr. Herrick - Well, when we say that the majority of contiguous wetlands that are
disturbed are in the footprint of the building, generally in this area, it's along the border
of the College and that Raponi holdings. So there's an area there that's relatively low,
it's located just to the north and down the street from the current (inaudible) and I think I
am speaking correctly in saying that's the largest contiguous area of wetland that is
being disturbed. Then there are multiple other bands of wetlands that are associated
with waterways or springs that are coming out of the hillside, and again, the figure in D,
figure 5 in Appendix D is the place to go to find just exactly what was delineated.
Board Member Erb - I thought the remarkable thing about Figure 5 was the difference
in impact from Figure 41
- Mr. Herrick - Figure 4 being the earlier...
Board Member Erb - The earlier, the original plan...
Mr. Herrick -- ...seven or eight years prior.
Mr. Blasdell - We did some major redesigning of the parking areas to minimize that
impact.
Board Member Wilcox - Let me put them on the spot. Roughly how many acres of
wetlands were delineated on this, that would be, that are in this parcel, let me put it that
way.
Mr. Herrick -Well I delineated 12.43 acres.
Board Member Wilcox - Okay. How many will be disturbed or filled in by this project?
I'll take an approximation.
Mr. Herrick - 4.2....3.9 to 4.2...
Board Member Wilcox - Okay, and how many new wetlands will be created in order to
compensate or mitigate?
Mr. Herrick - That will depend on negotiations with the Corp, but 1.5 to 1 ratio will get
you to around 6, probably more.
Board Member Wilcox - All
right.
It was pointed
out that hopefully in two weeks you will
have some indication where
those
compensatory
wetlands are likely to be located.
Mr. LeCain - Basically candidate sites.
Board Member Wilcox - Sites that could accommodate 6 acres of wetland.
Mr. Kanter - Timing of those negotiations and the Corps permit. What's the timing for
that all to happen?
PB 2- 19.08
Pg. 48
Mr. LeCain — Well frankly, first they have to get around to reviewing our permit
application. They've had some changes in regulations recently that I won't go into, but
they are scrambling to try and figure out exactly how they are going to deal with a lot of
things that were routine in the past. So it has been somewhat of a slow process. I will
do my best to get you and the project engineers an idea of the schedule here as soon
as I can, but, until they actually review the application with me, they're not really able to
give me any information.
Mr. Kanter — I guess I am asking that because I am wondering how that fits in with the
timeframe of the EIS review and when we have to come up with mitigation measures
and findings. That's something for the Board to think about. I'm not sure how far we
could go ahead with a finding statement without knowing what those mitigations are
going to be:
Mr. Herrick — Well, we can explain what the wetland mitigations are going to be and I
think that the Corps, as an involved agency, can issue its own findings as well, is that
correct? Finding statement?
Mr. Kanter — Well, that is correct but I think wetlands impact need to be addressed from
this Board as well. Not from the jurisdictional point of view, but from the natural,
ecological point of view, and I guess it's going to be hard to figure out how that
determination can be made by this Board without knowing more about what the
proposals for wetland mitigation will be.
Board Member Wilcox — It might be reasonable to know that there are 10 acres on this
parcel that would be suitable to mitigate wetlands, for example.
Mr. LeCain — That we can definitely do.
Board Member Wilcox Because you've estimated, I've asked you to estimate and
you've said that you would probably need to create 6 acres. There has to be, obviously,
6 acres that are suitable on the property and maybe you could show that there are 10
so that that might help mitigate that, for example. It's one thing to say, to wait for, to get
the approvals you need, but we better make sure, for certain that it's possible .on the
site.
Mr. Herrick — Right. And actually, the Corps of Engineers will want us to assure for
them that it's possible on the site. Where we're going to do it is there enough room,
does it appear to have potential as far as the hydrology, before they'll issue a permit.
So that's going to have to happen pretty soon.
Chairperson Howe — But hopefully you'll be able to give us an update on March 4th
where that whole process stands. It doesn't hold up anything for March 4th , but...
Mr. Kanter — No, no, because March 4th is strictly a public hearing...
Mr. LeCain — Well it's actually helpful for me to have a date of March 4th that I can kind
of wave underneath the Corps of Engineers.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 49
Board Member Wilcox - Like you can tell the State what to do.
Mr. Kanter - Although certainly you could also relate to the Corps that any actual
comments that they may have in regard to our EIS process would have to be received
by March 14th which is 10 days after the close of the public hearing. So whether we will
hear anything from them I don't know, but...
Chairperson Howe - Why don't we cover, I think archeological was the last issue for
now.
Mr. Herrick - The entirety of the site footprint was evaluated by the folks with public
archeology facility_ out of Binghamton University and they also provided an analysis of
--conditions in the vicinity of where we are going to be extending S lot. And they went
about their process using a 50 foot grid pattern in setting up test holes and accumulated
a lot of information on what was within the upper layers of the soil at those locations and
in the end what they concluded was that our site was relatively of those instances of
archeological or historic artifacts that would trigger further investigation. And when I say
relatively free, they did come across a site, and perhaps Sam could come up...Sarn is
here still I believe, with PAF and he could explain what is known as the Coddington
Road site where they found the presence of historic artifacts.
Sam Cardly, Public Archeology Facility
Sam Cardly with Public Archeology Facility at Binghamton University. And as Dave
said, we were contracted to conduct an archeological survey for Ithaca College and to
do that we did do a standard 15 meter or 50 foot shovel test grid across their project
area. We identified actually two sites. The first one, as Dave mentioned, was the
Coddington Road site, which is...its right off Coddington Road. Let see. It's hard to
visualize it. It's just right here [pointing to map].
Mr. Herrick - Just north of Juniper Manor.
Mr. Cardly - Yeah, it's right, actually right near the intersection of Coddington and
Juniper Street. And what we found was middens, which is just an accumulation of
artifacts and soil associated with one or more historic structures that are no longer
standing. We knew there was a historic structure there based on evidence in the field.
-There is- kind -of a sunk in- depression --that -was probably a foundation. We went back to
look at the historic maps that are available. It does show at least one structure in that
area, possibly two. At this point we don't know exactly what structure it was or what
family lived in that house. If...at this point Ithaca College is planning to avoid that site.
We did recommend that the site is potentially eligible for the national register and the
New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation did review our
work and they concurred with our recommendations that the site should either be
avoided or some additional work should happen at the site to determine exactly what
- --was- there- and - whether -or- not -it- needs- to- be— go -to- the -next- level, -which would be a
data recovery to collect as much information as we can before it is destroyed or
impacted. But at this point they are going to avoid it so at this point we just know that it
is a historic site and that it's associated with one or more structures.
PB 2-1M8
Pg. 50
The second site is associated with a portion of the old early 19th century Ithaca -
Owego railroad, which is a remnant of one of the incline planes. There were two incline
planes originally. One was quite steep. It came up the face of South Hill and it was
used to pull small rail cars up to the top of South Hill. That one is pretty much outside of
the project area so it's not an issue. There is a small remnant of the upper plane that is
within, let's see. I guess it would be...Iet's see. It would be within this area right here
[pointing to map] and within the field the conditions of the structure ... we identified it as a
site. It's basically an earth and berm. There's no more railroad ties, railroad tracks, any
structural remains associated with it. It is essentially an earth and berm that does not,
like I said, does not have any structural or artifact remains associated with it. We
identified it as a site so that it is in within the State database and at this point we are not
recommending any other work other than...other than what we have done so far and
the State has concurred with our recommendations for that, too.
Chairperson Howe — The other site doesn't sound like you are going to do any more
protection of right now. Does it just get noted on a map and down the road maybe
someone will do more investigation...? (Mr. Cardly interrupted)
Mr. Cardly — Yes. That is going to be noted on the map as environmentally sensitive
and if there is going to be any future encroachment on it they'll have to contact... there's
a series of instruction that SHPO has given to Ithaca College to in terms of there has to
be a 50 foot buffer during all phases of constructions. The area needs to be fenced off
during all phases of construction. If there will be any encroachment in the future there
has to be some consultation between the SHPO office, which is the State Historic
Preservation Office, and an archeological consultant, preferably PAF and if there is
going to be encroachment we would do some additional excavation, which would be
some square units where we sift the soil and in terms... because it is a historic site, we
also do deed and census research, try to track exactly who was there, but in terms of
the archeology that's all we identified.
Chairperson Howe — Questions?
Board Member Wilcox — Probably to someone who has been around awhile, either Rick
or possibly Carl, is this the site on Coddington Road essentially across from Juniper
Drive where there was a house torn down maybe 6 -7 years ago? The house had
actually no- basement as I remember. - - -It -was a house on -slab that -- was -quite in need of
being demolished. [Ithaca rep indicates yes to question] Okay. So I know exactly
where it is then. If you could point, I know it's off the map, but if somebody could just
point to where it is. It will be easy to avoid that site, I would think, given where the
construction is going to occur.
Mr. Cardly — And there's the...l don't if...these are the letters from the Historic
Preservation Office...
Chairperson Howe — Even though it is going to be avoided, it might be nice to do
some.. work on it... [interrupted]
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 51
Board Member Wilcox — Oh, I agree, but it's important that it's not in the middle of the
construction site and they are just going to avoid, you know, yeah.
Mr. Cardly — There are some instructions that has to be in place before the field
development.
Board Member Wilcox — I was essentially there when that house was demolished.
There must have been another house there before that one....
Mr. Cardly — Something in that area. Yes.
Board Member Wilcox — On that same site. Okay.
Chairperson Howe — Other questions related to this issue? Okay. So have we covered
all the...?
Mr. Herrick — I think we have covered all of those...
Chairperson Howe — Was there any resource person who didn't get a chance to...?
Mr. Herrick — Well, we actually gave them more time than we had planned. So we
appreciate your patience.
Chairperson Howe — So any final questions? Yes?
Mr. Couture — I just want a clarification for myself. So on March 4th when we come back
because I have heard some folks reference questioning some of the consultants, my
understanding was the public comment was just we show up and the public offers their
comments to you folks. Does that mean there is questioning of these...? Because It ust
heard some people say they were going to question these consultants on March 4t . 1
just want to make sure we know what we are coming into.
Chairperson Howe — Yeah, actually I'm going to turn to Jonathan because ... can
you.., I'm a little confused about that myself, Jonathan. So can you help address that?
Mr. Kanter — Well, the scheduled public hearing is strictly for the public to make
comments to the Board. What Rod and I were talking about, depending upon the length
of the agenda, is whether there is going to be time after the public hearing presumably
is closed for the Board to discuss and perhaps ask further questions of you guys.
Chairperson Howe — But I think their question, how many of the resource folks should
be on hand?
Mr. Kanter — So I guess it depends, really it's kind of the Board's discretion as to
whether you think there are going to be particular issues that you have heard up to now
that you still may have questions about. Again, it really isn't so much a matter of the
public being able to ask questions and get responses because if they ask questions, the
responses will be put in the final environmental impact statement. It really is more for
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 52
the follow -up if there is discussion that the Board is able to or chooses to have later in
the meeting whether you would want any further, you know, opportunity for interaction.
Board Member Wilcox — The public hearing is about gathering input on the draft and
whether it's...
Mr. Kanter — Although also on the preliminary site plan, which you will get momentarily.
Mr. Couture — Understood.
Chairperson Howe — I would certainly ... I don't know that we would see, I wouldn't see a
need to bring back all of the resource people. If you got your core group, who are
pretty;- but - -I'm looking for sort of. -.- -.
Board Member Riha — That's what I would think, too.
Chairperson Howe — So as long as you have ... I mean there might be one person, but I
think as long as you have the core group who are very familiar with the project.
Mr. Couture — Okay. Good.
Board Member Hoffmann — I just want to say that what happens sometimes, and I'm
very grateful for it when it happens, is that there will be somebody in the public who will
bring up a point that none of us has thought of and then if there are questions about that
and the right resource person isn't here that might be a problem. But I would assume
that the core group would be able to answer questions.
Board Member Riha — Well, those questions could be referred back for the final...
Board Member Hoffmann — Right. And there has to be an understanding that it has to
be answered in the future at some time or there might be delays.
Board Member Riha — All the questions have to be answered in writing, right?
Mr. Kanter — Right. Let's just pursue what the next phase is. After the next public
hearing is closed, there. is _the- 10 -day - written - comment period._. Then the final
environmental impact statement is prepared, which is basically a record of all the public
comments that were made regarding the environmental impact statement and
responses to those. It's really this Board's responsibility to make sure that the final EIS
is adequate and to the Board's liking. We will ask for the initial first cut at it to be done
by the applicant; that's typical. Then staff will review it, revise it, work on it. So by the
time it gets to the Board it should be pretty close to having the right set of responses in
there that you will be comfortable with because it is from there then that you go to the
final stage of the process, which is the statement of findings and that's where the real
meat of the identification of the impacts and mitigation strategies is finalized by the
Board. So the...
Board Member Wilcox — And if I may, then we move on to...
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 53
Mr. Kanter - To whatever the actions are that you need to take. In this case site plan
approval and special permit. So it is in the final environmental impact statement that
written responses to any questions that come up that aren't able to be answered and
normally you wouldn't you expect an answer at the public hearing. Normally the public
hearing is basically just the Board receiving comments from the public, not discussing it
with the public.
Chairperson Howe - And I'm assuming we'll get a pretty good turnout on March 4 th
And I see that we've been able to schedule this, basically, first thing on March 4 t
Mr. Kanter - Yeah. That was predetermined when we set the public hearing date. Yes.
Chairperson Howe - Is there much else on the agenda?
Mr. Kanter -There are a couple of things; not major. So...
Chairperson Howe - So this really will, I assume, be the bulk of the meeting on March
4th
Mr. Kanter - So when Rod and I were discussing it earlier, the idea would be to hold the
public hearing as long as it takes. I think there are two other items scheduled for
whenever that hearing closes, if there is time after those other items and I would, if I
were the Board, I would not get into discussions until after you have addressed the two
other unrelated items because you want to make sure you get to those. If there is time
after those other items are taken care of, time for discussion of, you know, the EIS, any
other comments, observations, then there should be time at that meeting to do it. If not,
then that just gets carried over to the next time.
Chairperson Howe - I am also maybe leaning toward making sure...having a sign up
sheet out front and starting with some time limits and then if we have time if somebody
has something new to bring up ... just to put some structures because I am imagining
that there might be quite a few folks. So, Rick, does that answer your. .'we are looking
at the core team basically.
Mr. Couture - Yup. Thank you.
Chairperson Howe - Any other comments? Thank you very much.
Mr. Kanter - Just one quick thing. I guess it was sort of hurried over, but when David
was describing the modifications in the plan I heard you talking about the change in the
bicycle pedestrian path and I was wondering... just go over that a little bit more again
because I wasn't quite clear on what the exact change was.
-Mr.- Herrick - Okay..Sure. =There "s_two_issues__r_e.lated to- -the pedestrian trail. I don't
have the map I want. Matt, could you drop that one in the middle please? Thank you.
The core of the trail, which starts at Hudson Street and Coddington Road intersection is
still the same as was proposed back in January of '07 and that comes down to the
Coddington Road entrance. From that point, the original plan was to take some
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 54
meandering path adjacent to this residence up through the woods, up the hill and then
ultimately over to the tennis court area. What we have proposed is to incorporate a
sidewalk adjacent to the road and also a 5 foot wide bike lane within the geometry of the
pavement section or cross section and that continuing all the way up to Rowland. So
we have provided the segregation of bicycles and pedestrians at this point up to the
tennis court area where the pedestrian trail terminated in this phase. So in lieu of that
serpentine trail up through the woods, we want to co- locate the sidewalk and the bike
lane within the limits of disturbance of the roadway.
Mr. Kanter — So there are references on pages 75 and 77 that refer to including a future
bicycle pedestrian path Phase II going all the way over toward Juniper Drive. Are you
saying that that...?
Mr. Herrick — That would be a future phase. So that portion would still be completed in
a later phase. Actually, we are now proposing to install more of the sidewalk and bike
lane in phase 1 a.
Mr. Kanter — So that would be part of phase 1.
Mr. Herrick — Correct. So we are going to be providing more of that amenity than we
were within the EIS.
Board Member Erb — And it does not change substantially the overall impervious
surface or anything like that?
Mr. Herrick — All of those impervious surfaces are now collected within the drainage
system on the roadway and into the detention basin. So they are more effectively
handled with this scheme than they would have been in the previous.
Board Member Erb — And you shifted it away from a neighbor and you're not cutting
through the woods?
Mr.. Herrick — We're not cutting through the woods and we are able to provide any blue
light and other night lighting within the limits of the roadway and the lights that are
already going to be there.
Mr. Kanter — I was just mainly concerned that that future phase connection, possible
connection, back to the neighborhood and down the Coddington Road would not be lost
with that modification.
Mr. Herrick — No. No. It's not.
Mr. Kanter — It sounds like...
Mr. Herrick — The continuation of that trail would start here at the entrance to the tennis
courts and then continue along the alignment that or some rough alignment that is yet to
be refined.
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg. 55
Mr. Kanter -Thanks.
Chairperson Howe - Thank you very much for bringing everyone here to present.
Mr. Herrick - Just to explain. We did hand out a couple pieces of paper. One was a
summary of those folks who were here tonight for names and associations. And the
other one was a schedule that we had previously provided at an earlier meeting and it's
an update to reflect where we are today as we understand it.
Chairperson Howe - So thank you very much.
AGENDA ITEM: Presentation and discussion regarding the 2007 Planning
Department Annual Report
Mr. Kanter thanked the Planning Department staff for their hard work during 2007. He
then presented the 2007 Planning Department Annual Report to the Board. (See
attachment #) Mr. Kanter gave a brief overview of the annual report. The Board and
Mr. Kanter discussed various aspects of the report.
AGENDA ITEM: Approval of Minutes = January 22, 2008
PB RESOLUTION NOe 2008 = 018• Minutes of January 22, 2
MOTION made by Fred Wilcox, seconded by Hollis Erb.
WHEREAS.
The Town of Ithaca Planning Board has reviewed the draft minutes from January 22,
2008, and
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
The Town of Ithaca Planning Board approves the minutes, with corrections, to be the
final minutes of the meeting on January 22, 2008.
A vote on the motion was as follows:
Ayes: Howe, Hoffmann, Conneman, Thayer, Erb, Wilcox and Riha
Nays: None
Absent: None
The motion was carried unanimously.
AGENDA ITEM: Other Business
- Board - - Member -Howe reminded_ the _B.oar -d_that_the_y_areholding a special meeting March
11, 2008.
AGENDA ITEM: Adjournment
PB 2 -19 -08
Pg, 56
With no further business before the Board, Chairperson Howe adjourned the meeting at
10:05 p. m.
Respectf Fy Submitted,
1
V ' /
Paulette Neilsen,
Deputy Town Clerk
TOWN OF ITHACA PLANNING BOARD
215 North Tioga Street
Ithaca, New York 14850
Tuesday February 19, 2008
AGENDA
7:00 P.M. Persons to be heard (no more than five minutes).
7:05 P.M. PUBLIC HEARING: Consideration of a recommendation to the Town of Ithaca Zoning Board of
Appeals regarding a sign variance for a new sign at the Ithaca Community Childcare Center located at
579 Warren Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 73- 1 -1.4, Medium Density Residential Zone. The
proposal is to remove the existing freestanding sign and replace it with a new +/- 9 square foot
freestanding sign. Ithaca Community Childcare Center, Owner /Applicant; Sherri Koski, Executive
Director, Agent.
7:15 P.M.. SEQR Determination: Demolition of Buildings at 958 Mitchell Street and 380 Pine Tree Road.
7:15 P.M. PUBLIC HEARING: Consideration of Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval for the proposed
demolition of the buildings at 958 Mitchell Street and 380 Pine Tree Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel
No.'s 62 -1 -4 and 62 -1 -5, Community Commercial Zone. The proposal involves completely removing
both structures and backfilling in the excavation area of the buildings to match the surrounding area. The
property at 958 Mitchell Street will be graded and seeded as lawn while 380 Pine Tree Road will be
graded with gravel spread within the former building footprint. There are no plans for new construction
or development at this time for either property. Cornell University, Owner /Applicant; Melissa J.
Baldassarre, Agent.
7:30 P.M. Presentation regarding the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the proposed Ithaca College
Athletic and Events Center located on the eastern side of the Ithaca College campus near the Coddington
Road campus entrance, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No.'s 41 -1 -30.2, 41 -1 -11, 41 -1 -12.2, 41 -1 -24, and 42-
1 -9.2, Medium Density Residential Zone. The proposal includes the construction of +/- 300,000 square
feet of indoor athletic facilities including an indoor 200M track with practice /game field, Olympic size
pool and diving well, tennis courts, rowing center, gymnasium, strength and conditioning center, and
floor space for large indoor events. Outdoor facilities include a lighted artificial turf field, a 400M track
with open space for field events, and lighted tennis courts. The project is proposed in several phases and
will also include the construction of +/- 1,002 parking spaces (687 displaced spaces and 315 new spaces),
relocating overhead power lines, constructing a new loop road, walkways, access drives, stormwater
management facilities, lighting and landscaping. Ithaca College, Owner /Applicant; Richard Couture,
Agent. [Note: A public hearing on the DEIS has been scheduled for March 4, 2008 at 7:05 p.m.]
6. Presentation and discussion regarding the 2007 Planning Department Annual Report.
7. Persons to be heard (continued from beginning of meeting if necessary).
8. Approval of Minutes: January 22, 2008 and February 5, 2008.
9, Other Business:
10, Adjournment.
Jonathan Kanter, AICP
Director of Planning
273 -1747
NOTE: IF ANY MEMBER OF THE PLANNING BOARD IS UNABLE TO ATTEND, PLEASE NOTIFY
SANDY POLCE AT 273 -1747.
(A quorum of four (4) members is necessary to conduct Planning Board business.)
TOWN OF ITHACA PLANNING BOARD
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
By direction of the Chairperson of the Planning Board, NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that Public Hearings
will be held by the Planning Board of the Town of Ithaca on Tuesday, February 19, 2008, at 215 North Tioga
Street, Ithaca, N.Y., at the following times and on the following matters:
7:05 P.M. Consideration of a recommendation to the Town of Ithaca Zoning Board of Appeals
regarding a sign variance for a new sign at the Ithaca Community Childcare Center
located at 579 Warren Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 73- 1 -1.4, Medium Density
Residential Zone. The proposal is to remove the existing freestanding sign and replace it
with a new +/- 9 square foot freestanding sign. Ithaca Community Childcare Center,
Owner /Applicant; Sherri Koski, Executive Director, Agent.
7:15 P.M. Consideration of Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval for the proposed demolition of
the buildings at 958 Mitchell Street and 380 Pine Tree Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel
No.'s 62 -1 -4 and. 62 -1 -5, Community Commercial Zone. The proposal involves
completely removing both structures and backfilling in the excavation area of the
buildings to match the surrounding area. The property at 958 Mitchell Street will be
graded and seeded as lawn while 380 Pine Tree Road will be graded with gravel spread
within the former building footprint. There are no plans for new construction or
development at this time for either property. Cornell University, Owner /Applicant;
Melissa J. Baldassarre, Agent.
Said Planning Board will at said time and said place hear all
thereto. Persons may appear by agent or in person.
impairments or other special needs, will be provided with
desiring assistance must make such a request not less than 48
Dated: Monday, February 11, 2008
Publish: Wednesday, February 13, 2008
persons in support of such matter or objections
Individuals with visual impairments, hearing
assistance as necessary, upon request. Persons
hours prior to the time of the public hearing.
Jonathan Kanter, AICP
Director of Planning
273 -1747
Wednesday, February 1$ 2008 ] THE ITHACA JOURNAL
":'TOWN OF rTHACA..'
"PLANNING BOARD
NOTICE:OF`PUBLIC'
I HEARING _
`S,Febkmr 19, 2008
By" diiection of -.th`e Chdir,
PPerson. of +the` Planning
Boar8, ` °NOTICE. IS: HERE
BY" "GIVEN' , that °` P.i blic-I
Ne6rings' :will `:be ,h'eld rby;
the ''Planning " Board of the
Town of.-,'Ithaca on Tues•`,
.dayy, 'ifebruarryy .. 19,,,'
2008, > al. 215 North.,Tlo- i
!ggd 'Street;.affiacq; <N:Y:,; at j
19. ,following times and' on
8ie.followingg matters:
onsidera =.j
'tion of al;recommendation'
to the'Town of Ithaca Zon -''
sing Board< of; ?Appeals re
,
r.
i.ggar I - .-a-
sign variance
F new sign' at'the lthd'
Ica, Community : Childcare,
Center: ;:located °:at - 579'
,Warren - Road, -. Town of
Ithaca Tax Parcel No.-73 -r
!d -1.4 ; Medium;:. ?.Density
(1Residential.'Zone, �,The''pro-
l;posal.is o.jemove_ the ez -;
.y, square " „n
ding- aysl ggn'.
nmuniy' Cfiild<
'Owner /P
"rector, Agent. ; _ -':` ,:
7:15 P. M Considera”.
fion'of Preliminary and. Fie;
i'n'al. Site- Plan `Approval •for
the`Proposed':demolition ,of
'the bin ings`at-958 .Mitch-
ell- Street- and 380'. 'Pine'
;lTiee Rood, Town. of;lthaca,
Tax Porcel';�No.'s °62.1 -41;
tancl`�62 -1 -5,' :Community ;
'iCommercial'- Zone. ,_y4 The
I'proposaf involves .com-
%pletely ' removin g ';both'
(structures? and back Min'
;in t excavation - or off
the buildings to match`thef
surrounding` area r. The;
grope` at 958 Mitchell4
Streel will `be graded +and i
'seeded as "lawn "while 380;
IPine:.Tree`.Roa& wilV.-be'
plans for' new construction
or {development, at this lime
,for either property ' -i` Cor;
fjnell Universe Owner/
!Appplicant;; elissa',. J'•
Baldassarre, 'Agent.;•.° .4ti
i`' Said Planning Board 'will +
at said ;dime •and • =said?
place, hear, q4 "person`sa in `;
support.. of such'.matter,or"
objections' .thereto: `' Per -'
sons, may appear by'agent
or in person , Individuals -
with visual impairments, ;F
hearing - } impairments° or
,other special needs,.' will,;
Ibe provided r with ossis
etance; as; necessary;,`- upon.!
request. *' Pe.rsonsAesinn F.
iassistance 'most make ' suN
)a request not- less 46n' 48'
,h rs: prior.: to the time of ,
lfie'public.hearing.
Town of Ithaca
Planning Board
215 North Tioga Street
February 19, 2007
7:00 p.m.
PLEASE SIGN -IN
Please Print Clearly, Thank You
Name
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TOWN OF ITHACA
AFFIDAVIT OF POSTING AND PUBLICATION
I, Sandra Polce, being duly sworn, depose and say that I am a Senior Typist for the Town of
Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York; that the following Notice has been duly posted on the sign
board of the Town of Ithaca and that said Notice has been duly published in the local newspaper,
The Ithaca Journal.
Notice of Public Hearings to be held by the Town of Ithaca Planning Board in the Town of Ithaca
Town Hall 215 North TioQa Street Ithaca New York on Tuesday February 19, 2007
commencing at 7:00 P.M. as per attached.
Location of Sign Board used for Posting: Town Clerk Sign Board — 215 North Tioga Street.
Date of Posting:
Date of Publication:
February 11, 2008
February 13, 2008
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Sandra Polce, Senior Typist
Town of Ithaca
STATE OF NEW YORK) SS:
COUNTY OF TOMPKINS)
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 13`h day of February 2008.
Notary Public
CONNIE F. CLARK
Notary Public, State cf New York
No. 01 CL6052878
Qualified in Tompkins County
Commission Expires December 26, 20
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