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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-06-09TB 6-9-16 Page 1 of 5 TOWN OF DRYDEN TOWN BOARD MEETING June 9, 2016 Present: Supervisor Jason Leifer, Cl Daniel Lamb, Cl Linda Lavine, Cl Deborah Cipolla-Dennis Elected Officials: Bambi L. Avery, Town Clerk Other Town Staff: Jennifer Case, Bookkeeper Ray Burger, Director of Planning Jennifer Jones, Recreation Director Supv Leifer opened the meeting at 7:02 p.m. Town Board Vacancy – Supv Leifer announced that last night interviews were held with Paul Rachetta, Dan Wakeman, Craig Anderson and Kathy Servoss and moved to nominate Kathy Servoss, seconded by Cl Lamb. Cl Lavine said she has known Craig Anderson for a long time and his contribution to the town and she would choose him to fill the vacancy. Supv Leifer said everyone gave a good interview and there is room for them all to do something for the town. Paul and Dan would be interested in helping out in another capacity if they were not appointed to the town board. Cl Cipolla -Dennis said they all were strong candidates with good experience. She thought Kathy Servoss expressed specific things she would like to do on the board and is familiar with the issues and what they are working toward. She has served as chair of DRYC and had several references from employer and community. She appreciates the interest K Servoss has shown and for sticking through the process and will support her. Cl Lamb said we are fortunate to have four strong candidates, each with their own perspectives. This process allowed the board to hear from community members and hear their perspective. He has seen K Servoss work as chair of the DRYC and admires her style as a potential working partner. Her references and experience with public works programs are strong. All applicants were encouraged to stay engaged and get involved with other boards. Board members agreed it was a good process. It was noted Craig Anderson is extremely valuable on the Planning Board. RESOLUTION #103 (2010) – APPOINT K SERVOSS TO TOWN BOARD Supv Leifer offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: RESOLVED, that this Town Board hereby appoints Kathrin Servoss to fill the seat vacated by Gregory Sloan until December 31, 2016. 2nd Cl Lamb Roll Call Vote Cl Lavine No Cl Cipolla-Dennis Yes Cl Lamb Yes Supv Leifer Yes Kathrin Servoss was sworn in by Town Clerk Bambi Avery. Route 366 Force Main Study – The board reviewed the proposal from TG Miller, P.C. for engineering and surveying services related to improvements of the force main on Route 366 from the pump station on Route 366 to the Town of Ithaca line. There were at least six breaks TB 6-9-16 Page 2 of 5 along this section last year. The projected fees seem to be fair. The plan is to bid this out in the fall and the project cost is expected to be between two and three hundred thousand dollars. There was some discussion about the number of units that can hook in to the system is constrained by our percentage of ownership in the wastewater treatment facility, not the size of the pipe or state of repair of the infrastructure. The rest of the infrastructure study will be complete before the road work on Route 366 is done. Supv Leifer will ask for authority to accept the proposal by TG Miller and sign the document . Cl Lamb wants to be sure that the capacity limitation, and the ability to purchase more capacity, is made clear to residents. Red Mill Bridge Plan Approval – R Young explained the bridges are the county’s responsibility and they must follow state guidelines. The town is responsible for doing the decking and the apron. He doesn’t see any reason to not sign this agreement. R Burger said SEQR had been done when the agreement for payment was approved. The historic bridge is being handled through SHPO. The county will do maintenance for 10 years on the bridge. The town has 90 days after substantial completion of the Malloryville Road Bridge in 2017 to make the payment. The board will have to decide whether to pay cash or bond for it. Zoning Law Amendment – A public hearing will be set for July. 1061 Dryden Road – Ray Burger explained that a concept plan for a planned unit development (PUD) has been submitted. Applicant proposes 36 townhomes on 7 acres adjacent to the rail trail near the FH Fox bridge. The plan is complete and the Town Board now can recommend changes or forward it to the Planning Board for their recommendations or reject it. Planning Board would review it, hold a public hearing and provide feedback in a report to Town Board. Town Board would then hold public hear ing also. Applicant will need to get DOT approval for location of curb cut, a possible 60 to 90 day process. Cl Lamb said he has visited the site and visibility should be increased. Ray Burger explained that a PUD is an overlay district. A Portion of a rural residential district could be changed to allow for a greater density. In this instance the allowed density is currently 2 dwelling units per acre, and the plan as proposed will increase that to 5.5 dwelling units per acre. That is the main exception to the present zoning. The n eighboring district allows up to 11 townhomes per district, so this would seen an appropriate transition. Water and sewer infrastructure is available. The advantage to the PUD process is the amenities piece. Applicant proposes to deed over an acre of land to the town that contains the former rail bed. There is an advantage to keeping this project in the PUD. The Board will vote next week to send it to the planning board. S Hill Recreation Way Extension – This would extend the rail trail from the city of Ithaca through four towns: Ithaca, Dryden, Danby and Caroline. The property owner, NYSEG, is now open to an agreement. Letters have gone out to adjacent land owners. The board can choose to hold a public hearing to collect public opinion. The towns now need to decide whether to endorse it and if so, there will need to be an MOU. Presently the Town of Ithaca does maintenance and could continue with the rest of it, billed to the ap propriate towns, as some towns will simply be monetary contributors. Supv Leifer said he has heard from some neighbors who hunt in the area and are not in favor of this trail. Ithaca shuts down the trail during hunting season. If there are people in opposition next week, we will g ather questions and get them answers after the meeting. We could possibly hold a hearing in July. Montgomery Park Revitalization – Supv Leifer said there is a group working with the Village and DRYC. DRYC has not yet made a recommendation regarding courts. The revitalization committee wants the town to contribute toward resurfacing the courts and is TB 6-9-16 Page 3 of 5 working on estimates. The DPW may be able to help with the surfacing and painting and will get a quote together. The revitalization committee will choose from the options and make a recommendation as will the DRYC, and then the board will make a decision. Supv Leifer wants to be sure there is an MOU with respect to the town being able to hold recreation programs there. Green Building Codes – Planning Board has a draft report. The Green Residential Code is optional until October when it becomes mandatory. Cl Cipolla-Dennis disagrees with Planning Board’s recommendation to make this voluntary. These are practical things we are asking homebuilders and homeowners to do. We have to seriously think about climate change and anything we can do to push energy efficiency and reduction of the use of fossil fuels needs to be done. The town needs to determine what is in the new code and whether the town wants to do something in addition to that because our code could be more stringent. There’s more to learn over the next few years. R Burger said other states have implemented increased green codes and we can use those to determine whether we want to make additions. Cl Cipolla- Dennis will talk with Kevin Ezell, R Burger and Marty Moseley about whether this is enough or are there other things that can be done over and above the state code. We need to be up to speed when approached by a builder. Cl Lamb would like to find what other communities in New York are doing. Cl Cipolla-Dennis said we’re moving in the right direction, but there is more work to do. Solar - Board members are attending educational sessions on solar and will work toward helping people when they are approached to lease land (similar to when the leases for fracking were going on). The property tax issue is real and we have 60 days to send a letter out under the Real Property Law informing an applicant for a solar farm that we’d like to seek a PILOT, or they will be exempt from property tax on the project. Supv Leifer will work on a letter starting Monday. The Planning Board is touring TC3 at their next meeting. They are hosting a session by Chris Denton about commercial solar and solar leases at the end of the month. People are signing away their renewable energy credits (RECs) in leases. Supv Leifer doesn’t want to join the suit against the state (NYSERDA) for retroactively stealing the RECs from people. DiNapoli is looking into it for fraud. This also affects County’s ability to claim greenhouse gas emission reductions and the County recently passed a resolution with respect to this. Renewable energy credits are being turned over to NYSERDA who then turns them over to NYSEG and NYSEG can claim that they are producing green power, when they aren’t. Then the people actually producing green power don’t have the authority to claim that green power. You need to own the RECs in order to claim to produce green power. Community Energy Coordination involves the town being a provider of energy. NYSEG wants letters of interest before our next meeting. Supv Leifer said if the town is interested, he can send a letter, but we could back out at any time. We probably don’t have staff to deal with something like this. Cl Cipolla-Dennis said she doesn’t think this will be the last opportunity and that probably the reason municipalities got the email was more for customer awareness. It seems that NYSEG wants towns to be customers, not necessarily the provider. It seems that they want business to do this, not municipalities. Community Choice Aggregation – Cl Cipolla-Dennis said she attended the meeting and they will continue to meet as a group learning about this. This is basically a way for municipalities or private citizens to create an aggregation. A group would go together to purchase solar power or wind power from MEGA or another source, and all of their power would come from that source. There will be a presentation from MEGA at the group’s next meeting. The board reviewed the items for next week’s agenda. TB 6-9-16 Page 4 of 5 Verizon – R Burger will send an evaluation via email tomorrow. The public hearing will be next week, but the board may not vote on it until the July meeting. 4 Cricket Lane – David & Theresa Kalb, who cannot be at the meeting next week addressed the board. They have lived at 171 Groton Road over 34 years, a corner property on Cricket Lane. It has been a quiet residential neighborhood on a dead end street and about 9 people in the near vicinity. Seven of the nine live within 50 yards of the proposed facility. It is a small, condensed residential neighborhood with small lots. They have had no communication from the applicants until today when they received a letter in the mail. That letter says they propose to be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 8:00 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. That doesn’t seem to be a part time business. The Kalbs don’t begrudge the applicant something to do in his retirement, but it seems he has been ramping up for some time. He built a large garage, expanded the parking area and large equipment was just delivered by two tractor trailers. They completely disagree with a special use permit for this auto shop in this residential area. There are no sidewalks. Children walk to the bus at the end of the road. They play in road all the time and neighbors know this. Customers will not be used to this and it is a dead end street. It will forever change the character of the neighborhood. They’ve already seen more traffic, and there will be more noise. When you turn onto the road, you then have to make a quick turn in to narrow driveway. There is always the possibility of spills, and the neighborhood doesn’t want to be in the policing business. They are concerned about their well water. It was un-neighborly for the applicant to say he had spoken with neighbors when he had not. They first received a postcard from the town, and are now reacting to the letter they received from the applicant. He should have gotten the SUP when he bought the property. D Kalb will write a letter to the board in support of his position that this use is not compatible. No truck signs were discussed for this street. Cl Lamb would like an exchange of ideas between the neighbors and for them come up with a counter-proposal. Mr Kalb said people in the neighborhood don’t want the applicant to do more than he already is. There has been increased traffic with what is going on already. The public hearing will continue next week. Items that may be added to the agenda for next week: o Conservation Board resolution for The Schug trail with respect to adding exercise equipment along the trail. o Village wells at Dryden Lake and MOU to continue to operate the park at the lake. The board discussed smoking regulations at the park. Enforcement may be an issue. o Moratorium on expansion of infrastructure that uses fossil fuels. o Time Warner line extensions. R Burger reported that Mike Moore who has a SUP for a storage facility on Route 13 is ready to build his second building, but it will have a slightly different footprint with an increase of 10’ in length, a minor change. This may need an amendment to the SUP. The Town Board asked R Burger to have the Planning Board take a look at it this month. The 1401 Dryden Road project is proceeding. The old house will be used as a training site for the fire departments before it is taken down. RESOLUTION #104 (2016) – APPROVE ABSTRACT #6 Supv Leifer offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: TB 6-9-16 Page 5 of 5 RESOLVED, that this Town Board hereby approves Abstract #6, as audited, general vouchers #371 through #458 ($240,888.67) and TA vouchers #71 and #72 ($3,687.53), totaling $244,576.20. 2nd Cl Cipolla-Dennis Roll Call Vote Cl Lavine Yes Cl Servoss Yes Cl Cipolla-Dennis Yes Cl Lamb Yes Supv Leifer Yes Cl Cipolla-Dennis has a timer to use for citizens privilege and has developed some simple rules to be considered by the board. She will share this with the board for consideration next week. On motion made, seconded and unanimously carried, the board moved into executive session at 8:43 p.m. to discuss the employment history of a particular individual. No action was taken. The meeting was adjourned at 9:20 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Bambi L. Avery Town Clerk