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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-09-24 with attachmentsConservation Board September 24, 2019 Dryden Conservation Board September 24, 2019 Members Present: Peter Davies (Chair), Bob Beck, Gian Dodici, Craig Schutt, Jeanne Grace (at 7:30 pm), Anne Clark, David Wilson, Tim Woods, and Nancy Munkenbeck (at 7:55 pm) Absent: Milo Richmond (Alternate) Liaisons: Craig Anderson, Planning Board Guest(s): David Weinstein The meeting was called to order at 7:03 p.m. Review and approval of minutes dated June 25, 2019 C. Schutt made a motion to accept minutes as written, seconded by G Dodici and unanimously approved. Additions to the Agenda C. Schutt, suggested we may want to do a resolution supporting the Public Safety Committee of the Tompkins County Legislature passing a resolution to allow deer and bear rifle hunting in Tompkins County. Reports and Updates Agricultural Advisory Committee — Craig Schutt See attached email with report on their August 11th and September 11th meetings. Planning Board — Craig Anderson See attached report on their June 27th, July 25th, August 22"d, and September 11th meetings. He did want to point out a couple of reminders: The Mill Creek subdivision was approved. There are two pieces of property there that will be deeded to the Town. Suggested the Conservation Board may want to go and walk it sometime to see what is in there. Maybe put permanent stakes on the corners/boundaries while the survey stakes are still flagged. D. Weinstein suggested coming up with a policy to monitor parcels owned by the Town. Planning Board met with Environmental Design & Research ("EDR"), who was hired for the Comprehensive Plan Update. Someone will be reaching out to the Conservation Board for their input. D. Weinstein or C. Anderson will forward the EDR proposal to the Deputy Clerk for forwarding to all Conservation Board members for their review. C. Anderson — did bring up to the Planning Board the Ellis Hollow Road conservation easements and issues with the stormwater issue. P. Davies suggesting setting a date/time when 3-4 board members could go out and walk the new properties. C. Anderson did advise that the parcels may not yet be deeded to the town and they will Page 1 of 4 Conservation Board September 24, 2019 need to get permission to walk the parcels. D. Weinstein will reach out to R. Burger to obtain permission for the inspection. A, Clark surveyed the board to see who is interested in walking the property. It was decided they would shoot for October 6 at 10 a.m., meeting at the property. Dryden Rail Trail — Bob Beck • We received a grant from the Triad Foundation in the amount of $15,000 to go towards the materials for the two trestle renovations. We are waiting for approval from DEC's engineers to begin the work. We are planning to put the railings on the Fox bridge soon with the cooperation with Dryden highway and Bruno Schickel. • B. Schickel has been out grading the trail on both sides of Mt. Pleasant Road for better grading. • Still working on moving forward with the TAP grant from D.O.T. and deciding which parts of the trail would stay within that grant. • Discussion ensued regarding stone used on the trails and how it impacts bicyclists. • Discussed crossing hazards and warning signage for motorists. • Town HWVDPW hope to have the flashing solar signs (this week) installed at George Road and Springhouse Road crossings. • Have ordered welcome signs, stop signs and street name signs for the trails. Deer Population Management — T. Woods We previously had Prof. Blossey (Cornell) and Courtney LaMere (DEC) come talk to us about their operations they've been conducting in Lansing, Cornell and Trumansburg over the last few years. It has been very successful for those individual locations. I have been researching to try to determine the actual deer population in the town and how that fluctuates based on hunting, disease, and loss of habitat it is difficult. Almost impossible to get information on where the deer collisions have been happening, as there is no requirement to report when you hit a deer. We have special use permits from DEC for agricultural pest permits, which can be tracked. The State of New York does have a required reporting procedure for all deer that are harvested. It's called the Harvest Information Program. From this database we can also determine where a deer was taken. Overall, there are four steps to implementing that program: 1. Find out where the complaints are, because it is usually complaint driven. For Trumansburg to set up their program, their local government had to have enough complaints that they could go to Prof. Blossey and state they have a problem and where. The program is not operated in open space; only in a Village, City, or Cornell campus. We would have to go out and determine where the complaints are within an approved area. 2. Find out if that location has a discharge ordinance and if so, we would have to overcome that problem. We would go to them and offer to take care of the deer problem if they can deal with the ordinance issue. 3. Somebody on the Conservation Board would need to take information from all the different sources and put together a plan. Would then work with DEC and Cornell to operate the plan. We could do it as a whole board, but it was suggested that we have a subgroup to work specifically with deer management. 4. Would need to put together a proposal to the Town Board that we adopt this plan from Cornell and DEC. Once we get that passed, we would then go to DEC and set up the program wherever we want it to be implemented. Page 2 of 4 Conservation Board September 24, 2019 This is a voluntary program and a "community" would need to approve and want the hunt. Discussion ensued regarding areas around Freeville that would be great for the program (i.e., George Junior). Since this is complaint driven, if you get enough of those in a contiguous area, then we can document that and acknowledge there is a problem, and something needs to be done about it. First step in implementing is to figure out where the deer problem is and if the people are interested in getting rid of the deer problem. Discussion ensued with ideas about: • How to poll the community to find out where a hunt might be needed • Matching hunters with land owners that are willing to allow hunting on their land • Subcommittee of CB to explore this? • Use Town website with a link • Possibly put on community list serve • Discharge ordinances T. Woods will initiate the first organized hunt on Johnson Road. He will get back with DEC and Prof. Blossey and will get a consensus of the people on Johnson Road. He will let the Conservation Board know how it goes. C. Schutt — Reported the Public Safety Committee of the County Legislature has a resolution to open up rifle season in Tompkins County again for bear and deer. It went to the Committee this week and it passed unanimously so it is going to the full Legislature on October V for action. RESOLUTION #6 (2019) — SUPPORTING PROPOSED RESOLUTION #8710 OF THE TOMPKINS COUNTY LEGISLATURE N. Munkenbeck offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: RESOLVED, the Conservation Board of the Town of Dryden supports the passage of Resolution #8710 by the County Legislature, resolution allowing bear and deer rifle hunting in Tompkins County. 2nd C. Schutt; J. Grace — abstained; remainder of board voted in support. Ditch Management in the Town — G. Dodici We've been talking about ditch management, or the lack thereof, for quite some time. We had Rebecca Schneider come in a couple of years ago and she met with the town highway folks and they seemed to understand what she was saying, but nothing has changed with their practices. Discussion ensued regarding: • Why are ditches being dug so deep? • Amount of erosion is concerning • On Mount Pleasant to Rt 366 stone brakes were put in, which is a good thing • How to approach highway department and encourage them to get them to implement best management practices • Show them how it is beneficial, how it is going to save them money and time in the long run • Demonstrate that the deeper ditches are costing them more • Concerned with the safety hazards for motorists with these deep ditches Page 3 of 4 Conservation Board September 24, 2019 • DOT ditch regulations • Possible set up a meeting with the highway and deputy highway superintendents • Do test spots so they can see the benefits over the years of best management practices • G. Dodici will contact R. Schneider to see if she is willing to implement test spots and then invite highway in to discuss Conservation Board Membership P. Davies advised he will be stepping down as chair effective January 1St, however, he will remain on the board. Provided volunteer board applications to those members present with terms expiring this year. C. Anderson asked J. Grace if when the conservation easement surveys in Ellis Hollow were completed, were they sent to R. Burger, Planning Director? P. Davies asked J. Grace to send them to R. Burger again and have him acknowledge receipt. There being no further business, B. Beck made a motion to adjourn, seconded by A. Clark and unanimously approved. The meeting was adjourned at 9:16 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Chrystle Terwilliger Deputy Town Clerk Page 4 of 4 Planning Board Update, 9/23/2019 PB meetingJune27, 2019 The Planning Board voted to create a subcommittee to study possible options for resolvingthe incompatibility between the currentVarna Zoningand the goals of the Varna Community Development Plan. A SMALLWIND ORDINANCE draft was finished and forwarded totheTown Board. PB meetingJuly 25, 2019, from minutes; C Anderson reported that the Conservation Board went out and did evaluations of the two conservation easements on Ellis Hollow Road. They had problems at one finding the pins and locating boundaries. (We might want to ask developers to put in permanentstakes in the future.) They had concern overthe stormwater. He looked at it and it was failing when he looked at it last month. He brought it up to the Planning Department and brings up the question of who monitors stormwater. This development is a yearold. The stormwater construction has been taken out by the wet season. The developerdid build it to specs and is on the hookfor making it as presented. CAnderson said it appears they have tried to make a waterfall, and it appearsto be about a zero grade. Making it a recreation area is not in keeping it an easement. The stormwater pond is on lot 5 in the second subdivision (private property) and the landowneris on the hookfor maintenance, notthe Homeowners Association as is responsible forthe road maintenance. The board should keep these things in mind in the future. D Weinstein said they are in violation of the easement and the stormwater plan is not in working order. R Burger said we have an enforcementSWPPP, so thatwill get constructed as specified in the SWPPP. He doesn't believe having the stormwater pond in the conservation easement is a conflict. D Weinstein said the recreational part is not what the board was thinking is an allowed use in the conservation zone. R Burger said the conservation easement can be enforced because isa contract with the town. When he gets the report from the Conservation Board, he will put it in the queue for enforcement. At the August 22, 2019 PB meeting the PB approved the 40 lot MILL CREEK SUBDIVISION. Included with the approval, approximately 500 acres of the 900 acres subdivision will be conserved through the covenants and deed restrictions. The Town of Dryden will receive a 22.8 -acre parcel along Fall Creekthat will be preserved as a conservation area and 3.5 acres on Wood Road that will be used for recreational purposes. Over Report to the CB from Craig Schutt — Ag Committee meetings August 14 and September 11 August 14 — Monica Roth from Cornell Cooperative Extension attended the meeting to begin the 8 year review of the Agricultural District. A large map of the town with the Ag S District was reviewed by the committee and a lot of information of who owns and or works many of these properties was plotted on the map. The review process of the Ag District will take several months with opportunities for public comment. During the review there will be opportunities to take parcels out of or add parcels to the District. September 11— Unfortunately CCE did not attend the meeting, as previously expected. The committee continued with the discussion of a month earlier. There was also some discussion about the update of the Town Comprehensive Plan and how the committee will be involved. Agenda Town of Dryden Conservation Board Tuesday, 24 September 2019 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Dryden Town Hall 93 East Main Street, Dryden, NY 13053 Note: Items may be added to or removed from this agenda as needs and circumstances dictate. Call to Order (7:00 p.m.) - Peter Davies Completion of Record of Attendance by Members and Observers. Review and Approval of Minutes from June 25th 2019. (There were no meetings in July and August) Citizens' Privilege (5 minutes or less per person, please). Additions to Agenda? Discussion of Reports and Updates (if any) from Boards, Commissions, etc. (previously distributed by email please). New Business • Tim Wood: Discussion of possible actions for deer control. • Gian Dodici: Ditch management in the Town: how can we improve the Town's implementation of best management practices? • Peter Davies: request for new Chair starting January 2020. • Any other business Adjourn Town of Dryden Conservation Board GUEST Sign In September 24, 2019 NAME (Please print) ADDRESS/BOARD/BUSINESS