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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-P&DB-1996-05-07 a ezdc Approved 7/23/96 Planning and Development Board MINUTES May 7, 1996 Present: Clarence Reed, Chair;Steve Ehrhardt;David Kay;Jane Marcham;Ellen McCollister;Carolyn Peterson;Scott Whitham. Staff- H. Sieverding,Deputy Director; M. Geldenhuys, City Attorney. 1. Wegman's DEIS - Review and adoption of revised Scope Sieverding stated that he had distributed an additional packet of information to the Board which included a fax from the applicant that said because of previous commitments they could not make it to the meeting,but also that they had not yet received the proposed Scope and therefore don't have any comments on it. Sieverding stated that the proposed Scope was mailed out to the applicant at the same time as it was to the members of the Planning Board,so he didn't know why they hadn't received it. Reed suggested that the Board go over the document and take action on it anyway. Sieverding stated that with respect to the May 7 version of the scope, a major change is on page 2,the second paragraph under"drainage and flooding". The last sentence has been reworded to say"appropriate mitigation measures will be analyzed for feasibility and appropriateness." Sieverding stated that originally read "appropriate mitigation measures,if necessary and feasible,identified". In other words,within the text of the DEIS a full analysis of mitigation measures would be required,not just ones the applicant determines feasible. The visual impact discussion was also modified. The last phrase says that specific consideration will be given to viewpoints from South Meadow Street,West Clinton Street and the residential areas to the west of the site. Staff proposes adding the phrase"including perspective viewpoints from the identified vantage points" so the Board gets some sense of what is visible from those vantage points. Sieverding stated that under"Alternative to be Considered"a third alternative was added which would be expansion of the existing structure. Finally,the last revision of the scoping document is under"Prominent Issues Determine Not Relevant or Significant". Originally that just read"All prominent issues raised by lead agency have been included for evaluation in the DEIS." This has been restructured to say that all prominent issues raised by lead agency and by other commentators have been included with one exception,that being the letter received requesting an economic impact analysis. The revised version indicates that competitive economic factors,by all indications we are getting from the Minutes of May 7, 1996 Meeting 2 courts, are beyond the purview of SEQRA, and therefore the lead agency has determined that is not a relevant and appropriate issue to be included in the DEIS. Sieverding stated that,assuming these revisions are acceptable,the one major remaining issue is,as called for in the new State regulations, the initial identification of mitigation measures. He distributed a packet which contained a list of potential mitigation measures that staff had been developing for the last several days. He suggested the Board discuss which of these measures should be included in the scoping document as initial mitigation to be addressed in the DEIS. Geldenhuys stated that the main issue she was concerned about was the economic study,and she thought this was adequately addressed in the draft Scope. Kay suggested changes to the wording in the economic section on page 3 as follows. "Recent court cases have suggested an analysis of(add the word"purely" here)competitive economic factors." He stated he didn't think it applied in this case,but his impression was that there are cases in which socio and economic analysis would make sense. Geldenhuys stated there was some indication that socio economic analysis is appropriate,but she thought it was getting away from competitive economic factors versus socio economic factors. She didn't see a problem with including it. Kay stated that his only concern was whatever it might suggest for future work that the Board does. He said he wouldn't want to say that there is no possible situation in which the Board would ever consider doing an economic impact analysis. Kay asked what the status of City EQR was at this time and why no reference was made to it. Geldenhuys stated that the status of CEQR is under discussion and that there are some discrepancies between CEQR and SEQRA. She said the Board needs to be careful to make sure it doesn't apply portions of City EQR that have been overruled by the new State regulations. She said City EQR is still in effect and should be applied. Kay asked whether it was a deliberate decision not to refer to the City CEQR in the introduction. Sieverding stated that it was more of a response to the new State requirements which says that the introductory paragraph will say that the Scope for the DEIS has been prepared in accordance with Section 8 of the Environmental Conservation Law. Reed suggested leaving it the way it was. Kay stated he had one other suggested phrase to add in under"visual impacts." He suggested adding"The new food market is the largest building on the site and one of the largest structures in the city." Reed stated that his opposition to this because it is getting into too minute a detail and is not necessary. After some discussion,it was agreed to insert"and one of the largest structures in the Route 13 corridor." Minutes of May 7, 1996 Meeting 3 Reed proposed moving on to mitigating measures and beginning with"drainage". Marcham had a question as to what the list meant--whether the Board wants the applicant to evaluate these,put each of these into effect or what. Sieverding stated that this was a new requirement, and in the old requirements you didn't have to identify potential mitigation measures up front as part of the scoping document. He stated that this is an initial list of potential mitigation measures,and it means that these are things the applicant will have to address in the DEIS as to whether or not they are relevant,whether or not they work, whether or not they are feasible,whether or not they achieved their intended objective,etc. He said that in the end, the Board may end up with a list of mitigation measures that looks different than the one identified here,but based on what you now know about the proposed development,this is what you are considering as an initial list of possible mitigation. He said it doesn't exclude the possibility of adding mitigation measures later on as more information becomes available and particularly as we get into more detailed site plan review. He said that each of the measures you include in the scoping document need to be addressed in the DEIS. Sieverding said that he, Van Cort and Meigs put together the list of mitigation measures with the help of Dan Cole for the traffic section. Sieverding stated that the new SEQRA regulations are pretty clear in saying that these are initial mitigation measures, so there is always a possibility for this initial list becoming some other list based on new information. It was decided to go through the entire list. (1) Redirect additional storm water to both the flood relief control channel and Six Mile Creek. Sieverding stated that the thought behind this idea is that rather than directing all of the water to the rear of the site and into the relief channel, there might be a possibility of splitting it and having some of that storm water runoff dumped into Six Mile Creek and other water run out into the flood relief channel. Sieverding said that the applicant should do an analysis and tell us whether or not this does have an impact of reducing potential effect on the flood relief channel. (2) Reduce the amount of paved area in the parking lot. (3) Salt as a deicing agent. He stated this should be minimized as much as possible. Peterson had a question about the 915 parking spaces and whether this was beyond the requirement for parking. Sieverding stated it was and that the City requires at least one parking space for every 500 sq. ft. of retail. He said he would not be opposed to dropping this issue under"drainage"and focusing on it under "visual"which achieves the same objective. It calls for certain set asides for landscaping within the parking area thereby creating more permeable surface area. Reed suggested eliminating#2 at this point. The Board was in agreement on nos, 1, 3,4 and 5. Whitham suggesting adding the following language: "create Minutes of May 7, 1996 Meeting 4 vegetative areas such as parking strips or wet sedimentary basins for storm water infiltration." The first one under"visual"is`provide landscaping within parking areas that is equivalent to 15% of the paved area." Sieverding stated that 15% of paved area was arrived at through two different methods. One method is to design each parking bay with a 10-12 foot wide planting island running the whole length of each bay. This would create seven planting bays. If you take that area as a percentage of the total paved area,parking and circulation that is required to service the development,that is about 14% at 12-foot wide strips or 11.3% at 10- foot wide strips,and you end up losing about 75-80 spaces. The other method of landscaping would be within the parking field itself,creating a planting island every 8-10 cars. According to the sketch of this concept,each of these planting islands would be 9' x 36'. This would allow for a staggered arrangement of landscaping and it uses about 10% of the paved area for these landscaped islands. Van Cort stated that this visually gives you the appearance of rows of trees, so you can achieve the same thing visually either way. Sieverding stated that either way you look at it, 10-15% of the paved area is being devoted to landscaped islands. He said that as the Board negotiates site plan,it can work out with the applicant which approach is most feasible. This would give the applicant some flexibility in how they design and lay out the parking lot,but this would be the standard we would be shooting for. The minimum parking area for 125,000 sq. ft. was around 250 spaces or 1 for 500 sq. ft. Marcham stated that the lot Wegmans is planning is no larger than the present Wegmans lot; it is just about the same size as far as numbers of parked cars. Sieverding stated it was a little bit bigger. Marcham said that the applicant said they now have 550 parking spots and this is now 560 or so. She didn't think they would have enough parking if this was reduced by 10% or 15%. She said the Wegmans lot is sometimes filled and she believes it is a problem. She thinks requiring 10 or 15% for landscaping is too much and unreasonable. Sieverding stated that now we are only identifying a possible standard as a possible mitigation measure. The applicant will analyze that and tell us in the impact statement what they think the impact of the 15%requirement is going to be and whether or not that works, and in the end the Board will have to evaluate that information and decide whether in site plan you are still going to go for it or develop some other approach. Kay stated that he thought the Board should identify reasonable potential endpoints of the spectrum that the Board might require so we can try to negotiate within that spectrum. He didn't think it was appropriate at this stage to make a policy decision about what the Board is going to ask them to do. Marcham had some concern about the Board asking for a large amount and the applicant rejecting it. Five years ago when Wegmans proposed enlarging their store,the City asked for planting islands at the ends of each of the bays rather than planting all through the parking lot, and this does prevent people from driving through. Planting in the middle of the bays is going to prevent people from driving Minutes of May 7, 1996 Meeting 5 through so that they don't have to back out. Kay stated that the Board should evaluate an option like that and see whether it makes sense to do that or not. He said that the Board is not giving the applicant much direction here and wondered whether the Board might want to specifically state that they have the option to look at full bays, separated bays,etc. He said the Board is sort of setting a minimum here, but if the applicant wants to come in and make a case, for example that an 8%reduction of parking space does everything a 15%reduction does in terms of protecting the visual impact, then they can do that. He thinks the Board should set endpoints of a range that the applicant should look at, and if they want to acid some of the midpoints,that's their choice. He feels there is some logic to 15%. Whitham stated that 10-15% seemed to be a minimum(90 some odd spaces). Marcham disagreed. Sieverding stated that he was doing the calculations on the lot based in front of their store,but in the end we are looking at the total parking lot,which is 900+odd spaces, and this would be the standard for the entire parking lot. Marcham asked where there were parking lots that were landscaped to this extent. Whitham said that all the parking lots at Cornell that were built in the last five years were landscaped to this extent. Ehrhardt said he had no problem with 15%. There was some discussion on whether the Board would require 15% or a range such as 5-15%. Kay stated the Board should require 15% so that they wouldn't come back analyzing 5%,or the minimum. McCollister stated that she was in favor of leaving it at 15%. It was agreed to leave it at 15%. Sieverding stated that no. 2 is suggesting that in terms of visual impact,the building be relocated--pushed further back from Clinton Street--and add landscaping and berming and other elements to screen the service area from the street. This has a related issue under"traffic"which is that,according to the Superintendent of Public Works as he analyzes it, service trucks may be using Clinton Street as a maneuvering area to access the loading docks at the rear of the store. Sieverding recommended the final design should insure that all truck maneuvering should be done on site and not within the Clinton Street right of way. No. 3 -Elevation and material choices for the food mart and the other three buildings proposed for the site. Sieverding stated that city staff had received one elevation for the food market itself with some indication of the materials to be used but no similar information for the other three buildings on the site. This item states that the applicant should provide the city with the elevations and indicate what the materials for these other buildings will be. No.4- Calls for relocating the service area to the west of the building to eliminate the visual impact from the street. This, however,would create a visual impact on the mobile home park. The Board decided to eliminate this one. f Minutes of May 7, 1996 Meeting 6 Traffic Sieverding stated that the first one is to look at realigning Clinton Street to improve the geometry at its intersection with South Meadow Street. The turning movement diagrams show that tractor trailer trucks coming in and out of Clinton will be turning into the northbound lane on Meadow Street, so they should take a look at whether or not that intersection could be improved to eliminate those lane violations. No. 2-Adjust signal timing to improve traffic flow and reduce incidents of accidents at site driveway and Meadow. Both Dan Cole and DoT feel that the incidents of accidents at that intersection have increased since the initial Wegmans development, so the applicant should take a look at adjusting the signal timing to improve traffic flow. No. 3 has to do with neighborhood impact and identifying alternate routes to the store that would avoid or possibly reduce the traffic impact to the Titus/South of the Creek neighborhood. Ehrhardt suggested to identify and/or provide infrastructure to construct alternate routing. He was thinking of the possibility of putting up physical barriers to eliminate the possibility of going straight ahead into Wegmans. Kay stated there were two tasks here, one being who does the analysis evaluating what the impacts would be and the other is who actually implements whatever measures are recommended. Sieverding stated that we are asking them to do an analysis of the traffic impact on the neighborhood, and that is the point in identifying the intersection at South Cayuga and South Titus--to see how much of that traffic is actually going straight through the neighborhood and eventually find its way going across South Meadow and into the Wegmans lot. To the extent the Board determines that because of the increase in the amount of development on the site the amount of that traffic increases and represents a threat to the quality of life in that neighborhood the Board may want to see mitigation. That mitigation may include identified--alternate routes the traffic could take to avoid going along South Titus and all those other streets. This asks the applicant to identify the mitigation, but not necessarily join in the cost of construction. That is a decision that the Board has to make. Eventually there will be a discussion about proportionality and whether or not the amount of impact that this environmental impact statement identifies and the kind of mitigation the Board calls for is proportional. Ehrhardt said that Meadow and Clinton,both north and south of the bridge over Six Mile Creek,is a fragile intersection,and the State did not want to permit a left turn off West Clinton onto South Meadow when they did the Octopus redesign. It was only at the insistence of Mayor Nichols at the time that those left turns were included. If we mitigate on South Street or Wood Street,we may induce more traffic to use Clinton and put more pressure on that turn. Ehrhardt said there were some serious problems here such as lack physical infrastructure. He said that at f Minutes of May 7, 1996 Meeting 7 some point we may have to build more infrastructure,and whatever the Board does here should open the door to some proportionate contribution from Wegmans commensurate with the costs. He said he would like to see the possibility of infrastructure included here and suggested they identify alternate routing patterns, and to the extent there is an impact,there would be a proportionate contribution toward mitigation. Specifically, Ehrhardt suggested the following: "Intersection changes and possible expansion of carrying capacity of the bridge over Six Mile Creek at Meadow to a five-lane bridge." It was agreed to add this language. No.4-Installation of pedestrian activated walk phase at the intersection of South and Meadow. Sieverding said right now there isn't one. This calls for the applicant to analyze the pedestrian routes to the store and include this as possible mitigation. No. 5 -Provide safe pedestrian routes from Meadow Street and from cars parked in the lot to the store. No. 6-Interconnect the driveway through the Wegmans site to the Tops parking lot in as direct a manner as possible. Right now the site plan shows relocating the existing through connection between the two lots. However,there is nothing on the other side of the Wegmans portion of the lot to show how the driveway continues. This is a requirement of the 1978 subdivision approval. It calls for interconnection between all these lots. The last is design the loading and service area so that all truck maneuvering to and from the loading dock takes place on site and not out in the Clinton Street right-of-way. Reed asked that the Board approve the updated Draft Scope (May 7 version)with all the changes agreed to by consensus including the list of potential mitigating measures. Carolyn Peterson moved to approve the Draft Scope as amended, and Steve Ehrhardt seconded the motion. Carried unanimously. Sieverding stated that the Scope would go out to the Board as lead agency and all other involved agencies. The applicant will prepare their Draft Environmental Impact Statement,and the next time the Board will discuss this is after the DEIS is submitted.