HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-03-16Planning Board Meeting
March 1 , 2006
Members Present: Cfia1rpcxson Barbara C;aldwcJl, Joseph Lalley, David Weinstein,
Joseph lraquatra and Russell Beck
Others Present; Henry Slater, Dan 1 wasnowski, Kris Strickland, (1 ) Mark
Mecenas, Scott Hoard and (2) Kelly Datum
Agenda: (1) Nlecenas Proposed Subdivision
(2) Howser Meado%vs Subdiv1sion
(1) Mecenas Propused Subdivision
7:06
B. CaldweII ]Meeting called to order by Chair Barbara Caldwell Mark Mecennas is here
and Mark would You like to tel l us more of what you are proposing,
M. Mecenas My wife and I have a 5 + acre parcel (Mark explained that it was parcel
originally and are now consolidated into one) and we are proposing to
subdivide the back 5 acres into 4 -lots. I ain looking at the memo here and
see that....I sat down with an informal sketch with Henry and didn't have
this with me when I drew out the proposed ruin around and now see that it
does not quite conform but it could very easily changed to conform to the
Town Standards. I am proposing a 4 -lot subd1vIsion on this 5-i- -acre parcel.
J. Lalley Are you sure about the address being 376
H. Slater I did that, it eras ozlly for identification purposes. 1 think it may he 380
something for the existing house.
J, Lalley My main point is where l believe you have a rp.ady begun construction is
very close to the proposed secondary access for the Peregrine Hollow
Subdivision so what thought have you given to that tying into that.
M. Mecenas l have actually given some thought and I was going to suggest for the
better good of the community at largo that some how we try to work out a
design that would fac11Aaw that second access because the land that John
Young owns behind me or to the Southeast is pretty swampy so it would
be difficult to put a road in there and it would be ridiculous to have to
roads run parallel for such a short distance, If we can work together and do
a design that makes sense and plan for the future.
D. Weinstein Would you be formally proposing that the road you would be building
would somehow become the access to that?
M_ ml ecenas 1 think that would make sense from a big picture perspective. Nothing 1
am saying is sacred, I am looking for ideas here, Larry Fabroni is the
engineer_ He did not have time to prepare a .formal sun?ey of my parcel,
He was kind enough to drop off an in-Formal survey. This shoes the
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Peregrine Hollow parcel and my parcels and it shows this area, which is
® very wet. It would make sense that if we could somehow do something
that would create an access here. If we could come up with a design that
the road could be extended in the future.
J. Lalley Where was the road proposed for Peregrine?
M. Mecenas That I do not know. I am trying to look at the big picture. Cornell is doing
a big project down the road. Scott Howard who is here with me and is my
business partner. A friend of his is doing the excavation for this project
and they had all this good shale that they needed some place to put and
they called me up and asked if 1. could use this. I said ves that it was
excellent sub -base. He said you have a driveway permit and why don't
you go ahead and put down fabric and put this shale there. This is
basically an extension of the existing driveway.
B. Caldwell You say this is pretty wet and as I recall there is a lot of wet area back in
here as well. We spent 7 years on Peregrine Hollow. I am trying to figure
out what the potential use is of this land and are there ways to accomplish
both your needs and if this land here is usable in some fashion should that
road also address that particular thing or is this simply something that
could not be used effectively in any way. Dan do you know?
D. Kwasnowski Pointed out to the planning Board the federally designated wetland.
J. Lalley My concern now is the existing construction.
D. Kwasnowski it is not very big and conceivably it is a federally designated wetland and
they could develop it.
® J. Laquatra You are working on the driveway now?
M. Mecenas That is correct. This is right next to the house.
S. Howard There is actually 24" culvert that drains the water from this side of the
road. Conceivably that wetland can be dried up.
D. Weinstein But if it is a federally designated wetland it has history of being a
wetland. They look at soils and things.
S. Howard Is it mapped out as that?
D. Kwasnowski That is the yellow line here. You would have to have a wetland delineation
done on this lot to figure out the extent of 1wetland.
J. Laquatra Dan, how does that effect him?
D. Kwasnowski The way that it affects him is that the wetland issue doesn't look like there
is one. The real difficult thing is that he has given us a plan that disturbs
more than an acre, The way that the DEC Phase II Stormwater regs are if
you have a plan that disturbs more than an acre of land so just the road
they are proposing disturbs more than an acre and that does not include the
houses. You have to have a Stormwater Management Plan in place before
you can proceed or at least coverage under the general permit before you
can break ground and at least at a minimum an erosion sediment control. It
takes 5 days to get coverage. Right now they have broken ground on
something they propose to disturb over an acre of land and do not have
stormwater coverage. At worst with this wetland the worst thing that could
happen is they may have a water quality impact on this. I don't think that
is an issue right now. The two things that cannot happen with the
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Stonnwater Permit you cannot have a water quality infraction and you
cannot have sediment go on someone else property. Here they have a
wetland on someone else property.
M. Mecenas We have a silt fence up.
D. Kwasnowski You do not have a plan showing how you are going to put the fence in.
S. Howard We have not disturbed an acre either.
D. Kwasnowski It doesn't matter if your plan is to disturb over an acre you have to have a
stormwater management plan.
S. 1- Toward I do not think we are going to disturb over an acre because right now we
are at 13,000 square feet.
D. Kwasnowski With the houses you will ultimately.
S. Howard How do the rules apply when one house is done every 6 months?
D. Kwasnowski It doesn't matter the ultimate plan is the issue.
J. Lalley We are looking at the long -teen plan.
B. Caldwell Dan, would you see this as not buildable in this particular area we do not
have to worry in terms of access?
D. Kwasnowski If this wetland was the extent of this lot then yes you could build on this
wetland but because there is so much land then 1 do not think the Corp
would let You because it is not restricted.
Another thing to consider is with building 4 new houses and conceptually
if we did not require 125' of frontage they could as part of.' the subdivision
plan have a private shared driveway.
M. Mccenas After my discussion with Jack Bush and now knowing that he does not
® want/like the small roads caused by subdivisions I have come up with
another idea to build the road to Tov*vn specs and we will have a
homeowners association and maintain the road ourselves.
Jack did not seem to like the idea
B. Caldwell We have had some nightmares on some of those
J Laquatra We have had some shared driveways that have not been handed over to a
homeowners association. The Town was possibly going to be sued over it.
There is sensitivity over this issue.
D. Weinstein If this was a firm homeowners association with this included in it that
should solve the issue.
D. Kwasnowski Our Town Highway Department will be inspecting it every three years and
if there is an issue and you do not .fix it we will fix it and then bill you
through your taxes.
B. Caldwell We have had a problem with that also. When Ringwood Court was private
and the people who lived there said that they would like it to be a Town
Road.
H. Slater This was an issue with financing of the lots. They needed the road
frontage
M. Mecenas Asked if that was built to Town specs?
H. Slater Replied with NO
M. Mecenas Proposed that he would be building to Town Specs and that should solve
that issue.
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I-I. Slater Stated that the shale has to go because it is not an acceptable sub -base
material. The specs that I gave to you tell you what material is and that is
not one of them. I think Jack Bush advised whoever was working up there
last Friday that he does not accept that. Also, suggested that the work be
halted.
M. Mecenas The Town specs show a base of 12" of item 4, if i were to get an engineer
to do a test on the sub -base and get it approved.
I-I. Slater Read Town Road specs as per the request of Jack Bush. Also discussed
with Mark Mecenas acceptable engineers for this project.
D. Weinstein What is happening with the house in which the road seems to go through?
M. Mecenas Keep in mind that on these tax maps the dimensions are somewhat
suspect. I unfortunately do not have a new survey.
I don't think it goes through the house. It may be an issue.
J. Lalley Upon an visual inspection it does not seem to go through the house. It is
however very close.
H. Slater If the house is within the 60' feet that he would have to deed to the Town
the Town would not accept this as a public road.
.I. Lalley Stated that from the center of what has currently been done the house is
too close and that M. Mecenas does not meet that requirement.
M. Mecenas I have made arrangements with the current owner of.'the house that if it
needed to be torn down that I would make other housing accommodations
for him or we look at the situation and we say well this is what the rules
are but in this particular instance it might not be too crazy to fix up the
house rather than tear it down. I will accept whatever is possible.
J. Lalley Another concern we would not like to have two road cuts it that area and I
am not sure what the sight distance is like. If that is going to become the
exit for not only your subdivision and Peregrine Hollow according to the
TG Miller Report this issue should be thought through.
M. Mecenas We have halted all construction at this time. The shale has been put down
and it is there but we have stopped further construction.
D. Weinstein If Peregrine Hollow Phase II was to be reinvigorated then something like
this on this property would seem to fit with the environment. Is that why it
is intingent on what happens with Peregrine Hollow or is it that Peregrine
Hollow Phase II would need a second egress and this would solve that
problem?
J. Lalley Peregrine Hollow at its conclusion would need a second egress that was
part of the plan of the overall plan. It was not required in Phase 1.
D. Weinstein Is there no other alternatives for that?
B. Caldwell NO, that was the problem.
J. Lalley We need to be sure that whatever we approve here that we are looking at
the bigger picture the 100 -year picture. We need to be sure it is within the
context of what we had in mind for that area and what has been already
approved.
J. Laquatra Howr long ago was that?
H. Slater 10 years ago.
E'
J. Laquatra What indication do we have that's even going to go forward. Has it been
® dormant?
M. Mecenas The parcel has been sold at a tax sale and now only shows up as one parcel
not a subdivision.
H. Slater Before the property was bought by Mr.Young (current owner), we talked
at length about the property and as I recall it was his intent to buy the
property and keep it forever wild. He will not own forever and someone
else may decide to do something with it.
J. Lalley I am suggesting that we leave options open for future development. 1 think
in the context if he has this large piece of property and Peregrine Hollow
is really dead that is important information to know and we do not have
that information for definite. 1 feel we should be sure if it is in a
conservation easement.
B. Caldwell States that if this road were to be built it could be awkward.
M. Mecenas Henry has been very generous with his advice and I am looking for a place
to start, nothing is concrete here and I wanted to get a conversation going.
We can change things. It may make more sense to change and do other
things.
In explaining other options commented that possibly public water and
sewer could be brought to the area.
J. Laquatra Looking at the Comprehensive Plan there is no plan to extend that.
I would suggest that you get familiar with the Comprehensive Plan as it
affects your property. Come up with alternative sketches for us including a
® Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, so that you do not run into these
obstacles. it is hard for me not being real familiar with this site and not has
good sketches to comment on and then we could move forward a little
more concretely.
M. Mecenas Barbara, as far as the road any Stormwater waste management program
design is going to have to take into account the design of the road and
could have some direction as to what you may want to see in terms of
connecting up with the Peregrine Phase 1.1.
B. Caldwell Obviously I have some concerns about your original plan. 1 simply don't
know without walking the property and looking at the Peregrine Hollow
Files. As far as the Stonmwater I think Dan could give you the best advice.
M. Mecenas Dan, do you have any comments on how the future road should be
developed?
D. Kwasnowski You need to know that there are just so many places you can put the road
there. You need an Erosion Sediment Control Plan, which shows that you
are going to follow prescriptive measures of the DEC, silt fencing.
The biggest thing is going to be how many houses whether you may need
a pond or not. You are going to have to have at the minimum water quality
control if not water quantity. You are going to need to store water that
runs off the sides of the road.
It cannot have the ditch out to the road it will have to go to some kind of
pond.
You will need a certified professional to do this for you.
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M. Mecenas I use nothing but PF.'s there is a certain credibility there that I believe in.
D. Weinstein I think that this is only going to work if you take that house away. The
soils there are really bad there.
B. Caldwell You may run into some problems on those lot sizes to get that number of
septics.
H. Slater Have you talked to the Health Department yet?
M. Mecenas No, I wanted to meet with you first.
D. Kwasnowski You need there approval for the septic because we could tell you that you
could have 10 houses there and they may say ,NO.
D. Weinstein You may be better off only building two houses and having a shared
driveway.
H. Slater He cannot do that because he only has 90' of road frontage and he needs
to create frontage. He could ask for an area variance from the Zoning
Boards of Appeals.
J. Lalley This is a tough site and there is a lot to think through.
B. Caldwell Does this give you some sort of direction?
M. Mecenas We will talk with the Health Department first.
H. Slater If they tell you 2 lots then you would think about going to the ZBA to get
relief to create 2 lots.
D. Kwasnowski Another thing to do is to get a wetland delineation. To be sure nothing is
identified there just because there is one near by.
M. IVIeeenas Sure. I understand. Thank you very much.
® Howser Meadows
B. Caldwell Where- are we at with this Kelly.
K. Damm We believe we have resolved the issues raised last time regarding the two
access points and the public safety issue. They also took care of the road
that is now combined access for lots 29 & 30.
D. Weinstein Needed better clarification as to what was changed on the map.
They are making 7 lots out of the parcel?
K. Damm Correct
H. Slater The bigger parcel is going to be another phase. Right now they are asking
for 6 lots. Phase I is complete. The only comment I had was that I thought
that the delineated wetland needs to be clearly plotted on hot 27 and
potentially on Lot 29. It has already been delineated so it should be easily
put on there.
K. Damm They can do that.
D. Weinstein Why on lot 29?
H. Slater For future reference.
D. Weinstein Henry, do you think the wetland on Lot 27 could be problematic in terms
of development?
H. Slater I do not think so. I just think it needs to be shown on the map.
B. Caldwell What is the dotted line on Lot 27? Is it an old driveway?
K. Damns It was a potential old right of way.
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We are looking for your approval.
H. Slater You will need a preliminary hearing and final hearing and if you are really
comfortable with this even though it is 6 lots. You could possibly do this
in one hearing.
Kelly, is there a Health Department report on this yet?
K. Damm No, that is coming, We would want your preliminary approval pending
Health Department.
D. Weinstein Kelly could you repeat the corrections made from last time. Clarified. The
two separate driveways are now wide enough to be a road, which was also
the public safety issue.
B. Caldwell You should probably have some sort of Health Department approval and
what about. the Stormwater issues Dan? Do we need anything for the
hearing?
D. Kwasnowski Since your land plan has nothing to do with building you do not need a
Stonnwater Plan.
Each builder needs to have at the minimum an erosion Sediment Control
Plan.
K. Damm What do we need from the Health Department for the next meeting?
H. Slater At least a report that it is under review because the contingency could be
filing the report. Showing the delineated wetland on Lot 27. Town
Engineer needs to see plan.
R. Beek No driveways, only parceling'? Correct?
K. Damm Correct.
B Caldwell Our next meeting we could do a combined meeting preliminary/combined.
H. Slater I need to see it at least 10 days prior to public hearing.
The necessary scheduling will be done.
Discussion
D. Kwasnowski The first issue is the Town Land Conceptual Use Map and Plan —
Proposal. We have put together a committee to develop a map and plan
and then have each board review it. This would enable us to continue with
the Town Hall. I would like to collect as much public input as I can this
summer and in the fall we would like to have the 'Town Board adopt the
plan.
J. Laquatra How does this differ from what we have done with the Comprehensive
Plan?
D. K- wasnowski This is specifically for what we want to do with the 50 acres of recreation
area.
B. Caldwell Since the location is specifically the Dryden School District are you going
to also ask specifically for input from some of the other school district or
possibly do some environmental education aspect with this.
D. Kwasnowski Yes, I would like to use the school districts. One of the ideas I have for the
natural education. I represent the To�%gl in the Cayuga Lake Inter -
municipal Organization and one of the plans would be to use an upland
site (wetland~ and things like that). I am open to any suggestions.
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H. Slater This is open to anyone who is willing to come and take part in it.
D. Kwasnowski The other thing 1 have is the Route 13 / 366 corridor management plan
project that the Transportation Counsel and County Planning is putting
out. We arc open to suggestions.
This specifically looks at building out scenarios for our current zoning and
a proposed zoning changes. This is what this whole study is about with
significant public input.
J. Lalley The link is through the County at this point?
D. Kwasnowski Yes.
D. Weinstein So are these consultants going to be given our Comprehensive Plan as a
starting point?
B. Caldwell We took issue with their recommendations on the Comprehensive Plan.
J. Laquatra They wanted us to turn over the decision making to them over this
corridor.
D. Weinstein The results of these consultants work will go to us the Town not the
County.
B. Caldwell The County cannot make zoning changes.
Additional discussion on the corridor between Dryden and Ithaca. Dan
explained the study being done (handout -hard to understand).
D. Kwasnowski Stormwater ordinance — we need to get this done.
B. Caldwell Are there any other concerns about the threshold.
My big concern was that if you are going to have threshold that low so
that you do have the tool for going after some things when they are still
small enough before they create major problems.
Are you going to have the staffing to do it consistently?
.H. Slater No
R. Beck I really don't support this dropping below the state levels.
J. Laquatra After going to the workshop last year some of the things they were talking
about seemed to be real enforcement problems. Getting to the level of
gutters and do1wrispouts on houses that were in disrepair. Who is going to
enforce that?
R. Beck I think you need to make it somewhat business friendly and
environmentally conscious and I think you can go too far the other way. I
think the state has done the research and it should stay at their level.
D. Kwasnowski Explained how being on our level we could prevent some minor issues
becoming major ones.
R. Beck You are proposing that the Town wants to take on the responsibility to
keep people out of potential fines or are you going to let the State do their
job and let the people face the music if they choose not to follow I.hem.
D. Kwasnowsk.i Once we pass this ordinance the State is out of it. 1 am going to present
this to the Town Board as that we would like to be aware of small sites
where they doing something relatively significant.
Additional examples were given on stormwater control.
D. Weinstein Asked for clarification on some different issues in the ordinance.
0 J. Lalley Moved to accept the document as proposed with the following changes:
That we will defer to the state level thresholds except for he following
conditions:
1. If there is a slope greater than 10%
2. Proximity within 100 feet to a body of water or wetland
Moved by Joseph Lalley
Seconded by Joseph Laquatra
In Favor: 4
Opposed: 1 (David Weinstein)
B. Caldwell Motion passes with I opposition.
Do we want the detailed tackling of the Cluster Subdivision tonight?
J. Lalley I have a couple of comments .... on the second page .... why does it have to
be buildable?
For example if I have a five -acre lot and two acres are buildable under the
existing subdivision I could build a house. Under the Cluster Subdivision i
could put the three acres that can never be built upon forever wild and now
I can build three of four houses. I am wondering if this is a good thing or a
bad thing.
J. Laquatra I think that it is a good thing because the trade off is that we are building
to a higher density where the houses are going to be but we are preserving
more space with the benefit to the people living there while they
individually own a' /4 acre they have access to a much larger number of
acres and then we are preserving open space.
J. Lalley I would also argue that because I can only build one house under the
current regulations technically the other part is not buildable and that
would stay wild as well.
H. Slater But it keeps them from going some place else where we do not want them
to sprawl.
J. Lalley I just wanted a discussion around that and maybe we would want to
remove the word buildable.
D. Kwasnowski This was an example you do not have to have a cluster subdivision with 5
acres. You are the ones who can either require it or leave it as an option to
the builder or you can deny it.
The other part that was left blank showing that in certain zones of 30 acres
or larger you have to or in other zones it may 10 acres or larger you have
to.
In other places when you are doing a minimum of 5 to 10 lot subdivision
then you don't have to do it.
It pretty flexible you have the option to tell them what the can and cannot
do.
J. Lalley Another area is where the document reads that it needs to be "ovwer
occupied ", it doesn't need to say that.
D. Weinstein I think you are asking for big apartment complexes if you do not do that.
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J. Laquatra You can still specify single - family dwellings but you take away the option
that if someone leaves the area for a while and wants to rent the home.
You can specify single family detached but I do not think we want to
specify owner occupied.
I think we should take it out.
D. Weinstein It gives me pause to think it not be owner occupied. It just seems that you
are going to build cluster developments that are essentially going to be
apartment complexes.
Meeting adjourned at 9:05pm
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