HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-07-17TOWN OF DRYDCN
Planning Board
July 17, 2008
Members Present: Barbara Caldwell, Chair; Tom Hatiield; David Weinstein; Joseph Laquatra,
Jr.; Joseph Lalley; Martin Hatch (late),
Excused: Megan Whitman,
Others Present: Mary Ann Sumner, Town Supervisor; Joe Solomon, Board Liaison (late); Dan
Kwasnowski, Environmental Planner; Patty Millard, Recording Secretary; Mike `Velti &
Lawrence Bice from Behan Planning Associates.
.agenda:
Planning Board 'Ntinutes from January, February, March 13 & March 20
Behan Associates:
Welcome, Introductions, and Agenda IRevie%v
Zoning Amendments Phase 2 — Project Purpose and Process
Review and Discuss "Draft 2" (dated July 17, 2008)
Next Steps
Adjournment
Meeting called to order at 7:00
Planning Board Minutes — Jan, Feb, Mar 13, vlar 20
The minutes are much longer than we are used to. They are more transcript than minutes.
Discussion of how the Planning Board would like the minutes to be. Asked P Millard to look
over and condense these sets of minutes.
Introductions.
Mike Weld from Behan Planning was introduced. He's new to the project.
Design Guidelines update — Dan Kivasnowski
Closing of Stuttle Farm has taken up much of Mahlon Perkins (Town Attorney) and Dan's time,
which has pushed back work on the zoning amendments necessary to adopt the Design
Guidelines. The Plarming Board should have them for review by August.
Discussion of adopting Design Guidelines as Policy vs. Guidelines with zoning amendments.
From an applicant`s perspective, when does it go from, "This is what we'd like to see" to "this is
what I have to do?"
N1 Hatch joined the meeting.
B Caldwell — Mary Ann; does this give you some. direction for the Town Board to look at it (the
Design Guidelines)'? (Yes.)
Q*
09
PR 07 -17 -2008
Page 2 of 6
L Bice — gave background on Mile who is a returning employee to Behan Planning and is now
assigned to the Dryden project.
Zoning Amendments Phase 2 — Project Purpose and Process:
Working Groin, Planning Board Roles
Barbara Caldwell, Mary Arvi Sumner, Henry Slater, Dan Kwasnowski and the Behan Planning
Team met last month to review the Amended Zoning Law Draft that is being presented tonight to
make sure everything seemed to be on track before meeting with the full Planning Board. Then
Barbara Caldwell, Mary Ann Sumner met with Nelartin hatch, Megan Whitman and David Makar
as .wet I.
Leval Review
We're about a month and a half from our next legal review. More feedback is needed before that
next step is taken.
Public and Town Review Process
in preparation for the public meetings, we're going to do a town build out analysis to give people
an idea of how the town might develop if the zoning is passed. This (model) will set us up for the
environmental impact statement.
•The first meeting will be a re- introduction to the Comprehensive Plan, then show the Design
Guidelines, and lay the grow -nd work for the proposed updated zoning law.
Stal<ellolder Meetin(s
There are a few tentatively scheduled. if there are others the Planning Board suggests, please let
Dan and /or Lawrence know so they can be scheduled as swell. Those mentioned were Agriculture
Community, large landowners, farmers, developers.
1) K«rasnowski — link to Conservation Board work
Conservation Board has Open Space inventory. Dan sees this becoming an Open Space Plan.
The work the Planning Board is dicing now will help the Conservation Board achieve this goal.
In return, identifying specific requirements for zones in regards to an Open Space Plan will help
the zoning process in general.
Before too much more progress is made, the other Boards will be asked to review, comment, and
changes may be made as a result of feedback from those boards.
Discussion of State owned and Cornell owned lands in regards to this process. Cornell
University Campus master plan is on the web.
TGEIS Transportation Generic Environmental Impact Statement was passed last. night at Town
of Ithaca.
There is a
formal process
for
involving neighboring towns
in the process through General
Municipal
Law. This is at
the
County level.
PB 07 -t7 -2008
Page 3 of 6
J Solomon joined the meeting.
Amended Zoning Law Draft 2 (dated July 17, 200$):
It's not ready to be edited yet. This draft is a starting point. Tile main concepts we want to cover
at this point to help guide the further development of this project arc:
Organization of Document
New Zoning Districts
Use Regulations
Area and Bulk Regulations
Conservation Subdivisions
Overlay Districts
Some changes that were pointed out and /or discussed:
Article iIi: Definitions: A definitions section is needed. This is currently an appendix. It will be
moved here.
Article IV: Zoning Districts: Takes land use districts from Comp Plan, calling them zoning
districts and defining them in this document. There is a land use map in the Comp Plan that will
•help guide the boundary definitions. Discussion on calling Conservation District a Rural District.
A main goal is to preserve the rural character of this town. Concern that "conservation" could
raise some red flags. Think about names. listen for feedback.
Suburban Residential District name was changed to Residential Neighborhood District.
Two overlav districts were suggested as a starting point — on page 3.
Article V: Use Regulations: Page 5
instead of listing all of the uses in separate sections under different zones, Behan was asked to
come up with a table of all Allowed Uses and indicate which zones they were allowed in, .where
special permits were required, etc. This is on pages 5 and G. This may not be complete. Values
need to be reviewed by the Town as sonic categories are new and values were. just filled in as
placeholders until they could be discussed.
Please add (continued on next page) at the bottom of page 5.
M Sumner shared the Town of Ulvsses Allowable Use Chart with the Planning Board.
Discussion on having Religious Institutions in Community Group list.
Starting on page 7, still in Article V, when you have Special Use Permit, there are special
standards for reviewing them. For certain uses that have specific criteria, Telecommunications
Towers for example, you might have some very specific criteria for that use. You can have more
detailed criteria for specific uses as part of that Special Use Permit process. What we did here
PH 07-17 -2008
Page 4 of 6
was that we put a footnote at the bottom of the Allowable Use Groups Chart that says, I
addition to the general criteria for review of a Special Use Permit application and for Site Plan
Review, these uses are also subject to the criteria and standards listed in Section 502 below."
Then listed all of the areas with special criteria here together in one place.
A suggestion was made to move this Article to later on in the document. The Board felt the flow
of the document would be improved if Area and bulk Regulations were listed next.
The number of cases necessary for a Special Use Permit could be lessened and possibly moved
to an administrative function to be handled directly by Zoning Staff. Or move some of these
reviews to the Planning Board to lessen the Town Board's workload. A combination of both of
these is also possible. The SLQR process could be used as a trigger to decide where a Special
Use Permit gets reviewed. The list of `type 1 and `type 2 actions can be customized locally for
this purpose.
Further discussion of the Allowable Use Groups Chart will happen once the Definitions section
is done.
Agricultural thresholds was brought up — what constitutes an agricultural use? The existing
definition is pretty good.
•Article Vie Area and Bulk Regulations
Question on 92, height requirements — there is a tall structures law that needs to be referenced.
Density vs. Lot Size: One of the things being proposed is that every subdivision be reviewed.
This would not include lot line adjustments. Also proposed is a one-time exception reverting to
the old rules for the creation of one new lot.
According to the Comprehensive Plan, the Rural Residential and Rural Agricultural would use a
2 -acre density. For the Conservation District, a 10 -acre density would be used. Preliminary
thoughts are that while a 2 -acre is realistic, it is also problematic. Looking at a build out of the
town under that, the town may be very different from what folks expect. History of these lot
sizes is that they were intended to be a density guideline, not a fixed lot size. This was intended
to help maintain the rural character of our community while allowing those that need to sell off a
piece to survive to do so.
This would encourage people to think more long -term and less about just this one piece that's
being lopped off this year.
Maximum Permitted Density listed in A of Section l of Article VI is I dwelling unit for two
acres. In B. we discuss Actual Permitted Density. APD will be calculated based on Road
Frontage and the proposed form of development. Visual aid was used to show an example.
® All subdivisions from the point this new Zoning Law is passed would be subject to their
relationship to parcels in existence at that point in time. These would be called "parent" parcels.
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Page 5 o1`6
Article VII: Conservation Subdivisions.
The Conservation Subdivision IS the next step in stlbdlvisions. Not looking to maximizing
density, simpler way to deal with lots, encouraging owner to look at the whole parcel(s) and
future of all the potential lots. Driveway lengths and numbers of homes ofi'a driveway can be
limited.
Things to work out:
More scenarios / graphics to help illustrate the proposed regulations would be helpful [br the
public when it gets to the point of public review.
Is farm worker housing covered under subdivisions? Farm %vorker housing isn't covered and that
is something we run in to occasionally. That's covered in state regulations. That is something our
core industry of farming is affected by, and should be addressed.
In terms of subdivisions, sometimes you have to sell a couple lots to pay the taxes. We don't
want to make regulations that hurt our core industry,
is there consideration for owners that own multiple adjacent parcels to join them and create a
new parent parcel'? In this scenario (drawn on the board), the landowner has a' /x parcel "lent" that
they can't use. if they had multiple parcels that would both result in "leftover" land, is there a
way to combine them to most use of the land? The Planning Board requested exploration of a
mechanism for changing — combining parcels — into a "new" parent parcel.
What "s the difference between a dwelling unit and a lot? The terms are being used
interchangeably. Behan will work on defining them and making their use in the regulations is
uniform, because they aren't the same.
Farm worker housing — not covered under subdivisions. State has sonic exemptions. Team will
look at this.
Conservation District — Maximum Permitted Density - page 12
This is just a starting point. 10 acres might be a shock to some, so we came up with a sliding
scale to work our way up to 10 acre density.
Article Vll: Conservation Subdivision
Key elements are:
a. Need way of determining lot count (yield)
b. Need a process for doing conservation analysis — determining the areas that are either
unbuildable or features that are very significant on the site, like an old stone wall or
hedgerow, identifying the best place for building.
This ties back in to the Design Guidelines.
There's kinguage in here about the management of open space that's important.
Article Ville Overlav Districts
Discusses design considerations and way to grow hamlets at their edges.
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Page 6 (if' 6
D hwasnowski — L Fabronni has invited the Planning Board to come for a site visit. Fle's still
working on his utility issues with the project. Requested L.arry to set up a couple of tours and (lie
PB members would come en masse,
If anyone has anv feedback, please filter it to Dan and he'll forward it to Behan,
Next meeting date is tentatively set for August 21"
On a motion made by Toni Hatfield, seconded by Dave Weinstein, the meeting was adjourned at
9:20 pni by unanimous vote.
Respectfully Submitted,
Patricia C. Millard
PB Recording Secretary
Deputy Town Clerk