City of Auburn Planning Board
Tuesday, October 12, 2005 6:30 PM, MEMORIAL City Hall
Present: John Breanick, Sam Giangreco, Mark DiVietro, Sandra Craner Absent: John Rogalski, Laurie Michelman, Nicki Wright
Staff: Steve Lynch, OPED Director; Stephen Selvek, Planner; Brian Hicks, Sr. Code Enforcement Officer; Tom Weed, APD.
The Chair called the meeting to order. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited and roll was called.
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Agenda Item 1: Approval of minutes of September 6, 2005
Chair asks for a motion to approve the minutes of September 6, 2005. Motion made by Mark DiVietro, seconded by Sam Giangreco. All members vote approval. Motion carried.
Agenda Item 2: Public Hearing for Site Plan Review for 24-32 Owasco St. expansion of existing asphalt parking lot.
Chair invites owner or agent to speak.
Robert Gill, architect for Adelphia Cable, also present is Danny Bellows, area operation manager for Adelphia. Will be renovating existing building. Property to north always earmarked for some project. Decided it would be a good opportunity to build a parking lot to the north of the building. Right now people park on the one-way street on Owasco at the front of the building. We intend to provide a parking lot for about 20 – 22 cars, create a handicapped access point to the main lobby where the teller windows will be and to provide a landscaping plan in accordance with Ordinance. We plan to provide landscaping along the north side buffer and enhance the landscaping along the front of the building and additional landscaping on the south side, which has none at this time. We had submitted to the ZBA
and to the Engineer the calculations for the run off and some of the piping sizes to tie into Owasco St. The addition to the parking lot is to the north side, there is existing parking to the south, we are creating an entrance to the bldg for handicapped accessibility at grade, removing the front access and landscaping to enhance the building.
Chair invites the public to speak. Closes the Public Hearing and asks the Board for comments. Chair asks for staff comments.
Steve Lynch – this is a new parking lot on a parcel next to Adelphia. The site will sheet drain to a catch basin located near the driveway entrance to the new parking lot where it will then connect to the City storm water system. The engineers worked closely in doing the calculations and Bill Lupien has given verbal approval and a memo will follow. The existing parking lot on the south, which does not have landscaping, will now be brought to Code compliance with landscaping along the front which will do a lot to help Owasco St. It’s a straightforward plan, DRC has reviewed it and recommends approval of the site plan as presented and a negative declaration on SEQR.
John Breanick – let the record show that Board member Nicki Wright has arrived. Asks for a motion for a negative declaration on SEQR. Motion made by Sandra Craner, seconded by Mark DiVietro. All members vote approval. Motion carried.
John Breanick – asks for a motion to approve the site plan as presented. Motion made by Mark DiVietro, seconded by Sam Giangreco. All members vote approval. Motion carried.
Agenda Item 3: Public Hearing for Subdivision Plan Review for 21 residential lots at 30R Prospect St.
Chair - As all information is not in yet SEQR will not be voted on tonight. Invites owner or agent to speak.
Tom Holbrook – engineer for the developer Paul Vitale – approximately 25% of development in Sennett. All roads & utilities will be in Auburn. The area involved is 17 acres with the lots varying from 1 to 1 ½ acres. There will be a new roadway with concrete gutters on both sides, enclosed drainage system, no open ditches, sanitary sewer, streetlights and water provided by the City. We’ve got 2 entrances on Prospect St. and a cul-de-sac on the north end of the project. We are backed up to a number of houses on Prospect St. and we’ve placed a cut off ditch along the back of those homes within the subdivision boundaries. This will keep any sheet flow from the east from entering onto any of those properties. This will also help eliminate any problems with water
entering the properties now. There is also a cut off ditch along the east side of the development site to keep water from the east from entering the property. The water will be taken through an enclosed system & through open swales into the detention pond. This detention pond will meter out the water so that none on the run off will be greater than what currently exists. The project has been designed for a ten year storm, have also designed for 50 & 100 year storms so we know where the water will go for those storms.
Chair invites the public to speak. Please limit comments to two minutes and not to be redundant on any items.
Simon Moody, Prospect St. – I understand that formal vote will be taken as SEQR has not been completed (correct). I also add that we did not receive notice of this meeting more than 10 days before today which is a concern as we have not had time to review any materials. I received my notice this past Saturday morning. Perhaps we can be given more advanced notice in the future.
John Breanick – this is the second time we’re allowing a public hearing on this matter and the Citizen, the newspaper of record, published the notification 10 days prior to this meeting which complies with the required 10 days notice set in the ordinance.
Simon Moody – with the former chairman we had agreed that individuals who had previously appeared or were interested in this matter would be given direct notice by correspondence.
John Breanick – so noted.
Simon Moody – since SEQR has not been completed yet it would seem premature to comment on anything that may be revealed under this action. I would hope that the Board would take note of previous concerns expressed by neighbors. I have not personally reviewed this new engineering report.
John Breanick – if you contact the Planning Office I am sure they will make any items available to you that you wish to review.
Simon Moody – in many respects the concerns of the neighbors remains the same. We believe the level of traffic will increase as a result of the proposed plan here which does not appear to differ greatly from the previous plan by Mr. Flanders. It is my understanding that the City commissioned an independent review of the drainage issue & I don’t know if that ever resulted in report.
John Breanick – yes, that was faxed from BDA on the 11th & a copy will be made available also.
Simon Moody – perhaps then I will reserve further comment for the next meeting after having an opportunity to review any new materials.
Rusty Tierney, Prospect St. – thinks new plan is better than what’s been submitted in the past. Wishes to review plan closer.
Ellen VanValkenberg, Prospect St. – her property will be made a corner lot when the new road is put it. Will her property be reassessed for being a corner property?
Steve Lynch – cannot speak for the assessor’s office but I don’t think that’s ever been the case. However everyone should be aware the City is under a re-evaluation process right now.
John Breanick – you can get clarification by calling Sue Chandler, the City Assessor.
Simon Moody – I understand Auburn is the lead agency and that Sennett is also involved in the process. Has the Board heard anything from Sennett?
Steve Lynch – we have no comments on that at this time.
Simon Moody – to confirm the Board will allow the public to make comments at any future meetings after we’ve had time to review any new materials presented.
John Breanick – that is correct.
Rusty Tierney – the detention pond is designed for 2 feet of water? To be in there at all times?
Tom Holbrook – that is a DEC requirement.
Rusty Tierney – what about mosquitoes, West Nile, etc.
Tom Holbrook - the reason for this is, after speaking with DEC, to go with a permanently wet pond as it develops aquatic life such as frogs that will eat the larvae. If it’s only wet once in a while the wildlife will not develop & then mosquitoes will breed. That’s the reason for the permanent wet pond; it is a specific design by the DEC.
John Breanick – closes the public hearing. Asks for staff comments.
Steve Lynch – as a recap this is a subdivision that was given preliminary approval October 24, 2004. Mr. Vitale has engaged a new site engineering team to complete the plans and take it thru the remainder of the review process. Tom Holbrook is the primary engineer for the site. As Mr. Moody noted and everyone has seen, the plan has changed very little from the original plan provided in 2004. Some changes include the detention basin has been moved from lot 21 (near Franklin St.) to lot 6 (behind one of the homes on Prospect St.), storm water management plan has been revised to reflect changes in the basin location and to more efficiently manage storm water, there are a number of drainage easements that will be included in the development that need to be protected from development by deeded easement
agreements. While the layout & access points for the roadway system remains the same the contour of the main roadway has been revised, it curves slightly to accommodate the natural terrain and slope of the site. As Mr. Holbrook noted the all of the roadway and infrastructure lies within the City of Auburn. As also noted, the Planning Board, through the City of Auburn, has contracted with a third party engineering firm, BDA, to review the storm water management plan. At the time I wrote this memo BDA was finalizing the review of the plan submitted to them. Reads letter from October 10, 2005 from BDA into the record. As a note, they have tried to design this in such a way, that the problems that some of the neighbors are having now, even if the water discharge is no more post development than pre development, it’s designed in such a way so it should alleviate most if not all problems some of you are having now. This could be seen as an opportunity to
improve the storm water drainage system you’ve been struggling with for years. Town of Sennett Planning Board is an involved agency in SEQR. I spoke with Mr. Montrose, they were provided the storm water information as soon as we had it available and they told us they would not have enough time to review prior to this date. We had set the date of this meeting ahead of the time we received all materials but we did our best to try to inform the public. Staff recommendation if for no action to be taken tonight and hold off action until November 1, 2005, the next regularly scheduled meeting.
John Breanick – to the general public, this may be on the next meeting, November 1, 2005 at 6:30 p.m. Please check the local paper for the announcement. If anyone would like to review any documents they will be available in the Planning Offices during normal business hours. Please call ahead of time to make arrangements. We’ll take a 2-minute recess before going to the next item.
John Breanick – I believe you were all provided a copy of a memo regarding Walgreen’s.
Steve Lynch – summarizes – when Walgreen’s came before the Board they showed us a plan that had full access from Grant Ave. At the same time DOT informed them they could only have a right out/right in at that site. The developer was not happy about that. The Board stated that if the developer could convince DOT they could have anything up to full access this Board would accept that, as APD did not see a problem with full access there. After discussion with DOT to convince them for the salability of this development and APD not finding any problems the developer should try to get as much access as possible. DOT has reviewed and they will allow right in/right out, a left in but not a left out. Which is not really a problem as anyone leaving the site who wants to travel west can go
out the N. Seward side. All staff has been informed and we are informing you.
John Breanick – that would be the document from September 22nd from DOT to Mr. Lynch. If you have any questions please contact Mr. Lynch.
Mark DiVietro – would like to discuss the changes of the access plans on the Prospect St. proposal.
Steve Lynch – the new engineer apparently did not see any reason not to provide full access there. Mr. Popli is a transportation engineer first and foremost. It is designed now as a two-way access. I did just tell him that APD & the Board had decided, up till now, that it would be an exit only. We can discuss that.
Tom Weed – we will have to revisit that as Steve brought up a good point, if going south on Prospect to turn into the development, on would take the 1st access so the access near the corner would receive little if any left turns in from Prospect. It doesn’t make sense now to limit that access point. But I will discuss this with the Police Chief before committing to anything. My personal opinion is that it is fine as an ingress/egress but I need to discuss with the Chief.
Steve Lynch – if there is a change I would request a short memo from APD as it may be a bone of contention. With regard to traffic there please read the answers that Steven put in the SEQR, which is in your packets. In regards to traffic volume, what did you find Steven?
Steven Selvek – I used data based on the Natnl Highway Institute and for peak family dwellings, it’s typically morning peaks, a single family home is considered a dwelling unit & that’s 0.75 times 20-21 houses which would be 15 cars per hour for peak travel. It is well below some of the previous information provided stating upwards to 40 cars.
John Breanick - since this will probably be a contentious item will we be able to bring in supporting documentation for this?
Steven Selvek – yes, I have a chart with me now that is from the source, the Institute of Traffic Engineers, and it’s their trip generation rates which is what I was speaking from.
Steve Lynch – to follow up with Tom Weed, it’s going to be 21 homes when completely built. So what Steve is saying is that in the morning when everyone is leaving for work, ¾ of those homes will be leaving every hour. This is not significant traffic in regards to a collector road. Can we get something from APD in regards to that?
Tom Weed – I agree 100%. The only traffic problem I have with this whole thing is the sidewalk issue which has been brought up before. That is a big issue as there is a great amount of pedestrian traffic on Prospect.
John Breanick – how will this affect the bus flow traffic on Prospect?
Tom Weed – shouldn’t affect them at all.
John Breanick – Steve can you address the sidewalk issue?
Steve Lynch – as the Board mentioned last October we feel sidewalks are needed. I have brought this up with the City Manager. We did some analysis as to the cost for one side of the road & both sides. We tried to look at some of the constraints to putting sidewalks in, as there are some. The number is pretty significant. It is a question that will require some political will on part of the City to do this, as it is not the kind of neighborhood area income eligible for CDBG funding. The City probably does not have the funding and does not want to set a precedent by doing sidewalks. It would probably require assessing the neighborhood for their sidewalks, which would be a hard sell.
John Breanick – do we know what the present price per sq ft is?
Steven Selvek – it’s $6.95 a SQ FT so about $30.00 a linear foot for a 4 ft wide sidewalk.
Steve Lynch – I think the traffic will be brought up as I think they are at a point they will try to show anything to stop this.
Sandra Craner – in anticipation of the next meeting is there some documentation APD can provide that traffic will not be impacted as much as people think? Something more local than National Data?
Tom Weed – maybe if we brought in stats of the number of accidents at the site. I can put that together.
Steve Lynch – are there a lot of accidents there?
Tom Weed – not at all. When people say excessive speed it looks like people are doing 50-60 as it’s such a relatively straight path but we’ve regularly set radar there and we do get people doing 40-42 but not as much as is thought.
Steve Lynch – this is a collector street. It’s not just a regular residential street. It connects two busy thoroughfares of Franklin St. and Grant Ave
Tom Weed – and I doubt they will be getting much over flow from the connector road as people using that road will be going onto Grant Ave not over to Prospect.
Steve Lynch – pertaining to the Hunter Brook subdivision there has been a petition by Larry Jones seeking annexation of the parcels in Sennett. On October 20, 2005 after Council here there will be a meeting with Council and Sennett on the issue of annexation at the Sennett town offices.
John Breanick – asks for a motion to adjourn. Motion made by Mark DiVietro, seconded by Sam Giangreco. All members vote approval.
Steve Lynch – as a reminder there is a special meeting for Marietta Diesel on October 18, 2005. As an FYI Marietta Diesel is behind the Crown Tires and is surrounded by trees. Staff is stipulation that the existing landscaping around the site is adequate as long as it remains.
Meeting adjourned.
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