REGULAR MEETING OF THE TOWN BOARD
TOWN OF GLENVILLE
FEBRUARY 7, 2007
AT THE GLENVILLE MUNICIPAL CENTER
18 GLENRIDGE ROAD, GLENVILLE, NEW YORK
Present: Supervisor Frank X. Quinn, Councilmen, Robert E. Bailey, Mark A. Quinn, Edward F. Rosenberg and Councilwoman Valerie M. DiGiandomenico
Absent: None
Supervisor Quinn called the meeting to order at 7:30 PM. Supervisor Quinn gave the Invocation and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Supervisor Quinn asked the Town Clerk, Linda C. Neals, to call the roll. Everyone was present and accounted for.
Town Council Reports:
Councilman Quinn – “I met with the Traffic Safety Committee last week and Mr. Frank Helm from Alplaus, was kind enough to visit us and bring something to our attention with regard to the intersection of Alplaus Ave. and Bruce Dr. As many of you know Samuel’s is a café that is located there and there is limited site visibility due to vehicles parked across the street from Samuel’s quite often and for vehicles approaching on Bruce Dr., especially taking a left hand turn it is very difficult without inching your way out there ever so slightly and possibly getting hit.
We will be working with the County as many of you know it is a County road and consequently a County right-a-way. We are in communication with Lat Schmidt and a few other people and there may be some additional footage available to park cars further off that roadway but we are not certain as of yet.
Just a follow up on something that was brought to your attention, Mr. Supervisor, Mr. Perry called us several weeks ago on this. Sunnyside Gardens the neighborhood has a series of street lights; however a new addition to that development does not. Consequently children are often walking in the dark to the bus stop that I am told is in a very precarious location. We are looking into possibly expanding their lighting district. Our traffic safety engineer Tom Melander has been a great help in both of these matters and he is following up on that item as we speak.
Mike Burns was kind enough to give me some information about lighting districts. Apparently we can do that by resolution and it does not require the same type of effort in terms of petitioning that a sewer expansion would for instance.
The only other item is a request that I made a few meetings ago in regard to the Public Safety Facility. I asked for an update on the Public Safety Training Facility. I have not heard anything as of yet that’s been substantive and I have to ask a direct question here and if you do have an answer I would appreciate it. Is there any reason why we haven’t prepared and executed a lease as of yet on that land because as you know funding for this project cannot be accessed until that is done? Do we have an answer, where are we with that lease, do we know?”
Supervisor Quinn – “We have requested all of the input from the various departments. We also haven’t had the final clearance yet on the property itself in the sense of what the engineers are proposing to be on there. Until we get the final approval my understanding is we are waiting until we get the Planning and Zoning’s full concept and then we know. As of now, as much as I know is this, they are going to build on the property and maintain the property and therefore any costs, we are down to now saying okay is there any additional costs that the Town needs to collect revenue for to offset anything on the Town side. If not we are good to go. There were a lot of things that were potentially
hanging out there, were we going to pay for it or were they going to pay for it? Right now it appears we are down to the last line or two and there doesn’t seem to be anything that is hanging out there right now.
We also have a question that we will be contracting with the Consortium itself. A legal issue that I have that I haven’t gotten through to our attorney about is the Consortium the actual lessee? They are a corporation by NYS standards as I understand it and they were getting their not-for-profit status certified.
Once they get their piece done and once we get our piece done is that really the entity that is going to do it because while they have been promised money I don’t know if they have received any money.”
Councilman Quinn – “When you get to a point of a definitive time table if someone would just shoot me an e-mail that would be fine so I can communicate some of these things to the committee.”
Councilman Bailey – “The Alplaus Sewer planning appears to be progressing in the sense that Commissioner of Public Works has been very busy and held a number of meetings. He has met with the Niskayuna School District people relative to Glencliff School joining in which would reduce the cost to the residents or more users means lower per unit cost.
He expects to get a letter of intent later this week, which is as strong a statement as we have on that at this point.
Knott Farm has indicated also that they want to join up. So those kinds of things and a reasonably good possibility of a quarter percent reduction in the bond rate plus if we feel like reducing the conservatism and contingency fund we think we could get the annualized cost in the neighborhood of $700.00, that’s down from the $904.00 that was previously advertised.
What we need to do though is and I understand the petition process is ongoing in Alplaus but until that comes to an end and we know for a fact that we have met the 51% nothing else is going to change.
We’ve made progress and signed a contract with Clifton Park by which we would provide them with water under certain conditions up to a maximum of 750,000 gallons per day so as to preserve our ability to feed the Town of Glenville and the rest of the Glenville fed water system.
The cost is $2.75 per thousand gallons and we will be billing them four times a year. There is a 4 million gallon minimum charge. In order to start sending water to them they need to build a metering pit within which meters would be installed to monitor all of this.
At the water plant that we are building progress has been made there. We finally sealed some shrinkage cracks that occurred in the clear wells which we were very concerned about. That allows us to go ahead and clean the tanks, fill them, flush them, sterilize them and at that point we can go and do operational testing on the pumps and make sure all systems related to the pumps are operational.
Up at VanVoast Lane we had a controller for a pump that had failed and a new one is being installed today and once that has been tested that should put us back in full capacity up there.
Trouble shooting continues down on Well #3 which has not been delivering full flow recently. The latest indication is that there is a check valve in the system that may have failed and I believe that the Water Department is going to have a contractor to confirm that and probably do the repairs.
The Highway Garage is getting a new roof, work is ongoing there. What makes that a little ticklish is that there is a fair amount of asbestos in the existing roof so it has to be handled with the appropriate controls. That work is going on and I understand that is about 50% done.”
Supervisor Quinn – Item number 5 on the agenda is a public hearing on the proposed zoning ordinance amendment that would add “not-for-profit recreation facilities” as a land use permitted by site plan review within Suburban Residential zoning districts.”
Supervisor Quinn opened the public hearing at 7:45 pm.
Kevin Corcoran, Town Planner – “This is a zoning text amendment, not a zoning map amendment. We were approached maybe four or five months ago by the YMCA. They are looking to expand their fitness center portion of the building. It is a relatively modest expansion, 2750 sq. ft. The catch is that they are located in a suburban residential zoning district which does not allow YMCA type facilities, so any expansion plan that they have, they are grandfathered they are not conforming, or any expansion plan that they want to pursue they need to get some sort of zoning approval.
So under the assumption that the community would support this proposal we looked at three different zoning scenarios and the one that we have before you we view at least as the one having the least impact. We would add “not-for profit recreation facility” as a use allowed by site plan review within a suburban residential zoning district. If this is passed they would no longer be grandfathered, they would be a conforming use and in the future they could also pursue additional expansions with out the need for a variance; just the need for a site plan review.
We also added definitions of “not-for-profit recreation facility” we are proposing to do that. We got as tight as we could with that definition and also we defined not-of-profit itself and I would just add that both the GECC and the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended that your Board approve these amendments.”
James MacFarland – “Some of you may know me as the Director of Human Services for the Town, tonight I am here as the Chairman of the Greater Glenville Y Board of Managers.
We have been looking to expand the YMCA for some time, essentially doubling the fitness center size. It will be an expansion that will essentially bring a rectangular addition to the YMCA directly towards Droms Road.
We would like to applaud the Town for setting up this procedure, the use variance as I understand it was a rather imperfect tool that had been used over and over to try to allow expansions. The reason that this is a good corrected measure in the YMCA’s eyes is that it will no longer continue to have to go back to a poor process as opposed to having zoning be conforming and then undergo site plan review. We really appreciate the efforts of the staff, Kevin and others, the regulatory boards of the town have treated the Y very well and then the Town Board likewise.
If the zone change does occur we do plan obviously on that proceeding right forward quickly with site plan review process which will do all of those things to insure that the project is done correctly.
The later public hearing that you have involving Solid Surfaces Craftsman and Alan Boulant, Alan is the construction manager for our project and a member of our Board of Directors and we appreciate all of the community effort that is going into this. We plan on using local contractors to the best degree possible and really have it as a community plan.
I would ask that the Board consider adoption of this zoning amendment at the next meeting.”
No one else wished to speak; Supervisor Quinn closed the public hearing at 7:52 pm.
Supervisor Quinn – “Item number 6 is a public hearing on the proposed amendments to the Freemans Bridge Master Plan.”
Supervisor Quinn opened the public hearing at 7:53 pm.
Kevin Corcoran – “Tonight for consideration are proposed amendments by the Town Board to the Freemans Bridge Master Plan. The Master Plan was adopted back in 2004 by the Town Board at that point. One of the most notable features of the plan is the land use plan, which you are see here (power point presentation).
The areas that we are looking at for amendments is not a very substantial area, maybe 68 -70 acres or something like that, (pointed out the area on the map - north of Sunnyside Road and south of the tracks and also on either side of Maple Avenue on the east side of Freemans Bridge Road.)
(Kevin explained the color coding shown on that map)
A portion of the Piotrowski property, roughly 30 acres, this is what was adopted in 2004 we earmarked that area as technology development and the proposal that is now before you is multi-family. What happened here is back in 2003 -2004 the town received a grant from the state for $150,000 that allowed us to promote the development of technology parks somewhere in Glenville, we worked with the Piotrowski’s initially to market their property for this purpose so we targeted it for office technology park, the Piotrowski’s, once we got the grant they opted out of the program and we have since relocated that grant in the development desires to the Scotia-Glenville Industrial Park so office technology park is probably not the best
use for this property at this point. Also the more we learned we realized that technology type development is not well suited next to railroad tracks because of vibrations. Multi-family housing on the other hand there is a relatively strong market for that right now.
Other changes in this portion of the plan or this portion of the study area going north and south is Horstman Creek (pointed it out on the map). An area south of that was conservation or preservation that was what we initially targeted the flood plain as and we are shifting that by eliminating 42 acres of conservation preservation and still keeping a buffer along both streams (Mr. Corcoran pointed out two areas, one that would be targeted for multi-family and one for commercial and mixed use).
The other study area where we are looking at changes is along Freemans Bridge Road and Maple Avenue (lower portion of Maple Avenue). Adopted in 2004, 13 – 14 acres (a portion of the Sarnowski property) we were earmarking for multi-family. The proposal that is before you now would change that block to commercial mixed use, essentially extending the commercial mixed use that is already along Freemans Bridge Road deeper into the Sarnowski property. Also in that area other areas that were targeted for multi-family, the lower end of Maple Avenue and also the east side of Freemans Bridge Road, those are now going to traditional development. It is a real high density single family which would also allow a small scale
commercial use as well.
Those are the changes that are being proposed at this point. As part of the review process both our Environmental Conservation Commission and Planning and Zoning Commission reviewed this and both recommended adoption. The Planning and Zoning Commission had a couple additional recommendations for consideration by your board they are not mapped but I can just highlight those for you here. One involved the Lyon’s property about 12 to 12½ acres that is the site that right now has contamination on it (soil contamination) and the soils are being incinerated to remove the PCB’s and the land is being reclaimed. It is about a one year process and afterwards it is a five year monitoring period after which the
land could be redeveloped to be used. It is really a brown field that in six years time will hopefully be able to be reused. The Planning and Zoning Commission felt that targeting this area for conservation is probably not the best approach for this property. They would like to see a commercial mix use pattern, extend it to the Lyon’s property that could be built upon in five to six years time. As a trade off since we are loosing 12 acres of land conservation in that area, Planning and Zoning Commission recommended adding 12 acres back to land conservation. We removed 42 acres of land conservation from what was adopted they would like to see that 12 acres reinstated to at least a portion of the flood plain in that area.
What we are seeing here is not a change of zoning this is a change to the Master Plan, the Master Plan is policy it’s a blue print for development and preservation of that study area. It does precede zoning changes or at least it is supposed to in NYS, if the Town Board approves these amendments then in three, four or five months time however long it takes there will be zoning amendments back in front of this board for consideration that would put in place many of the changes that you see here on the Master Plan.”
Councilman Quinn – “The land that is adjacent, I suppose it would be west on Maple Ave., next to Stewarts, you did say that high density residential zoning would allow for light commercial use.”
Mr. Corcoran – “Right small scale commercial, we haven’t really worked out the specifics but in order of 2 to 3 thousand sq. ft. type facilities.”
Councilman Quinn – “One question that has come up is if a company for instance Silar that is located there wanted to expand would that be a permitted use?”
Mr. Corcoran – “They wouldn’t be allowed to expand, no. Actually there’s no changes planned for the Silar site. It’s targeted for high density residential in 2004 and that hasn’t changed. That would become a non-conforming use and they would be bound to what already exists.
The thought behind that area is that if it is over the aquifer zone it is probably not the best spot to have expansion of a chemical type operation.”
Councilman Quinn – “Obviously the present businesses and their structures, more importantly, are grandfathered but do we have knowledge of some of those businesses having abutting lands that they may have that type of wish for and are we being over zealous in that regard?”
Mr. Corcoran – “In that area, I don’t know, up and down Freemans Bridge Road we are hearing speculative stories everyday. But for the Silar property itself, the owner did call me, and he was concerned about that. He did not say that he had specific plans.”
Supervisor Quinn – “There’s nothing at this time that is official and before the Planning and Zoning Commission.”
Mr. Corcoran – “No.”
Councilwoman DiGiandomenico – “The owners of these properties can only sell them with the existing businesses on them. They can not sell Cool Whip and have additional storage.”
Mr. Corcoran – “Well it depends on what we come up with the zoning, but yes, a non-conforming use you are limited if you sell it it has to be used for exactly what it is being used for now or it would have to conform to what ever the zoning allows. You couldn’t expand a non-conforming use or change from one non-conforming use to another. That is just basic zoning practice.”
Supervisor Quinn – “The Lyon’s property, as we all know is under rehab and you mentioned that that would be a five or six year or whatever it’s going to take before that’s turned loose. My impression after talking to some people is that once they finish here with this while it had to be monitored certain things could in fact be developed on that property even while it is being monitored.”
Mr. Corcoran – “I am not positive, that’s not what I heard. Certainly I know residential would not be allowed on that property during any time frame.”
Supervisor Quinn – “Let’s say it this way, if it was a lot of pavement on there and there was a facility or whatever type that conforms to the required zoning and policy both then that might be appropriate.”
Mr. Corcoran – “It could be. I am not that up on the particulars. At a minimum of a year nothing is going to happen there.”
Councilwoman DiGiandomenico – “Mr. Supervisor I would like to read a letter that was brought to me by the Piotrowski family.
To the Members of the Glenville Town Board
And the Glenville Planning and Zoning Board
The Piotrowski Family would like to respond to the letter of January 24 addressed to Freemans Bridge property owners.
A revision of the land use plan within the flood plain of Horstman Creek is proposed so that an additional 12 acres of our land would be designated as preservation/conservation. We request that this change not be implemented as it would impact our future potential utilization of this land for other purposes and at the same negate any future tax benefits to the town.
Your letter also states that “the total effect” of these land use changes is “relatively insignificant”. Please try to put yourselves in our position. Our family has been part of this community since 1936. We have paid taxes on this land for 70 years. When viewed from this perspective, the phrase “relatively insignificant” takes on great significance.
There are further considerations to be taken into account: We have recently met with representatives of Northeast Land Development Consultants and Knapp Associates. Both of these engineering firms are working to resolve flood plain and floodway concerns associated with the development of the project known as “The Reserve at Glenville” on Sarnowski Drive. They tell us that the FEMA flood plain maps for the area of Horstman Creek are “wildly inaccurate” and are in need of downward revision. They are in process of application to FEMA in this regard.
In light of this information we suggest that any decisions affecting this area be carefully considered, as it is very likely that downward revision of the flood plain maps will occur, an event, which will completely alter the potential for this area.
The engineers for “The Reserve at Glenville” have submitted further information, data and maps to the Planning and Zoning Board.
With regard to setting aside an area for preservation/conservation consideration, other alternatives exist, specifically the area across Sunnyside Road where the former Glenville Landfill was located. Generally there are a number of other locations that may be considered as well.
The Piotrowski Family
Councilwoman DiGiandomenico – “I would like to address the issue of the land conservation area that is designated at Schenectady Seed. I cannot in good conscience endorse that land conservation. This is a family that has approximately 20 acres of land of which 16 acres will be designated as land conservation, which in effect puts them out of any kind of land use. I know this is part of the run way protection zone, but we also have other establishments further up Freemans Bridge Road which fall into that category. We have not labeled them land conservation. This is a family that has been in the area also a long time and I am sure it is part of their retirement package. When you take 16 acres of 20
acres that someone owns and label it land conservation, I think we are rendering their property just about useless and I in good conscience cannot go along with that.”
Supervisor Quinn – “Let me ask a point for my clarification. The thing you just addressed the Schenectady Seed property is that addressed in these amendments that we have before us tonight?”
Mr. Corcoran – “No.”
Supervisor Quinn – “So your comments are well noted, that is no problem but the purpose of the hearing tonight is on the amendments.”
Councilwoman DiGiandomenico – “Was that not part of the original rezoning?”
Councilman Rosenberg – “I think there were five proposed or six potential options that we chose and as a board we sort of threw our names in the hat and I think we picked two and the one that scored the highest out of those is the one that ended up getting adopted. Unfortunately for what Councilwoman DiGiandomenico is saying I don’t think that was part of that option.”
Supervisor Quinn – “We said the purpose of the hearing is the amendments, if I have it wrong somebody police me up if I have it wrong but the purpose tonight was to address the amendments as proposed and as far as I can tell the Schenectady Seed property, the family’s property, I understand that and I appreciate your comments but we are addressing the amendments themselves.”
Councilwoman DiGiandomenico – “Well I was mistaken because I was under the impression that that was not presently zoned conservation.”
Mr. Corcoran – “This isn’t zoning again, this is the Master Plan. The Master Plan that was adopted in 2004 designated that portion as land conservation. There were six options, one or two of them would have removed or at least down sized some of that but that was not the option that was selected by consensus.”
Councilman Rosenberg – “I think one other thing that is important to note and some of these were being labeled as a trade off I think what we tried to do and I don’t think anybody on the Board is 100% happy with what we have because we all tried to agree on something. We all got a little bit of what we wanted but not everything.
I think the trade off refers density as far as traffic counts and stuff like that so if there was an area that was land conservation somewhere that we took it off then that number had to go somewhere else. We traded off commercial for residential so then it had to go somewhere else. Otherwise we would have had to go back to the drawing board completely and redo the entire plan. I think the trade off thing; everybody needs to understand that too.”
Adolf Zeglen – “When they approved the Sarnowski Road apartment project on this map they had there they show Arbor Lane going across Sunnyside Road, once it goes across Sunnyside Road the rest of the property all the way to the other side. I don’t know how they are going to have all of these cars coming out of Sarnowski Drive when they can use my street, Arbor Lane and go on to Sunnyside Road either way. I will leave it up to you people.”
Neil Turner – “I thought when we did zoning for such things as land conservation there was a rational for designating land, land conservation and it wasn’t just a zero sum filler that we would make the colors come out right or something here. I fail to see why because we designate the brown fields differently and remove that land conservation acreage why we have to impose that land conservation somewhat. Sounds as if arbitrarily on some acreage somewhere else which also tends to maybe penalize the land owner in that area.
If I may, I never thought I would be opposing land conservation, I also feel that the Town of Glenville is using the Schenectady Seed land conservation thing as sort of a weapon to protect Schenectady Airport approach zones.
Now the Schenectady Airport like any other airport has the option of purchasing that land, if they don’t that is perfectly good land to build on and I fail to see why we impose land conservation on that rather than open it up for reasonable development.”
Albert Mastroianni – “I own a piece of land between Silar and Glenville Lock-Up. When I bought that Mr. Polsinelli said it was suppose to be industrial or commercial, now I see the yellow line over here. The way I see it it is residential. I want to know if it is going to be changed to residential or going to stay commercial. It is a pretty noisy area over there.”
Mr. Corcoran – “As it is proposed right now I think the property that he is speaking of is not subject to an amendment tonight but yes it would be if we follow through with the zoning as shown here then it would be changed to a residential category and again the logic behind that is this area is the aquifer and a couple of land uses are not well suited to over the aquifer and again every business that is in that area is grandfathered and would be allowed to continue. Anytime you change zoning you render properties that are non-conforming.
As it stands now, yes that would be changed to a residential that would also allow certain kinds of commercial.”
Mr. Mastroianni – “To build a house over there it is not a good idea. Even on the other side the railroad, I think you guys should look at that, you guys don’t want to put a house near the railroad tracks, it is noisy. They unload and load at night and it is very noisy.
No one will build a house between Glenville Lock-Up and Silar, both commercial properties.”
Henry Sarnowski – “I represent the Van Curler Greenhouse. Kevin Corcoran, Mike Burns and I have met and we were received very well and we have done some arbitrary going back and forth in the past and we have been relatively happy with the way we have been addressed and received.
Mr. Mastroianni’s situation, I wonder if Kevin might clear that up a little bit now. I can appreciate where he is coming from because he has got several hundred foot of frontage there and it certainly is not a place for housing and I don’t see it as a place for housing in the near or not so near future. Now if the man wanted to develop this or sell it to someone else you say it’s a mixed residential/small business possibility. Now could he put two or three small businesses in that same block of land? That would certainly be a bit of a plus for him at this point.”
Mr. Corcoran – “We haven’t crafted the zoning fully for these areas yet. What is being contemplated for that area is high density residential plus commercial but with a cap on the amount of square footage, 2,000 – 3,000 sp. ft. You could have multiple buildings as long as you don’t exceed that cap. We have caps in other areas; the Town Center is one such area.
Councilwoman DiGiandomenico – “Now if he wanted to sell that to the storage place he could not sell it to them and have them expand their business on that land when it is changed to…”
Mr. Corcoran – “Right, I am assuming self storage would not be permitted in that zoning district.”
Adolf Zeglen – “I think Silar is a chemical outfit, isn’t it? They have had quite a few spills where they have had the fire department and hazardous waste there in the last few years.
So I don’t think that would be a good place for a family to live.”
Bob Rusinko, Plant Manager at Silar Labs – “We are a chemical facility. There have been some incidents unfortunately in the past but nothing within the past couple of years; however I would like to say that the business owners do not want to see any of the adjoining land as well as the land that our facility is currently on to be rezoned. We prefer to see the existing zoning stay as is.”
No one else wished to speak; Supervisor Quinn closed the hearing at 8:25 pm
Supervisor Quinn – “Item No. 7 on the agenda is a public hearing to solicit public comment on the use of the Governors Office for Small Cities funds for the Solid Surfaces Craftsman, Inc.”
Supervisor Quinn opened the public hearing at 8:27 pm.
Susan Lombardi, who has been managing the grant related to this property. – “This is the second public hearing for this project, the first public hearing we explained the national objectives, which I will just reiterate for this program.
Each CDBG [Community Development Block Grant] activity, which is the type of funding that this is under, must meet one of these national objectives.
The first one being benefits to low and moderate income persons and that can be the form of housing or job creation.
The second being aid in the prevention or elimination of slums or blight usually seen in a more urban setting.
The third being to address the community development needs having particular urgency.
The national objective of this project is focusing on the benefit of low to moderate income person with the creation of 98 new jobs through the expansion of Solid Surface Craftsman. This expansion is actually a 4.8 million dollar expansion with significant investment from the owner himself. What we are proposing is that the Economic Development Grant Fund be past through the town, as allowed by NYS, we would be providing a low interest for $500,000 in working capital for this expansion to the business as well as a grant of $234,000 which would cover training for the 98 individuals who would be trained to work in the cabinetry and countertop division manufacturing of the company.
The terms for the loan would be 3% for five years as is the norm under this program. Interest only for the first 24 months, the town again would administer the loan. The loan would be paid back through the town and would build then an economic development fund for future projects.
If the jobs that are proposed are not created the town is proposing that the grant portion would be then reverted to a loan as well and that would be paid back into the fund should those objectives not be met through the program.
There is no purchase of machinery or equipment or real-estate through this project and the timing for the project would be within a year of disbursement of funds the account would be closed out.”
No one else wished to speak; Supervisor Quinn closed the public hearing at 7:30 pm.
The following people exercised the privilege of the floor.
Lenny Blond – “I have got some questions and concerns concerning subdivisions and segmenting of land.
I recently attended a Town Planning and Zoning meeting considering a subdivision on Dawson Road. About a 40 acre parcel of land was subdivided and it got approved for three homes. There is still a 30 acre parcel of land left. I asked the board during the meeting what restrictions they have, what time constraints they had. I know there is future planning for another eight to ten houses to go in there. The neighbors want to know what do they have to do or are there any time limits that are put on the homeowner to come up with the rest of the plan.
We were told no, that he could come back at almost anytime and re-apply or put another plan in place for the rest of that subdivision.
It leaves an uneasy feeling for the homeowners, we went through there and we saw what the plans are for probably the next year and now we don’t know what is going to happen in the next 2 or 3 years. The Planning Board said that we had to come before the Town Board and you were the only ones that could implement some type of a restriction, like you can’t come back for the next 3 or 4 years and segment the same piece of property. I don’t know how many times you can do this. The only reason that the owner had was that financially it didn’t suit him to do it right now and that sort of leaves an uneasy feeling.
That is my concern and I wanted to know if there was anything the board could do about it.”
Supervisor Quinn – “By way of a response two fold. First of all it is my understanding that there is no legal requirement at this time that we can enforce that you have to be back, there is no resolution, no ordinance, and no law that says you have to come back within so long and if you don’t take an action then it reverts to any other kind of status. So, they got the approval and they said these are the two that they are going to do and they reserve, as the owner, the right to come forward with any additional plans.”
Kevin Corcoran – “We are seeing all of these subdivisions where portions of the property (microphone did not pick up his comments)
Supervisor Quinn – “They are operating on an eighteen month window, right now.”
Mr. Blond – “So, Kevin, let’s say could a landowner come back two months down the road and say now I want to apply for two more houses to be added in there and I want two more two acre parcels, meets all of the requirements and get that approved and then two months later financially becomes something good for him to do again. That is where the neighbors get a little uneasy feeling.”
Supervisor Quinn – “The answer is there is no enforceable ordinance that says that they have to so our Planning and Zoning Board is saying the clock starts ticking now, you got your approval and don’t come back to see us for eighteen months.”
Councilman Quinn – “Didn’t Planning and Zoning, not too long ago, recommend a time table ordinance that would prevent this type of piece meal development?”
Mr. Corcoran responded but the microphone could not pick up his comments.
Mr. Blond – “The reason that I moved to Glenville and not to Clifton Park was because we do like the rural setting.”
Virginia Graney, EIG representative – “Today is six months to the day that EIG recommendations on vehicle use were submitted to the Town Board. Within our recommendations we requested notification in writing regarding determinations and implementation or rejection of EIG’s recommendation, nothing formal has been received one way or the other.
It is my understanding that an updated Personnel Manual was published on 1-3-07 it calls for maintenance of a daily log detailing mileage. No mention is made regarding proof of personal insurance and I am not clear whether or not that is required.”
Supervisor Quinn – “No, that is not.”
Ms. Graney – “The brochure that was given to each of you asked specifically for something in writing to let us know what the situation is and as I mentioned we have seen nothing.”
Supervisor Quinn – “Certain changes have been implemented and what we really owe you is a summary of what has been done, right?”
Neil Turner – “I have a couple of points that I would like to make.
I just discovered that at the meeting of the Planning and Zoning working meeting that Lowe’s showed up with a full cast and made a significant presentation. This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing with Lowe’s where just one guy straggles in and says something.
My point here is I don’t know what the protocols are for these kinds of meetings but there are a lot of people that are interested in this and had that been an agenda item would have attended.
I think it is improper for the Planning and Zoning to allow someone to come in without scheduling it and putting it on an agenda and making a presentation. I don’t know whether it is allowed or not but I think it is rude of them not to do that.
I am here to open some old business too. That is potential for a real or perceived conflict of interest of board member Rosenberg acting as liaison to Planning and Zoning and the Environmental Conservation Commission.
The concern here is the current arrangement here has a potential for either real or perceived conflict of interest and the need for the board, we feel, is to avoid any suggestion of such situation.
We feel that the knowledge and the expertise that Mr. Rosenberg brings to the liaison job there as a real estate person is overshadowed by the fact that there is this concern in this potential for either perceived or real conflict of interest. We would ask that both the board and board member Rosenberg consider this.”
Alphonso DeArroyo – “I wasn’t informed about the clean-up that is happening on the Lyons property. The reason why I think I should have been informed is prior to it happening is to anticipate anything that was going to happen. I woke up one morning to see people working in the area but it is kind of a joke.
I met with the people a few weeks ago they were in the back cutting trees down and they said they were going to be putting in an incinerating plant here and you are going to hear some fans for about 18 months.
This machine has been running and vibrates my house to the point where things fall off the shelves and the noise is 24 hours a day. I called and spoke to the people in charge of the program and they shut the machine down for two weeks, they fixed whatever they said they could fix. They started it back up and the sound is better but if you open my back door and you can’t even hear my wife and I talk to each other in our kitchen.
The noise is a little better but the vibration is worse than ever. What can I do? We can’t even sleep at night, this is ridiculous.”
Councilman Quinn – “Has the overnight incineration resumed?”
Mr. DeArroyo – “Yes”
Councilman Quinn – “I wonder if we might be able to approach DEC and talk to them about disturbing the peace?”
Councilman Bailey – “There were very clear sound limits that were promised to us a year or so ago when they had a public hearing on this. What we need to do is go back and pull out those requirements and make some sound measurements over there.”
Wally Schmidt – “I just wanted to ask about Silar. I know they wanted to expand and there was that other gentleman that had the land and there was no way that they could expand next door because of the new change to residential.
How can Silar expand if the land next door is changed to residential?”
Steve Marsh – “I was recently appointed to the Planning and Zoning Commission and I’d like to thank the Board for the appointment, I think.
I would like to mention that on the agenda that I received for the last meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission that Lowe’s was mentioned on the agenda. The agenda doesn’t point out specifically what is going to be presented in great detail so perhaps that might be where the perception was received that there was a vast presentation made that wasn’t made public notice but I’m not sure what the distribution is or the availability is of the agenda.
I don’t want people here to go away with the impression that the working of the Planning and Zoning Commission aren’t listed and designated on an agenda because we need to have an agenda to keep ourselves on track with the large amount of material that we have to review.”
Supervisor’s Comments:
Supervisor Quinn – “We will entertain a motion to go into executive session to discuss personnel matter that has to do with the Town Administrator position and a potential legal matter that we need to discuss.
February 2nd – “Meeting regarding the Industrial Park itself. Town staff and myself, DEC, Metroplex, and Clough Harbor who’s doing our engineering work on the master site plan for the Industrial Park.
It was a technical presentation on what is the DEC finding as far as any contamination in the Industrial Park in the site? Precipitated by the activities that we have going on with the Government Supply Agency and our efforts to get that property turned over to the Town.
Apparent areas of contamination were identified giving all of the borings and all of the drillings that went on there is vapor in the ground and there are some potential problems of the migration of the vapors, contaminated vapors flowing off site, off towards Route 5 and towards the Mohawk River. Right now the monitoring activities are in place and they are pinning down and making the final report. There are some hot spots but there appears to be no large tanks, no large spill sites and none of those kinds of things that need to be dealt with. All of us are waiting for DEC to do there final reports and to coordinate those with any federal agency that needs to be involved in this.
Lowe’s property on Freemans Bridge Road has a contamination issue and the migration of vapors down Freemans Bridge Road itself and so DEC and DOH are the action agency on those and they have already notified the real property owners that they need to get on site and either the owner or they will conduct further studies.
The Senior Citizens Center had their main heating unit go out and so the Carrier Corporation has been on site. They are their units and we have a ten year old system in there and apparently we’ve got some very serious damage to that heating system. We are trying to maintain the building at 60º but obviously that cuts into all kinds of functions and activities. We will probably get an estimate for some emergency repairs and as you know by town ordinance we can precede with emergency repairs, I just wanted you to know that that is what is going on.
Alplaus sewer district project, the folks in Alplaus are circulating petitions and as you know their making some progress. They are reasonably close to getting 51% of the required number of property owners and assessed valuations.
We have been involved in negotiations with our three unions and as you know we were successful in the contract negotiation with the Highway Department. We got it done and we each had some give and takes. I just remind ourselves as well as the public on this one, there are ten pages of terms and conditions in these contracts, in that particular contract and so while the mass media will present certain highlights of it.
Everybody put their nose to the grind stone, it obviously took a year but we got it done and so I commend the members of that union for their hard work.
On the other front with the other two unions, CSEA the last negotiation was held on December 20th. The CSEA at time indicated their intention to declare an impasse. So the procedure going forward will be for the PERB to appoint a mediator for both of our parties to work with and try and reach an agreement. As of today no mediator has been appointed.
For the Police Benevolent Association I had received some correspondence and I returned the correspondence on January 18th with my comments with what they had proposed. We’ve gotten no response at this time.
We are trying to put together the town March Newsletter that we send out to all of our citizens and so if you have any items for input get them in by this Friday so we can complete this and get it off to the printers.”
RESOLUTION NO. 61-2007
Moved by: Councilman Rosenberg
Seconded by: Councilwoman DiGiandomenico
WHEREAS, I am introducing a Local Law to amend Chapter 101, “Building Construction and Fire Prevention” of the Code of the Town of Glenville; and
WHEREAS, a duly scheduled public hearing must be held in order to change such a law,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Glenville will meet at the Glenville Municipal Center on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 at 7:30 P.M., or as soon thereafter as can be reached, at which time and place will hear all persons interested in a proposed local law to amend Chapter 101, Building Construction and Fire Prevention of the Code of the Town of Glenville; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Town Clerk be, and she hereby is directed to prepare the proper notice of said hearing in accordance with law; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this resolution shall take effect when filed with the Secretary of the State of New York.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstention: None
Motion Carried
RESOLUTION NO. 62-2007
Moved by: Councilwoman DiGiandomenico
Seconded by: Councilman Rosenberg
BE IT RESOLVED, that the minutes of the meeting held on December 20, and December 27, 2006 be and they hereby are approved and accepted as entered.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstentions: None
Motion Carried
RESOLUTION NO. 63-2007
Moved by: Councilwoman DiGiandomenico
Seconded by: Councilman Rosenberg
BE IT RESOLVED, that the minutes of the meeting held on January 3, and January 17, 2007 be and they hereby are approved and accepted as entered.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstentions: None
Motion Carried
New Business:
Councilman Rosenberg – “Unfortunately I have to answer Mr. Turner’s concerns; this will be the second time now in public.
I am not receiving any information as liaison to these departments that anyone else on this board is not privy to and whether or not I am a liaison or not I could attend the meetings just like anybody else here.
My role is to transfer information from these boards and committees to the rest of the board. The meetings can be attended by anybody whether or not they are liaisons.
There is no conflict although I am aware of at least one person’s perception that there may be one. The board has addressed his concerns on previous occasions. Should a vote come up on any project in town that has business consequences to me I shall recuse myself and I would expect the rest of our board to do the same as the need arises. I would do this whether or not I was the liaison. We have to be careful not to chase away people who have the potential to help the town because of their experience, if you limit your pool of liaisons you’re going to end up with people who are only retired. You are going to scare away any potential business people that have either done business in town or intend to do
business in town.”
Supervisor Quinn – “I have been authorized by a resolution back last October to contract on behalf of the town with a consulting firm that did the last work on our reval in 2006 and we have a proposed 2007 reval and this firm has notified us they will not participate in the reval. I think we need to get some clarity on where we are at and where we want to go with this re-evaluation process because the clock is ticking and there is a lot that needs to be done on this.
NYS Office of Real Property Services has notified us that the market has shifted and the market for the residential properties has increased by 14% and when that happens we are no longer at 100% compliance therefore the reimbursements we get from the State we loose but more importantly the equity issue for the homeowners and for the commercial properties. In the calculations as they notified us the major shift is in residential properties not commercial properties and not in vacant land and therefore the re-evaluation that we are looking at and contemplating doing here at this time is probably going to have a major impact most importantly since the commercial are at 94% of assessed value as NYS keeps the data and we have to match their
figures and so that is pretty close to the 95 – 100% that they are asking us to be at.
The bulk of this issue will fall in residential and so I am looking for the boards preferences in how we want to proceed at this point, since we would need to decide and more importantly commit the resources and take the actions necessary to pull off the reval.
I just want to put this on the table so I can get some clear guidance here because we need to take some actions on this issue. I am opening it up for discussion.”
Councilman Quinn – “Did we not already resolve to move toward a more frequent reappraisal?”
Supervisor Quinn – “We have no resolution in any of ’06 or ’07 that sets a resolution to actually do the re-evaluation as a resolution. We have all shook our heads to doing that.”
Councilman Quinn – “So we have been contemplating giving that directive to the town assessor and a vendor is now telling us that for a variety of reasons they at least do not want to move forward.”
Supervisor Quinn – “Our resolution was to that particular vendor. We have all shared back and forth information on the reval process for ’07 itself.”
Councilman Rosenberg – “We haven’t done a reval, well the last one we did was 10 years prior to the one we just did and it cost us over $300,000 of our tax payers money. We were subsequently reimbursed, I think approximately $58,000 for that endeavor because we got close to 100%. If we don’t do it this year at all, of course we won’t expend the monies which wouldn’t be $300,000. The expectation was that we would be able to do it within that budget of $58,000 so any money that we spent to bring the town up to full value would be reimbursed. If we don’t spend the money we don’t get the money and again next year but in year three we would be forced to do it at a considerable
expense. It will definitely be more than $58,000, somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 to $150,000 and again we will be reimbursed $58,000.
If we don’t do it in these next two years it is going to cost us money in the third year. The memo that the assessor passed out today is that we still are within the time constraints to pull this off this year to the satisfaction of the state. We just have to decide as a group here if we still want to go forward.
There are some inequities in the system whether you live in the town, the village or if you own commercial property. Right now there are people that will be paying taxes next year based on their old assessment and it’s not fair. That is the way the system works if you don’t do an annual reval some where along the line someone’s not going to be paying their fair share.”
Councilman Quinn – “I am assuming if we do this more frequently we eliminate a lot of the wild swings and the inequities that exist. I think that half of the battle here is that although initially this is a difficult thing, even politically; it is still the right thing in the long run.
Is there a middle of the road option? It may be a tri-annual I don’t know. Do we want to immediately embark on a yearly? That may be the best thing on its face. Is it more practical initially to go tri-annual? I am willing to entertain both, but my concern is we’ve been kind of going back and forth on this for some time and we really are reaching critical mass on this thing. We need to make some decisions.
I guess my question is even with regard to next weeks work session are we still within a reasonable time frame in terms of if we need to get another vendor for doing an annual?”
Councilman Bailey – “This needs to be resolved and I would suggest that we advertise a special meeting so that we can pass a resolution to go forward so that there is no question in anyone’s mind as to what our wishes are. We are either going to do it or not and our next work session possibly we can discuss, put the questions together and try to have all of our answers by then and possibly have our assessor attend that meeting as well.”
Councilman Quinn – “One reoccurring we seem to be getting from staff is that it’s a monumental effort but my contention is that if we do it more frequently that effort should be less and less. Once again those swings are less of a variable each time.”
Councilman Rosenberg – “Right now you are looking at a 14% increase, as the Supervisor said. If we don’t do it for two more years the potential is there to be a 42% increase in assessed value. Nobody wants their assessed value to go up necessarily but in general unless you are one of the parcels who may not be going up as much, it shouldn’t be a 14% increase in people’s taxes necessarily. It may not be any increase at all.
When you talk to the state they have differing opinions depending upon who they send to our meetings. They want everyone to be on annual revals. There are a lot of municipalities that have started this and failed for whatever reason. We have a leg up on those municipalities from the stand point that we just did a full reval, we just finished it and unfortunately my opinion is anyway if we don’t go forward with the annual then a lot of the leg work that we have already started is going to go to waste because it is going to be the same thing again in three years. Not as bad because it won’t be ten years of catching up but it will be three years of catching up.
The other option is to try and keep current on that information for the next three years but we have to pay for that. We can’t do it with the staff that we have and we are not going to get reimbursed in the mean time.”
Supervisor Quinn – “We have got to maintain our data at a certain level whether we are doing one year, two year, three year, four year, five year as long as our values are tied to what the NYS Office of Real Property Service says.
One of my concerns is if we do it this year we won’t have the comparables that we provided everybody in the past. In effect what we are stuck with is the fact that NYS Office of Real Property says properties went up this much but we can’t put down for people to come and see comparables, we don’t have it, therefore in effect we are going to have to tell people; we send out a letter, we notify people, if we proceed your property value went up 12 – 14% for homeowners. There is a Board of Assessment Review that you can go to and when you go there you want to defend why this is appropriate for your property or it is too much or too little or whatever you are going to say but neither we nor the homeowner has any
good solid documentation to argue and so okay we will have the Board of Assessment Review go through the whole process and at the end of that if people are dissatisfied with that out come then they can go to court. That differs from what we have just done because before we had an information process at the beginning, we sent out the notices, we told people they could come to a couple of public briefings so they could learn what was going on and that would be wiped out in our time frames right now. Neither the citizens nor the Board of Assessment Review or we have any comparables to argue from. Both parties are at a disadvantage in this and in the sense of how do you justify what’s happened to your taxes other than the water in the lake went up. Property values in the region went up; unfortunately we are all stuck with that one. So it seems to me based on these numbers the biggest impact will be on the homeowners and we keep saying this, but I
will say it one more time, a reval does not equal a tax increase. It may, it may not, it depends on what the school district, the town, the county and the special districts actually do with their budgets next year, it is not a automatic increase or decrease in taxes. It is an increase on the base the tax is tied to.
We are behind the eight ball, my opinion, in the sense of pulling this off for this year. The issue is equity, whether we get $50,000 out of the state or not, I don’t think is a show stopper in our budget but it is the issue.
I think you all received from our assessor a description of how many towns are doing annual versus tri-annuals. There are a whole bunch of towns that haven’t done one for forty years. The representatives from NYS Real Property Services said most of the towns that were doing annuals have moved off to tri-annuals and what they are saying is it is too much work to pull off annually.
Do we agree then as the corporate body that come hell or high water by next…let’s schedule a special meeting for next Wednesday so that we can vote the things that need to be voted to get this thing done?
Councilman Rosenberg – “The assessor was moving on this doing some of the back ground work already and there seems to be at least one other proposal on the table from another outside firm that might be able to offer us some assistance. We may still be able to pull this off I just think between now and then we need to gather some more information so the board has the entire package in front of them next Wednesday then we can vote yes or no and we may have to vote on funding another firm rather than the one we already did.”
Councilman Bailey – “I guess I would like to see an explanation why the town’s position has changed 180º as stated in this letter from NYS Office of Real Property Services to the Supervisor. At one point we are saying we can do it back on January 9th then on the 25th of January the state notes that the consensus had changed considerably and that the town went on record as being strongly opposed to conducting the update.
We need to understand what the staff is telling us here.”
Councilman Rosenberg – “I think I can add to that. I think what happened was I had a meeting with the assessor and someone from the state and we actually set down a time table at that time, also the outside firm was here, of the events that were suppose to happen within a certain amount of time. I think in the mean time something had occurred, I no there was another meeting with the state, the Supervisor and the assessor and the company; I had no knowledge of that meeting. Someone different from the state came at that point and I think some of the information that was given to the state from our assessors office may have been different from the information that was given at the meeting the week before and I think
that’s why your getting a difference of opinion, two different people from the state and two different groups of information from our assessors department.”
Supervisor Quinn – “The meeting that is referred to in the letter, I was supposed to be notifying all of the board members of this meeting. It was requested by our assessor and by the Appraisal Consulting Firm. What happened is and I apologize and I did not get a hold of all of you people and I forgot about it until the day they all showed up. That is my fault and I owe all of you an apology.
What happened at that meeting was that our assessor and Appraisal Consultants who did the last job, both came out and said flat out and recorded it that they can’t pull it off between here and there. Appraisal Consultants said that we won’t even bid on this job, we don’t want it because we don’t think we can pull it off in a professional manner that meets standards. Those two people came out of the closet and said no way, no way, no way and that is the basis of that letter.”
Councilman Rosenberg – “I can add some more information from the meeting that I referred to the week before that one; Appraisal Consultants, the outside firm also expressed some concern they may not have the staff to pull it off. They actually requested scheduling some of the events to coincide with other responsibilities that they had in other towns and peoples time off. Maybe something happened that next week, in between there that they found out they couldn’t do it.”
Supervisor Quinn – “Bob Hilbrant, Appraisal Consultants, said without comparables he didn’t see how we and/or the public could defend what they are trying to do without something like comparables to do it other than falling back on a year ago and then we are stuck with the state saying yes you were okay a year ago but here are the new numbers. That apparently spooked him seriously into saying I don’t know that we can do this or we could defend what we are doing and therefore allegedly we would get not only more challenges we would end up with more everything, certioraris, etc.”
RESOLUTION NO. 64-2007
Moved by: Councilman Rosenberg
Seconded by: Councilwoman DiGiandomenico
BE IT RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Glenville hereby adjourns into Executive Session to discuss personnel and legal matters.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstention: None
Motion Carried
Supervisor Quinn adjourned this portion of the meeting at 9:30 p.m. and returned into Executive Session to discuss personnel and legal matters.
Time being 10:30 pm Supervisor Quinn reconvened the meeting.
Motion to adjourn was moved by Councilman Rosenberg and Seconded by Councilman Bailey.
The Town of Glenville Town Board Meeting was adjourned at 10:31 PM.
ATTEST:
______________________________
Linda C. Neals
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