A SPECIAL
MEETING of the PLANNING BOARD of
the Town of
Cortlandt was
conducted at the
Mr. Steven Kessler,
Chairman, presided and other members in attendance were as follows:
Mr. John
Bernard
Mr. Thomas
Bianchi
Mr. Robert Foley
Mr. Kenneth
Hoch
Ms. Loretta
Taylor
Ms.
Susan Todd
Also
Present:
Mr. Edward Vergano, Director, Department of Technical
Services
Mr. Kenneth
Verschoor, Deputy Director for Planning
Mr. Chris
Kehoe, Planning Division
Mr. Lew
Leslie, Conservation Advisory Council
Mr. John J.
Klarl, Esq., Deputy Town Attorney
MISCELLANEOUS:
Mr. Kessler said before
we get started, I just wanted to say a couple of words about a colleague of
ours, Mr. Ken Hoch. It is a shame that
it isn’t a regular meeting where we are in the big room but it certainly will
be preserved for posterity on video for us.
As most of you know, Ken will be resigning from this Board because he
has accepted a job with the Town. This
Board’s loss is this Town’s gain. In
some respect, Ken together with myself and Loretta, I believe, have been
together since 1989. Ken who has served
here for 14 years and most ably has employed the man in waiting position has
Vice Chairman, which he has done very, very well on those rare occasions that
I’m not here. I appreciate that. I think most of all we are going to miss his
sage advice and counsel. Certainly, as
Vice Chairman, I certainly always respected his opinion and ability and most of
all, his manner of treating the applicants with fairness and respect, which I’m
hoping that this Board will continue to do.
With that, Ken, we appreciate your work.
(Applause) Now, Ken will not vote
for anything tonight! I do want to
mention that Ken will be joining the Planning Department so we will continue to
avail ourselves of his services in a different capacity. Mr. Hoch said I would like to see an increase
of referrals to D.O.T.S. for job security reasons!
Mr. Kessler said
Ken, good luck to you!
RESOLUTIONS:
re: PB 16-99, Application of SB Acres, LLC, for
Final Plat approval for a proposed golf course pursuant to a Special Permit and
not more than 85 town homes and 6 single family homes on 252 acres located on
the north side of Oregon Road, on the east side of Adams Rush Road, and at the
end of Beverly Road and Casperian Road as shown on a 2-page set of drawings
entitled “Subdivision Plat of Hollow Brook Golf Club” prepared by Glen Watson,
P.L.S. latest revision dated May 20, 2003 and on an 8-page set of drawings
entitled “The Townhouses, Hollow Brook Golf Club” prepared by Ralph G.
Mastromonaco, P.E. dated April 10, 2003 and a 31-page set of drawings entitled
“Hollowbrook Golf Club at Cortlandt Manor” prepared by Ralph G. Mastromonaco,
PE,
latest revision
dated
Mr. Kessler asked Ken,
do you have some news on this resolution for this evening? Mr. Vergano replied yes, the Town Board
discussed this last night at the worksession.
In light of the fact that the applicant is looking to change the
membership arrangement notably how it affects the Cortlandt membership, i.e.
the amount of rounds that are available to Cortlandt residents. We haven’t come to an acceptable arrangement
to date. There has been a meeting on
this subject with the applicant as recently as this afternoon. But again, the Town Board members are not
privy to the details of that discussion.
We decided it would be appropriate to not proceed with the first agenda
item. We’ll put that off until next
month. Mr. Kessler asked is there any
correspondence to add to this? Mr.
Vergano replied yes, just pass this down.
Ms. Todd asked is this a total explanation or should we ask Ann Lindau
to explain a little bit more about what went on? Mr. Vergano replied you might just want to
take a few minutes to read this. It is
really the crux or the essence of the issue.
Mr. Klarl said this is a
Mr. Foley asked on the accessibility of
Cortlandt
residents, can
they just call in the morning or just show up on any of those 2 days and 2
afternoons that are stated? Mr. Balter
replied clearly, it is still being worked out with the Recreation
Department. One of the questions that
has arisen is how do we know what is going on if we aren’t involved? Mr. Foley said the likelihood of just a
Cortlandt resident showing up at
Mr. Bianchi has there
been a mechanism for identifying Cortlandt residents other than a driver’s
license? Has anything been put in
place? Mr. Balter replied that has to be
put in place.
Ms. Todd said my
understanding was that it wasn’t just for Cortlandt residents and that anyone
could play golf there. It was a public
course. You didn’t have to be a
Cortlandt resident. Mr. Balter said when
we initially began the process, certainly, for the majority of the first 2
years, you are absolutely right. That is
how we would have done it. Eric Bergstol
has been here many times and has spoken to you.
When he began, he had 6 golf courses of which 5 were daily fee
courses. He is now converting every
single daily fee course to a course basically like this because the economics
of it just don’t work. Ms. Todd said I
have seen the ad up in Club Fit for the course opening in 2004 and letting
people know that they can have memberships and not just in this club but in all
the other clubs. I can see that he is
trying to fold this into his empire but I really don’t think that is fair to the
process that we have gone through to determine everything about this
course. It was supposed to be a public
course that anyone could play at. I
remember when the first idea of memberships came up. That was very late in the process. I remember asking questions about that, how
much is it going to cost? And, there was
a lot of hesitancy about giving specifics about that. For you to come now, at this point, after
approval to change it into a private club where Cortlandt residents get
preference at certain times sounds like Hudson National to me. Mr. Kessler said Bill, I have to tell you
here is a letter of February 15th that went to the Town Board that
did not go to this Board asking them to change a resolution that this Board
developed and voted on. Mr. Balter said
to this day, I don’t think when we are done with this; I do not believe that
this will be a significant difference to Cortlandt residents. In fact, I think it will be significantly
better. For example, there will be
access to Cortlandt residents on weekends easily now. Whereas in the past, that would have been
tough. I have said this is different
than what we proposed in terms of the general public. Outside of that, I think this will be
significantly better for Cortlandt residents.
During the process, lots of things changed. Basically, from a SEQRA standpoint, there are
significantly less rounds played, which means less traffic, less impacts in
every way. So from a SEQRA standpoint,
and it is in the FEIS, the impacts are far less. The outside public, yes, it is changed. Other than that, it is our job, we know we
can get Cortlandt residents to play. We
understand that we need to do that.
Mr. Bernard asked what is it that you
figure now that a
membership is
going to cost? Mr. Balter replied if you
are buying a membership? It is
$25,000. Mr. Bernard said when this was
first bought up, there were numbers discussed with Eric in front of us that
were in the $4,000 to $6,000 range. That
is a substantial difference from what we talked about. What if the market drives that value up to
$50,000 or $100,000? Mr. Balter replied
the memberships pay dues of $6,000 to $7,000 per year. Mr. Bernard asked what does $25,000 get you? Mr. Balter replied that is a one-time bond
membership. Mr. Klarl said so it is one
annual and one perennial. Mr. Balter
said it is refundable. It is basically
partially refundable. Mr. Vergano asked
when is it refundable? Mr. Balter
replied if you choose to leave. Mr.
Foley asked does that give them membership in the other four courses? Mr. Balter replied no. It gives them the right to pay and play at
the other courses.
Mr. Foley asked may I ask a question about
the combination
of the other
4? Would that have a greater impact
because golfers tend to, because 2 of these courses aren’t that far away from
the Hollowbrook, go from course to course?
Would that impact have more usage of the course or…? Mr. Balter replied we’re going to provide the
Town Board with statistics of the clubs in the different areas. Mr. Foley said the fact that we didn’t know
about that possible combination of all the courses when this was voted on. Mr. Balter said may I suggest that we are
going to spend a lot of time on this, I’m sure.
When we spend the time on it, professionals will talk about it, as
well. Mr. Bernard asked shall we discuss
it after you are finished building it?
Mr. Balter replied no, I don’t think that would make sense,
obviously. Mr. Klarl asked are you
having a meeting with the Town Board before July 1st? Mr. Balter replied I hope so. Ms. Lindau said there is no meeting
scheduled. Mr. Balter said we have asked
the Town to schedule a discussion of this.
Ms. Taylor said if we can’t have it by
July 1st, can we have
it
afterwards? Is there any particular
reason why it has to be by July 1st? Mr. Klarl replied that is our next Planning
Board meeting. Ms. Taylor said even if
it is, do we have to have it then? We
could have it in August. I think we
probably should get together as a Board and decide what issues we have with
this, submit them to the Town Board so that when they have a discussion with
you, Bill, they are all on the table.
Maybe, a few people from here would like to go. I don’t play golf so I’m not as up to some of
the issues… Mr. Kessler said that is a
great idea. Ken, why don’t we put this
on the agenda under Old Business and we’ll talk about it at our next meeting
because maybe we want to go on record with the Board with certain
thoughts. Since we have been doing this
for so many years, I think we have certain thoughts and opinions on how the
direction of this should take and maybe we want to put those to paper so that
the Board has that when they have their deliberations with the applicant. Mr. Klarl said maybe have one or two Planning
Board members attend that Town Board discussion. Mr. Kessler said that would be fine. Mr. Bernard said in the meantime, he is going
to build his course and then come back and tell us it is not viable unless it
is the way that he wants it. Mr. Kessler
said that is certainly a possibility. Mr.
Bernard asked Bill, how fast can you replant those trees, Bill?
Mr. Verschoor said there
is also an issue about a clock running for the Board to take action on the
application that has been submitted. I
don’t know, John, if you want to discuss that.
Mr. Klarl said for final plat approval, as you know we can only have the
Public Hearing on final plat approval if your final plat is not (?) to the
preliminary plat. There is no time clock
for the Public Hearing but the Town law says that if we don’t have the Public
Hearing that we still have those 60 days.
There are 60 days from the submission of the final plat, I don’t know
when the final plat was submitted, I don’t have my files here, but I assume it
wasn’t complete until we… Mr. Verschoor
said it was submitted on
Motion was made by Mr.
Hoch to refer this back to staff, seconded by Mr. Bianchi, with all in favor
‘AYE’.
RE: PB 3-01, Application of SB Acres, LLC for
Final Plat Approval for a 3 lot major subdivision of 5.192 acres located at the
end of Michael John Amato Drive East and on the north SIDE OF Oregon Road, as
shown on drawing entitled “Subdivision Plat, Lot 1, ML Realty Investors, Inc.”
prepared by Glen Watson, P.L.S., latest revision dated May 22, 2003 and on a 2
page set of drawings entitled “Proposed Subdivision at Oregon Road” and
“Details/Profiles/Notes” both prepared by Ralph G. Mastromonaco, PE, PC dated
February 11, 2003.
Mr. Verschoor said we
prepared Resolution #24-03. This has to
be renumbered to #23-03. This is a 3-lot
subdivision at the end of
Motion was made by Mr.
Hoch to adopt Resolution #23-03 granting the 3-lot subdivision, seconded by Mr.
Foley, with all in favor ‘AYE.’
RE: PB 13-03, Application of Hollow Brook Golf
Club, LLC for amended Site Development Plan Approval for the relocation of the
proposed Maintenance Building located at the Hollow Brook Golf Club on the
north side of Oregon Road, east of Adams Rush Road as shown on a drawing
entitled “Maintenance Building Site Plan” prepared by Ralph G. Mastromonaco,
P.E. latest revision dated May 22, 2003.
Mr. Verschoor said this
is for the relocation and reduction in size of the maintenance building for the
golf course. There was one question on
this and it was mentioned at the last meeting about restricting some of the
truck turns into and out of this site. I
think we need to go over that so it is clear so what Condition #3 should
require. Condition #3 reads:
‘Show on the subject drawing the intersection of
and Oregon Road and the proposed driveways for the maintenance
building with appropriate traffic controls to the satisfaction of the Director
of Technical Services and Director of Environmental Services.’
At the last
meeting, it was mentioned about restricting certain left turns in or out of the
site. I think we need a clarification on
that from the Board. Mr. Foley said
right turns into the site from Casperian are for trucks. I bought it up. Mr. Balter said you also said a left turn
coming out. Mr. Foley said also, a right
going in and hopefully, your access going in will be the existing spur road or
whatever it is called. Mr. Verschoor
said so it will be restricting no right turns in. Mr. Foley asked how do you sign that? You have residents that have to make a right
in; I’m just talking about trucks. That
is up to Technical Services. Mr.
Verschoor asked the restriction on left turns would be? Mr. Foley replied coming out of Casperian to
make a left is very dangerous if you have a truck. It is bad enough to come out with a car. Mr. Verschoor said so you’ll be able to use
the other entrance for that purpose. Mr.
Balter replied yes.
Mr. Foley asked can I
ask a question on this? I agree with the
change; it is for the better. How did
this happen that the building was located basically on top of the sewer
manhole? How did that get over
looked? Mr. Balter replied it is barely
on it. We could move it. The plan that Ed has seen has it located so
it is not on top of it without us needing a variance. I was out there looking at it. The reason that we moved it a little bit was
because of the sewer. Mr. Foley asked
how did that get overlooked? Mr. Balter
replied it shouldn’t have. Mr. Klarl
said so the building has been moved for the sewer line and for aesthetics. (Cross conversation.)
Ms. Todd said while I have no problems
about moving the
building, it is a
good move, I do have problems with passing this Resolution so that you can
continue to construct the golf course that right now is not with the resolution
that we have or the final plan. Mr. Balter
said nothing has happened to not make us in compliance. It is just that this is an open issue. We heave heard everything that you have said. As we expressed tonight and at the last
meeting, this is the first phase. The
maintenance building is in the first phase.
If it doesn’t get moved at all, we are going to put it where it is
without getting a variance. That is
silly. Everyone including the Planning
Board and myself and the public will drive down that building 10 years from now
and say ‘why did they put it there?’ To
tie this to what we were talking about when we haven’t violated anything… We will have an open dialogue with the Town
Board and the Planning Board on that issue.
Mr. Foley said in other
words, if we vote on this, we are just voting on the relocation of the
maintenance building with the resolution.
Right? Mr. Balter replied
correct. Mr. Klarl said you are amending
the site development plan and this special permit to relocate the 5,000 square
foot maintenance building. Mr. Foley
said so this pertains to the maintenance building only. Ms. Todd asked are there other projects… Right now, we are putting on hold for the
resolution for the final plat. Are there
other projects that go under construction before the final plat is approved? Mr. Vergano replied keep in mind that the way
the resolution from
‘Upon timely application by this
applicant with a written
explanation of the reasons for the delay which require the granting
of a time extension.’
That is new
language that we are adding. Ms. Todd
asked what do other people think about this?
Am I off base on this? Does it
make sense? Mr. Foley replied as long as
I understand that this resolution that we are about to vote on is only
pertaining to the maintenance building.
Because I still have reservations about the golf course. I voted no back in February because I thought
it was too soon. Mr. Kessler said they
can still build the building exactly where they proposed it originally. It may not be the right place but by not
voting on this, that will still happen.
I think staff and everyone agrees that this is the wrong place. Mr. Vergano said it is the wrong place. Mr. Kessler said the resolution does not
change the ability to continue the construction of the golf course.
Mr. Hoch said I have a
question on the traffic flow. I don’t
understand the no right turn from
Motion was made by Mr.
Hoch to approve Resolution #24-03 adding language to Condition #3 stating that
trucks will not be able to make right turns into
Ms. Todd said I have one
comment. I talked to Michael Clemens
today and I think he is going to be here tonight. He has not gone out to inspect the wood
turtle fence yet even thought that is one of our conditions. He said he has not been paid by the
Town. He wanted to lodge to a formal
complaint to the Planning Board about the fact that he feels he should have
gone out there to inspect the fence but it is because of not being paid. Mr. Vergano said the turtle fence has been
inspected. Ms. Todd said yes, but not by
Clemens. Mr. Vergano said it has been
inspected by Paul Jaehnig who is our Environmental Monitor. I have a problem with Dr. Clemens last
bill. It was more than what we had
approved by Town Board Resolution. We
actually upped the allowable fee charged by consultants to accommodate
him. The bill came in even higher than
that increase. We have a problem with
that. He knows about that problem. Frankly, I resent him approaching the
Planning Board without him bringing this to my attention first. Ms. Todd said he said he has been trying to
call you, 2 or 3 times, and he has left messages. Mr. Vergano said o.k.
OLD
BUSINESS:
RE: PB 18-98, Application and Final Environmental
Impact Statement dated March 2003 for RPA Associates for Preliminary Plat and
Site Development Plan approvals and Steep Slope and Wetland Permits for a
proposed cluster-open space subdivision of 229 dwelling units or in the
alternative 204 dwelling units on 731 acres at Valeria located on the east and
west side of Furnace Dock Road and on the south side of Sniffen Mountain Road
as shown on a 15-page set of drawings entitled “Proposed Planned Residential
Community Known as Valeria” prepared by Joseph C. Riina, PE, latest revision
dated January 2003.
Mr. Zutt, attorney for
the applicant, introduced himself to the Board and said actually, it was not
really clear to me why we were here tonight, specifically that is, but I gather
it is to talk about the comments that we got from your Environmental
Consultants, as well as comments that we received today from your staff and
comments from the Board, as well. We are
happy to do them in any order that you like.
We also have Dr. Michael Clemens with us tonight. The opportunity presented it self and we said
let’s have him here just in case you all have questions for him. He is our biodiversity consultant originally
hired by the Town but at some point prior to that had been retained by my client;
therefore, there was a conflict. As a
result, the Town employed Mr. Coleman. I
think that was the sequence. Mr. Kessler
asked do you want to bring us up to date?
Mr. Zutt replied I defer to the Chair.
Our goal obviously is to get an accepted FEIS. Mr. Kessler said on
Mr. Foley said we were
just discussing the Adler report; I have the original one here with some
changes. I have some pages marked in the
document. The bottom line, the mitigation
for the intersection improvements, are the levels of service the same or better
in all cases? I’m talking from the
furthest point north, which would be Croton/202, which is a part of this
cumulative study and the one closest to your proposed development, which could
be anything from
Mr. Zutt said if I may,
when the Adler study was initially recommended and pursued, there was a
generalized statement of the extent to which the collective three developers
would assist in mitigating the adverse affects of traffic. That was spelled out in a letter that I sent
to Mr. Vergano at that time with the check.
I believe that methodology, well it’s not methodology, but I guess you
could say it is an agreed upon level of service mitigation description for lack
of a better term. Mr. Foley said that
was the
‘Apportioning the results among the 3 projects based upon the
respective percentages of the site traffic generated volumes and
then apportioning.’
It then reads:
‘Based upon the above understanding,
my client is willing to
contribute toward reasonable and practical improvements as
described as the developers' fair share, which will be arrived at by assigning
a percentage of the improvement cost figures equal to the percentage increase
in traffic over current traffic levels represented by the three projects. Then, apportioning the results among the
three projects based upon those respective percentages of the site of generated
traffic volumes the intersections.’
Mr. Zutt said I
think that was sort of the equation that generally speaking was described and
agreed to with Mr. Vergano. Mr. Vergano
said just to clarify. There is no hard
and fast formula. In general, yes, that
applies. I have had meetings
individually with all three developers or representatives from all three
developments. They have in concept agreed
to the scope of the improvements that are needed in these corridors that are
clearly affected by these three projects.
There are a number of road widenings.
There are some intersection improvements involved in this mix. There are improvements to sight
distance. There are some very sensitive
areas. Again, in concept, there has been
no problem. Mr. Klarl said the idea was
to try to get the three developers to share in some equitable manner. Mr. Vergano said right, but we are already
into that process. Now, with that as
part of the mix, that is going back to our consultant really for their
evaluations. What does that really mean
to the level of service issues? Mr.
Foley said my question was not so much on the monetary fair share but as to how
you work out working with all three potential developments. How do you come up with the levels of service
and are they improved or remain the same?
That is my point. Mr. Vergano
said again, I can’t answer that question
at this point. We need to have our
consultant to an evaluation. It is clear
what the needs of improvements are in these corridors. Again, to simplify this, if there are two
dozen needed improvements or so, I’ll go to Valeria and say ‘take care of the
first 12’ because they are clearly going to produce more traffic. I’ll go to the other two developments and
take care of the next 12 and split them amongst yourselves. In concept, we have agreed to that. Mr. Perna said I think the bottom line
question is the traffic after all are built, will it be equal to or better than
what they are now. This is what we
agreed to pay for our fair share. We are
not going to bring them up to thruway standards but we are going to pay a
pro-rated share to bring it up to equal or better than what they are now. Mr. Zutt said that was the goal. Mr. Perna said that is the essence of what I
understand. Mr. Kessler asked when does
that occur, after development? Mr.
Vergano replied that occurs during development.
Mr. Kessler said I guess I’m hung up on the allocation. Mr. Vergano said very simply, if you pull the
Adler report, there were roads that were impacted significantly by these three
proposals. We literally with the
consultant conducted a series of site inspections with representatives from the
developments and they agreed to take care of what we all interpret to be their
fair share. Mr. Kessler said I’m trying
to understand how you did the fair share portion of this. Mr. Vergano said again, if you have 24
improvements, they are going to take care of 12 and the other 2 developers are
going to take care of 12. Mr. Zutt said
let me see if I can go back. When Ed and
I talked about this originally, one of his concerns was, and I don’t mean to
put words in your mouth so stop me if I’m wrong, there are present needs in
various areas within the corridor before any new homes are built, Emery Ridge,
Valeria, or Abee Rose. He wanted to see
some of those conditions alleviated.
There would be term funds needed to achieve that if none of these
projects were built. Now, throw into the
mix, the additional impacts generated by these projects and we have impacts on
levels of service. His goal was to get a
contribution from these projects, which when applied to and added to Town
funds, would insure those levels of service are no worse and possibly are made
better. Is that a fair statement? Mr. Vergano replied that is a fair statement
but again, we say added to… Mr. Kessler
said let me go to the FEIS. It says:
‘The developers’ fair share will be
arrived at by assigning a
percentage to the improvement cost figures equal to the percentage
increase in traffic over the current traffic levels represented by the three
projects. This is happening before the
projects are built.’
I guess my
question is everyone using the same traffic generation numbers to say that you
are going to generate 200; Abee Rose is going to generate 32, and Emery Ridge
is going to generate 57. The answer is
yes. Mr. Vergano said absolutely. Mr. Kessler said I’m not really sure as we
sit here that everyone is using the same traffic generation numbers to do their
projects because we are always arguing over those numbers. Mr. Vergano said that is one thing that drove
the cumulative impact traffic study for the 3 developments. We want to make sure that we are comparing
apples with apples. When you look at the
three different impact statements and the evaluation, all of those impact
statements, it didn’t seem like we were moving in 3 different directions. That is something we have to clarify it. We came up with a solution that should
mitigate traffic impacts and actually improve existing conditions. Mr. Foley said in Adler’s conclusion on page
26 of his report back in August 2002, he is saying that appropriate measures be
implemented to offset the cumulative impacts, etc., etc. And the specifics of these measures, as well
as the assignments of responsibility, be addressed in detail in the respective
FEIS for the subject projects. Getting
back to my original, is it specifically addressed in the revised document or
the FEIS? Mr. Simone replied the FEIS
specifically addresses certain improvements that based upon our discussions
with Ed going back a few months ago that we would generally pick up on our tab
exclusively areas directly adjacent to the site, areas on Sniffen Mountain
Road, across from our site. We had gone
over these things. These are areas that
we had chosen to pick up exclusively under our improvement costs. The other improvements that may be warranted
such as signalization or turning lanes, which may be warranted at the future at
202 or 9A and
Ms. Todd said I have a
question about parking at the train station.
I think the Adler study says that your stats are about four years
old. Did you provide new ones in the
FEIS? Mr. Robert Peake, John Myer
Consulting, introduced himself to the Board and replied we talked with them
about a shuttle bus. Ms. Todd said I
know that but not everyone is going to take that shuttle bus. Mr. Peake said no, he was pleased that we
were the only ones who gave that thought.
So he did give us some credit for doing that. I did talk with the Metro North people and
they say were in discussion and that they were aware that they would need to
expand the parking area in the future not for our specific development but for
an area wide issue. Ms. Todd said I
think most people are not going to go to Cortlandt. They are going to go to the Croton Train
Station where the trains are much more frequent, which is way overcrowded right
now. I think you need to talk to them,
as well. They are going to have to go
two stories if they are going to get more cars for parking. There is just not enough parking at any of
the train stations right now.
Ms. Todd continued and said the other
thing about the
updated accident
history. Mr. Peake said we did provide
that. Ms. Todd said one of the things
that I felt was interesting about that was that only 4 out of 126 accidents
were a result of sight distance problems.
It seems that we are thinking that all of our improvement efforts for
traffic in this area have to do with sight improvement, adding shoulders,
widening the roads, so that people can go the speed that they are normally
going, which is 46 m.p.h. rather than 30 m.p.h.
My feeling about these improvements are that these are things that are necessary
now to deal with the current numbers of cars that we have on the road right
now. When we have what the Adler report
says that there will be a 300 vehicle per hour increase at peak traffic times
that is frightening to me. That is on
page 4 in the Adler report. From
Valeria, there is going to be a 300 vehicle per hour increase in traffic. I don’t know.
We can talk about widening the shoulder and adding signs that say
‘watch, sharp turn coming up.’ But I
don’t think that does anything to mitigate what is going to turn into a parking
lot on
Ms. Taylor asked do we have any figures
currently on what
the level of
services for this particular project?
Mr. Zutt replied it should be in Adler’s report.
Ms. Todd said on page 98 of the FEIS, can
someone explain
table 3-F8. I did not understand that. What is manual turning traffic counts? Mr. Simone replied these counts were actually
taken by having people out there. Mr.
Peake said you actually have people out there that click with cars. Mr. Simone said when they say manual traffic
counts that means it wasn’t done by a sensor or anything like that. Ms. Todd asked what is turning mean? Mr. Peake replied you look at the right turns
and left turns. You do a separate count
for each one of those. Mr. Simone said
turning movement is a right turn or a left turn. Ms. Todd said that refers to page 97 and
these intersection operations. Mr. Peake
said exactly and that gets you to your level of service. If you look at the conditions, it reads what
they would be in 2005 without the development and in 2005 with the
development. Ms. Todd asked background
means without development? Mr. Peake
replied yes, if something was built in 2005.
Ms. Todd asked could that be changed to say without development instead
of background? I had no idea what that
meant. Mr. Peake said background usually
takes into account maybe a 2% or 3% increase, just in general growth
factor. Ms. Todd asked combined means
with all of the projects? Mr. Peake
replied combined is including the background plus the proposed, in this case
Valeria.
Mr. Bianchi said sight
distance on page 62, table 3, you indicate the sights distance for left and
right. I’m just trying to reconcile the
numbers. If you could explain to me page
77. You indicate that all existing and
proposed driveways should have a minimum sight distance of (?) feet. Major driveways would have 265 feet. On the following page 78, you talk about the
improvements that you are suggesting would provide at least 465 feet in sight
distance. My question is that I don’t
see the numbers matching. Maybe, I’m
reading it wrong. Mr. Peake said this
was actually for the driveways going in and out of Valeria. The first figures that you were looking at
were for each individual homeowner. Mr.
Bianchi said right, I see the addresses on them. Mr. Peake said the Adler study recommended
specifically the sight distance for the driveways coming into and out of
Valeria. So it is really apples and
oranges on this. Mr. Bianchi said so the
comments on pages 77 and 78 are talking about the entrance to Valeria. Mr. Peake said correct, that is what the
Adler study talks about. Mr. Bianchi
said but it says all intersecting streets and major driveways. Is that within the complex; is that what you
are saying? Mr. Simone replied within
our development entering
Mr. Bianchi said on
table 3, also, the obstructions that you indicated and the recommended
improvements, the numbers that you show for sight distance without those
improvements. Mr. Peake said those are
current. Mr. Bianchi asked do you know
how much you will be improving it by making the necessary improvements? Mr. Simone replied no, that was really
just… Mr. Bianchi asked what are you
trying to meet, I guess? Mr. Simone
replied there wasn’t one. The table and
the sight distance survey that we performed were really to get an idea of
critical areas along
Mr. Foley asked do you
know if any of these alternatives for sight distance, how does that affect the
character of Furnace Dock Road. You have
driven around. You just mentioned a
specific area that I’m familiar with.
Mr. Simone said those were specific things that we discussed when we
drove around with Ed. My major concern
is that I don’t want to come in here and widen it to a super highway. If it is a matter of taking down a couple of
trees that will give you thru vision and alleviate some… I don’t want to go into blasting a
right-of-way and taking out a chunk of rock.
Mr. Vergano said we talked about leaving it in a very natural state and
not just taking out a chunk of right-of-way to provide the sight distance. We are trying to make this as aesthetic as
possible and not destroy the character.
Mr. Foley asked so it wouldn’t be drastically changing the character of
that road? Mr. Vergano replied that is
kind of a subjective issue but in my opinion, no. Ms. Todd asked why do you think that is going
to make an improvement when the accidents that have been reported over the
years, few of them have to do with sight distance problems? I went through them. Mr. Simone said you have to understand that a
lot of these issues where they refer to an accident, it may be hitting a deer
or something like that. Those are sight
distance issues. They are not
necessarily described that way in the accident report but when you come around
a turn and you smack into a deer, that is because you didn’t have ample time to
see it. There are accidents in there
that aren’t specifically alluded to as being sight distance accidents. Mr. Peake said these are terms that are
assigned by the Police Department. They
may not say sight distance but reading into it, you can certainly see it. Mr. Klarl said they could be incorrectly
departmentalized, a given accident. Ms.
Todd said unsafe speed, unsafe passing, driver fell asleep, failure to yield
right-of-way, unsafe speed, etc. Most of
them were unsafe speed, slippery pavement, etc.
Four times were obstructed views from foliage and road curvature. Most of the time it was unsafe speed. I’m just trying to evaluate in my own mind
how much are these improvements really going to mitigate with that many more
cars. Mr. Vergano said I think the
consultant’s report will help answer that.
Ms. Todd said there was one other thing on page 16 of the Adler report,
it says that school traffic was not a part of Valeria’s analysis. I think that is very important. That is when Croton Avenue to 202 just backs
up for about ½ mile. Mr. Klarl asked
during the school bus runs? Ms. Todd
replied yes. Mr. Foley said it has been
bought up in reference to another project.
Has the Indian Point evacuation plan been taken into account, also? I don’t know.
It has been bought up in the other project by the school system. They know their routes. Mr. Simone replied we did address that in the
DEIS.
Mr. Kessler asked are there any other
completeness issues
on the FEIS,
comments? Mr. Bianchi said there is a
comment under burms; I was pleased to see that you are not taking any material
off of the site. You said you were going
to be using it to construct a burm. Did
you talk about that? I don’t
recall. Mr. Perna said we are not in
final site design. Mr. Bianchi asked
when you say burms, where are they going to be conceptually? What are they going to be used for? How high are they going to be? Mr. Perna replied basically, they were used
before to create privacy between lots.
Not between every lot but maybe between the cul-de-sac lots. It gives some privacy between backyards. Not, for example, a linear (?) burm but maybe
a spiral burm in the backyard before going into woodland or maybe to protect
some turtle habitat or a wetland. Mr. Bianchi
asked are these going to be in any of the buffer areas? Mr. Perna replied we really haven’t gotten to
that. Mr. Bianchi said because of the
increase concentration of the homes in the southwestern area, there seems to be
a lot of encroachment into the buffer in that area. Mr. Simone said the burms would be located
within the limits of disturbance that we show on the plans, obviously. There will be landscape features. A lot of the excess material, which isn’t
specific, they talk about 31,000 in excess material, a lot of that is going to
come out in the form of rock, which we would use for landscaping, stone walls,
and stuff like that, also. Obviously,
the material is going to be used in different fashions. So, burm may mean stonewall. It may mean earth burm, landscape burm,
etc. But it is all within the confines
of the disturbance that you find on the plan.
We generally don’t burm areas that don’t need to be burmed. We use it in between buildings in areas that
are disturbed anyway. It would be a
landscape burm with some possibly some trees planted on top of the burm between
buildings. Mr. Perna said if you raise
an acre 1 foot, that is 1,500 cubic yards.
30,000 cubic yards is a lot of earth but in the construction business,
it is really not a heck of a lot. At the
same time, we are not in final design.
So, by raising a building, we are going to do a final cut and fill
before we dig the first bucketful of dirt.
We are going to try to balance it.
The best engineering usually is going to have a shorter surplus. We will try to cut that down even more to
eliminate the burms. Again, right now,
we still have a surplus. When we dig
into the nitty gritty of the design, it could be 31,000, 29,000, 25,000. Right now, it is a surplus.
Mr. Bianchi continued and said
construction monitoring,
will that be
implemented as usual with the Town hiring a monitor? Is there any other environmental monitoring
that will need to be done? Mr. Vergano
replied sure, just like Lakeland Acres.
Mr. Bernard said on page
41, there was a citizen comment from Mr. Kyle Cragnolin; he made several pages
of comments. In those pages on page 41,
the second paragraph, just as an example, he speaks about the types of plants
that are slated to be planted as landscaping and that most of them are pretty
desirous foods for the white tailed deer.
The response to his multi-page comments doesn’t speak to the
plant-scape. In fact, the response
doesn’t speak to a lot of the issues that he brings up. So as a matter of completeness, with his
comments specifically, I would like to see a more complete analysis and
response to his comments. He seems to
have made some well thought out comments.
Page 41 is in the middle of his comments. That is where he speaks about the plant species. I agree with the comments made about the
traffic improvements. I, too, would like
to see traffic improvements but my idea of improvements is slower speeds. Rather than building highways, I would like
to see things slow down a littler. Along
with Bob and Susan’s comments about the types of accidents, it seems like speed
is the predominant cause of the accidents.
I know that everyone wants to get there quicker, but I am positive that
they would get there quicker driving 3 m.p.h. and not running into things. If we could do improvements to slow that
down, I think that would be to everyone’s advantage especially with the other
projects that are coming along possibly.
Mr. Simone said we discussed at one of the Board meeting over the winter
some possible traffic calming mitigation tactics. One of our areas of concern was the
intersection of Mt. Airy and Furnace Dock and possibly the installation of a
signal or a 3-way stop there. I believe
Furnace Dock is thru in that movement and Mt. Airy stops. I think one of our recommendations was
placing a 3-way stop at that location to kind of stop traffic and you couldn’t
speed through that intersection on Furnace Dock Road. This is a traffic calming technique. If you put enough of those along Furnace Dock
Road, then people don’t have the ability to get up to 60 m.p.h. where they have
to slow down and stop at 300 and 400 foot intervals. These were areas that we had discussed. Ultimately, we are still open to those
suggestions. Mr. Vergano said you have
to be careful in using 3-way stops to slow traffic down. It is really not recommended by the
State. It has to be used very
carefully. Mr. Bernard asked what kind
of traffic calming measures are recommended by the D.O.T.? Mr. Vergano replied there are a number of
things. There are actually roundabouts
at 3 and 4-way intersections where as you are approaching the intersection, you
have to physically slow down to move around the intersection. Mr. Bernard asked is that a possibility here
instead of a 3-way? Mr. Vergano replied
there may be. Mr. Bernard asked what
else? Mr. Vergano replied on appropriate
roads, not on major roads, speed humps have been used. There is sometimes pavement grooving, rumble
strips. In tight areas where you tend to
veer off of the road, you are going to hit a rumble strip and tend to slow
down. You will remember that so you will
want to slow down. Ms. Todd said they
have that now on Crow Hill Road. Mr.
Perna said I think it scares the hell out of them. Mr. Vergano said it does work. Believe it or not, another traffic calming
technique is actually reducing the pavement width, the traveled way, reducing
it down to 10.5 feet or so. You are
going to have more of a tendency to obey the speed limit. You have to be careful with intersections
because that will create a queue and that sometimes will bring a car back to a
point where there is a sight distance issue and then you have rear end
collisions. Again, it has to be
evaluated very careful. Mr. Foley said
the principle of the 3-way stops is to slow traffic but it does work in
different neighborhoods where it does remind people they are in a residential
neighborhood. The case of the
intersection that you mention about Furnace Dock and Mt. Airy, that is a tricky
one. That one may be more suitable with
rumble strips across the road because you don’t have any real nearby houses
there that may be disturbed by the sound.
The 3-way stop there, I don’t know the sight distance in the directions. The stop signs are cheaper and can be changed. Mr. Vergano said the problem with stop signs
is that people tend to speed up to make up for lost time. Statistically, that is what happens. Mr. Bianchi asked what about flashing
lights? Mr. Vergano replied they are
worthless. Mr. Foley said people get
annoyed because the light flashes in their window.
Mr. Bernard said on the
tax surplus, all the charts tell us that this is a fabulous project in terms of
taxes. It is going to generate surpluses
of about $7,000 or $8,000 for the general tax fund. There is another $7,000 for school taxes per
unit. These are fabulous figures but are
so different from the other projects that we have reviewed this past year. I have gone through the charts and everything
looks correct. I’m not sure how you do
it. Mr. Simone said these are fee simple
lots, too, where everyone will own the property. There are tax advantages versus a pure
condominium development. They tend to
lose money based on the tax structure.
We did go over these numbers for the school district. The consultants have reviewed them. Specifically, with respect to the
condominiums, pure condominiums are assessed based on a rental value under the
Town’s standards. When a project like
Valeria, which is going to be offered as a fee simple ownership meaning that
everyone will own their unit, the tax structure is based upon sales price. So, it is much higher than would be realized
through condominiums or what have you. In
addition, the impacts associated with larger homes that would generate 3 or 4
school children have been weighted to the factor of these homes, which will
have 2 bedrooms. Our anticipated school
generation figures are much lower than what would typically be forecasted for
your single family home. That is a big
nut of where the tax saving is. Our last
estimates were somewhere around $12,000 to educate a child in the
district. When you have 3 or 4 children
in every home, you are burdening the school district by $40,000 and there is no
tax realization in that respect. Here, I
think we had an average 53 children over the 200 or some odd units. That brings it down to about ¼ of that, about
$2,500 impacted dollars spent for a child.
The average tax on these units is somewhere around the $13,000
mark. The number of bedrooms is important.
Mr. Hoch said that was
one of the point that I wanted to see, which we just did for Emery Ridge was an
update on the cost side. The cost
numbers have changed. We now have school
budgets that have been adopted. I am not
sure that your $8,920 surplus per pupil is accurate anymore. I understand that your generation rate seems
logical. But I think that you need to
take another look at the now adopted school budget at the cost per pupil, what
you are going to generate tax wise, and show us that and verify that
number. I think it may have
changed. Mr. Perna said we noticed that
one of the comments from your consultants was…
We also looked at the sales price, too, which has gone up. We’ll look at both.
Mr. Bernard said 3 other points. On this 204 unit modified
cluster, which is
the plan that I’m looking at, seems to be the preferred for several
reasons. In section 6, there are these 3
homes that are stretched out longer on this version than on any of the other
versions of the plan. In fact, on some
of the other ones, it was 2 units. Mr.
Simone said no, there were always 4. Mr.
Bernard said actually 4, and there are still 4 on this modified cluster. (Cross conversation.) Mr. Simone said that was one of the
recommendations of the biodiversity study that closest lot to Sniffen Mountain
Road be, and we discussed this in conversation.
Mr. Bernard said I recommend pushing all of those units closer together
limiting the length of that driveway.
Mr. Simone said he additionally recommended that the next house on
Sniffen Mountain also be pushed back.
The only issue that we have with that is that we have the old Valeria
landfill, which kind of circles that house.
That area is slated for reclamation.
We don’t really have the room to move that house anymore. I think there is currently about 35 feet from
the natural area. Mr. Bernard asked so
with that you have about ½ acre? Mr. Simone
replied no, the DEC has recommended that we place a 2-foot soil path over it
and monitor it because we have tested it and we have been monitoring it. Their recommendation is that if we can limit
the run-off perc-ing through the existing landfill, we would eliminate any (?)
coming out of the landfill. Mr. Bernard
asked and you’ll do that by how, so it will drain off? Mr. Simone replied no, it is basically
maintaining the same grades but putting a top soil cap on it, which limits the
amount of water that will perc down through it.
Mr. Bernard asked how does that limit the percolation? I don’t understand. Mr. Simone replied because topsoil is a very
dense material. Right now, there is
about a 4 to 6 inch layer on top of it.
A 2-foot layer will create more of an imperviable layer on top.
Ms. Todd asked where is
that? Mr. Simone replied it is behind
this residence (indicating). Ms. Todd
asked where it the sewage treatment plant?
Mr. Simone replied here (indicating).
Mr. Peake said that would be done in accordance with the DEC
requirements. They would have to monitor
it. It is in the DEIS. Mr. Simone said those were the initial
recommendations from the DEC. We still
have to ultimately go back to them and get a permit to do it. Whether their recommendation are going to
change… Mr. Bernard said so the
locations of these 4 houses are pretty well locked. Is that the best you can do, you think? Mr. Simone replied yes. Mr. Kessler said let’s be clear, nothing is
locked. The Public Hearing is still open
on the subdivision.
Mr. Bernard asked how
far is the applicant willing to go to follow the biodiversity study done by Mr.
Coleman? In other words, in some places
he talks about units that are near the box turtle protection area instead of
having curbing using grass swales so that there is no impedance to the turtles. How far is the applicant willing to go to
follow these recommendations because there are a lot of recommendations in
this? Mr. Simone said specifically,
those recommendations about the curbing and the swales have to do with the
single-family homes on Sniffen Mountain Road.
His recommendations for truncating portions of the development in
section 3, we have already incorporated here.
I think from that standpoint and if you have any specific
questions… Mr. Bernard said he also
talks about the quality of storm water run-off having to be maintained at a
very high level. And, to that end,
perhaps some types of catch basins that would trap any sediment or oils. Then they would have to be built so that they
wouldn’t trap animals and other types of catch basins could evidently have a
special drain so that animals don’t fall in and drown. Mr. Simone said those are specific
engineering issues, which would be detailed by the final site plan review. We are obviously not… Mr. Bernard said I’m just trying to get a
feel for the applicant and how he will follow these recommendations. Mr. Perna said if they are rationale
recommendations, we will do them.
Mr. Bernard said the
last comment is really a question. I was
wondering if Dr. Clemens could speak to the Fowler Toad habitat. What I see on all the modified drawings is
that there are still houses in fairly close proximity right in between sections
4 and 5 as far as the Fowler Toad protection area. I was just wondering if that protection area
has been delineated to the extent that they are protected. Dr. Michael Clemens, Metropolitan Conservation
Alliance, introduced himself to the Board and said we are talking about the
third plan. The Fowler Toads were found
in the site. They were found in 2002 and
2001. We are not really sure where they
are breeding now. We tend to think that
they are probably breeding in the wetlands near the Peekskill Briarcliff
Trailway. Fowler Toads are scarce in
Westchester County, quite scarce, but the scarcity is more a function of
long-term geologic impacts and presence of certain soils. Where Fowler Toads actually exist, they tend
to exist much as other toads. They can
exist within developed areas. If you go
to Long Island, it is the only toad on the island. You find them in people’s gardens. As you know, we are trying to protect the
breeding areas. There is some discussion
about where that will be, near the big slope above the tennis court, we could
provide habitat. Certainly, it will be a
change in the habitat. We aren’t really
sure where they are breeding. Ms. Todd
asked do they breed in vernal pools? Dr.
Clemens replied no, they don’t breed in vernal pools. They may have actually been breeding in the
flooded area. There are a lot of mudded
flooded areas down there near the old equipment shed. It is interesting actually, I have been back
there many, many times, and have never seen a Fowler Toad again except that one
day that we saw them. Certainly, there
is a population there.
Mr. Hoch said page 92 talks about the
shuttle bus. I have
this great
concern about homeowner’s association and their ability to provide services
that they are going to be burdened with.
I assume that the applicant is going to donate a shuttle van to the
homeowner’s association who will then run it.
My concern is how feasible is that?
Are they able to afford the insurance?
Hire a driver? Will it in affect
work or is it a plan on paper mitigates traffic but in actuality after 6 months
or so the finances disappear? Mr. Perna
replied we have an agreement to retain current fees from the individual
homeowners pay at a same level with the shuttle bus for 5 years. Just like the tennis courts, etc. Mr. Hoch said so at least, there is funding
for 5 years. Mr. Perna said excuse me,
we have contractual agreements with the H.O.A. that their fees will not go up
with the shuttle bus, the golf, pools, etc.
Stuff like that. It is a cost
concept. Mr. Simone said also you have
to understand, developing this project as an H.O.A., which we intend to do, the
developer is responsible for maintaining the facilities in order regardless of
the amount of income coming in from the H.O.A.
It is based on a deficiency basis.
If the facility is provided and it costs $3,000 a year to maintain and
there are only 2 homeowners that pay $50 per month, under the Attorney
General’s guidelines, we are obligated to maintain that deficiency of
operation. If we prescribe in the
offering plan that their common charges and that their fees are going to be $50
per month, that is what it is for them whether it costs us $3,000 additional
month to offset those things. The reason
for that being is that ultimately when all the homes are occupied, that
deficiency would be made up. But until
that threshold is reached, the project sponsor is obligated to maintain that
deficiency. Mr. Hoch said I understand
that. Clarify for me how long is the
guarantee… Mr. Simone replied until we
are sold and out of there. Mr. Zutt said
essentially, the developer is the underwriter of unsold units until the units
are fully sold out. Mr. Hoch said that
still didn’t answer my question. What is
the timeframe that you are guaranteeing that this shuttle van will
operate? Mr. Simone replied we can
guarantee it up until we sell our last unit and we are no longer the project
sponsor. Mr. Perna said we have a sunset
clause for 5 years, as I said before.
Right now, I think they are paying $200 a month per unit. We anticipate capitalization, deficiency of
scale. We are putting in additional rec
facilities and public facilities, a shuttle bus, new golf facilities where you
can actually putt on the green. This is
going to be additional costs. We have
guaranteed contractually with the H.O.A. that we will pay the deficit to
prevent their fee from going up above the $200 mark for 5 years. Mr. Kessler asked is it the later of 5 years
or the sale of the last unit? Mr. Zutt
replied I don’t believe so, Steve. As I
recall, and I would have to go back and re-read the agreement, it has been
awhile, but I’m pretty sure that the guarantee was for 5 years regardless
whether we sell out in year 1 or year 6 or year 10. Mr. Kessler said if you did sell out in year
5, then all of your obligations have been met and it is up to the remaining
homeowners… Mr. Zutt replied no, not all
of the obligations have been met because hypothetically, if only half of the
units have been sold by year 5, we would still be on the hook for the remaining
unsold units. The only difference is
that the artificially supported ceiling that the current homeowners enjoy would
disappear basically. Mr. Kessler said
the subsidy ends at 5 and then you are free to raise it to whatever the cost of
operation is. Mr. Zutt said we aren’t
free because what happens is that everyone participates in the budgetary
process. At that point, we may be a
minority. We may own only 40%. Mr. Kessler said so you would have to
subsidize it. Mr. Zutt said exactly. Mr. Kessler said that would be part of the
negotiation at that point. Mr. Perna
said we would like to think that there is going to be some kind of scale.
Mr. Hoch said on page 108 and 109, it
talks about the
recreation
fee. The fact that you are putting a
great deal of money into on-site recreation, which is only for Valeria
residents. My question is that we still
have a Town recreation requirement. How
is that supposed to be met? Mr. Zutt
replied that is a really hard question to answer diplomatically, but I’ll take
a stab at it. The recreation impact fee
is a State law. The theory of it is that
a developer should provide for the additional population that he is introducing
to a community. He should provide
recreation amenities adequate to support the needs of that additional
population. If he does that, than he is
not obligated to pay the recreational impact fee. If he doesn’t do that, than he is obligated
to pay the recreational impact fee.
Typically and traditionally, in most subdivisions in Cortlandt and
elsewhere, the recreation fee is almost automatically assessed and no new amenities
are bought in. That is not the case
here. It is our position that the
recreational amenities that are being introduced and have been committed to
already with the homeowner’s association satisfy that impact fee requirement. It is our position that this developer should
not be obligated to make any cash impact fee payments on the townhouses. On the single-family homes, which don’t
participate in the H.O.A., they are fee-simple single-family, they would have
to pay the recreation fee. That would be
the homes west of Furnace Dock Road. Mr.
Hoch said I don’t think I agree with that but I won’t be here to vote on
it. On page 140, it talks about an
estimate for the sewage treatment plant.
It is an estimate based on 253 homes, I would like to see the one based
on 204 homes and that is going to affect them.
Again, this goes back to affecting the homeowner’s association.
Mr. Kessler said to add
to that, on page 140, I think it would be helpful to see what the actual costs
are for the 80 homes. If you are
incremental costs for the 204 homes at this point, and let’s say the total
cost, which I imagine would be a little bit less than what you are showing here
for a total of 333 homes. Mr. Simone
said all of those were submitted under the DEIS. I will have them put back in there. Right now, the plan is working under a
deficiency, which we are picking up the tab for. Mr. Zutt asked do we give the figures to the
240-unit option? Mr. Simone replied no,
because that option was not in existence until the DEIS was prepared. Mr. Bianchi asked why is there (?) Mr. Perna replied there are only 80
homes. Mr. Simone said the existing
homeowners have typically been paying $15 or $17 per month. When we came in, we agreed to hold their
sewage treatment plant charges for the duration of the approval process. But there have been major repairs, which we
have undertaken at our expense. Our
general monthly operating expenses, which are for our operator, our lawn
maintenance, and what have you, are in excess are of the 80 homes generated
right now. Mr. Zutt said it was also the
case that this project was originally conceived for upwards of 525 units back
in the early 1980’s. The operation of
the plant was based on that assumed population.
Mr. Hoch said the last
comment that I have is regarding garbage on page 142. It says the new units would have private
carters at curbside. Again, to me, that
is another cost factor for the H.O.A. but it says that the disposal system for
the existing homeowners is not under the proposed development. What exactly is going to happen with
garbage? Mr. Perna replied as I
understand it, they have a staff that picks up the garbage at each home and
brings it to a central container. We
have not done a development like that and don’t plan to do a development like
that. We will put the carting out to bid
and we are not going to have full time people on site paid for by our
H.O.A. I have already spoken to members
of the H.O.A. There are some people that
like the service that they have now.
There are some people that will appreciate the reduction because the
H.O.A. is paying the bill. It might not
be a monthly garbage charge but they have staff and it is costly. We will be letting our garbage collection out
to bid and I said that I would do the same for them. I’ll have bid A and bid B. If they want to use my carter, they can. I think we’ll get a better price. Mr. Hoch said so the hope would be that there
would be one system. Mr. Perna said
taken off the site. I don’t want a
container. Mr. Hoch said yes, you’ll have
a carter come in and take it for disposal.
I had a number of other comments but they have actually all been covered
in staff’s memo.
Mr. Kessler said going
back to the sewage treatment plant. I
guess this is a completeness issue. On
page 27 and 28, you talk about the ownership and the ownership being
transferred to the association. You then
go on to say that if there is a problem, it reverts to the Town. I guess my question is to the Town, is that
o.k. with you? It says if the developer
of the homeowner association fails to maintain, operate, or otherwise abandon
the system… I guess I should go back
before that. It says the stock to be
held in escrow if the developer fails to complete the structure or if the
developer H.O.A. fails to maintain, operate, or otherwise abandon the
system. The sewage treatment system is a
critical component of this development.
I want to be sure that since so much hinges upon this system’s affective
operation that everyone on this side of the table is comfortable with the fact
that it may defer to the Town and we are prepared to take on that
responsibility. Mr. Vergano said again,
I will defer to John for the legal issues and questions, the New York
transportation law says that there is a vehicle set in a place that in the
event of default on the part of the owner that it does revert to the
municipality. Mr. Klarl said this still
further points out that, talking about the sewage district, it should be noted
that the sewage district with the power of taxation has been in place since
December 1980. Obviously, there is a
mechanism. We don’t want to see it
occur. I don’t know if we ever had, Ken,
a sewage treatment plant in the Town that has failed and we have taken it
over. Mr. Zutt said I can probably add a
little bit to that, Steve, because I had to look at this in the context for
another project. The way that the New
York State Transportation Corporation Law is written, it is a Transportation
Corporation that owns and operates this sewage treatment plant. The Transportation Corporation is in turn
owned by the H.O.A. That is the
corporate layer. If the Transportation
Corporation should fail in its responsibilities, the ownership of the stock in
that corporation automatically falls to the Town without pertinences. The automatic transfer, if you will. The Town has legal authority to tax the
participants in the community for benefiting from the plant without even having
to utilize the existing taxation district.
In this case, there is already a sewer district in place. It has been there for 23 years. So there are basically 2 fallbacks. One is the State law fallback that
automatically gives you that power.
Behind that, you already have a district in place. You sort of have a belt and suspenders in
this one. Mr. Klarl said that is exactly
what it detailed on the bottom of page 27 and top of page 28. It talks about the stock of the
transportation corporation, which has shares.
It says if the stock should so pass, the Town may then in the operation
of the system cost assessed against the homeowners. It may, in addition, levy taxes for that
purposes. This is section 119,
subdivision 4. It also indicates, as
Bill Zutt just said, that a sewer district with the power of taxation has been
in place for Valeria since December 1980.
There are both avenues. I haven’t
seen the Town have to pursue either one since I have been involved since
1991. It talks about taking the stock
over from the Transportation Corporation.
In addition, having the power of taxation in connection with the sewer
district. Mr. Zutt said that sounded
very familiar to me because I think I authored it. Mr. Simone said also, just for clarification,
that issue exists currently. The
Transportation Corporation is in affect for the existing Valeria 80 units. Obviously, the potential of that happening is
less if there are more people funding it.
Mr. Vergano said just for the record, the Town does not own and maintain
a sewage treatment plant currently. In
my opinion, I would like to stay out of the sewer business completely. Mr. Klarl said we have never acquired one by
fault.
Mr. Kessler said I want to understand the
relocation of the
turtle
issue. If I understand what has been
presented here is that there is an area where there is a habitat of turtles and
what is being proposed is that it is o.k. to develop in that area as long as
someone has a little red wagon and moves these turtles to another area, which I
believe is the Sniffen Mountain Road area.
Can I just understand that? It
just seems like a lot of work. Dr.
Clemens asked can we get a map out?
Which area are we talking about?
Mr. Kessler indicated. Dr.
Clemens said not in a wagon. What I
suggested and responsive to your own consultant’s report, for the record, I
think that the knowledge of this site began in the year 2001 when I did the bog
turtle assessment for the applicant.
Other things, which I turned over to you in a letter in the box
turtles. Mr. Coleman built on that data
in 2002. That is how we got to this
point. So we both had our hands all over
the site. Down in here (indicating),
development is spread over the site. I
really thought in terms of conservation I would rather go and try to conserve
(?) to develop the site, which I think is the concept. We are not trying to buy the site to preserve
anymore. I believe that time has
passed. We presented the site with the
basic fundamental biological questions and it made more sense to protect these
all four of these nodes (?) a little bit to load the bulk of protection in the
best areas of the site. If you do that,
that basically means that we are going to have to make some decisions about
which areas of the site are not going to sustain the turtles. We have made a recommendation, and I believe
Mr. Coleman concurs also, that these two areas have the largest and most
vibrant populations based on the well defined nesting areas up here
(indicating). There are well-defined
nesting areas here. The current plan
does assume that what we are going to build in some areas where we have found
some box turtles. We found 2 or 3 down
in here in this wet area behind the big white, whatever that house is. It is a meadow where there is some debate as
to how the big wetland is versus the meadow.
There are some turtles in there.
We did find some turtles in an area that had been previously roads and
veins through it. The sense here is that
this in terms of long-term bog turtle survivorship on the site as it is being
developed is the preferable way to do things.
They asked about moving the turtles and relocating them. Generally, I’m not much in favor of doing
that. Basically, I think people have to
take the hard truth. When you develop
the site where the turtles are or any other way, generally location is pretty
ineffectual. You basically have to face
the fact that you are going to lose the animal habitat. Any development is like this if you are going
to move animal habitat. But I thought
here because we did have an area here of habitat that is largely out of use, it
is the dump, it is not really a good habitat because of the way that it is,
that we could try to experimentally remove some of these animals and put them
in here. I have outlined the areas that
we are going to do it. There is going to
be fence exposed and replanted. It is
going to stay enclosed for several years to give the turtles that have moved
out of here a chance to positively imprint on here. Generally, if you take a bog turtle and you
move it, they start to know it and understand it. It is all very experimental. I would say right from the get go, the real
conservation areas are the ones that we are protecting. What we are doing here is that we are
basically trying to save some of the individuals that would be normally lost in
development to see if in fact we can get the imprint there. I don’t want to get too hung up on that as a
conservation strategy. The real
conservation strategy is the protection of these two areas and the recreation
of this lost habitat. Not the fact that
we are going to try to collect some of the turtles in the construction area and
try to move them. I want to be real
clear on that. The gist of the
conservation strategy are these two bog turtle conservation areas. Mr. Klarl said for the record, the areas that
you are planning on protecting are labeled as ‘box turtle protection
areas’. The experimental area would be
in the southern part in that section 4.
Dr. Clemens replied correct. This
is the receiving area. In general we
talk about that we really can’t move turtles for a couple of reasons. Firstly, turtles have a strong sense of home
range. You have to remember some of
these turtles live to be 60, 70, or 80 years old. So we are moving them out into something
else. But one thing that it is has going
for it in here is that this area is pretty full of carrying capacity. We are going to be adding significant more
habitat. Potentially, we could have more
carrying capacity. I don’t want you all
to get hung up on that particular part of it because it is really experimental
in a sense. It may not work. Once you build on habitat, you lose the
habitat. The real strength is the
development of the really significant areas that are not being built on. Mr. Kessler said let me ask this
question. Since you have discussed these
two areas that are being built up for a formidable protection area, given that,
are you indifferent those 4 homes being built off of Sniffen Mountain Road in
terms of protecting that area? Are you
indifferent to them being built or not being built? Dr. Clemens replied I certainly have no
problem with this. I think that those
homes are made to be bog turtle friendly.
We talked about those designs with lot restriction and the correct curbs
and catch basins. Certainly, I’m not
concerned about these that are right along the road because that is basically a
corridor. These here, I think can be
made to work. Indifference is not the
right word. Can these be
engineered? The core of the bog turtle
activity is out in here. Will bog
turtles occasionally wonder up here?
Yes. We never saw a bog turtle
killed on the road. They seem to have a
pretty good sense of where to stay by now.
They understand the parameters of where they are. Mr. Foley asked can something be designed
into that relocated area to prevent them from crossing Sniffen Mountain Road
other than what you mentioned, fencing?
Dr. Clemens replied right now, they don’t appear to be crossing. I’m sure maybe if you have traveled or
whatever, I’m sure maybe you’ll say ‘yes, we saw a squashed bog turtle
there.’ The times that we have all been
working on that site, we have not seen a squashed bog turtle. Mr. Foley said there is a CAC memo dated June
12. (Tape 2/Side B ends.) Dr. Clemens said I’m not sure if it is. Ultimately, if a turtle is trying to get back
there, there is not much we can do about it.
Mr. Foley said the fact that it is a relocated area, they are not there
now. Dr. Clemens said there are turtles
all around. This is the heart, the
greatest number of turtles around. You
have the wetlands. You have this
tremendous sort of savannah there, dry, high area that they nest on. This is the heart of the turtle area. In here, you have the best age and size class
structure of turtles anywhere on the site.
You have young ones and old ones.
Here you have a nesting area again.
But it is sort of in that very interesting habitat that sort of has
varying types of sand up there. Right
now, it is a go-cart track. What you
have there is the population is almost primarily made of aged females there. Of course, the good thing about turtles is
that they breed until they are 80 or 90 years old. They don’t go through menopause. They keep on cranking out eggs until the very
end. It is a pretty protective
area. What has happened up here are two
different areas. Here, there is no
reproduction because those poor females nest every year and nest right in those
ruts on that banked area where all the people with go-carts go. I have no use for those things. The bottom line is that the eggs are lost every
year. They are just smashed. What you have here is one animal that maybe
was young, maybe 25 or 30 years old, you have hardly any reproduction going on
here because of the destruction of the habitat that is ongoing. Here you don’t have this kind of problem. Here you have a much more robust class A size
structure of turtles. We have them young
to aged here. Mr. Foley said so back to
this Sniffen Mountain Road area, the fact that the refuse area was in there,
which was years ago, that doesn’t affect them at all, does it? Dr. Clemens said the refuse area is not
helping them; it is not hurting them.
There are large parts of the refuse area that they are not using. It is unsuitable. The refuse area has sort of spread around a
bunch of other things that they are using.
But the whole area, the central core of eth refuse area, the actual area
where all the stuff is dumped, they are not using that. It is not suitable. They avoid it. One of the goals here is to get all of that
out and actually make more physical terrestrial habitat available to those
turtles. At the same time, there are
wetlands in there with a lot of debris.
The idea is to try and make the area a more turtle friendly habitat and
we have a desire to get in there and make it a grassland, plant bayberry, keep
the woody stuff from growing up, the invasive species. To try to keep it sort of open and actually
expand usable habitat. That is the only
reason I would consider doing a relocation here because you are actually adding
more habitat area. Otherwise, my concern
would be that you would start to destruct the carrying capacity, which is
pretty much in balance on that. You have
a pretty healthy turtle population. If
we didn’t have more habitat available being created, I would not advocate
moving them. Mr. Foley said it goes from
trash to turtles.
Ms. Todd said this is open space. What is their
designation going
to be? Is this open space forever? Mr. Perna replied yes. Ms. Todd asked is it going to be managed? Is there any kind of budget being given to
this work? Mr. Simone replied we haven’t
placed a budget on that. That was the
next discussion with Michael. For
long-term maintenance, he has really only recommended a seasonal mowing. That is something that obviously, we would
put into the budget, which would be an obligation of the H.O.A. The actual restoration and reclamation is our
cost. Ms. Todd asked how big are these
areas acreage wise? Do you know? Mr. Simone replied it is spread over probably
about 2 to 3 acres of debris. Dr.
Clemens asked are we talking about the reclamation? Mr. Klarl replied no, the 2 areas for the bog
turtles. Mr. Simone said the lake is 53
acres. This parcel itself is about 55
acres. I think the development took
about 10 of that. It may be 40 or so in
here. This area looks roughly the same
size (indicating). In this area, one of
the issues as a critical link to the undeveloped portion, all of Condo I goes
through to the back. Ms. Todd asked what
is on the other side of those 3 houses?
Mr. Simone replied some existing houses.
Ms. Todd asked are they close to the road? Mr. Simone replied they go all the way back
to here. This corridor really kind of
travels this way. Watch Hill Road is
over here. There is about 4 or 5
existing houses along this perimeter.
The stream channel that comes through here turns. Ms. Todd said there is a little bridge for
the Briarcliff Peekskill Trail. Mr.
Simone said right over here. Ms. Todd
asked what if you find more turtles in this area down here? Say, if you find 10 turtles in there. Do you feel like you would be overstocking
the…? Dr. Clemens replied that is a good
question. We have between 8 and 10
marked already. I don’t think 8 or
10. I think if it was 20, it would start
to be a concern. Ms. Todd said I had the
same concerns about the Fowler Toad that John bought up. The other thing is AKRF is recommending that
Steve Coleman have a chance to review this plan, that so much of your revision
was based on his recommendations that he hasn’t seen yet. Mr. Simone said as with the traffic study, as
long as it could be expedited so that we can incorporate his comments. Ms. Todd said the one thing that I noted is
that you have about 10 extra houses here above the little line that he drew on
the B area that loop that goes up there really looks like it goes beyond what
Steve recommended. Mr. Simone said yes,
Steve’s line, we actually did discuss that here in Town Hall. He had drawn an imaginary line per say with
the area that he wanted to preserve. I
had issues with that only because this area of road here is a steep grade
getting up to this point. What we
discussed it is that I have to dead-end it at a cul-de-sac. The only area suitable for a cul-de-sac is
here at which point I could pick up a couple of more house sites here. Our discussions were in maintaining
ultimately the drainage divide, which separates the vernal pool location from
the Dickerson Pond side. We use that
drainage divide to kind of draw our line of development here. It is in favor of the drainage divide
here. Ms. Todd said but this is beyond
what he recommended. So that is one of
the reasons I think that he gets to review this. Mr. Simone said that is fine. It was also discussed with him though. Dr. Clemens said Susan, you bring up a point
here that you shouldn’t lose sight of.
Also, at the same time we have created this, it also picks with the
vernal pool where you have it now with pretty good habitat. Unfortunately, the vernal pools that you have
here are of pretty low productivity. But
you are putting enough open forest around these pools. That is important for the turtles because
they are probably using them. We follow
the drainage. This is definitely
different than what Steve had in his report.
Ms. Todd asked how important is the upland in the other area where the 3
houses snake down? It seems like most of
what we have protected are wetland or wetland buffer. There isn’t much upland. Dr. Clemens said I didn’t see many turtles up
there. That’s not to say that they don’t
wander up there and I think there are ways to accommodate them. Bog turtles are basically wetland
dependent. (Cross conversation.) They have a very strong affinity to
wetlands. They hibernate in the edges of
wetlands and they stay pretty close to them.
They move out primarily out of the wetlands and the buffers to
nest. They go up to the high, dry, open
areas that are in the savannah and have the sandy soils. It is not to say that you won’t find turtles
in the woods. But the real turtles of
the bog turtles is the wetlands, the buffers, and of course, that island that
is in the middle. Part of this is an
island. They love the island. We’re looking to basically try to maximize
what you can do within the development.
I feel from a conservation development scenario, this is probably as
good as you can get. You can play around
with this if you want but the bottom line are these 2. You do have to accept that you are going to
lose something when you develop a site.
Those are the trade-offs. Ms.
Todd said I just want to commend everyone, you, Mr. Perna, to take this step
and do this work. It certainly makes me
feel a lot more confident about the plan that we are moving towards and the
resources that we are protecting. I
think it is great. I just want to thank
you for your efforts. I also think we
can do something in terms of slowing traffic by putting signs up that say
‘slow, bog turtles’.
Mr. Kessler said 2 last
comments. I just want to be sure that
Dr. Clemens’ report, which is Appendix B.
It is 3 pages and it ends abruptly.
I just want to be sure that it is 3 pages long. Mr. Verschoor asked is that the memo dated
March 17? Mr. Simone replied yes. Mr. Verschoor said I have a question about
that. It talks about habitat restoration
starting in April. Has that been
underway at all? Mr. Simone replied
yes. Dr. Clemens said not restoration,
turtle relocation. What we have done is
put a silk fence up around the dump area called a turtle exclusion fence. This has been a bad year for turtles. They didn’t become active until about 2 weeks
later than usual. The first turtles were
active about May 10th to the 15th. Everything was delayed for about 2 weeks
because of rain, cold weather.
Everything is depressing the turtles.
I made one visit; I need to make another visit there. We are not going to be able to really certify
that area to be turtle free. It is about
a month behind what we had projected. We
went into the area that had been a turtle excluded area. Inside of that, we found 3 turtles in there
that had moved in. They possibly
hibernated there. 1 was a marked animal;
2 were unmarked. We also saw a lot of
turtles trying to get in, which is because they are moving around. We need to put a few more times in here before
we can really say ‘go in and take your heavy equipment in and start digging the
stuff up.’ We are trying to minimize the
loss of turtles by sanitizing the area of turtles by actually trying to just
put a lot of time in there and pulling them out. I was pleased to see that the bulk of the
turtles were not in there. Ms. Todd
asked what area are you talking about?
Mr. Simone replied the debris dump.
Dr. Clemens said it is all silk fenced and has been checked a couple of
times. It is really excluding the
turtles. The reason we put the silk
fence in was to clean as much of the habitat as possible but not too much of
the habitat to eliminate the nesting area.
The silk fence is in. You should
really go look at it. It is really quite
a feat how they got it in because it would have been much easier to wrap the
whole the dump around. Instead, it goes
up and down and over hills. The idea
being basically that we tried to capture as little as possible the habitat that
they are using and yet to sort of have a very defined area for cleaning. There is one area of wetland that sits
outside there because we didn’t want to impose on it because it would take up
too much of the turtle nesting area. The
wetland is full of tar and other things.
That is going to be removed very carefully. That is outside of the fence. We felt that to wrap the fence around that so
much turtle habitat would be lost for 4 years if we did it. We really tried to think very carefully how
to maximize the amount left outside because they are using it. Ms. Todd asked do you think there is any
value to having a tunnel underneath the road where sort of where the tennis
court is? Dr. Clemens replied none. We don’t want to encourage them to move. In fact, tunnels under the road do not work very
well. Turtles don’t like to go into
holes. Ms. Todd said like a big box
culvert. Dr. Clemens said no, if you
really want to do that, you need to have span that is about 3 to 4 feet
high. They need to see the light. Ms. Todd said it could have a speed bump on
the top. Dr. Clemens said I think a lot
of people talk about them and I really think if you are putting dollars into
where we need dollars, that is not a good thing. If we had a lot of turtles crossing the road,
I would say fine. But there is no
evidence that turtles are actively crossing the road. I think they have learned over time through
the slow process of killing those turtles with the wandering genes, they are
staying pretty well up. There are all
kinds of problems with tunnels. I don’t
think the expense on this is warranted.
I’ve not been shy to recommend very expensive bridges and tunnel systems
in other habitats. In fact, I did one
that cost $500,000. It was a triple
cantilever with lights shining down through it.
But I just don’t think it is warranted on this particular application;
otherwise, I would have suggested it.
What you have here is land and land is what these turtles need. If you protect the key habitats, you will
have populations of turtles here. Mr.
Simone said our objective as soon as Michael gives us the indication that the
silk fence is clean, we want to immediately move in and clean out all of the
dump area and restore the area. Then, we
want to discuss plantings with Michael and habitat restoration issues at that
point. Hopefully, we’ll get that
accommodated by summer’s end.
Dr. Clemens asked do you have a question
on the Fowler Toad
area; I cut you
off on that? Ms. Todd replied I noticed
that the Fowler Toad area seems piece meal.
I really don’t see that we are setting aside a specific area for
them. You kind of explained it by saying
you don’t really know where they are breeding.
They are like American toads and how they can jump around. Dr. Clemens said I hate to hypothesis, but I
think there is probably a wetland at the corner near the entrance to the
property where it is fenced off and there is the Peekskill Briarcliff
Trail. There is a small pond right there
and I think that is more than likely where they are breeding. But, we don’t know. We never really know and we never have seen
them again, which is kind of strange.
I’m sure they are kind of cyclical.
They have survived other scarifying events. I really don’t know how to answer that
question beyond that I think they are trying to maintain the habitat near the
sandy bank and the wetlands. My concern
is how the storm water wetlands whether or not should be used or encouraged or
excluded from them. I say this in my
report, I believe, that the wetlands are really going to be quite dirty with a
lot of heavy metals and salts and silt that I would rather create berms, toad
excluders, around the tips of those basins.
But I don’t think we really know that yet exactly what the protected
water quality is. You may want the toads
in the very last one, filtration, but not in the first two. Those are the kinds of things that can be
worked out in designing this. It is a
very simple thing. You just put a
curbing lip like this, maybe 1 foot high, 6 inches wide, vertical curbing. That will keep them out and a lot of things
out of those storm water basins if you think they are going to act in an
ecological sense.
Mr. Kessler said I just
want to remind everyone that the preliminary plat Public Hearing is still open
here. We are just discussing the FEIS. To that point, the discussion of the homes is
still a discussion that we need to have.
I will defer to Mr. Coleman on his knowledge and expertise in terms of
the biodiversity, his comments in terms of making up for lost homes in other
homes is something that I think is the purview of this home and not Mr.
Coleman’s. Again, with all due
respect. Those discussions still need to
occur whether the number is 204, 253, or some other number. They will occur at a future date. Again, let’s keep on track with the FEIS with
completeness issues and make sure that all of the environmental concerns have
been addressed and to the extent they can be mitigated, the FEIS has shown in
some manner that they can be mitigated. That
is the point that we are at. Are there
any other comments on the completeness issues?
Ms. Todd replied yes, one more comment.
It is from AKRF on page 5 about the basins. They are pointing out that a lot of the
basins are actually wetlands that are going to be regraded to serve as storm water
basins. That is something that is not
smart to do. If you have functioning
wetlands already and they have deemed that in the FEIS as a completeness
comment. I don’t know whether we have a
full storm water plan or not.
Mr. Verschoor said on page 123 of the
FEIS, it mentions
providing a
3-dimensional model. The Planning Board
should decide if this is something that they want. Could the applicant just describe what they
have in mind? Mr. Zutt asked the
3-dimensional model? Mr. Simone replied
the model making is a good business for the people who make models. It is nothing I care to venture on without
some indication from the Board as to… It
is quite a substantial investment. If
the Board alluded to which one of these was the way the Board would leaning, I
would fashion a model based upon one alternative and one alternative only. I think that would probably be only
fair. It is not cheap. Mr. Kessler said I would call the 204 unit
modified plan… Mr. Simone said it is
also not a quick process. I don’t know
when this model would be available.
Hopefully, not before we have a Findings Statement. Mr. Kessler said what is important about the
204 modified cluster is though the number of homes are important that is about
a 20% reduction from the original proposal.
What is important there is that the areas have been delineated in terms
of protected area. That is critical
here. Whether the homes are 100 feet
tall or there are fewer of them, I think the imprint of what we are talking
about is what is important here in terms of developed area. Mr. Simone asked so it is the Board’s desire
to see a model generated from this 204 plan?
Mr. Kessler replied the 204 modified cluster because there is another
204 plan. Mr. Zutt asked is that
something that could be incorporated as a condition of preliminary or something
along that line as opposed to having generated the model beforehand? Because I don’t know what the timeframe is
for the creation of such a model. Mr.
Simone said that is why I said that. Mr.
Kessler asked can you give us an answer back at the next meeting just so that
we can figure out how to proceed? Mr.
Simone replied it is really a question of timing obviously. Depending on the model figures that I use, it
could be 3 months or 4 months before a model like this could be complete. It is very detail oriented especially the
3-dimensional. We are talking
topographical variations as opposed to a sales model, which is 2-dimensional
with just houses plopped around it. Mr.
Zutt said if that was something that could be made a condition of preliminary
approval, then we would at least move to that stage in the process and get the
model underway. Mr. Simone said it is
not something I would want to hold up the process. Mr. Vergano asked what about a computer
simulation? Mr. Simone replied that
doesn’t take that much less time. We are
in the process of doing that currently for other projects we have in the Hudson
Valley. Our consultants are telling us
it is usually a 2-month process just to do the computer simulation. I don’t have any objection to doing it. It is nothing I want to obviously slow the
process. Mr. Vergano said what is
interesting about the computer simulation is that you can show the virgin
property, once superimposed, how it is going to look. I’ve seen presentations and they are pretty
remarkable. Mr. Klarl said I’ve seen
them, too, where they actually showed the elevations of buildings from down the
road. Mr. Vergano said you can take a
look at a vista before and after construction.
It is very informative. I think
in many ways that is more helpful than a model.
Mr. Simone said from the standpoint of timing that would obviously, be
the one that would be available sooner than a physical model. Again, it is also something that can be
updated from time to time as the plan progresses. It is not something that I feel should
necessarily halt the process. Mr.
Vergano said I question whether it should take 2 months though. Mr. Simone said trust me. We just did this on another project.
Mr. Kessler said there
are some discussions that need to occur with the FEIS. Mr. Vergano said we have to get our
consultants, Coleman and Adler, on board to review their responses in the FEIS. Mr. Zutt said we will have that funding for
you in a matter of a day or two if you just give us the figures. There shouldn’t be any slowdowns as far as
that concerned.
Mr. Foley said I guess I was the one who
bought it up in
2001, I would
like to see a model. Ms. Todd said the
purpose of this is to help the public at the Public Hearings to visualize this
and the Board. Mr. Foley said if the
computer one is a possibility, is that almost like a virtual reality? Mr. Simone replied they can do it in many
different fashions. They can add
vegetation, color schemes, what have you.
But, also, you are going to see these buildings as more lot
configuration than what you could actually see in the architectural features on
them right now. It is the same as what
you would see on a 2-dimensional physical model where you have typical
houses. Mr. Kessler asked is it any
different if you were to choose some area just to give us some sense of what
that would be like? Mr. Simone replied a
drastic difference, if you isolate it to certain areas. Mr. Kessler said it would give us a sense of
the utility of it once we see it. Mr.
Simone said what we have done on other projects is that we have taken positions
on if they wanted a computer generated model showing viewscape A or viewscape
B. To generate a view model that
encompasses the whole site enables you to see…
Mr. Vergano asked can you show us a sample of what you have already
done? Mr. Simone replied on projects
that we are developing right now on the Hudson River, we are doing views with
3-dimensional computer modeling from the Hudson River to land. Mr. Klarl asked what town or village? Mr. Simone replied Fishkill and
Kingston. Mr. Klarl asked Waterside
Landing? Mr. Simone replied yes. These are areas where we are studying
specifically what is the view from the Hudson River to the project. In areas like this, if one asked to model how
would this area appear from Furnace Dock Road, those are very, not simple, but
easier to model. They are defined
because you are defining a specific view.
Those areas can be generated relatively quickly. Understanding Mr. Foley’s comments on how
this initiated, obviously, people like to see how it fits into the land. More specifically, does the Board have a
concern as to what part of this is going to be visible from say Furnace Dock
Road? If anything would be visible from
5 miles away? These are questions that
are generally asked on these things. We
are in a valley. Mr. Vergano said the
question is do you want to see a concept from Furnace Dock Road. Do you care about how it is going to look
internally? Mr. Kessler said or do you
want to see what the development is going to look like if you are driving
through it or if you drive on Sniffen Mountain looking at the place? Mr. Vergano replied I think it is the
later. Mr. Klarl said from the outside
in. Mr. Foley said from the public’s
standpoint, Furnace Dock Road and Sniffen, and what they are going to see. Mr. Simone said we can pick a couple of
vantage points and model them. Mr. Foley
said I don’t know how the current residents feel. But start with that from the outside public’s
view, so to speak. Mr. Zutt asked are we
talking about a model or computer generation.
Mr. Vergano replied a computer generation. Mr. Kessler said I think the upper portion is
more important because the rest of it is pretty well off-site. Mr. Simone asked what would be the concern
with the residents, Mr. Foley? Mr. Foley
replied I don’t know how you people feel or how you would like to see it
internally from where you currently live in the existing area. Mr. Klarl said the Board is talking about
looking at the development from the outside roads. Mr. Simone said we’ll model a couple of
portions from where the development opens up to the outside road. Ms. Todd said how about on the end here,
section 4, you have the 3-family units.
I have a pretty good idea of what that is going to look at. But the ones behind that, are they on a steep
hill. Is that one of the steep hills
that we walked up? Mr. Simone replied
no, the steep one is across the ravine.
This is prior to the ravine. That
is what we discussed in the alternative.
Ms. Todd said maybe, something in that area. Mr. Verschoor said I remember on our site
visit that there were some condominium owners that were concerned about what
they would be looking at across the lake.
Mr. Foley said yes, he was worried about the new development. Mr. Verschoor said yes, it might be good to
see that portion, too. Mr. Simone said
we’ll fashion one from this point, one from here, and one from here
(indicating). Mr. Zutt asked Steve, this
isn’t going to stand in the way of a completeness finding is it? Mr. Kessler replied no, you are going to get
back to us with the information. Mr.
Zutt said o.k.
Mr. Foley said there was
a memo from the CAC dated June 12, 2003.
Motion was made by Mr.
Hoch to adjourn, seconded by Ms. Todd, with all in favor “AYE.”
Motion was made by Mr.
Hoch to adjourn the meeting at 9:52 p.m., seconded by Mr. Foley, with all in
favor “AYE.”
Respectfully
submitted,
Donna
A. D’Agostino