The regular meeting of the Planning Board, Town of Moreau, County of Saratoga and State of New York was held in the Town Office Building, 61 Hudson Street, South Glens Falls, New York at 7:00 p.m. on March 19, 2007. 

Planning Board members in attendance were Chairman Peter Jensen, Gary Dickinson, James Edwards and Ronald Zimmerman. Others present: F. Joseph Patricke, Attorney Martin J. Auffredou.

The meeting was called to order by Chairman Jensen at 7:00 p.m. The members of the Board reviewed the minutes of the February meeting. Mr. Zimmerman motioned to approve the February minutes, Mr. Dickinson seconded, and the minutes were unanimously approved.

Chairman Jensen: The first item this evening, which we just received this evening, a report from Town Engineers. See on the last page that the Engineer states that the stormwater management plan has not been reviewed. I am uncomfortable reopening the public hearing. I believe the applicant has made a good faith effort to shake a response from the Engineer, unless the Board has a strong desire to hear this issue without all of the information, I would prefer not to open the public hearing.

Mr. Edwards: I would have to agree, there are 5 pages here that we have not reviewed. There is or is not a stormwater management plan?

Garry Robinson: There is.

Chairman Jensen: I feel to the applicant that I must say "oops," I am getting tired of apologizing to the applicant, but we can not go forward without all the information.

Mr. Robinson: Did you receive everything else that you asked for?

Chairman Jensen: I have not, unless Mr. Patricke has it.

Mr. Patricke: Did you get a statement from Harry on this one?

Chairman Jensen: On the water supply?

Mr. Patricke: There was another one dated March 16^th. It’s addressed to you.

Chairman Jensen: Yes. You have something from Glens Falls Water and Sewer?

Mr. Robinson: Yes, this I got this morning. Did everyone get the traffic update that Martin was asking for?

Chairman Jensen: Yes

Mr. Robinson: Can we hear some Board comments?

Chairman: Not without all the information; The Board can disagree with me.

Mr. Robinson: On Tim Burley’s report there are 4-5 things that need to be changed and I did talk to him about them. I plan to meet with him again to flesh things out. I just got it Friday afternoon and I talked to him this morning and this afternoon.

Chairman Jensen: I assume that you’d like to be agenda-ed for next month?

Mr. Robinson: I will be here.

Mr. Edwards: Do we have the stormwater management plan?

Mr. Patricke: Do you want a copy?

Mr. Robinson: We will make it part of the submission. Do you want the summaries or all of it?

Mr. Edwards: I want a full copy.

Chairman: The next item that I have for this evening is the Clute Subdivision, do we have one of those?

Mr. Larry Clute: I am interested in acquiring a couple of pieces of property on Sisson Road that are unique and have minimal road frontage. They are zoned R-3 and have duplex possibilities, but since they have minimal road frontage, I would like to know what the Board feels are suitable uses for these sites.

Mr. Patricke: This is nearer Fort Edward Road than Bluebird Road, and the back of it is on the Moreau Industrial Park.

Mr. Clute: There is an abandoned building on the one sites. There is 130’ frontage on this one.

Mr. Patricke: Larry has been into see me a couple of times about this.

Chairman Jensen: Is it R-3 or M-1?
Mr. Patricke: I haven’t done measurements but in my estimation it’s R-3.

Chairman: We can establish setbacks that would be adequate to meet our requirements?

Mr. Patricke: He could come in and subdivide it to get one lot by our current standards, but one of them would be a waste, it could never be developed. He came to me to see if there is a way to recoup the costs of the investment.

Mr. Edwards: What’s on Lot 1?

Mr. Patricke: Lot 1 has a ranch house- are you going to try to repair it?

Mr. Clute: I am. When it was first up for foreclosure I didn’t think it was salvageable. Now that the house has been cleaned up it is structurally sound, I would like to redo the interior, reface it and sell it off. I was quickly in and out.

Mr. Edwards: So you want to subdivide into three lots from one?

Mr. Patricke: He’d like to.

Mr. Edwards: What are the requirements?

Chairman: 200 feet road frontage for single-family.

Mr. Clute: That makes it difficult because the Duchess parcel is 76.5 acres. One concept that works, is that if you can get two duplexes on it, plus the rehab-ed house, you can get value from it.

Mr. Edwards: Is it wooded there now?

Mr. Clute: It gets dense beyond this point, I would guestimate from this tree line. These is a roughed walking path or access back there.

Chairman Jensen: Your intention is two two-family dwellings?

Mr. Clute: Yes

Chairman Jensen: In the code, 250 feet of road frontage is required. 230 and 230 is shown in the map, which means you can only get one-families.

Mr. Zimmerman: Could you do one single family and one two family?

Mr. Clute: I see, leave 200 for the single and use the remainder for the duplex.

Mr. Patricke: Why not face the houses towards each other. Oh, you need 230 in depth too.

Mr. Edwards: Would it makes sense to have a shared driveway?

Mr. Zimmerman: What are your plans:?

Mr. Clute: It would be nice to have a single extra-wide curb cut on Sisson Road that would split for this one.

Mr. Zimmerman: What are your soils like in here?

Mr. Clute: I am not sure because I have minimized the amount of effort put into this so far. I have walked the driveway and it’s damp. I think as you get to the back side it’s a little bit wet, but the property lowers and I was there right after the storm, not sure what I was looking at.

Mr. Zimmerman: With the recent weather, you were looking at worst case. Is any of this Army Corps?

Mr. Patricke: We haven’t looked, because we wanted to get your ideas before he spent any money.

Mr. Clute: I did ask Matt to do that, and there are no designated wetlands. It’s been studied because of the Industrial Park.

Mr. Patricke: I am not sure it’s wet in this area, maybe further North.

Mr. Clute: There was no vegetation that said wetlands. That is the only possible wet side, one corner. I would revamp the property line to avoid it altogether if it did turn out to be wetlands.

Mr. Zimmerman: Joe, you would have the property line run more north to south?

Mr. Patricke: That’s the concept. He’s not visualizing $2-300,000 homes next to the Industrial Park, but if he did a cluster design, he could have 3-4 lots that way.

Mr. Clute: Your idea of one duplex and one single, gives enough room to move this product over here, and still end up with two duplex use. I tried to do some calculations on the single families, and from a subdivision point of view where you have to draw in infrastructure, it’s hard to justify single families.

Mr. Patricke: We have a mechanism for determining cluster, that you would have to follow.

Mr. Clute: If two duplexes could be accommodated on the property, I know I can meet the demands and I have a project.

Mr. Edwards: Would you pave the driveways?

Mr. Clute: Yes I would keep them personally, and I would pave the driveways no question, with a 24‘ mouth.

Mr. Edwards: Where’s the driveway for this other one?

Mr. Clute: Here, where the power lines are, the contour lines tell you.

Mr. Patricke: Larry realizes that it’s unusual that he’s talking to you like this.

Mr. Clute: Jim Caccavo has a bigger problem because of the power lines. That’s a good thing about duplexes- you are not cutting in a road.

Mr. Edwards: Would these have basements or slabs?

Mr. Clute: Full basements. I did two duplexes side-by-side on Reservoir Road between 32 and Hazen Place, and this would be identical to those two. Even the pre-existing house there is bone dry.

Chairman Jensen: Board, any questions or recommendations?

Mr. Edwards: If he does go forward, I would like him to minimize the access points.

Mr. Clute: My next step if you are favorable would be soil testing.

Chairman Jensen: What is your desire?

Mr. Clute: I like the duplex. With the 200 foot and one acre, I can’t build much road and put a lot of houses on there, so it leans back to this. In order to make it work with deep lots, I can’t do a loop road.

Chairman Jensen: Is your intent to present this as two duplexes structured as a cluster?

Mr. Clute: I don’t know the terminology, Yes?

Chairman Jensen: Right now, two duplexes don’t work unless you cluster.

Mr. Clute: Then, Yes.

Mr. Patricke: Would you put a deeded area back by the Industrial Park?

Chairman Jensen: Yes, to cluster duplexes they need two acres, so he needs 4 acres to do 2 duplexes. They can make a common area to the back and then do the two duplexes as a cluster.

Mr. Clute: Does the 24’ look right to you?

Chairman Jensen: We do not approve or disapprove a sketch plan, we just give you our ideas, we can poll the Board and ask if they are opposed to your doing what we have discussed.

Mr. Edwards: I think we’re headed in the right direction

Mr. Zimmerman: I think it’s fine. Soils are a good next step.

Mr. Dickinson: I wonder if emergency vehicles can get in there.

Mr. Clute: Is 24 feet adequate passing space? No more or less difficulty then another standard driveway on a single family home.

Mr. Patricke: But you will give them a turnaround space.

Mr. Clute I tend to do it in every driveway I do, especially a main road.

Mr. Patricke: Just show that on the drawings.

Chairman Jensen: As no one is adamantly opposed to your going ahead, the decision is yours.

Mr. Patricke: For the record this is a well and septic, no municipal water is involved.

Chairman Jensen: Board, do you have an opinion as to whether we should send a memo to the Town Board concerning the lack of timeliness of reports from the Town Engineer?

Mr. Edwards: We have received a five page report and no hard work went into it, it is just a checklist for completeness. We need a more substantive review to conduct a thorough SEQR.

Mr. Patricke: I don’t think we’ve done significant SEQR without stormwater review in the last 4 years. His position is that he’s waiting until we do a final, but we can’t do a final without a report.

Mr. Edwards: This is already going to be a tough one for us to review and approve, so we need intensive review.

Mr. Zimmerman: So you want to know if we should consider a letter to the Town Board? Yes, I think they should know what we are receiving as an end user.

Mr. Patricke: I want to point out the he hasn’t done the stormwater review for Palette stone, which was a year ago.

Mr. Edwards: Does this statement mean that he didn’t get the Plan from Robinson?

Mr. Patricke: No, he doesn’t want to do the review until we have given a final approval , and I tried to explain to him that we can’t do a final before we have his review.

Chairman Jensen: We have to file a reason for whatever we do, if we want to deviate from our Code, we need engineering to support that decision.

Mr. Zimmerman: Why don’t we have it on Palette Stone?

Mr. Patricke: I just realized it when reviewing the letter for something else with Tom Nace, the engineer on that one. I don’t know how we got by without it, but there was a note in the report that it won’t be done until after a final review, and it was never finished.

Mr. Edwards: The traffic comment is also a nothing more than a statement about which project it relates to.

Mr. Patricke: Let me elaborate on that. Martin (Auffredou) wanted it redone without the Moreau Community Center included in what Creighton Manning did.

Chairman Jensen: Mr. Patricke, anything else?

Mr. Patricke: You have a letter about training.

Motion to adjourn was made at 7:52 p.m. by Mr. Zimmerman and seconded by Mr. Edwards. The motion was approved unanimously. The next meeting is scheduled for April 16, 2007.

Respectfully submitted,

Tricia Andrews

Recording Secretary

Cc: Zoning Board, Town Board, Town Clerk, Supt. of Highways, Building Inspector, Assessor, Saratoga County Planning Board