Montgomery County Planning Board Meeting Minutes

March 24, 2011

  1. Call to Order

Chairman Fritz called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. The following members were present:

NameRepresenting

Luis Aguero1st Ward

Robert DiCaprio2nd Ward

Crystal Ricciuti (Secretary)4th Ward

Andy Reed5th Ward

Phil ArnoldTown of Amsterdam

Jack Fritz (Chairman)Town of Charleston

John Thomas (Vice Chair)Town of Glen

Keith MacGregorTown of Minden

Wayne DeMallieTown of Mohawk

Donald Mead Jr.Town of Palatine

Sam GiarrizzoTown of St. Johnsville

Greg RajkowskiChair, Economic Development & Planning Committee

(BOS)

Douglas GreeneSenior Planner

Absent:

NameRepresenting

Robert Mead3rd Ward (excused)

VacantTown of Canajoharie

Hal HermanceTown of Florida (excused)

John LykerTown of Root (excused)

Ken RoseExecutive Director, MCIDA and Montgomery County

Business Center (excused)

Guests:

NameRepresenting

Dave IngallsGiardino PUD

  1. Adoption of Agenda-Chairman Fritz asked if there were any changes to the agenda. No changes were mentioned, so Chairman Fritz then asked for a motion to adopt the agenda. Keith MacGregor made a motion to approve the agenda, second by Bob DiCaprio. All members present voted in favor.
  1. Approval of Minutes-Chairman Fritz asked if there were any changes or corrections to the October 28, 2010 minutes. Having no comments, John Thomas made a motion seconded by Wayne DeMallie to approve the October 28, 2010 minutes. All members present voted in favor.
  1. Communications
  2. Training Opportunity- 3rd Rural Leadership Conference on Ag Economic Development on April 6th, at the Otesaga Hotel, Cooperstown. Doug mentioned he was working with a regional agricultural economic development group called “Central New York Ag Council” who were organizing the second bi-annual Rural Leadership Conference. The title of the conference was “Agriculture IS Economic Development”. He encouraged the Board members to attend, as the conference sessions would qualify for Board training.
  3. Request to review Town of Canajoharie Wind Energy Law- Doug said he had been contacted by the Town of Canajoharie Planning Board requesting the County Planning Board review a second draft of a Wind Energy Law. Mr. Greene reminded the County Board that they had already performed an informal review over a year ago and had sent their comments back to the Town. He felt that the Town should formally submit the draft law as a referral when they were ready, then the County Planning Board would do a final review. All agreed and no vote was taken.
  1. Public Comment- None
  1. Old Business-None
  1. New Business-

Town of Amsterdam- Site Plan Review- Giardino PUD —Doug Greene presented the referral with a power point presentation. The Board had reviewed the Planned Unit Development (PUD) proposal back in September 23, 2010 as a zone change (M-1 to PUD) and preliminary site plan review and now the project was back as a site plan review since the Town of Amsterdam had approved the zone change. Located between Maple Ave. and Wallins Corner Road, the site plan was for a mixed-use development on 43 total acres, which proposed 200 units of apartments and 34 single-family cottage homes along with 20,000 s.f. of commercial space. Doug explained there appeared to be adequate service for the site. He showed a site plan which was very similar to the preliminary plan the Board looked at in September.

Dave Ingalls of Ingalls Engineering made a brief presentation mentioning that the new plan had larger storm drainage areas, one commercial building was removed, more sidewalks were added and material from an existing barn would be used on the clubhouse. Chairman Fritz asked how wide the sidewalk would be? Mr. Ingalls said five feet wide and that a Home Owners Association (HOA) would maintain the sidewalks. Bob DiCaprio asked how the size and intensity of the project was justified? Mr. Ingalls said that the developer felt comfortable with the size of the project, that there was a demand for these kinds of housing products and the Town Board and Town Planning Board liked the idea of having more residential development in the Route 30 commercial corridor.

Phil Arnold mentioned the water main that ran through the center of the development and asked what would happen to it. Mr. Ingalls said the water main was in a no disturbance area and would be avoided. A question about parking came up and Mr. Ingalls said that they met the parking requirement and had added many extra spaces to allow for guests.

At this point, Mr. Greene asked the Board to make a decision on whether this plan had countywide or inter-community considerations, as that should be the basis of the County Planning Board’s referral recommendations. Jack Fritz argued that this plan did have countywide or inter-community considerations because this was a PUD case, which would set precedence, as there hadn’t been many of these in the past. John Thomas made a motion, seconded by Crystal Ricciuti that the Giardino Site Plan did have countywide or inter-community considerations. The motion passed unanimously.

That being done, Doug proceeded to present the Town of Amsterdam’s Criteria for Site Plan Reviews. The only 2 criteria Mr. Greene had comments on were: Pedestrian Traffic Access and Circulation and Landscaping. Doug suggested that a more complete sidewalk plan should include sidewalks along all public street frontages and that there should be a landscape buffer along some of the western property boundaries.

Louis Aguero asked about the open space and commented on that it didn’t really look like useable open space. Mr. Ingalls said there were adequate sidewalks and the clubhouse area would include volleyball and other outdoor activities. He also said that to date, the Town of Amsterdam did not require developments to build sidewalks in this area and they would not support that condition. Louis also asked about solid waste pick-up to which Dave Ingalls said there would be individual pick-up. Phil Arnold said he did not like the small lots and that they were too small for people to live on.

Jack Fritz made a motion, seconded by Crystal Ricciuti, to approve the site plan for Giardino PUD as it met the Town of Amsterdam’s criteria for Site Plans and to send a comment to the Town asking them to consider creating a Town Sidewalk Plan. The motion passed unanimously.

  1. Other Business-
  2. Report on 2011 Planning Office Activity and Projects- Doug quickly discussed some of

the projects he was working on and that he missed Randy Siver’s help.

  1. Discuss electronic distribution of meeting materials.- Mr. Greene asked if the Board was

interested in having their meeting packets transmitted via email instead of being mailed. There was little interest expressed by the Board.

  1. Adjournment- John Thomas made a motion to adjourn the meeting, which was seconded by Luis Aguero. All members present voted in favor. The meeting finished at 8:15 p.m.

Recorded by and respectfully submitted

______

Doug Greene

Sr. Planner

Approved by:

______

Crystal Ricciuti, SecretaryJack Fritz, Chair

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