Planning Board Minutes from 8-7-0-02 continued

D. McGoey: They probably went to Dan Yanosh's office.

G. Lake: He did note, do you have the proxy for both land owners? Is that what you're looking for?

D. McGoey: Yes. Carol can confirm that in the file. The other issue while she is looking that up has to do with the road frontage. You're reducing the road frontage of the parcel from two hundred thirteen feet down to fifty eight feet. I believe our Attorney may have a problem.

G. Barone: What happens is, you are now creating a non-conforming lot and Section 249-7 of the code says that you can't alter an existing lot to create a non-conforming lot.

K. Preston: What would make it conforming?

G. Barone: A variance.

K. Preston: I'm sorry. What frontage would make it legal?

G. Barone: Two hundred feet for each lot.

G. Lake: Basically we can deny him and send him to the Zoning Board of Appeals where they could give you relief on that?
G. Barone: Correct.

Motion to approve the Lot Line Change made by P. Owen and seconded by A. Dulgarian.

A. Dulgarian: Nay

P. Owen: Nay

R. Carr: Nay

G. Monaco: Nay

G. Luenzmann: Nay

Motion denied. 6 NAYS. Applicant to seek relief from the Zoning Board of Appeals.

1. SELFCO - SITE PLAN REVISION - East Main Street/Schutt Road (50-2-53.2) #042-002

A. Dulgarian: Excused himself from this application.

A. Lippman: This is an application for an expansion of a facility that has been approved twice by the Planning Board. The proposal is to add two new buildings and to increase the size of one building that is between them. We recognize that we need a couple of yard variances for the building that is along the line of Orange & Rockland and we the consent of Orange & Rockland and also adjoining Dulgarian's property and there was a slight variance sought with respect to that boundary.

G. Lake: Probably the biggest problem and I know you just mentioned variances but what are you going to do for the drainage? You do have a drainage problem where you want to put that one little building in right along the line.

A. Lippman: We will have an agreement with Orange & Rockland that we may deal with that issue on their land.

G. Lake: Do we have that agreement now?
A. Lippman: It existed between them and the Meola family and I'm waiting for a letter to come back signed by Orange & Rockland allowing us to do the ten foot strip.

D. McGoey: It creates a couple of problems. First of all, the building that you're proposing sits on top of a storm drain which is not recommended.

A. Lippman: On top or adjoining?

D. McGoey: On top. This one here goes right under it. The other is that there is inadequate space to maintain that storm drain with the building right next to it. The intent of a storm drain is you should have an easement that has a sufficient width to maintain it. Quite frankly, I think you're putting a building in that location where it just doesn't fit.

A. Lippman: We will be maintaining that drain the Orange & Rockland side.

D. McGoey: Well I have to tell you, if you had to dig up that storm drain you would be causing damage to the footings on that building. You're talking probably less than a foot and you can't dig a trench that narrow without causing damage to that building. As a matter of fact, the drainage beyond the building may even cause the undermining of the slab of the newly constructed building. My recommendation is that building not be allowed to be built there.

G. Lake: That is on a drainage ditch or drainage pipe underneath?

D. McGoey: There is a drainage pipe that crosses under the building, that's one problem.

G. Lake: Okay.

D. McGoey: And then the other problem is that there is a drainage pipe parallel to the back of the building and then an open ditch parallel to the back.

G. Lake: Is that a Town drainage pipe?

D. McGoey: It comes from the County's drains on the County Road. I imagine it is privately maintained.

J. O'Rourke: Yes. As part of the agreement on the last one we had to do. On the drain pipe running underneath the building, actually there is a drain under this building now. We can always take this drain and tie it into this drain pipe here. We can cut it off with a catch basin to eliminate that pipe underneath the building.

A. Lippman: We also have the option of taking this part of the building, the part closest to East Main Street ten feet instead of fifteen feet to pick up five more feet to maintain the drainage ditch. It would eliminate that problem.

D. McGoey: I still think you are putting too much building on that site. You're squeezing it into an area where you need a variance from the sides, the rear yard and you are just asking for too much.

G. Lake: And what's the hardship?

A. Lippman: The standard here is not hardship. The standard here is not hardship at all. It's for a use variance. We're still substantially under the coverage according to your zoning.

G. Lake: This Board can't approve this any way because you still have to go before the Zoning Board of Appeals. At the same token, you can go to the Zoning Board of Appeals get that variance and this Board might not still go along with that. I just want that understood at this point so that when you do come back and this Board does deem that the coverage is too much, you went there knowing that this may happen.

P. Owen: I don't like it.

R. Carr: I have to agree.

G. Luenzmann: I agree.

G. Monaco: I agree.

G. Lake: I will entertain a motion. . .

A. Lippman: Mr. Chairman, I listened to your action, I don't know if it was the last application or the one before it, you seem to believe that you need to deny the application in order for us to go before the Zoning Board of Appeals.

G. Lake: Yes.

A. Lippman: I don't think that's necessary. All that you need to do is refer us to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

G. Lake: I will check with our Attorney.

G. Barone: That's correct. You can refer them to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

G. Lake: Okay. What action do we take? We've always denied them and sent them to the Zoning Board of Appeals in the past.

A. Lippman: The law changed a couple of years ago.

G. Lake: Okay, so we just refer him to go?

G. Barone: Correct.

G. Lake: Do we need to make a motion or anything?

G. Barone: The only thing that should be understood between the Board and the applicant is that there is a mutual consent that the Board and applicant to waive any time frame requirements while he's seeking his Zoning Board of Appeals approval.

A. Lippman: No problem.

Motion made to send applicant to the Zoning Board of Appeals with applicant waiving time frame made by G. Monaco and seconded by R. Carr.

A. Dulgarian: Aye

P. Owen: Aye

R. Carr: Aye

G. Monaco: Aye

G. Luenzmann: Aye

G. Lake: Aye
Motion carried. 5 AYES, 1 EXCUSED

2. WALLKILL DISTRIBUTING CENTER - SITE PLAN/SPECIAL USE PERMIT East Main Street (78-1-71.1) #013-000

J. O'Rourke: I am from Lanc & Tully Engineers. If you remember this project was in front of you at the end of last year when we received a Negative Declaration under SEQRA. Since that time they have been working on improvements to Golf Links Road and some entrances on to the Quickway. Those plans are about ninety percent complete. We have gotten comments back from the County. We are addressing those comments and we expect those to be basically finalized in the next couple of weeks. Basically we are here before you tonight to request a Public Hearing to be scheduled for the Special Use Permit required for the site. Nothing drastically has changed from the last time you have seen these plans. We've met with Ed Smith in the Water Department to review the water criteria for the existing water and sewer facilities and their availability.

G. Lake: How about Mr. Patenaude, have you spoken to him?

J. O'Rourke: No I haven't.

D. McGoey: I have and he continues to have some concerns about the design of Midway Park Road. We'll have to iron those details out. He doesn't believe that the road will support the traffic for truck traffic.

J. O'Rourke: The road base itself. We are proposing to widen it.

D. McGoey: Yes, the road base itself. He is looking for an analysis of that existing road base and what needs to be done to support the heavy traffic.

J. O'Rourke: We will certainly meet with you on that. Just a little more background. This project started back in April 2000. At which time the Board sent out a Notice of Intent to become Lead Agency. The Board became Lead Agency in January 2001. The motion for Negative Declaration was ultimately approved a year after that. This applicant has been before us for almost two years. I know there are new Board members and some of you probably haven't even seen this. It's a very large project with a lot of square footage and it should be given careful consideration.

G. Lake: We have had work sessions.
D. McGoey: Yes.

G. Lake: We have had demonstrations. We are just trying to fill in the newer members.

D. McGoey: The traffic issues were looked at very carefully and a traffic analysis was performed. It was reviewed by both the Town and by the County. Those traffic issues have been mitigated with a major amount of improvements to the intersection of Golf Links Road and East Main Street widening and improvements to the bridge at the bad turn. There is a lot of mitigation that has been offered and the County has accepted their portion.

G. Lake: You have met with the County and they are on the same phase with everything at this point?

J. O'Rourke: Yes. These are ninety percent complete plans which basically details the improvements to the Golf Links Road intersection. If you remember, what we're doing is purchasing property. This is Midway Park Road right here and what we're doing is purchasing property from this owner basically straightening out this intersection. These have been submitted to the County. They had a couple of minor comments but nothing major. We are under contract to purchase that property.

G. Lake: And the bridge was also part of that?

J. O'Rourke: Yes. I don't have those plans but again we have submitted them to the County.

G. Lake: Then they have or will be reviewed by the County?

J. O'Rourke: Yes.

G. Lake: Dick's comments. Dick, are there any thing? We are setting the Public Hearing.

D. McGoey: I don't believe there is anything unless you have problems with any of them.

G. Lake: Do you have any problems with any of these comments?

J. O'Rourke: No.

G. Lake: Are you going to need another work session Dick between now.

D. McGoey: I'm sure we will.

G. Lake: I will now go to the Board.

A. Dulgarian: It was impressive the video of how the traffic would stack, etc. I still, there is still going to be a lot of traffic. Can you impress my memory of how many truck trips we are talking at build-out?

D. Simone: Off the top of my head I think the AM peak was about seventy vehicles per hour. The peak for this kind of facility was offset from the adjacent street traffic that's why it didn't coincide quite the same as the East Main Street traffic back and forth to the warehouse distribution. It ran under a different time line. What we had done was we had modeled the Wakefern facility. We had done traffic counts over there because it was a similar sized facility and we found that they were compatible with the "ITE" traffic generation rate.

A. Dulgarian: I just know that whole corridor backs up now and I know even heading towards Route 17 westbound going up the hill we have stacking problems. As recently as this weekend you pick up the Times Herald Record discussing the traffic on Route 17. I'm concerned about that and I don't know what we can do about it.

D. Simone: A big factor in the traffic mitigation as you may recall but the alignment of Midway Park and Golf Links Road. Right now the timing is staggered on that road which allows.

A. Dulgarian: From Midway to Golf Links Road?

D. Simone: Right which allows a longer stacking time along East Main Street. One of the benefits of aligning those. . .

A. Dulgarian: I understand that. I am not disputing that. I'm just questioning the amount of employees for six hundred thousand square feet and the amount of trucks for six hundred thousand square feet. You can tune those lights as much as you want but still have a certain amount of vehicles on the road. I'm concerned here. That's my major concern.

P. Owen: Nothing right now.

R. Carr: Having not seen this my main concern would be the same and that would be the traffic.
D. Simone: The use for the site obviously was one which was considered from our stand point in the PID zone allows a multitude of uses under a Special Permit. This was one other than like office or retail which had the minimum traffic impacts associated with it. Your flipping maybe tenfold for cars under a retail scenario for what you would have for a warehouse generated facility. When we came here before the Board early on, that was their main concern. We studied the Wakefern site which is a similar facility here in Town because the generation rate that they give you in the "ITE" manual square footage generation rates. Everyone was very skeptical about it. We actually did send people out at Wakefern. We did a couple days of counts. We found that they were very, actually lower than the "ITE" rates that we were using for our design.

A. Dulgarian: You keep mentioning Wakefern. What is the square footage of Wakefern?

D. Simone: I believe they are six hundred twenty square feet and we're five hundred ninety square feet.

A. Dulgarian: They are that big?

D. Simone: They are very comparable in size. They are a little larger than us.

G. Luenzmann: I just want to make sure they understand. I've been here for most of this and the key problem is traffic. Correct me if I am wrong but this is your in and out and this is in an out over here at Midway Park, those two locations and Exit 122 is over here.

J. O'Rourke: Yes which we're also doing improvements on.

G. Luenzmann: Can you explain what the improvements are because I can see a big problem situation at Exit 122?

D. Simone: I will just give you a brief scenario on the improvements proposed which we touched on. The driveways just for knowledge, the proposed driveway across from the Chiropractic Center, that's going to be a right in, right out, left in. No left hand turn out. That was one of the concerns of the Board and one concern of the County. That's the proposed new entrance. The Midway Park will be a full movement. We will be adding a right turn down Golf Links Road traveling east. We will be adding an additional right turn on Golf Links Road out on to East Main Street. So, we're adding two lanes there. We're straightening that out. We're setting the signal timing there for increased green time along East Main Street. Moving down to the monkey farm bridge, we're widening that out right now because there's some concern about the sharp radius of the turns and they've had issues with trucks.

G. Luenzmann: On to Exit 122?

D. Simone: I'm sorry. To the bridge it will be widened out approximately I think the limit comes back about two or three hundred feet in either direction of the bridge for the widening out. Then we will be adding a slip ramp on to Exit 122 in front of . . .

D. McGoey: Northern Windows.

G. Luenzmann: How do you feel about this Dick? It's always been my concern that the Exit 122 is in a real bad situation there.

D. McGoey: Exit 122 won't be solved until . . .

G. Luenzmann: That's my main concern. I had suggested once before that you build a service road along here to drop in to Exit 122 rather than having to use East Main Street.

D. Simone: Right and that was actually one scenario we had looked at. The issue, these private properties obviously were one of the issues but we crossed quite a deep channel. The elevation differences we had looked at about four fifty up to the building here and I think they were at about three eighty or three ninety somewhere down at that interchange. It was about a ten percent grade to get up to the property. With truck traffic that was too steep.

G. Luenzmann: Okay. We are probably going to see this again but that's going to be a concern I'm going to be worried about is with Exit 122 from a safety point of view. I know you've done a lot of mitigation here and it's admirable. This is really tough.

G. Monaco: I have nothing except what has already been said. I like the mitigation. I'm also concerned about the traffic and the stacking.

D. Simone: The big key is not only the timing of the traffic but one thing that really helps this intersection is the addition of the right turn lanes to keep that traffic off of the main que. That's one way we achieved some better timing scenarios, straightening them out, adjusting the timing, increasing the green time and allowing right turn vehicles to get off of the traffic flow along East Main Street so that they don't tie them up waiting for a left turn, waiting for a right turn. There is also a left turn into Midway Park Drive which currently that stops traffic on Midway Park Drive when they are there. This was really one of our critical movements was through flow here through East Main Street towards the interchange. Adding this left turn in here freed up a lot of green time along here and adding the right hand turn also freed up a lot of green time. Adjusting these two roads directly across each other the signal timing isn't staggered anymore.

Planning Board Minutes
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