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D R A F T
COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING STEERING COMMITTEE MINUTES
March 7, 2005
Present: Nan Stolzenburg, Rick Smith, Dave Wood, Al LaRue, Gary Vanderhorst, Dawn Szurek, Sally Ellms, Steve Caine, Dean Durst, Doug Flynn, Maria McCulloch, Jim Leupold, Deborah Herrin, Lynda Battenhausen, Midge Dube, Dot Mitchell, Guy Mitchell.
The meeting was called to order at 7:05 by Steve Caine. The Minutes from the February meeting were approved as written.
Steve went over the agenda for the meeting. Steve then read a typed compilation of input from several people, of procedures for selecting objectives and strategies (O/S’s). Steve asked the committee their input on how to make the decision for rejecting certain O/S’s. The members said the decisions should be made by voting. The committee was asked for their comments and questions about the procedure for selecting the O/S’s. Jim Leupold asked if it would be better to work on the O/S’s that are going to be rejected as opposed to all of them. He asked if the subcommittees will have to show rationale of why they are accepting and rejecting their O/S’s. Steve said each subcommittee should find the O/S’s they like and want to keep first, and have a reason for keeping it. He feels the committee should be able to explain to people why some O/S’s were kept and why others were rejected. Jim asked when the public will be seeing the supporting dialogue that will be going into their decisions. Steve said there will be a Public Hearing before the committee hands the plan over to the Town Board, and then another Public Hearing before the Town Board accepts the plan. Nan said typically, what the public sees is a final draft document. Often times there is a disconnect between what the committee knows and how the public perceives the draft. Sometimes the public is okay with it, and other times the public has many questions. Jim stated that the committee has done a lot of work and had many discussions to get where they are now, and he doesn’t see the reasoning behind reiterating why certain O/S’s are being kept when this has already been discussed. Nan said the intent for showing the rationale behind accepting or rejecting an O/S was for the other subcommittees’ information. The subcommittees are to make recommendations to the whole group so the whole committee is informed of how each subcommittee reached their decisions.
Dean Durst suggested a possible good way to share information with each other could be the message board on the website as opposed to emails. Dean commented on the amount of paperwork and email generated by the committee, and stated that because of the amount of work involved and information that needs to be read, he is not interested in receiving emails that aren’t directly related to the work that needs to be done. He feels any comments through email that aren’t relevant to the work that the whole committee needs to do, (such as what was sent last week) should be directed to the person/persons involved. Gary Vanderhorst agreed with Dean about the amount of email and what is pertinent to the work that needs to be done. He feels the subcommittees will work well and will facilitate in working faster. Gary also agreed with Jim in wondering how much of the information needs to be gone over. Guy Mitchell said he thinks the committee will have to pick out an ideology of how we want Charlton to be and when working on the O/S’s it will all come out in the process. Dave Wood agreed with the amount of email being generated. Steve said that he would ask Gail if she could run off copies of the next round of paperwork. Dave said he would much rather get a package of information as opposed to emails everyday from several people. Dave asked what the next step is after the June 6th vote by the CPSC to accept or reject the O/S’s. Nan said the next step will be for her to pull all the information together and put it into a written document which will take a couple of weeks. The committee will then meet to look over Nan’s draft document before deciding on the particulars for a public hearing. After the public hearing, Nan suggests putting together something that will help the Town Board prioritize the strategies to aid them in knowing what group or Board in the town can help implement that strategy. It would be put into a table-type product and would be included in the finished copy that would be presented to the Town Board. Dawn Szurek stated she thinks it’s important that he committee can change or edit Nan’s document before it goes to the Town Board. Nan said her copy will be a working draft and changes should be made after the public hearing and before going to the Town Board. Maria McCulloch’s concern is the repeating of all the information again for the whole committee after the subcommittees meet. Steve said that the emails the subcommittees send to Nan prior to the May 2nd meeting should cut down on some of the repetition that members are concerned about. Andrea Herrin said she feels the process is good but that a message board on the website would be better than email. The board could be just for committee members. Everyone could post their comments and they stay on the board for everyone to read and respond to. It was mentioned that not all committee members have a computer. Steve said he will talk to the webmaster about setting this up. Lynda Battenhausen’s concern is the same as others, rehashing by the entire committee the work that the subcommittees have done. Some members expressed frustration and concern over emailing their comments and questions to Nan and then waiting until the May meeting to get Nan’s responses. If a subcommittee has certain concerns and emails them to Nan, they will have to wait until May 2nd to hear Nan’s comments to those concerns. Will this mean reconvening the subcommittees? Steve said yes, it will mean possibly meeting again as a subcommittee. Nan will give the committee her rationale and the subcommittee will either accept it or reject it. Dawn Szurek feels that because of the many topics that will be discussed and responded to, it will be difficult to have a good understanding using the message board, and it would mean checking the message board almost every day to see what new posts are on it. Nan said that splitting into subcommittees will save time. Steve said he will break the group into subcommittees and email to everyone. Steve asked if everyone was in favor of him breaking up the entire committee into subcommittees and following the procedure for selection O/S’s. All were in favor, no opposed.
Steve asked Nan to briefly go through the O/S’s for #1, 9, 10 and 11. The first goal was related to the town’s rural, agricultural, history and aesthetic character. Nan said there are other components of other suggestions and goals that also address the rural and agricultural character, and that there is overlap. Nan reviewed Charlton’s zoning law and compared it to the data collected to see if the current zoning would accomplish what Charlton wants for the future. Nan said that a lot of Goal 1 shows what can be done to make the zoning more effective in reaching this Goal. One suggestion Nan had was making it mandatory that all uses requiring a special exception permit also require site plan review. Site plan review looks at how the use will function on the site, and this will give the opportunity to look at the impact of the function. There are “hot button” items that our current zoning doesn’t address such as a convenience store with gas station, a franchise business, senior housing, etc. The zoning also doesn’t address how a change of use would be handled. The town sign regulations need to be improved upon. Nan also suggested enhancing design guidelines such as roof pitch, parking lot placement, drive throughs, sidewalks (whether they are wanted or not wanted), etc. One of the significant changes Nan feels needs to be made is designating a hamlet district for the Hamlet of Charlton. Although there is a Historic District overlay, the district currently is party of the Res/Ag zone and zoned no differently. Nan said additional lands can be considered for new hamlets to be developed in the future where there would be higher density than in the rest of the town.
Nan strongly recommends formulating specific purpose statements for the existing zoning districts in town, which should define and discuss why these areas are being regulated and for what reason. Should there ever be a lawsuit against the town, one of the first things the court would look at in the zoning law is a purpose statement to see what it is that the town is trying to accomplish with the specific zone. Nan also gave her rationale for why the R district should be expanded. She also suggests reducing the size of the RA district to expand the A district and lower the allowable residential density. (See the map Nan attached with the email for Goal 1).
Nan also stated that our zoning ordinance allows almost any kind of commercial development in any zone through a special exception permit. A special exception permit is a permitted use and gives the town no protection against commercial development. Nan said that commercial development hasn’t happened yet in Charlton, but our laws currently allow it virtually anywhere through the special exception permit. She said the committee should pick suitable locations for small commercial growth and locate other areas in the town where no commercial growth will be allowed. Nan said what probably has protected the town so far is the building footprint limitation on commercial buildings. Gary Vanderhorst told Nan that Saratoga County is looking at Rt. 67 as a commercial zone. He said that’s something the committee may want to look into and be aware of.
Nan also recommended the town consider developing voluntary citing guidelines or amend subdivision laws and building permit laws for residences which would be encouraged to follow certain criteria to protect the rural character. A rural citing guideline could also be made up and given out with building permits so that new home builders will have some knowledge of community expectations. Another thing the zoning doesn’t have is any access management, which is the amount of curb cuts allowed onto the road. This applies mostly to residential and commercial development. The more curb cuts going out onto a road, the more traffic congestion there will be because every opportunity for a car to turn right or left off of a main road slows traffic. One way to alleviate this problem is for a large subdivision to carefully manage where the entrances are. Another way to cut down entrances onto main roads is shared driveways.
Nan said the other Goals are all straight-forward and will let the committee read through them.
Steve asked the committee if everyone agreed on the list of names for meeting with Mr. Gowen. They are Deborah Herrin, Dave Adams, Midge Dube, Marv Schorr, Jim Leupold and Bill Heilman. Everyone agreed.
Privilege of the floor followed next on the agenda. Chip Ellms, who is on the Zoning Ordinance Committee, said the town may be moving toward more shared driveways under certain circumstances.
Steve discussed sharing the O/S’s during the process with the Town Board and/or the website and asked input from the committee. He wondered if sharing the questions the committee asks, and the answers that Nan gives would be good for the Town Board to see. Deborah Herrin said the problem with that is that what would be shared would be the topics that the committee doesn’t understand or doesn’t agree with. How would you balance those out with what the committee is in agreement with. Gary Vanderhorst asked Nan what the procedure has been in other towns. Nan said the typical pattern is that when the committee has honed in on what they want, it is then released to the public. Nan said one of the problems with that is the committee has had the advantage of having the discussions and knowledge of what went into each item, and when the community receives it, they will have the same types of questions. Education of the community seems to be an issue with almost every community. They want to know how something will be a benefit, why it was chosen and why it is important for this town. Gary stated the committee is representing the community through the data and workshops already gathered and conducted, and feels a Public Hearing will generate responses, and that would be enough. Doug Flynn agreed. Steve Caine asked if one Public Hearing would be enough. He’s questioning whether the committee is giving them enough information. Gary said the public can come to the meetings or call anyone and ask questions, and he believes the Public Hearing will be enough. Dawn Szurek asked if there was a way and enough time to let the public read the information so they can digest it before having the Public Hearing. Nan said what often happens is there is a public informational meeting where the Plan is presented and the recommendations are gone over, then a week or 10 days later is the Public Hearing where you hear what the public has to say. Jim Leupold felt that it would be beneficial to have a public informational meeting before the Public Hearing to see how the public perceives what the committee has done, and if questions are answered, it would be easier for the Town Board to adopt the Plan. Al LaRue, at this point, doesn’t believe this should be presented to the Town Board. Unless someone can explain word for word, he feels it will only confuse the Board. Guy Mitchell feels if this is shown to people now, they will freak out. He thinks once the Plan is narrowed down, the committee can spend some time to explain how they came to this end, and then have a Public Hearing. Steve agreed and said that the committee needs to think through and understand why they like or don’t like it. Steve said nothing will be made public right now.
Steve went back to the topic of a free message board use on the town website. Since there are pros and cons, he suggests discussing it the next time the committee gets together. He asked Maria to think about the message board, highlight the issues and it can be discussed later.
Nan briefly went over her budget. She said she thinks there is about $1000 left from what she expended to what her contract was. She needs to finish the strategies, help with the comments, and then organize it. She believes one of the things that took a lot of time that was not included in her original budget was organizing the water study. There were several extra meetings and several monthly meetings spent on this. Another thing was that Nan estimated attending six committee meetings, but the committee decided to take the funding that was allocated to the generic environmental impact statement, which was not done, and put it into other things. Nan said this is the 13th month the committee has met, plus there were additional meetings in between. Nan also estimated the return and tabulation of 500 surveys and there was considerably more than that. Another meeting not figured in was the one where Nan developed the model community image survey. Nan said she is uncomfortable talking about this. She plans on honoring her contract and do everything in the scope of work she said she would do for the price she quoted, but there are a lot of things that have gone above and beyond what was agreed to, and Nan feels it would be fair to come to some kind of agreement to cover some of the shortfall. Nan also told the committee there is a lot of preparation work that she doesn’t charge for such as the meeting preparation with Steve each month and phone calls from committee members. The meetings take a lot of the budget as well. She doesn’t want to be unfair to the committee and the town, but she also feels there are a lot of things that aren’t in the contract that she has done. She said she probably should have stuck to her contract and not done certain things, or said that her contract needed to be amended to add items. She’s not asking for more money to finish the project, but out of fairness she wants everyone aware that she has done a lot of work that wasn’t in her contract. She will go back and look up the work she’s done that wasn’t included in the contract. Steve asked Nan to give the committee what work she did above and beyond her contract, what is left to do, how much of that lies within the contract, and how much extra it may cost to have an informational meeting with her, so that the committee can make some value judgments.
In the last two meetings the committee has reviewed the process to be used with members of the committee going to Sam Gowen. What was discussed was that Dave Adams was to submit the questions; anyone in the group could submit a question; no ones question would be changed; Deborah would gather all the material and give it to Sam and call Sam and tell him that we had no greater than $300 to work on this and our objective was get Sam’s advice and recommendations on how to protect current wells from additional drilling. Deborah formulated some questions and Steve said when he looked at them he thought a lot of them were very broad. Steve thought it would be a good idea to ask Mr. Gowen to look at the questions first, and use his judgment as the expert to see which questions were most relevant to what the Town Board charter is, and guide the discussion to deal with those most relevant questions in detail first, and then if any time leftover, to handle any other questions in a more general sense. Also, ask Sam if he would look at Nan’s Objective 3-3, protection of ground water, and give any comments or recommendations to same. Gary Vanderhorst said he feels Dave Adams should be the committee liaison. Deborah Herrin said she doesn’t object to that as long as the questions don’t get changed and as long and Sam Gowen talks to the committee, and not the committee members having a dialog with Sam. There is only a certain amount of time and money allowed which means listening to Sam and not getting into any discussions with him over the questions. Sam agreed to have the conversation taped so that it can be typed up afterwards so everyone can benefit from the meeting. Steve said a date has been established with the group and Deborah agreed to mail the material to Sam if that’s what the group wants. Dave Adams will send the questions to Sam. Steve said he will inform Dave tomorrow that we have a consensus. Nan suggested that the group make sure there is no dialogue with Sam during the meeting. She said Sam is very personable and it would be easy to get into a discussion with him. She suggests turning the tape on and letting him talk. The more discussions there are, the less ability he’ll have to get to all the questions we have. Nan also suggested, because we have a limited amount of time with Sam, that maybe the questions should be mailed to Sam and ask him to write his answers back. Steve said that everyone who is meeting with Sam must understand ahead of time that Sam will answer the questions that are most important and that he does the talking.
Steve read a letter from Deborah Herrin. The letter said: “To the Comprehensive Planning Steering Committee: Over the last two years I’ve had the distinct honor and privilege to be the Co-Chair of the Comprehensive Planning Steering Committee. Over this time I have become aware of many of the jewels that we are trying to identify, protect, and preserve, and my love for the town and this area have grown. As I learn more about my town, I have become aware of many great things about Charlton, but also some issues I believe need to be addressed. I now find myself in a difficult position of needing to advocate for several of these issues that I feel passionately about. Unfortunately, if I voice my concerns and desires, which is the right of every citizen, there are those that will question my ability to be objective as Co-Chair of the Steering Committee. In order to avoid any impression of impropriety on the Steering Committee, I must, with regret, resign as Co-Chair. I look forward to continuing to contribute on the committee its forward momentum of the Comprehensive Plan. Deborah.”
Steve thanked Deborah for being the Co-Chair and for putting her heart and soul into this committee and working with great passion.
There will be no meeting in April. Meeting was adjourned at 9:20 P.M. |
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