Sunday
June 20 Planning Board Meeting (Env. Assessment)
On June 20, 2006, the Ithaca Town Planning Board passed the environmental assessment presented by the developer.
Below are the minutes to the Planning Board's June 20 meeting, containing lengthy discussions and detailed analysis of the Briarwood II development. Ignoring concerns from the public and many unresolved environmental questions, the Planning Board rushed through its environmental assessment. In a 4-2 vote, the Planning Board determined that this 47-lot suburban development would have no significant environmental impact.
-----
Excerpted here are some of the Board's comments that reveal its dysfunctional and hasty decision-making process. Below these excerpts are the full minutes.
(Note: these minutes--the Town Clerk's transcription of the tape recording of the meeting--are in draft form. While the Town Clerk gave us assurance that nothing substantive had changed--only spelling errors and the like--it is possible that the minutes approved by the Planning Board differ from this text).
Chairperson Wilcox – What’s the pleasure of this Board? Well let me see, I’ll move the SEQR motion as drafted, how’s that.
Board Member Talty – I’ll second it.
Board Member Hoffmann – I feel we need time to discuss everything we have been presented with, both in paper and verbally.
Chairperson Wilcox – I have a motion and a second. Changes? You all set? I always know to look at the Town Attorney.
Ms. Brock – Alright....
...
Chairperson Wilcox - Okay. I have a motion and a second. I have Eva’s opinion that it’s too late in the evening to vote.
Board Member Hoffmann – And we don’t have time to discuss some of the things that we have heard and additional things we’ve heard both from the applicants and from the people in the audience, which I think are relevant.
Chairperson Wilcox – I think I have 4 votes.
Board Member Howe – Isn’t it true that a lot of the issues though can be dealt with in the subdivision approval?
Board Member Hoffmann – That’s what I don’t know and that’s why I don’t like to vote on it.
Chairperson Wilcox – I have a motion and second. Please raise your hand, all those in favor. Four. All those opposed. Two opposed. There are no abstentions. The motion is passed by a vote of four to two. We have made the determination that there is no significant environmental impact.
...
Chairperson Wilcox – Larry, anything else I can do for you?
...
Board Member Hoffmann – Yes, I felt we really crammed it this evening with the project and I don’t want to see it crammed again.
Chairperson Wilcox – I think we did pretty good.
Board Member Hoffmann – What purpose did it serve to hasten voting on the SEQR tonight?
Chairperson Wilcox – We didn’t hasten.
Board Member Hoffmann – I felt we did.
Chairperson Wilcox – I asked everybody if there was anything else to say, any other questions, and there was none.
Board Member Conneman – You made the resolution yourself.
Chairperson Wilcox – Yes, I did.
-----
[The Full Minutes for SEQR begin here]
SEQR
Briarwood 50-Lot Subdivision, Sanctuary Dr., Birchwood Dr. North, and Birchwood Dr
Chairperson Wilcox – Ladies and gentlemen of the audience, let me just fill you in a little bit on procedure here. Normally we would begin with the environmental review. Should this board make a negative determination of significant environmental impact, the application would be considered complete. We would then move on to the subdivision and open the public hearing and give you a chance to speak. It is my belief this evening that many of you are here and would like to probably provide this board with some input on environmental issues specifically drainage in that area and you may have some other concerns as well. So time permitting, and again, I don’t know how long this will take. We will give the applicant a chance to make their presentation. Please sit and listen. The board will have a chance to ask questions and should we get close to or near a vote on the environmental significance, we will then give the members of the public a chance to make a brief because I believe you all have something to say. Should we make that determination of negative significant environmental impact, we will then move to the public hearing. You will then have another chance to speak as part of the public hearing. So you will have the opportunity to speak twice this evening if you feel that it is important and you have something to say with the environmental review. Later on should we get to the subdivision, then your comments can be about the size of the lots or the connection of the roadways or other things, which have to do with the subdivision. So that is how we will proceed. Very good.
Larry Fabbroni, 1 Settlement Way
I am representing Rocco Lucente, who is in the audience this evening. I also have part of the design team. I have Erik Whitney, who did the stormwater modeling for this project and Bernie Carr, the Vice President of Terrestrial Environmental Systems, who did the wetlands delineation and has made recommendations as to different biofilters and is dealing with the Corps of Engineers and we are all collectively dealing with DEC on this project. So I will ask the two of them to present their respective parts of this as I go along.
I am happy to be here tonight, I hope, in a way that we think we have come with answers to questions we’ve discussed in the past with the board. Things that are of concern to the neighborhood and have had a lengthy and very positive interaction with the staff to come back with what we present to you tonight. The project, just a little history, I see one or two new faces here on the board and as the Town Attorney. Back in 1965 Rocco thought he was forward thinking and had a master plan for this area that would have seen 90 lots going in this area that we are considering tonight. Tonight this proposal is for 47 lots. The other three lots mentioned are the small addition to the Salem Drive Park, the large parcel adjacent to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the other wetland that we were very familiar with in the central part of this site. I also might mention that since the last time you sent me off to collaborate with Cornell, tonight we have the Associate Director and one of his staff here should you have some questions for them as things proceed as it relates to the area we are tending to donate to Cornell. I will speak more later on in my presentation about the maintenance agreement and how we propose to turn that over to Cornell and still assume responsibility for certain construction aspects of the drainage scheme that we proposed to you. But for the benefit of the public and everybody’s refreshment, I am going to get up now and speak from the map just briefly to describe the project.
The project again is 47 lots. Those who live in the area and not as familiar with the area, this Birchwood Drive that comes up from Salem Drive just shortly after you turn off of Hanshaw. This that we are proposing to rename Beechwood Drive at the suggestion of the Town because again, that 1965 master plan envisions this road encircling all around so it was currently named North Birchwood and Birchwood. We thought in time it would be less confusing to rename this northern segment into its own name. So the extension of that into a cul-de-sac with 12 lots on it is proposed in the center of the project. The extension of Sanctuary Drive and at the suggestion of the Town staff since we submitted this we would have Sanctuary Drive as the name of the street that went all the way through to this North Birchwood or Beechwood Drive and this short segment here that is the dead end would be the Lucente Way segment. All together again there are 47 lots, all which are above the minimum requirement for the R-15 zone. The thought coming back, the staff had a strong opinion that this connection through to North Birchwood was needed to have adequate circulation in the area considering the fact that we were not going to extend out a road to Salem Drive between the south-going…(not audible)…residences. The only thing that would remain up in that area is the grass path that exists along the Town’s utility right-of-way, which would be just relocated enough through a 20 foot strip to come out to the road and into the park area eventually. We have been over this with the Cornell people and they think that would be in keeping with whatever they eventually decide to do in extending a trail out from the existing trail system in the sanctuary.
Along with this project, a lot of discussion went on about pedestrian ways beyond that one that goes along the utilities. This project proposes to have essentially a walkway from the park, down the west side of this new road, along the north side of Beechwood Drive covered ditch, along the shoulder of existing Briarwood Drive and then along the new extension of Birchwood Drive. Initially it would be separate from the roadway itself behind a grassline ditch and then as we have less area to deal with in the curve area it would become more along the shoulder again, to come out to Sanctuary Woods. The thought was that Sapsucker Woods is the bus route and the park is another destination. Again, as the sanctuary evolves their plans over the years that pedestrian way could proceed to the north through an extensive series of walkways that are off road. So that was the rationale. The dead end being a low traffic area didn’t warrant the sidewalks as much as putting one on the existing Briarwood Drive.
The project will generate traffic. We did a traffic study not too long after we last saw you. I think it is fair to say that the results of that study verified that the traffic loads in the area are very modest, even for the development that has occurred up Muriel Street and Salem Drive. I presented my figures. We did this study in a period of time when classes were fully in session, the weather was good for that time of year, there was no snowstorms occurring on the day we did the study. I mean it’s a little bit of a tight walk to do a traffic study in Ithaca and have all the classes in session, not an exam period, not on some kind of a break by either Ithaca College or Cornell. So no none of those things existed at the time that we did that study. I estimated that the peak hour traffic was about 10%. I saw some data in what went out that a Town had done a subsequent study on Muriel and Salem Drive and said maybe 13 or 14%. If you study the numbers, you will see that the difference is probably in the standard deviation. So we are all sort of saying the same thing. I based some of my conclusions on an extensive study I did in the northeast back in the 1970s where the peak hour traffic was 9 to 10%. Even if you add and used the worst number I would tell you in all truth double these numbers and they wouldn’t have an impact on the intersections there. I hope you got a chance to look at some of that material. We sort of used a technique known as the shortest route and that is how I estimated how many people might come out at Salem Drive and how many come out at Sapsucker. People are pretty smart. There are no delays now, but if there happened to be 2 minute delays on Salem Drive then some more people would filter over to Sapsucker Woods because there are no delays there or vice versa. So it would sort of balance itself out over time. The new connection between Sanctuary Drive and North Birchwood was of some concern historically as we discussed it, but I think in the end people had chose to come through the neighborhood and go to the Sanctuary that way and vice versa. It will reduce the traffic on Salem Drive in one sense and it will add to it if other people come through. The net effect I’m trying to say would be zero because it is not a very convenient cut through. You have to go through a lot of turns and stops, which we will talk about. I made a suggestion that the North Birchwood to be Beechwood, Salem Drive intersection be a 3-way stop. It is currently just a stop coming out of North Birchwood. I know some of the materials said it was a 2-way stop. The confusing part of it is that Salem Drive turns directions and it is like a through road. There is no stop in either direction. I had a feeling it was dangerous to pedestrians, if nothing else the way it is configured. So if you had a 3-way stop you might not have people coming through, as quickly on Salem Drive and everyone would have a fair chance to assess who is coming from a different direction. It is a little confusing to new people. The people who live there are very familiar with one one-way stopping when you stop at the stop in the opposite direction not stopping at all, but that is not a good situation for the long term. We would entertain other all-way stops if it is felt to be necessary for the walkway as I described it at what would be Beechwood and Briarwood and Birchwood. That is pretty much at your discretion if that is what you feel you would like this project would provide it. There has also been some discussion of either colored pavement or some kind of raised pavement where the walkway crosses Beechwood and where it crosses Birchwood down at the other intersection. Either one of those of ideas. We certainly would like your feedback on either or, or none of those ideas as far as the walkway is concerned. That covers the pedestrian aspect of it.
The soils in the area are a perched water table. There are a lot of new people in the audience tonight. It is no secret to them that the water lays on the surface in a wet season. It doesn’t really percolate down through the ground. The notion that there is a water table that supports a wetland is not true. The water is down 20 feet below the surface in this particular area of the Town. So it is caused more by what you would call perched water table and a fragipan in the soil conditions. So the soil down about 2 or 3 feet is very dense and doesn’t let water pass through it either direction. So there are wetlands there, which I will let Bernie Carr speak more to his work and identifying those. We are preserving all the wetlands. There is some idea that a very extreme edge of the wetland here, less than 5,000 square feet, I would tell you, might get filled by virtue of building this road here. My intention was not to do that and the way that the profile of the road is developed there, the wetland would be beyond the embankment for the road there. So I thought I would make mention of that.
When my two associates are done with their presentations I will talk more about the maintenance agreement with Cornell and some of their understandings that we have with Cornell. We’re attempting to sort of bring together all the ideas. The ones that you have thrown out at us, the ones that staff has, that the DEC mandates and turn it into something constructive where in the end now after a lot of back and forth and constructive conversation, we are basically going to have these retention areas that act as biofilters and become wetlands that can support added wildlife habitat as opposed to just something we had to do because the State told us we had to do it. We have a good example of what you can do with what the Sanctuary did with their expansion. So the road you ride in from Route 13 you see some wetlands and similar types of facilities that we are proposing that they developed and they're all very positive in terms of their outcome and how people have received them as habitat for wildlife. I think the added circulation gives the Fire Department less problems in terms of getting in and around the area and actually enhances the existing access to different areas. It was the choice really of the staff that we not add as much to the Salem Drive Park as we had said in the past. By virtue of that more is as part of the donated area to Cornell.
This donation is one of the largest ever made in the Town of Ithaca. I hope you all realize that. It would add roughly 10% to the lands of the Lab of Ornithology. It is, I think, a great step forward in terms of our discussion and really the generosity of the developer and what he wants to accomplish here. In the twilight of his 50 years of work in the Town a lot of people have a lot of opinions they have to offer about Rocco, but he has lasted 50 years. He served the middle class pretty well in the Town of Ithaca and I think those things are worth noting in terms of his intentions at this time. He has not gotten any younger in these 4 years we have been perfecting this project and I think with those thoughts, the water system is one thing that I would mention and Dan can probably agree that there is a lot of looping that we are accomplishing with this project that will strengthen the whole system in terms of how water passes from the Christopher Circle pump station to the Sapsucker Woods tank and then flows back into the neighborhoods and provides fire protection. So we haven’t compromised that at all with these cul-de-sacs because the end of every cul-de-sac ends up in a water main connected either to the tank site or to another main line in the area. The sewer is more than sufficient in the area to serve things. Rocco and the Town had gotten the right to sewer a long time before the recent sewer agreements, but the sewer is all available, public sewer is available. So with that I would like Bernie Carr to come up and briefly talk to you about our conversations with the Corps of Engineers, DEC, his history with delineating the wetlands. Some comment about the UNA. I hope the materials we presented to you beat that to death well enough to know a mistake was made. I mean Cornell told us when we got into conversation with them that if you look at the 100 foot width left between the Sanctuary Drive development and the Northern edge of the Briarwood, you couldn’t really even consider it a wildlife corridor any more. So the notion that it is all connected is pretty weak. But Bernie did the bird the study as you might remember and has more knowledge in ecology than I can ever pretend to have. So let me ask him to come up.
Bernie Carr, Syracuse NY
I work for Terrestrial Environmental Specialist and we conducted a wetland delineation for Rocco Lucente back in the early 90s when he was first considering 12-unit subdivision. Subsequent to that wetland delineation there was a request from the Town that we redelineate the wetland since it had been 5 years previous. So we went back and redelineated the wetlands. They changed slightly over that 5-year period. Those wetlands were surveyed and added to a survey map that you have a copy of in the submission. Subsequently we delineated other wetlands north of Sanctuary Drive in association with the development of another master plan for the subdivision.
We have suggested several plantings for the biofilters and the infiltration trenches for the subdivision to try and add some natural plantings rather than just having a hard riprap surface. For example, any place where there is going to be rock riprap we would recommend willow species, willow waddles. So using these natural plantings we feel it has a much better improvement than a typical engineering design. Subsequent to these suggestions that we provided to Mr. Lucente, we have contacted the Army Corps of Engineers, which have jurisdiction over all wetlands in New York State. Basically our questions were two-fold. One whether or not the subdivision as planned would result in any jurisdiction on their part and whether the use of the wetland areas for the 100-year storms or for a 1-year storm would have any affect on the wetlands and the current condition that they are in.
We have sent a letter to the Corps of Engineers along with our delineation report, a complete copy of the drainage report and large scale plans for their review. We have also had discussions with the New York State DEC in regards to the new SPDES program in terms of water quality and water quantity. Basically it was their opinion that an extended review period for the stormwater plan be conducted and as long as good management controls are implemented during construction, they didn’t see any problem with the design as configured. Those are the basic items that we worked on for Mr. Lucente.
One other item. We also conducted a bird survey in 2003 and the purpose of that was to determine whether any endangered, threatened or rare bird species nested on Mr. Lucente’s land. Also there was a concern about whether Mr. Lucente’s land should have been included in the expanded Sapsucker Woods Unique Natural Area. One of the things we found was when the Unique Natural Area was reconfigured, they included Sanctuary Drive subdivision. So there were 10 or 15 homes that are right in the middle of this Unique Natural Area. I think it just surprised me that you would consider private single family homes in the middle of a Unique Natural Area and we had subsequent discussions with Tompkins County on why that was conducted and why they made that determination. It was our professional opinion that the area south of Sanctuary Drive shouldn’t have been included in the expanded Unique Natural Area. If you would look at the map that is provided by Tompkins County, you would note that there are many areas of forested areas north, east and west that are not in the Unique Natural Area. So it seemed like they expanded the Unique Natural Area only south on to Mr. Lucente’s property and didn’t include other lands that were contiguous to the Unique Natural Area. So they didn’t seem to have a really good reason for the expansion. I guess that is basically the items that I addressed.
Mr. Fabbroni – You will have a chance to ask questions, obviously, but I would like Erik to come up know. Erik is doing the stormwater modeling. With the new State regulations, there is no other alternative but modeling most things. This being a pretty complex project in that the drainage goes in many different directions we basically sought out one of the few experts in Ithaca on the subject.
Erik Whitney, 409 Auburn St
For a development of this sort, the State requires us to look at both the water quantity and the water quality issues. Where we looked at this site, we looked at the points where the water is currently flowing off the site. Those are generalized. You can see them in DP 1, DP 2, 3, 4, 5. Those are just an abbreviation for Design Point and that is where there is an existing flow coming off the site. Our mission was at each of these points, post development, after the proposed development goes in that the water flowing to those design points, to those areas, is less than or equal to a volume of the predeveloped rate of flow coming off and of a quality equal to that. We had several means of doing that and what we first looked at was putting in a number of large ponds to attenuate the volume. Those didn’t really fit the site well. They require taking down quite a few of the existing trees. So we got to looking at the two existing wetland areas and making use of those to impound temporarily and outlet over a 24 hour period the stormwater volumes.
In extensive talks with the staff and the DEC before using these wetlands, there is some interest in making sure or assuring that the runoff from the development and the new in impermeable areas added by the road roof was of a quality nature that wouldn’t disturb the wetlands as they are. So what was proposed and right now this is just in schematic on this map, but the staff has a little bit more detailed design, were a number of basically water quality biofilters, small ponds surrounded by an aquatic bench with plantings on the inflow channel and on the outflow channel a wet channel with also more plantings in them. Each of the prefiltrations or quality basins before the flow goes into the wetlands would contain what the State calls a water quality volumes plus it would contain the volume of the 1-year storm coming off the area it is proposed to serve. It would contain that volume and release it gradually over a 24-hour period into the wetland. Now as you see on the plans, both the wetland to the north have a 3 foot height berm, a gentle berm proposed to be constructed around them with an outlet that would regulate the flow over 24 hours after the storm out of those. I have the exact numbers here. I’m going to take a minute and look them up, but they are a typical one-year storm that we propose to use the southern wetland and surcharge it roughly over an area of 1.4 acres to a depth of 4 inches. That will be out-letted in a controlled fashion over 24 hours such that that temporary surcharge will not be present at the end of 24 hours. Most of the trees and standing vegetation there wouldn’t have wet feet for more than that 24-hour period. In the north area, for a similar one-year storm, we are looking at surcharging an area roughly 2.1 acres with 8 inches for a 24-hour storm. This would not only take care of the volume requirement for the new impermeable surface area added by the 47 lots, but it would also is large enough in volume to address all the other previous development along Sanctuary Drive and along Sapsucker Woods Road. Both on the Dryden side and on the Ithaca side because there are some previous flow problems with quantity coming off that site. So we looked to address some of the existing problems as well as the additional flows created by the impermeable surface area added by the new proposed development.
For each and every one of the design points that you see up here, the model posted all the flows both in rate of runoff were less than or equal to the current existing runoff and with the flows that were coming out of the wetlands that were impounded at the design point one here in the northern wetland, the design point 3 in the wetland you see in the middle, they were very substantially less than the existing flows now because of the substantial volume that we were able to retain in those. It is our understanding from DEC if the Corps of Engineers gives us the jurisdiction and okay to do that, then they are not going to have any problem with us using the existing wetlands to provide the quantity control in lieu of establishing large ponds to do such as long as we provide the quality control going into those wetlands before hand.
There are two points here which basically take the area tributary to the Beechwood Drive, which by means of the grades and topography we couldn’t slow, otherwise we would have to flow uphill to get to the other means of treatment. Along those roads were proposed what we call a dry swale. It is an underdrain swale with 3 feet of filtering material and below that will be a 15 inch pipe bedded in lots of uniform size stone to provide ample void volume to pond or store the water temporarily underground and the catch basins where you normally along a roadside pipeline would have outlets in them to control…(not audible)…of some sort designed to control the outlet flow from that rate to the predeveloped rate of runoff from that area. That is the case for the south-most leg of Birchwood Drive for just a short area. You see here in design point 4 for about an acre our total and what you see here for about two acres total along the cul-de-sac proposed at Beechwood.
So all and all, the post development runoff from the total site is attenuated quite a bit from the existing by what we propose. There are two ponds on the north that we propose to run into wetland that in talks with Larry with the Sanctuary. They had some…they favored a system where we might be able to bring the…because of the topography we could actually bring those along the east boundary where the back lots ditch across lot 58, 59 and 61 to the only traditional pond we have located on the site because there was no wetland impoundment to regulate the quantity. So what we are looking at is upsizing this pond slightly to accommodate these two ponds and putting in back lots grass ditch line that would bring this flow along the eastern or western boundary down in the back lot 61 into the main pond there.
Mr. Fabbroni – The net result of that is that we would be able to eliminate those two quality ponds because they would be incorporated into the first chamber in that larger facility.
Let me just finish up here on a couple of key points. One is that Cornell has reviewed the standard maintenance agreement of the Town and they’re comfortable with that maintenance agreement. What we are anticipating right now is that the developer would turn over all of that land to Cornell once we got through these approvals and in turn then we would have a license that we would review with the three of us basically, but the developer would have a license back to go into Cornell lands and construct these facilities and have certain maintenance responsibilities during the construction period so that in the same way that the Town wants the facility turned over complete for the future, Cornell wants the facility complete to maintain. So all that has been talked about in concept and generally speaking that is what we have been talking about. That we would donate all the land to them right off the bat. We would get a license back to enter the land and satisfy our obligations that come out of this approval. That generally speaking we are expecting…we were constructing we would be maintaining that facility for 3 years or so because the construction period is the period when it is most likely to need maintenance.
Again we feel in this flat terrain the amount of erosion we have seen over the last 25 years and to come now that we are doing it in a more controlled fashion is going to be pretty minimal. If we are careful with our drainage and erosion plan, we shouldn’t leave Cornell a lot of maintenance and they will more use these as ecological features to their overall plan, these areas. So in concept, that pretty much what we bring to you tonight. There were some other considerations. There was one lot where the wetland pokes into the back of it. We would be giving you a conservation easement to go along…that would go along with any deed that got transferred on that lot. We’ve preserved the back end of three lots on Briarwood in a similar fashion and that has been successful for the last 17 years so something similar to that conservation easement that we arranged with the Corps of Engineers back then what we would propose for that one lot. Again, we have no problem with the T-intersection up at Sanctuary Drive and what would be then just the dead end would be the Lucente Way and Sanctuary Drive would carry through.
I think that basically the only question I have as we get down the line, I had some questions when we get into the subdivision discussion about just one item in the proposed resolution. Thank you.
Chairperson Wilcox – All set? Thank you. I think what I would suggest is that the two gentlemen come up and join you, one of you bring a chair. That way we have all three available because I’m sure we’ll have questions for all three of you back and forth and you can just in some way figure out how to move the microphone back and forth so we can pick you up. Eva, we’ll let you go first.
Board Member Hoffmann – Thank you. I have a few questions to start with just to clarify what Mr. Whitney just talked about using that map that is up there. I was looking at the map that we were provided with and some of those ponds look like they are in different locations and they are of different configurations than what we have on this map, which is called the Master Plan.
Mr. Fabbroni – What you have is the proposal. What that map depicts is a feature for a drainage area. What you have and the information on that map is the most current information.
Board Member Hoffmann – Oh, so that one is not updated that you just showed?
Mr. Fabbroni – That is correct. That was more to show you where the different drainage areas are. Those heavy lines that separate the different drain carries are exactly the same, but the exact design is what you are looking at.
Board Member Hoffmann – Okay, so where there is a very large circular pond indicated just north of the Salem Drive Park. It shows just one big pond there, but here on our map it shows one big one and right east of it a small one. Is that what we see here?
Mr. Fabbroni – That is the preliminary design. What you are looking at is the more accurate map.
Board Member Hoffmann – Also there is the pond, which is here located in the corner of lot 72, looks like it has been moved to between lots 70 and 67.
Mr. Fabbroni – These shown on the subdivision map are the same thing you are looking at. We just brought that map because we thought it would be the easiest to understand how the area is split up into many different drainage areas.
Board Member Hoffmann – But I also have another question. Mr. Whitney explained to us about the low berm, three-foot high berm, along the western boundary of the wetland to the north. I can see those lines there, but then there are some similar lines, which look like they are in the back yards of the houses that are built on the east side of Briarwood Drive and my question is, is that berm going to be built across the back yards of those people who already live there because they don’t exist now I take it.
Mr. Fabbroni – They are in back of the homes that exist there. That is correct.
Board Member Hoffmann – And they will be built on the land that is owned by the people who live in those houses?
Mr. Fabbroni – Mr. Lucente owns all of those lots. He owns all of that.
Board Member Hoffmann – Oh. Those are all rentals?
Mr. Fabbroni – That is correct.
Chairperson Wilcox – And they are not part of this subdivision.
Mr. Fabbroni – That is correct.
Board Member Hoffmann – Right, but they are something new that is going to be built on something that was part of an earlier subdivision then, which has puzzled me a little bit. Okay. So that is clarified then. Thank you.
Chairperson Wilcox – Who wants to go next? George?
Board Member Conneman – Larry, I wondered if you could clarify. I understand that the Environmental Review Committee looked at this and raised some questions about some lots that seem to be very adjacent to wetlands, 58, 71, 72, and 53. Do you want to com on that?
Mr. Fabbroni – The drainage and erosion plan will have a full perimeter of silt fence to protect the boundaries of those lots that are being developed against any intrusion of any erosion into the wetland. What Eric was describing where we would eliminate those two ponds is in the same area. So once we saw that concern we started talking amongst ourselves and then more recently with Cornell about eliminating those. So we are actually talking about having a ditch along that boundary that would bring the runoff from those developed lots back to the larger pond that Eva was just speaking of earlier. I could show you on the map a little bit.
Board Member Conneman – Could you do that?
Mr. Fabbroni – They are talking about these three lots most north here. So not only are we looking at eliminating these quality ponds that were in that same area of concern, but putting a drainage ditch along the perimeter of these lots and back to where we would handle the quality and the quantity aspects in this facility here.
Board Member Conneman – An open ditch I would assume?
Mr. Fabbroni – Yes.
Board Member Conneman – Okay. All right.
Board Member Hoffmann – There is also lot 53, which is…
Mr. Fabbroni – Lot 53 is the one I mentioned we would have the conservation easement on that area of the lot that was delineated as a wetland. That lot is 200 feet deep in terms of the depth.
Board Member Thayer – It sounds like they have done their homework as far as the drainage goes, but I would like to hear it from Dan as to how he feels about it and also the public has some problems that already exist up there and will these be ratified with this.
Chairperson Wilcox – He’s looking at you.
Mr. Walker – Yeah. In the whole area of Salem Drive, Maplewood, Birchwood, Pinewood, there has been a lot of excess water coming down because over the years the swamp was drained and it means the water has to go some place. This will reduce the amount of water that flows through those ditches in the peak flows and help to reduce the flooding problems that do occur down there now.
Board Member Thayer – So you are pretty satisfied with the way with the way it is working out?
Mr. Walker – Yes. Basically they are going to hold a lot of that water that flows through immediately during the storm, is going to be gradually released. So it will still flow through the same ditches, but over a longer period of time and at a very reduced flow rate.
Board Member Thayer – I expect that some of the public is here because of some drainage problems and I was just wondering about that.
Mr. Walker – Well, the whole area is very wet and very flat. The nature of the wetland is that the water drains off very slowly from right now. There is a long-term continuous flow that happens in a lot of the drainage patterns up there. That long-term flow won’t be changed. It will still occur over a long period of time and that is how the drainage system has been designed and we would be making some improvements to correct some problems where we can.
Board Member Mitrano – Fred, I had a question of the gentleman from Syracuse. I just wanted to see if I understood well what you were saying. You said when you initially did your assessment, was it this row of houses that was of some curiosity?
Mr. Carr – No. It was to the north. In terms of the unique natural area, that was included in the unique natural area. Those homes.
Board Member Mitrano – So what was your assessment? That maybe at that time that wasn’t such a good decision or that in subsequent research you understood better why that decision had been made.
Mr. Carr – I never really fully understood why it was made. At one point Mr. Wesley had told Mr. Fabbroni that if he had known that Sanctuary Drive had been built, he wouldn’t have included the area south of Sanctuary Drive in the unique natural area. Well, our first assessment was, well why would it be considered unique so we did a breeding bird survey and we followed common techniques used in the field. We also did a winter nest survey just to see if there were any raptor nests in the vicinity. So we walked that thoroughly. Then we did a breeding bird survey in that area. Basically what we found was common species that are found in the area. Breeding throughout this property. So there wasn’t anything that would say…like for example a red-shouldered hawk or a cooper’s hawk of special concern that was nesting in there that would make it a unique area.
Board Member Mitrano – So at this point, it doesn’t demonstrate any deleterious affect on more rare species?
Mr. Carr – That is correct.
Mr. Fabbroni – In addition to that, the Sanctuary people have had the benefit of seeing that bird study and they agree with how it was done and pretty much they affirm what was in it.
Board Member Mitrano – Thank you.
Board Member Howe – You probably made this very clear, but I was just curious about the south wetlands. Is that also being donated? Okay. Then I think I followed where you said the sidewalk was going to be accepted. Did you say that there was also going to be a sidewalk out Sanctuary Drive?
Mr. Fabbroni – No.
Board Member Howe – Okay. Just a loop around then?
Mr. Fabbroni – From the park down to Birchwood and then out to Sapsucker Woods Road.
Chairperson Wilcox – Eva, go ahead.
Board Member Hoffmann – Where do the buses go? The public buses. Where do they go in this area, which roads do they use?
Mr. Fabbroni – They go down Sanctuary and Hanshaw. I think…
Chairperson Wilcox – I doubt they go down Sanctuary.
Mr. Fabbroni – I’m sorry. They go Sapsucker Woods Road and Hanshaw and I think there are a certain number of runs up Salem Drive and around Muriel Street during the day. I’m looking at the staff.
Mr. Kanter – I think…I don’t know first hand, but I’ve heard people say it does go down Muriel and over to Salem. So I believe that is correct.
Mr. Fabbroni – I think that is during the peak time. It’s not every hour that they go up all they way into the subdivision there. The regular run that runs every hour comes down Sapsucker Woods Road and Hanshaw.
Board Member Hoffmann – Because it seems to me that when one looks at sidewalks and where they are, one should see that they connect up with a public transportation system. I had a question about the wetlands and the Lab of Ornithology. There was a very brief statement in the papers we got from somebody at the Lab of Ornithology saying that it looks good and things are moving along, but have they actually indicated that they want to accept these donations.
Mr. Fabbroni – Yes.
Board Member Hoffmann – Is there any letter to that affect that you have to show us?
Mr. Fabbroni – I don’t have a letter, but I have a person here who could probably tell you.
Board Member Hoffmann – Well, it would be good to hear from that person then, I think, but there might be other questions before then.
Board Member Talty – I have a question.
Chairperson Wilcox – Kevin.
Board Member Talty – With the slower disbursement of water, is there an issue with any type of mosquito? Negative impact on the area? It seems to me there would be more standing water for a greater period of time, even though it is going slowly.
Mr. Fabbroni – Well, there will be, but if you consider the nature of the whole area already, I think the fair answer is that it is not going to be a noticeable difference. There are mosquitoes there and I’ll tell you that first hand.
Board Member Talty – I was just wondering with more water would it impact the breeding of the mosquito or would it be more breeding, I should say.
Mr. Fabbroni – Probably some, but the area east of Briarwood, for instance, now is under water all the time in one area. There are areas up in the northern area that are under water all the time. So again, yeah, there will be a little more, but its not going to be like there isn’t any and then suddenly people are going to notice it. In a wet year there is a lot of mosquito breeding there.
Board Member Talty – Okay.
Board Member Hoffmann – I have a question about a technical thing that was in papers and you talked about, but I still didn’t understand what it is. Could someone explain what a dry swale is?
Mr. Whitney – A dry swale is a gentle grassed ditch, which has underneath it permeable material, gravel, with a layer of organic on top as like a biofilter, topsoil and below that is an underdrain system, a perforated pipe, which will when the water enters the swale and the swale is at a gradual enough slope, and there are occasional check dams along this swale, raised areas such that a flow from a one year event will percolate down through the porous material and through the top soil as an organic filter and eventually into the collection pipe. Where the dry swale is proposed for this subdivision, we have added a feature for storage, basically a uniform size stone and the void volume they are in and the 15 inch diameter pipe are such that we can store the entire runoff from the one year storm that will perk down through that to meet the, what the State calls the Channel Protection Vine, or the CPV, which they require to retain an outlet over a 24 hour period. So there will be structures in the catch basins and the roadside drainage there that will facilitate that 24-hour drainage period for the material that has filtered down through the bottom of that dry swale and the organic filter on top.
Board Member Hoffmann – Okay. Let me try to say it again and see if I understood. They are gentle swales with grass in them, which will presumably carry some of the water if it comes really fast slowly along, but at the same time some of that water is percolating down through the soil into a pipe that leads it away at a controlled rate. But then you also having something additional to help store that water, are those the ponds?
Mr. Whitney – This is a case where we couldn’t get a pond in and we’re along side a pond and there is no area for the pond. So essentially we put a uniform size material stone in the ground and that is above the line of the underdrain outlet and what happens is all the voids between those stones fill up. It is underground so you can’t see it. Picture marbles in a jar and then pouring a glass of water in that jar. There is substantial volume between the marbles. This is the same concept with the clean stone. The entire volume for the runoff of a one year storm is stored between the uniform stone in the void volume, about 40% of the volume of the total storm flow is roughly is available for water storage if the stone size is uniform material.
Board Member Hoffmann – Okay. I think I am getting.
Chairperson Wilcox – Eric, while you have the microphone, tell me about DECs role right now or clarify DECs role. You mentioned DECs role. Here is my take. You have proposed to DEC a rather unique way of dealing with stormwater runoff. Though you put a positive spin on it in your presentation, my take is DEC has not approved it and it could be 30 days, 60 days, 90 days before DEC comes back and says either this is acceptable or its not. How does that work?
Mr. Whitney – Yeah, we have talked with both region 8 representative, Paula Smith, and region 7 representative, Ellen Hawn, and both of them are the same opinion. Basically if the Corp of Engineers gives us permission in the form of having the jurisdiction to do this in those wetlands, use them for temporary quantity attenuation and we can meet DECs requirement to attenuate the quantity of the flows coming off the site to that of existing or less than. DEC won’t have any problem with it if the Corp of Engineers goes along with that. The lady from region 8, Paula Smith, indicated that she had seen such done and although it had taken a long time to deal with the Corp of Engineers to get that, she had seen it done. The lady from region 7 indicated that she hadn’t seen it done in region 7.
Mr. Carr – I would like to say one thing. In a typical subdivision what we see is that the trees are cleared and these large detention ponds are built to hold a 100-year storm event. In this particular case they are using smaller ponds and using the existing wetland. I think it is much preferable to upland forested buffer or border rather than making these huge detention ponds that you see all over the landscape. So it is my professional opinion that you have a better product by keeping the woods as intact as possible and keeping just those one-year storm event ponds built on the site.
Chairperson Wilcox – The issue I am struggling with is, I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself here, the issue I’m struggling with is should we complete our environmental review, what whoever, whether it is the Army Corp of Engineers or DEC comes back and says no this doesn’t work. Obviously you would have to change the stormwater detention plans. My immediate concern is that I am being asked to decide whether there are significant environmental impacts with a system, which hasn’t been approved. That is the issue that I am struggling with right now myself that we really don’t know whether, or at least I don’t know, I shouldn’t say we, I don’t know yet whether they system will be approved and whether it has the potential to work. Yes I have heard Dan, thank you very much, and I appreciate your professional opinion and I appreciate the professional opinion of the gentleman out there. I would also like to have more professional opinion, frankly, not that I am discounting anybody who is here.
Mr. Walker – Well, you have to understand a little bit of the State’s philosophy on their general permit for stormwater management on construction sites and subdivisions. They have the standard design book, which basically includes a couple dozen practices that are tried and true and one of the main practices for stormwater detention are the large ponds. So if you do everything directly by the book, which are good measures…
Chairperson Wilcox – You get a signature.
Mr. Walker – And it is easy for them to review it because they look in the book and its fine, but these are somewhat unique sighted to the sites solutions. They are still storing a volume of water. The main environmental impact could be the impact on the vegetation in the wetlands and I believe that has been addressed to show the short duration of flooding is not going to adversely impact them. Because it is not in the standard book, they can’t just automatically take their rubber stamp and say okay you did it the right way. That is why they have up to a 60-day review period for site-specific designs. Now they may very well say this is not in the book, not accept it and send it back. Then there will have to be a significant amount of discussion with them to show that the engineering is good and will work. The big pond practice, you dig out a 3 acre pond and you take all the water from the site, could work up there, but you would take down all the trees and if you had to stay out of the wetland, you would lose lots, too. But the way the topography is up there, its distributed so you can’t get all the water running one place as shown on the watershed map. There are from outlets from this lot that goes up north onto Salem Drive and there are outlets that go down further south onto Birchwood. So as flat as it is, the water can’t go all in one place. So you could build 3 or 4 larger ponds in there that are standard, but you would probably do more damage to the trees in the area than you would with the proposed methods.
Chairperson Wilcox – Thank you.
Mr. Fabbroni – That was our stance, Fred. That we could do what would amount to the 5 day review route for almost all of this project, but it would be more damaging to the woods. So our first choice was to do what made the most sense to everybody and would accomplish the objective of going above and beyond what just this project required. In other words, deal with some of the existing problem as well by the way we are going. And we had the observation and opinion of a lot of different people that because of the way the wetland developed and the way trees are that this temporary inundation is not going to have any impact on the quality of the wetland. So we have done a lot of work with the biofilters and we have talked to Cornell and they want to be involved in the final selection of plantings for the aquatic shelves and there are a lot of positive things. We have met with DEC. Once we got to the point of having the Corp being the end of the road, Bernie talked to the Corp. We don’t have a signed letter back, but we have already submitted to the Corp what you are looking at to get that letter back. So I think we brought it to the point where we could come to you and discuss preliminary approval. I mean we still didn’t know what the board thought about the project and the layout and everything. There is a lot. You can tell from the resolution that is offered that there is a lot of design that has to be perfected now to submit to the State for the 60-day review. When would we talk to you? Before we ever talked to you and got some discussion and some affirmation of the project. It’s a little bit of a chicken and egg think. I think what I am trying to say is that we have done a lot of work in the 3 or 4 last months to answer your question to our satisfaction that we are going on a positive route and there isn’t some dead end. We have a verbal from the Corp at this point, but they have to see the materials and study them and do their due diligence before we get the letter back.
Chairperson Wilcox – You have a gentleman from the Lab of Ornithology with you? Questions?
Board Member Howe – Just tell me the benefit of the southern wetland since its not contiguous and maybe just speak in general to your support.
Scott Sutcliffe, Associate Director of the Lab of Ornithology
I maybe should start by saying we first approached Mr. Lucente about 15 years ago about adding the property that is to the north to the Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary and we went back and forth for many years on that. When Larry first came forward with the plan a few years ago, several of us from the lab met with him, walked in the field, looked at the property and then suggested that the wetlands property in total be given to the Lab of O. Of course I would like the whole property, but that is not possible. And so to delineate the wetlands we looked at the wetlands sections that were delineated and said we would like to accept those as an addition to the sanctuary. We walked the property several times. We met with Larry many times and we would really like to make this collaboration between Larry and his and the Lab of O so they are in a sense designing the wetland sedimentation basin in the same manner that we design the new wetlands that are to the north of the new building at the Lab of Ornithology. They both act as buffers and maintain water levels. They also act as environmental purifiers if you will, cleaning the water before it moves downstream. We have found that the similar designs we have placed in the Sanctuary, the new designs, are working very well to date. They are only 3 years old and we would like to have final say of what they plant and how they plant in these new wetlands that they are producing. Does that answer your question, Rod?
Board Member Howe – Yeah. I mean how would you use…would you actively use this…would there be access to the southern wetlands or are you just…?
Mr. Sutcliffe – Yes. We have, as Larry has designed, the Lab of O has two access points to that wetland. We don’t know how we will manage it. We have already talked about possibly putting an observation platform in the middle of it or something like that, but we really haven’t thought that far ahead. As far as the northern piece of the property goes, that is contiguous to our existing 100+ acres on the west side of the road and I imagine that in a fairly short order we will connect our trail system, which is contiguous to that piece right into that new piece, but we haven’t designed trails as of yet or boardwalks.
Board Member Mitrano – I wanted to go back to what you were referring to, Fred, is there technically a procedural confusion that we have here or is it more of a matter of curiosity given the particular design that the applicants have applied to this wetland? In other words, are we meeting before there is a designation by the DEC in such a way that it does leave us in abeyances to how and whether we should decide? And maybe the Town Attorney would know given her expertise in environmental law.
Ms. Brock – Well, you can do your SEQR on the proposed project so it would be on the project as it has been described tonight. If for some reason either the Army Corp of Engineer or DEC decline to give their approval and they need to modify the project, then that modification would need to come back to you and you would have to do another SEQR review looking at the project as it is presented to you in a modified form.
Board Member Mitrano – In another words, may I make the assumption that the applicant has gone forward notwithstanding the fact that we do not have a determination from the Corp or the DEC because they want to get started on the project, but our determination this evening is subject to those determinations.
Ms. Brock – Both the SEQR determination and if you make a determination on the preliminary subdivision approval that would also need to come back to you for modification as well because the project has changed.
Board Member Mitrano – But you would therefore recommend that we just go ahead and proceed this evening rather than waiting for any determination before we make any decision whatsoever.
Ms. Brock – Well, you can legally go ahead, whether you want to or not is really your decision.
Board Member Mitrano – Very good.
Mr. Fabbroni – We have to come back for final for one thing and there are other things in the resolution as far as Health Department approvals and whatever. So in the best set of circumstances 60 to 75 days is going to take care of all that stuff and we are going to know a lot more at that point, but its not like you sent us off to do something that is beyond modification at that point.
Board Member Mitrano – No. I understand. I just wanted to have a clarification as a procedural matter. So is the assumption correct that you have come forward not withstanding the fact that we don’t have determinations from these offices because we want to proceed with development in knowing that there may have to be modifications if determinations are such that would require them before final site plan approval.
Mr. Fabbroni – The simple answer to that is yes. The point you give preliminary approval then a lot of expense is incurred to perfect the design and that is sort of the thought that there ought to be some indication of what you feel about the project before we go to that next level of doing final designs.
Board Member Mitrano – So fair enough. You are willing to take the risk.
Mr. Fabbroni – Excuse me?
Chairperson Wilcox – You are taking the risk that the DEC/Army Corp will provide you with the permits you need.
Mr. Fabbroni – That is correct.
Chairperson Wilcox – You are assuming that risk.
Mr. Carr – I would like to address that question. Generally under the SEQR process and preliminary site plan approval, SEQR is complied with and preliminary site plan approval is received by the Town prior to the preparation of the documents for SPDES, too. So that is generally the last thing that is done in the development plans for any subdivision or commercial enterprise in New York State. It is typical that the approval from the DEC for the stormwater is the last thing that is done. I think that you are in order to follow preliminary site plan approval for what has been proposed.
Mr. Kanter – The only difference here is that we are dealing with jurisdictional wetlands, not DEC jurisdictional, but Corp of Engineers jurisdiction unless the recent Supreme Court case changes that.
Board Member Conneman – Larry, let me ask the question a different way. You are going to do nothing on that property until you get approval from…?
Mr. Fabbroni – That is correct.
Board Member Conneman – 60 days from now nothing has happened unless, in fact, you get those approvals.
Chairperson Wilcox – He is not going to have our approval.
Board Member Conneman – But if you had our approvals, even that and then it turns…
Mr. Fabbroni – We couldn’t. We have to have that approval from the State or they can fine us $25,000 a day is the penalty, even if we wanted to do something.
Ms. Brock – And even if they were to get preliminary and final subdivision approval at some point, they still could not begin to do anything on the property until all the conditions of the final subdivision approval are met. They won’t be able to get a building permit from the Town until all of the necessary conditions have been met.
Board Member Howe – Are we still thinking we are getting to Ithaca College? I see they are still out there.
Board Member Mitrano – I agree.
Chairperson Wilcox – Can we get through the environmental review, potentially and then…
Board Member Howe – Are you going to open that up to…?
Chairperson Wilcox – Yeah. I’m going to give the public a chance to speak.
Board Member Howe – I imagine a lot of people are going to speak. Do you still think we are going to get to Ithaca College?
Chairperson Wilcox – I expect that a lot of people are going to speak, but I will try to keep their comments to a minute or two.
Board Member Talty – I think what Rod is saying it might be more of a courtesy to go out and advise them.
Chairperson Wilcox – Yeah. I went out before and they are aware of the situation.
Mr. Kanter – Do you want me to go follow up and say that it is not looking good?
Chairperson Wilcox – Yeah. When I went out before I advised them that we were running a little long. Another option by the way, not that the applicant and the agents want to hear it, we could proceed through the environmental review, either accepting that there is no significant environmental impact or making a determination that there is. Assuming that we made the determination that there isn’t, we could then reschedule the public hearing for another meeting and then go through the sketch plan for IC since that should not take a long time.
Board Member Howe – Although, a lot of people…
Chairperson Wilcox – I understand. Let’s…on the other hand it’s getting late. They may want to go home and come back and do a public hearing at 7:30 or 8:00 p.m., not a public hearing at 9:30, quarter to 10. So having said that, the gentleman from the Lab of Ornithology is up here. Do we have any additional questions for him?
Board Member Howe – He answered my questions.
Ms. Brock – This really isn’t a legal question, but I just wanted to make sure that I heard you correctly that the type of stormwater facilities being proposed here in terms of these four bays and using the wetlands to store the water, that is actually the type of system that the Lab of Ornithology built and is using. Is that correct?
Mr. Sutcliffe – I can’t say that exactly because I haven’t seen their final plans, but as we talked and collaborated to date, we are moving along that line. So, no, I haven’t seen their final plans, but what we have talked about is a plan similar to what we have done to the north of the new lab.
Mr. Fabbroni – That would be the four bays, is what he was talking about earlier. The four bays, as we are proposing with the aquatic bench and the plantings before and after are almost identical to what they did up there. The stormwater retention for the quantity is sort of the sticking point we are talking about. We can either build the second chamber for that wherever we had one of those four bays or we can use the wetland, as it is well suited for the temporary stormwater retention as long as we build the dykes outside of the wetland. That is what our understanding is with the Corp. As long as we build these dykes outside of the delineated wetland then we can use that area for temporary inundation and as we get that word back, you will have that in writing before we do any final approvals or anything. In the mean time we will work out a more collaborative planting plan. The Lab of Ornithology was just concerned that whatever plantings we do are compatible with the plantings that they have done. That we don’t end up with one species of plantings somehow being injurious to whatever they have already. So that would be more native plantings is what we are talking about tonight.
Board Member Hoffmann – One more thing, in the second part of the environmental assessment form on page 1 at the bottom, it talks about whether the action would result in a physical change to the project site and it says, “the amount of the disturbance of the land is based on the assumption that many of the parcels would not be completely converted to lawns, but would retain some woodland in the backyards. The applicant anticipates that at least 25 feet of woodland would be retained on lots with 150 foot depth, which is the minimum depths size allowed, and greater for lots with longer depth.” Now is there any way to guarantee that this will happen. That there will not in fact be most of the trees cut down in the backyards and converted to lawn.
Mr. Fabbroni – I don’t know if we’ve ever come up with a way to guarantee that, but certainly if you put that in your resolution as what the presumption of your action is, it speaks for itself. I mean that is a conversation that Susan and I had as far as what is realistic in terms of the building site and the part of the lot that doesn’t need to be disturbed to carry out that program and still have some lawn around the house. So that is where that all came from. It is a best estimate and it is something that we have to follow through on as a commitment back to you.
Board Member Hoffmann – Well, I don’t like to work with assumptions like that if I don’t have to and so I think if it would be possible to build in some kind of…I don’t know if an easement would be the right thing in a case like this, but some way of protecting the woodlands in people’s backyards from being converted into lawns.
Mr. Walker – We have put deed restrictions on lots in other subdivisions. Saponi Meadows we put a deed restriction that they couldn’t disturb 50 feet next to the stream in the back of the lots. So we can actually have that drawn into the deed for each lot and have the restrictive covenant. Just like our zoning has setbacks from side yard and rear yard setbacks. It’s the same type of line and then as people come in for building permits we enforce that. Now, will that guarantee that nobody is going to go out there at midnight with a chainsaw and cut the trees down? No, but at least the people know about it and it becomes an enforcement issue for the Town.
Board Member Hoffmann – The reason I think it is important is to protect the wetland, which is something that we have been trying to do. So if that could be built into our resolution…
Ms. Ritter – Eva, are you mostly concerned, then, about lots that have backyards that abut the wetlands more so than another property behind them?
Board Member Hoffmann – I am mostly concerned about the wetland and I think we have more reason to do it when it comes to the wetland.
Ms. Ritter – Just wanted clarification. Okay.
Board Member Hoffmann – But if there is a good reason to do it other places, too, because of the drainage problems in this area, maybe we should consider that as well because the trees certainly help to the water from running.
Mr. Fabbroni – You could specify a certain diameter tree that had to be left.
Chairperson Wilcox – Or a buffer, 25 foot zone or something like that. The public has been very, very patient and I say we give them a chance to speak.
Board Member Thayer – Good idea.
Chairperson Wilcox – Ladies and Gentlemen, you have been very quiet and very patient, and we appreciate it. I know it is getting late and as I said before, this is not the public hearing, but it is an opportunity to provide your comments on the environmental review. Raise your hand, I will call on you. We ask that you give us your name and address. Keep your remarks relative short and to the point and we would be most interested to hear what you have to say this evening.
Andrew Houtenville, 116 Pinewood Pl
I have two concerns, stemming primarily from the increase in traffic on Birchwood North that are implied with the connection and with the development of the cul-de-sac. The intersection of Salem and Birchwood North, as Mr. Fabbroni had mentioned, would need serious consideration. A 3-way stop sign would likely be needed if this was approved. I have a consideration of the driveways that are on that area and the increase in traffic. My second concern, based on the traffic flow, is increase…is the pedestrian traffic to Salem Park, which was addressed also by Mr. Fabbroni. He was incorrect that there is a 31 bus that travels hourly to the area and now the new 44 and 45 bus travel to down Salem Drive on weekends. So there is a heavy degree of traffic. That said, people are not going to take the bus to get to Salem Park. Salem Park is populated by children. They will take the bus to get to the new loop that the Ornithology Lab would be putting in and that raises my concern with if there is a trailhead put in towards Salem Drive that there would be parking issues with that regard and what kind of parking issues does this create in the neighborhood.
I am concerned about the fact that there is a 45-degree turn driving directly towards the park. So as individuals travel west on Sanctuary Drive, they are traveling directly towards the park and there is a 45-degree turn. Living near the 2 45 degree turns on Salem Drive, while people are very nice, people travel fast. That is my primary concern. I have two young children that will travel to that park and the population…the traffic of pedestrians to that park is not only from the proposed area, but of the existing area of Salem Drive, Birchwood, Sapsucker, Briarwood, Maplewood and so forth. So there is a real concern over traffic.
I only have one comment regarding the wildlife issues. A statement was made that the wildlife corridor, the concept that the wildlife corridor is laughable. I have no idea why that is an issue, but I think the reason why it is laughable, if it’s not the width. I have no idea about the regulations of a width of a wildlife corridor between the two natural areas, but it’s a laugh because people use that. Vehicles use that as a traffic area and it has been basically decimated by vehicular traffic. Thank you.
Janet Howe, 109 Birchwood Dr
I am a walker and I walk that area several times a week for exercise. I know coming along Pinewood there is drainage, like an open sleuths box extending from Briarwood down to Pinewood that always has water running it. It is open. There is nothing covering it. It is just a wooden box about 2 feet wide. Where the water goes, I think now, they did some pipe work under the road and I think that is where it goes. I would also like to say that behind our house they’re on a rise, but down at the foot of the hill there is always a damp spot and often an creek running through there. Every time more houses have been added up Birchwood North, there has been more water coming down there. I don’t know where that comes from. I am glad to hear that all of this may be controlled by the new plans and storm sewers and I hope they will be effective for the existing area that is there.
Chairperson Wilcox – Thank you, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.
Millicent Clarke-Maynard, 111 Birchwood Dr
I basically have two real concerns. I am not opposed to people spending money to build whatever they want to build. On the other hand, I have lived in the neighborhood on Birchwood Drive for the past 12 years and it has been a very peaceful and caring neighborhood. My concern is traffic, not only am I walker, I ride the TCAT bus. I am very familiar with the area. Very familiar with it. I am very concerned about the traffic, particularly at night. Although Mr. Fabbroni said something about the traffic being modest, it is far from being modest and I teach and like to go to bed at night after 10 o’clock and it just seems like there is a lot of traffic zooming up and down on Birchwood Drive, increasingly heavy traffic. Particularly when the students are gone in the summer months, there seem to be people who have motorcycles who race up and down. When they finally put that stop sign, just like an accident waiting to happen. My bedroom is right in the front of my house so I wake up quite often and quite frequently at night because of the zooming up and down the road. I hope you would consider the traffic patterns on Birchwood Drive because it is very important and the congestion of more housing being built in the area.
Another concern I have is the drainage problem. We do have a drainage problem on Birchwood, particularly when it rains I know I have a drainage problem. I live right next door to 109 and that has become an utmost concern to me. So I hope you take into consideration these two things. Thank you.
Gary Bergstrom, 113 Birchwood Dr
I’ll keep my comments brief because they build on the previous two. My concerns are in the area of traffic flow across Birchwood, especially. Is the intention to hook that road up to Sapsucker Woods Road, but more importantly I am mostly concerned about the drainage problems. We have substantial drainage problems there. Surface water following heavy storms and I hope what I heard here tonight I can believe, but we were told similar things to trust in when the Briarwood housing development was put in there. I have lived in that house since 1987 and the increase in the surface flow and drainage problems has increased dramatically since the Briarwood houses were put in and we were told very similar things in that period of time. So I am a little bit skeptical and would like to be reassured. Thank you.
Greg Ezra, 110 Birchwood Drive
I have been living on the road a long time, about 20 years. So I have been certainly aware of the problems associated with the increasing development of the wetland so I would just like to again, very briefly, re-enforce some of the comments that have been made. Drainage is a major issue and continues to be a major issue. What I have heard tonight, which I was not aware of any of the details at all is very interesting. Several things strike me. Everyone has been talking about planning for one-year storms. What about a 5-year, 10-year- or a 25-year storm? Where are we going to be when we have huge amounts of water trapped behind these earthen berms? That is the first issue. The second is we talk about insuring that the rate of outflow is limited to that which it has historically been. The rate of outflow currently with the Briarwood development is very high and has overwhelmed the local drainage channels on several occasions. We had a very scary incident at the end of last year where there were still leaves left in the drainage channels. There’s this conduit that somebody mentioned previously that runs to the middle of Pinewood where all the water from the Briarwood Development is channeled through. I do not know whether this corresponds to DP3 or DP4. I see that there is going to be no change in that general patent, which is all the water is going to go down there. It’s then split down Birchwood and Maplewood. What happened was we had a bunch of leaves swept through the pipes and blocked the pipes in Pinewood. All of the water that was pouring in from the Briarwood had nowhere to go and it rose up to the surface. Literally the whole neighborhood was in danger of inundation. Mr. Dong’s house and lots were nearly flooded out. It was a very scary moment. The Town of Ithaca people were there at night, late into the night and they had to come in the following morning to sort out the mess. The water hadn’t gone down by then. This was prior to all this. So I worry very much about the stability of the system. Just a few leaves messed up all these plans and planning for a longer term.
The traffic is certainly a problem. I will just defer to what other people have said. Perhaps more can be said on that when the subdivision is approved. Another interesting point that was made was the possibility of mandating a certain percentage of lots to be retained as wooded areas. I find that idea very interesting and I like that. I would just like to make the comment that just as a resident that striked me very much about the Briarwood development is the extent to which the lots have essentially been clear-cut. I do not understand the necessity for that. When there was discussion about the sidewalks on Hanshaw, there was an aerial photograph of the area shown at the public display at the Dewitt School and it was very apparent that the Briarwood development was essentially and empty rectangle in the midst of a wooded area. When Mr. Lucente and his construction people go into a lot they essentially clear-cut it. For what reason, I don’t understand. The trees have been progressively removed from the area. So I would like to request that the Planning Board do whatever you can to insure that we have a reasonable degree of foliage left.
Mancang Dong, 102 Pinewood Pl
I am at the corner of Birchwood. I live there for 10 years and have had several times problem with the flood. I think that people already addressed that. I just have one question. I don’t know what kind of house they are going to build. If they are the same house as in Briarwood, the one house has two families because…(not audible)… So if the same house builder is 50 families, should that be 100 families. I think the traffic should consider 100 and not 50 if a similar house. I’m not sure what kind of a house. Is it single-family house or it’s a similar house in Briarwood? You think it is one lot, but actually 2 families live there. That is just my question.
David Collum, 1456 Hanshaw Rd
I think Eva asked the question. How do we know? So when they that the water will drain off, okay, how do we know? When they say there is going to be 25 feet of trees, how do we know? There has been a history here. Fights have been breaking out over this development since the 60s. I’ve got boxes of paperwork from people. There is a contempt of court charge against Mr. Lucente for ignoring what he was told to do. I was here for the last debates on this. It turns out that there is no mention of the fact that the houses would be 100 percent rentals. The best I can tell they are 100 percent duplexes, if I had spotted that I would have begged not to let that happen. Now if you look audience, there are no renters. They don’t care. They’re not here. So what I would like to know is how can we be assured that he is not going to build 100 percent duplexes? I was intrigued by the claim that they want to protect the trees. There was some comment in there about how the trees were young and the two interest me in light of the fact that they went up and took chainsaws to all the big trees, took them all down. This is how they think. So what I want you guys to do is ask the question. How do you insure that what they say are going to do they are going to do? It is my suggestion that they are going to do what they want to do once they get you to give them the approval. So I beg you to get it in paper. I can’t believe that they didn’t show up with a letter from the Lab of O. How you could possibly show up at this meeting and say I don’t have a letter from the Lab of O. I begged the Lab of O to get it in writing. I beg everyone to get everything in writing because there is a history here of doing what you want once you get the approval. Thank you.
Charles Evenmeyer, 206 Sapsucker Woods Rd
I work at the Lab of Ornithology. I was just hired as the manager of the visitor’s center and of Sapsucker Woods. So I just got brought into this very recently. I do rent on Sapsucker Woods.
Chairperson Wilcox – Are you here on your own?
Mr. Evenmeyer – I am here on my own. I thought I needed to at least be clear about sort of there is no conflict, just so you know. I, too, have some concerns just about traffic that I wanted to mention. Because I live on Sapsucker Woods, I live a little bit a way from these areas that are necessarily being developed where they are putting in new roads, but just in the time I have lived there over the last 8 months, 10 months since the road has been resurfaced, since there…there has been a lot of changes just on Sapsucker Woods Road that have lead to a lot higher speeds of people traveling and what seems to be a lot more traffic and a lot more people using it as a cross-through to get from 13 over to Hanshaw. I agree with the last speaker about how can you know. How can you know that anything is going to happen? I just wanted to temper that. I just wanted to give my view that that also needs to be tempered with the fact that nothing in life is known. The President can say he is going to do something before he gets elected. He can put it in writing. Once he gets elected, it doesn’t mean it is going to happen. So I think what he said is right. If we want to make sure this is developed according to some plan, I agree we need to make sure that happens, but also I think it needs to be tempered with some realism about the situation. That’s all. Thanks.
Jingzhen Guo, 102 Pinewood Pl
I have one concern. I know a lot of people have other concern for the traffic, I do too, but one more concern. I want to know. We live on the corner of Birchwood, but I know Mr. Lucente said they would have built a pond in the new area when they build the house, but my concern is from the Birchwood east to the west that is not really a hill, but like this way. So even they build a pond, how can the water catch on the top and go down to the west of the site.
Chairperson Wilcox – Can you point on one of those maps where you live?
Ms. Guo – I live right here. This is my house here. This is Birchwood. Last winter, the water halfway to my driveway, halfway to my yard because the water is at this site is higher than my house this way. So this comes down to our house and then Birchwood all the way down. Even they build a pond, the water still go down to the west. They build a pond, how can they catch the water from the high place.
Chairperson Wilcox – You don’t see how it can impact you at all or make it any better for you?
Ms. Guo – Yes, because it goes down this way. Thank you.
Brian Howell, Birchwood Dr
I just have a question for the first gentleman who made a presentation here. He referred several times to receiving approval or understanding from Cornell. Cornell is a big place. A lot of people have different responsibilities. I wonder, could it be determined whether he was simply talking to the Ornithology Lab, or civil engineering, or plant science or who at Cornell…
Chairperson Wilcox – How about we’ll ask him when everyone in the public has had a chance to speak?
Mr. Howell – Good.
Chairperson Wilcox – We won’t have to ask him. Larry will step right up and tell us. Anybody else?
Fran Bergstrom, 113 Birchwood Dr
I just want to emphasize that there are a number of children in the neighborhood. So I am concerned about the safety of the children. As far as the buses, they are not allowed to stop at each child’s house any more. So the kids have to congregate on corners and a lot of parents do take their kids because they are so concerned about the traffic now, but this is something that needs to be addressed. The safety of the small children.
Mr. Houtenville – I actually didn’t get a chance to speak at the last meeting and I wanted to say that I actually liked that plan better because it did not have the pass-through between Sanctuary Drive and Birchwood North. I think that that pass-through, if it all can be avoided, should. I understand that there are fire access concerns with cul-de-sacs, however I think a 45 degree turn right in front of a playground, which is going to be populated by children is unwise although there is prior existence, I think, in the Town over by Gaslight Apartments. There is a nice little playground that no kid uses. There is never a kid in that playground and it’s probably because it is right on the turn, right across from Phil Danker Soccer field.
Chairperson Wilcox – In the Village of Lansing. Thank you. Larry, do you want to address the question of the Lab of Ornithology and who you have been speaking with?
Mr. Fabbroni - You may remember or not remember when I was here 3 years ago, we were having this conversation about who talks to who. So I went away and engaged both the Lab of Ornithology director, assistant director, the assistant director of real estate. Those are the two key departments that have been involved. More recently, the legal department has been involved in looking at the maintenance agreement and the licensing that I referred to earlier. So I guess the comprehensive answer to the question is we have been dealing with the director and assistance at the Lab of Ornithology, the assistant director of real estate, Tom Livigne, and one of the members of legal counsel of the University, Stephanie Seckler. Those have been primary actors. Ron Roarback who managed the trails for a while was a key member involved and that comment by that wildlife corridor. He made the comment that in the most ideal circumstances it would be 500 feet wide. We have been able to keep one down to the Salem Drive that is at least 200 feet wide. The comment was that that southern area was cutoff at the time Sanctuary Drive and the northern lots in the Briarwood subdivision went in. So there was only 100 feet left at the point we were discussing the two being tied together. A lot changes over 50 years of a person’s life and business. If you look at where we came in with this proposal to begin with 4 years ago, I would like to say you can recognize the differences in terms of what is being offered to be left open and so that is a partial answer who will never believe that what we are proposing to you, we will follow through on. Everybody learns from what they have done in the past. Those who point out what has happened in the short-term with the Briarwood subdivision ought to look at the area just to the west on an aerial photograph. If you look at a 1954 aerial photograph of Maplewood, Pinewood, Birchwood, you’ll see an open field there. When you drive up through those lots today that Mr. Lucente owned a lot of those properties for a good length of time before he sold them, it is a totally relandscaped area. You would never believe that was an open farm field.
Board Member Conneman – That’s a monologue. Not an answer to the question. The question, do you have any letter from Cornell that says this is the greatest thing in the world? You have made tremendous progress and I admire what you have done and what Mr. Lucente has agreed to give to the lab, but it would be helpful if you had a letter that says something about this. Just because you talked to everybody, you can’t believe Cornell until it is in writing. Believe me.
PLANNING BOARD – tape 3
Mr. Fabbroni – I believe I could have a letter next week. I certainly would have a letter before you made any final approval. I have every reason to believe from everybody I’ve talked to that they will accept this donation and that we are well on our way to working out an agreement as to this interim period where we have obligations to the Town to make improvements and they will have centuries of obligations beyond that.
Chairperson Wilcox – What’s your pleasure guys.
Board Member Talty – I have a question to the woman who came up here with regard to the drainage issue. Would DP3 or DP4 be a current resolution for this area on drainage? Would that assist her drainage problem in this area?
Mr. Fabbroni – It should help her out. If I could point out on the map. DP5 for one comes back through an existing ditch along the backside of the property. For DP5 would bring back to this pond before it goes into the wetland. This whole area here that I could imagine in an uncontrolled fashion right now because of what she pointed out, this area has been estimated and comes up sharply, if you look at the profile of the road we bring it up gradually, we bring this drainage from this side of the road through a culvert down to this pond. So this whole are here drains, and this area, drain to that pond. A large part of this area right now in a very wet condition or a sudden event like we had at the end of February or the beginning of March we had a heavy rain storm, on a wet situation instead of that flow going down right passed her house now, it’s going to go to this retention facility and through the wetland and through this control structure here. The other point that was made is there are designs for the one-year storm and there are designs for the ten years storm and the hundred-year storm. You will see design figures and we already submitted the runoff numbers on it so we are not just focusing on the one-year storm. This retention is for a hundred year storm as well. When you get to the larger storms you have to provide for overflow because you can’t design for the greatest catastrophe ever, but it is certainly going to improve the situation that people talk about through this sluice way. And one lady talked about through the tie ditch and as far as the debris there are trash racks that trap the trash and let the water through more effectively than the traditional open-ended pipe. As the one gentleman pointed out quite rightly, Ithaca there is a sort of Russian roulette to open ditches every February and March. Is it going to thaw slowly? Is it going to happen all over night? Was it a heavy snow pack? So you have to sort of, we’ve gotten better and better with these orifices and these control structures and protecting against ice just blocking the whole system up. The first debris that comes down in the spring blocking the whole system up. You know, with the existing open ditches you still sort of have a Russian roulette. Will water flow under the ice or will the ice collapse and plug the whole system? If you have an answer to that then you’re in the wrong business.
Board Member Talty – Larry could you comment for the folks in the audience on exactly the data that you gave us, the rainfall data, for what a one-year, ten-year, one hundred year…
Mr. Fabbroni – I’d like Eric to speak to that.
Mr. Whitney – From historical rainfall data they’ve assigned the one-year storm frequency 2.3 inches over a 24-hour period. Ten year storm frequency in Tompkins County 3.9 inches of accumulation over a 24-hour period. A hundred year storm 5.5 inches of accumulation over a 24-hour period. That describes the storms as far as the total volume over a 24-hour period.
Board Member Hoffmann – A couple of people brought up the question of what kind of houses would be built. One-family or two-family so therefore how many residents there would be coming in with these new houses. I know we got some figures in the papers that we got, but perhaps I could ask you Larry to talk about that for the benefit of the people who asked the question.
Mr. Fabbroni – Our best estimate is 50% one-family, 50% two-family. Now how did we arrive at that? Currently, interestingly enough we are building one-families again. It’s pretty much a market dependent thing. When the interest rate is down people can afford one-families. If the interest rate goes up the people who traditionally in the middle class which this neighborhood has supported well for forth years can’t afford a $300,000 home without a second unit in the building to rent. Mr. Lucente, maybe he doesn’t want to admit to everybody, but he’s 75 years old now he won’t be renting for a whole lot longer so people who are concerned about these not turning over and being sold, I think are thinking about Mr. Lucente 20 years ago. He made a pretty good living of rental, sales of homes after 15 years and he’s still successfully in business fifty years later, but Eva our best estimate based on the fluctuations in the market and the interest rate is we project that half of these lots would have two-families and half would have one-families. The current design for the two-family, again to speak to some other issues, is an up and down split foyer as opposed to a side by side type of arrange which Briarwood pretty much was which would lead to less footprint on every lot as far as the space that a building would take up if it was two-family. But as I say, currently the homes being built are one family right now.
Chairperson Wilcox – For the record, the zoning allows two-family houses on every lot.
Board Member Hoffmann – When you’re talking about the rental houses that I think you said are going to be sold? Is that right?
Mr. Fabbroni – Traditionally after 15 years Mr. Lucente has put his houses up for sale. If you look at what is going on on Meadow Lark and Cardinal as an example, which are not in the Town, you would see what I’m talking about. A lot of those homes have been sold in the last 5 years after he rented for 15 years, but he can speak for himself, but at the age of 75 he’s not going to be renting these new houses he’s building for 15 years.
Board Member Hoffmann – There’s nothing wrong with rental houses. We need some of those too, but there’s for instance that whole row of houses that belong to Mr. Lucente along Briarwood Drive that I asked you about before and there’s some other occasional ones that say Lucente including quite a few of them that say Steven Lucente on Sanctuary Drive. Now do you know anything about those?
Mr. Fabbroni – I know about Rocco’s in particular. Most of those rentals are either to families are graduate students with children. He prefers to rent to that particular segment of the market because they are more stable, they don’t turn over from year to year. Traditionally the graduate students come in for three or four or five years and if you go up and down that street you’ll see children in the yards and some verifications of what I’m saying. It’s not what we all sort of fear is a total student neighborhood. I mean he as a rule does not rent to undergraduate students in that neighborhood. Steve Lucente is a total separate operation from Mr. Rocco Lucente. They have very little interaction between them. I think I stated that three years ago. They are father and son, but Steve and his wife run their own business pretty independent of anything Rocco does. So he owns those buildings on Sanctuary Drive and more recently he sold, he himself has sold three of those and has another few up for sale. So they’re currently, if he follows through on his plan he’ll have sold about half of those to owner occupied situations.
Chairperson Wilcox – They are huge buildings.
Mr. Fabbroni – Now if I can offer an opinion almost too big for the lots in that case.
Board Member Conneman – The comment about traffic, I think everybody out here, if you build one family homes you may have one or two cars. If you build rental homes you may have multiple cars. Did you take that into account when you said the traffic didn’t make much difference, it wouldn’t be much more?
Mr. Fabbroni – Yes, I projected 76 units on the 47 lots so that would take that into account, which means each one of those additional units you project an additional ten trips a day for.
Chairperson Wilcox – Is it our please to go on for another ten minutes or so? Okay. Normally we end at ten. Okay.
Board Member Hoffmann – Well, if we can answer questions and things like that, but I think it’s too late to try to make a decision tonight.
Board Member Conneman – Larry, I also have a question about deed restrictions. Susan may want to comment on this, but it is possible to put deed restriction in terms of whether you can have a buffer zone and so on and so forth, and those can be enforced. I don’t know about anything to do with trees, but you can have deed restrictions.
Mr. Fabbroni – You can and we do on three of the lots. I mean not to go into the whole history of the wetland and the remediation on the Briarwood project, but there’s three lots there where that kind of a restriction exists in the deed for the lots. It’s been very successful and held up for seventeen years without any threat whatsoever, so it can be done.
Board Member Howe – Because of the traffic issues I see in the environmental assessment form it mentions that we could explore the possibility of incorporating traffic calming measures and I would want to see that explored fully.
Chairperson Wilcox – And those traffic calming measures which we could look at as part of the actual subdivision and the layout of the roads could mitigate, it could mitigate, it can’t prevent people from speeding. That’s enforcement and other things, but that would help.
Mr. Kanter – It could help primarily with safety.
Chairperson Wilcox – And we could talk about the connecting of the roads. That was actually something that went back and forth between Larry and staff and even I was asked to contribute my opinion and I felt safety was important and having the roads interconnect. There is certainly another point of view about having more cul-de-sacs.
Mr. Fabbroni – I have a submission I made in January…
Chairperson Wilcox – Absolutely, and we changed it on you and I understand. I talked to Susan and we kicked it around, they kicked it around, she asked my opinion…
Ms. Ritter – And we also looked at the minutes from 1993 and that was a direction that was…
Chairperson Wilcox – …suggested by this Board.
Board Member Talty – I have a question on a variety of 90-degree turns throughout Town of Ithaca, Lansing, whatever. I know some of the 90 degrees they were talking about earlier and my question is I don’t see guardrails anywhere. Is there a reason why there isn’t a short section of guardrail for these 90-degree turns? That’s my question, to anybody.
Mr. Walker – It’s not warranted for the speeds.
Board Member Talty – Is that it? But can we mandate for the Planning that they put one in?
Mr. Walker – No. It’s up to the Highway Superintendent for safety issues.
Board Member Talty – Because I’ll tell you a lot of, like where George lives over on St. Catherine’s, there’s a deadly 90-degree turn there because of the trees that grow up and the playground over in Lansing through the apartments. It’s the same thing and just think that a guard rail, although I’m not a big fan of how they look, it certainly would be a great safety add to any neighborhood unless they are going to change how the 90 degree turns are because they come into them quick, they slow down, and then they accelerate out of them. So if you want to protect children I think that may be something that we should explore with that gentleman.
Mr. Kanter – Yes. I was just thinking since that portion of the road is going to be a new road there may be some way of designing that curve to be safer, not necessarily a guard rail but something built into the system.
Board Member Talty – I don’t think that they should necessarily have to change that 90 degree turn to incorporate a different type of style and wreck a lot of the lots through that area, but I do think that traffic calming, a guard rail, things of that sort could certainly be incorporated to assure the public of the safety of their children.
Chairperson Wilcox – What’s the pleasure of this Board? Well let me see, I’ll move the SEQR motion as drafted, how’s that.
Board Member Talty – I’ll second it.
Board Member Hoffmann – I feel we need time to discuss everything we have been presented with, both in paper and verbally.
Chairperson Wilcox – I have a motion and a second. Changes? You all set? I always know to look at the Town Attorney.
Ms. Brock – Alright. Because this is a coordinated environmental review and you’ve contacted the other involved agencies and they’ve agreed that the Planning Board be the lead agency we need to make sure that this review covers all aspects of the proposal not just this Board’s action tonight, which is preliminary subdivision approval so I wanted to add in the first whereas clause references to all of the roads that are being built because I think right now it’s just really referencing two of them and in fact there is going to be a little bit more which the Town Board is going to end up having to approved.
Ms. Ritter – Lucente Drive for instance?
Ms. Brock – Right. So I have some language. About halfway down in paragraph one it says proposal involves connecting Sanctuary Drive with Birchwood Drive North and connecting Birchwood Drive with Sapsucker Woods Road. I would add to that, I would get rid of the word “and” right before the word “connecting Birchwood Drive with Sapsucker Wood Road”, put in a coma and says, “extending Birchwood Drive North to the east and creating a spur to the north off Sanctuary Drive”. And then I believe we probably should also add a reference to, no, we’ve already got that.
Paragraph two in the “whereas” I would revise that to read, “this is a type I action for which the Town of Ithaca a Planning Board has indicated it’s intent to act as lead agency in a coordinated environmental review with respect to the above referenced proposal”. And the effect of that change will be to incorporate all of the proposal not just the subdivision approval.
Chairperson Wilcox – Also the eventual, should it get that far, the review by the Town Board for the acceptance of the road.
Ms. Brock – Right. Acceptance of the roads, acceptance of the parcel that’s being added to the park, the conveyance of the property to the Lab of O and that type of thing.
Paragraph four in the “whereas” clause, a similar change so that it reads “the Town Planning staff has recommended a negative determination of environmental significance with respect to the above referenced proposal”.
And another change similarly in the first “resolved” clause, just substitute the word “proposal” for “action” at the very end where it says “review of the above described action”. Just make that “review of the above described proposal” and this will make it clear that your environmental review is covering the entire project.
Board Member Hoffmann – I’m lost. Where is this last part?
Ms. Brock – Just the first “resolved” clause, the last word in that resolved clause, “action”, strike the word “action” and insert the word “proposal”. Because the word action, somebody might read that to mean what it says at the very beginning of your resolution, which is “this action involves consideration of preliminary subdivision approval” and we don’t want this to be just for the subdivision approval, we want it to be for the entire proposal.
Board Member Conneman – What word to you substitute?
Ms. Brock – “Proposal”.
Chairperson Wilcox – Just so the members of the public are still here, we’re still doing the environmental review. I don’t know what will happen in the next three minutes, but if we should make a determination that there is not a significant environmental impact then we will invite Mr. Fabbroni and the representative back at a later meeting to be determined to then actually take up the subdivision review. That will not happen tonight for sure.
Kevin, are those changes acceptable?
Board Member Talty – Yes.
Chairperson Wilcox - Okay. I have a motion and a second. I have Eva’s opinion that it’s too late in the evening to vote.
Board Member Hoffmann – And we don’t have time to discuss some of the things that we have heard and additional things we’ve heard both from the applicants and from the people in the audience, which I think are relevant.
Chairperson Wilcox – I think I have 4 votes.
Board Member Howe – Isn’t it true that a lot of the issues though can be dealt with in the subdivision approval?
Board Member Hoffmann – That’s what I don’t know and that’s why I don’t like to vote on it.
Chairperson Wilcox – I have a motion and second. Please raise your hand, all those in favor. Four. All those opposed. Two opposed. There are no abstentions. The motion is passed by a vote of four to two. We have made the determination that there is no significant environmental impact.
PB RESOLUTION NO. 2006-063: SEQR, Subdivision Approval, Briarwood II 50-lot Subdivision, Extensions to Sanctuary Dr., Birchwood Drive N., and Birchwood Dr., Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 70-10-3.5 and 73-1-8.22
WHEREAS:
1. This action involves consideration of Preliminary Subdivision Approval for the proposed 50-lot subdivision located along new extensions to Sanctuary Drive, Birchwood Drive North, and Birchwood Drive, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No.’s 70-10-3.5 and 73-1-8.22, Medium Density Residential Zone. The proposal includes subdividing the +/- 47.5 acres into 47 residential parcels (averaging 0.4 acres in size) with two parcels totaling approximately 25 acres to be donated to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and one small parcel to be added to Salem Drive Park. The proposal involves connecting Sanctuary Drive with Birchwood Drive North, connecting Birchwood Drive with Sapsucker Woods Road, extending Briarwood Drive North to the east, and creating a spur to the north off Sanctuary Drive. The project also includes the development of stormwater management facilities and walkways. The project is anticipated to be completed over a 10-year period and result in a development of one and two-family dwellings. Rocco Lucente, Owner/Applicant; Lawrence P. Fabbroni, P.E., L.S., Agent, and
2. This is a Type I Action for which the Town of Ithaca Planning Board has indicated its intent to act as Lead Agency in a coordinated environmental review with respect to the above-referenced proposal, and
3. The Planning Board, on June 20, 2006, has reviewed and accepted as adequate a Full Environmental Assessment Form Part I, submitted by the applicant, and Part II prepared by Town Planning staff, plans entitled plans entitled “Master Plan” dated 1/12/03 with most recent revision 1/21/06, and three sheets entitled “Subdivision Plat” one dated 1/21/06 and revised 5/11/06, one dated 1/21/06, and one dated 10/28/02 and revised 01-21-06, and a drawing entitled “Typical Town of Ithaca Highway Cross-sections” dated 1/16/06, four sheets entitled “Water & Sewer Plan & Profiles” dated 5/11/06, 11/10/02, and two dated 1/16/06, and four sheets entitled “Highway Plan & Profile”, dated 1/16/06, 10/28/02, and two dated 5/11/06 and “Standard Water Details dated 4/11/06 and revised 1/10/03, and “Standard Sanitary Sewer Details”, dated 9/10/02, all prepared by Lawrence P. Fabbroni, P.E., L.S., and other application material, and
4. The Town Planning staff has recommended a negative determination of environmental significance with respect to the above-referenced proposal;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board, having received no objections from other Involved Agencies, hereby establishes itself as Lead Agency to coordinate the environmental review of the above-described proposal;
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby makes a negative determination of environmental significance based on information in the Environmental Assessment Form (EAF) Part I and for the reasons set forth in the Environmental Assessment Form Part II referenced above, in accordance with the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act for the above referenced action as proposed, and therefore, an Environmental Impact Statement will not be required, and that a notice of this determination will be duly filed and published pursuant to the provisions of 6 NYCRR Part 617.12.
A vote on the motion resulted as follows:
AYES: Wilcox, Thayer, Howe, Talty.
NAYS: Hoffmann, Conneman.
ABSENT: Mitrano.
The motion was declared to be carried.
Chairperson Wilcox - Having said that, it’s getting. Larry, will you work with staff to come up with a date to come back for preliminary subdivision where you and your representatives, the agents, can be available and work with staff please. I don’t think we are going to determine that tonight.
Mr. Kanter – Is there anything additional that the Board needs to see in order to move ahead with preliminary. Such as the letter from the Lob of O.
Mr. Fabbroni – I’m going to pursue the letter in any case.
Chairperson Wilcox – The letter from the lab, if we don’t have it the next time, is certainly going to be conditioned. I think we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about traffic calming and the routing of the roads.
Board Member Conneman – Deed restrictions, I’d like you talk about.
Mr. Kanter – Those will be talked about. Those are normal conditions, but I’m just asking if there is anything the Board thinks they need to see that they haven’t seen yet.
Board Member Conneman – Well, I haven’t seen the deed restrictions, we’ve talked about them.
Mr. Kanter – You probably won’t see it before preliminary either.
Chairperson Wilcox – It will probably be conditioned to final, but we’ll make it very clear assuming this Board agrees…
Board Member Conneman – I just wanted to put in the minutes that that’s one of my concerns.
Chairperson Wilcox – Larry, anything else I can do for you?
Mr. Fabbroni – Well, my only comment on the traffic calming is as I’ve listened to everybody and I’m a pretty good listener I hope over the years there are divergent opinions on traffic calming methods so I would hope…
Chairperson Wilcox – Save it for the next meeting.
Mr. Fabbroni – My other question is why wouldn’t you adjourn this all to the next Planning Board meeting that you have?
Chairperson Wilcox – I didn’t say the next meeting, I said to the next available meeting is what I said to be worked out. We can’t continue now, Larry, it is 10:15. It’s late, we’re tired.
Mr. Fabbroni – I’m not talking about talking abut it here, I’m just saying procedurally why wouldn’t you just adjourn it to a date.
Mr. Kanter – You could if you so chose.
Chairperson Wilcox – I could if I so chose.
Mr. Kanter – We do want to talk about the scheduling of the next agenda so if you would permit Larry to stay while the Board talks about it, that would probably be a good way to do it.
Chairperson Wilcox – I have permission from the Board to adjourn 2 minutes ago.
The Board agreed to extend the meeting.
Chairperson Wilcox – Our next meeting is July 18.
Mr. Kanter – We do not have the first Tuesday meeting so it’s July 18th. Ithaca College who waited patiently in the lobby left at about quarter of 10 when they realized they weren’t going to get there. My recommendation to the Board, it’s up to you to decide, is to put Ithaca College first on that agenda.
Chairperson Wilcox – Sketch plan review?
Mr. Kanter – Sketch plan review. And do that and schedule, we have two or three other items that are pending for that meeting. Again, this could be a long discussion so my recommendation would be to try to schedule (inaudible or could it be Darwood?) for that July 18th meeting, but to put it at the end because we have these other actions that were already in that are tentatively scheduled. That’s my suggestion.
Chairperson Wilcox – Would the other two items, other than Ithaca College sketch plan based up what they already think they would take a sum total of half an hour?
Mr. Kanter – Probably more. Actually it’s three items, I apologize.
Chairperson Wilcox – Okay. Because I’d like to keep a nice two-hour block just to be safe to go the site plan.
Mr. Kanter – We’ve got a fairly simple Cornell grounds department facilities improvement plan out in the Precinct 7 area. We’ve got two special permits for things that were operating previously under use variances, which are now special permit uses under the new zoning.
Chairperson Wilcox – One is a bed and breakfast. What’s the other one?
Mr. Kanter – One is an equestrian facility on Trumansburg Road. Those two probably are fairly simple, quick items. The Cornell grounds facilities improvements, I’m not sure. It shouldn’t be that complicated, but…
Chairperson Wilcox – You never know with this Board.
Mr. Kanter – But again, when we consider rescheduling these things you also may want to consider a whole new date for Briarwood.
Board Member Conneman – What is the nature of the grounds consideration?
Mr. Kanter – It’s basically more of what’s going on out in the Precinct 7 area with construction, contracting staging…
Chairperson Wilcox – New building?
Mr. Kanter – No buildings just gravel staging construction areas storage.
Board Member Conneman _ I wanted to be sure it was not the Plantations, that was all.
Chairperson Wilcox – Larry, and you and your representatives be back on the 18th.
Mr. Fabbroni – Yes.
Board Member Howe – Should we be considering a second meeting in July? Sometimes we’ve met two weeks in a row if we felt there was too much.
Chairperson Wilcox – That’s an option to schedule a meeting for the 11th and take this up and possibly Ithaca College. That’s a possibility too.
Board Member Howe – I would rather spread things out over two nights if possible rather than try to cram.
Board Member Hoffmann – Yes, I felt we really crammed it this evening with the project and I don’t want to see it crammed again.
Chairperson Wilcox – I think we did pretty good.
Board Member Hoffmann – What purpose did it serve to hasten voting on the SEQR tonight?
Chairperson Wilcox – We didn’t hasten.
Board Member Hoffmann – I felt we did.
Chairperson Wilcox – I asked everybody if there was anything else to say, any other questions, and there was none.
Board Member Conneman – You made the resolution yourself.
Chairperson Wilcox – Yes, I did.
Mr. Kanter – So should we schedule the meeting?
Chairperson Wilcox – Is there a staff issue with doing the meeting on the 11th and then an 18th, assuming that the 11th is Ithaca College and this?
Mr. Kanter – Well, I know that Mike is off and he was involved in the Ithaca College project.
Chairperson Wilcox – But it is sketch plan review only.
Mr. Kanter – Yes, I don’t think that should be an issue.
Chairperson Wilcox – Shall we go with the sketch plan review and continuation of this. Is that reasonable?
Below are the minutes to the Planning Board's June 20 meeting, containing lengthy discussions and detailed analysis of the Briarwood II development. Ignoring concerns from the public and many unresolved environmental questions, the Planning Board rushed through its environmental assessment. In a 4-2 vote, the Planning Board determined that this 47-lot suburban development would have no significant environmental impact.
-----
Excerpted here are some of the Board's comments that reveal its dysfunctional and hasty decision-making process. Below these excerpts are the full minutes.
(Note: these minutes--the Town Clerk's transcription of the tape recording of the meeting--are in draft form. While the Town Clerk gave us assurance that nothing substantive had changed--only spelling errors and the like--it is possible that the minutes approved by the Planning Board differ from this text).
Chairperson Wilcox – What’s the pleasure of this Board? Well let me see, I’ll move the SEQR motion as drafted, how’s that.
Board Member Talty – I’ll second it.
Board Member Hoffmann – I feel we need time to discuss everything we have been presented with, both in paper and verbally.
Chairperson Wilcox – I have a motion and a second. Changes? You all set? I always know to look at the Town Attorney.
Ms. Brock – Alright....
...
Chairperson Wilcox - Okay. I have a motion and a second. I have Eva’s opinion that it’s too late in the evening to vote.
Board Member Hoffmann – And we don’t have time to discuss some of the things that we have heard and additional things we’ve heard both from the applicants and from the people in the audience, which I think are relevant.
Chairperson Wilcox – I think I have 4 votes.
Board Member Howe – Isn’t it true that a lot of the issues though can be dealt with in the subdivision approval?
Board Member Hoffmann – That’s what I don’t know and that’s why I don’t like to vote on it.
Chairperson Wilcox – I have a motion and second. Please raise your hand, all those in favor. Four. All those opposed. Two opposed. There are no abstentions. The motion is passed by a vote of four to two. We have made the determination that there is no significant environmental impact.
...
Chairperson Wilcox – Larry, anything else I can do for you?
...
Board Member Hoffmann – Yes, I felt we really crammed it this evening with the project and I don’t want to see it crammed again.
Chairperson Wilcox – I think we did pretty good.
Board Member Hoffmann – What purpose did it serve to hasten voting on the SEQR tonight?
Chairperson Wilcox – We didn’t hasten.
Board Member Hoffmann – I felt we did.
Chairperson Wilcox – I asked everybody if there was anything else to say, any other questions, and there was none.
Board Member Conneman – You made the resolution yourself.
Chairperson Wilcox – Yes, I did.
-----
[The Full Minutes for SEQR begin here]
SEQR
Briarwood 50-Lot Subdivision, Sanctuary Dr., Birchwood Dr. North, and Birchwood Dr
Chairperson Wilcox – Ladies and gentlemen of the audience, let me just fill you in a little bit on procedure here. Normally we would begin with the environmental review. Should this board make a negative determination of significant environmental impact, the application would be considered complete. We would then move on to the subdivision and open the public hearing and give you a chance to speak. It is my belief this evening that many of you are here and would like to probably provide this board with some input on environmental issues specifically drainage in that area and you may have some other concerns as well. So time permitting, and again, I don’t know how long this will take. We will give the applicant a chance to make their presentation. Please sit and listen. The board will have a chance to ask questions and should we get close to or near a vote on the environmental significance, we will then give the members of the public a chance to make a brief because I believe you all have something to say. Should we make that determination of negative significant environmental impact, we will then move to the public hearing. You will then have another chance to speak as part of the public hearing. So you will have the opportunity to speak twice this evening if you feel that it is important and you have something to say with the environmental review. Later on should we get to the subdivision, then your comments can be about the size of the lots or the connection of the roadways or other things, which have to do with the subdivision. So that is how we will proceed. Very good.
Larry Fabbroni, 1 Settlement Way
I am representing Rocco Lucente, who is in the audience this evening. I also have part of the design team. I have Erik Whitney, who did the stormwater modeling for this project and Bernie Carr, the Vice President of Terrestrial Environmental Systems, who did the wetlands delineation and has made recommendations as to different biofilters and is dealing with the Corps of Engineers and we are all collectively dealing with DEC on this project. So I will ask the two of them to present their respective parts of this as I go along.
I am happy to be here tonight, I hope, in a way that we think we have come with answers to questions we’ve discussed in the past with the board. Things that are of concern to the neighborhood and have had a lengthy and very positive interaction with the staff to come back with what we present to you tonight. The project, just a little history, I see one or two new faces here on the board and as the Town Attorney. Back in 1965 Rocco thought he was forward thinking and had a master plan for this area that would have seen 90 lots going in this area that we are considering tonight. Tonight this proposal is for 47 lots. The other three lots mentioned are the small addition to the Salem Drive Park, the large parcel adjacent to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the other wetland that we were very familiar with in the central part of this site. I also might mention that since the last time you sent me off to collaborate with Cornell, tonight we have the Associate Director and one of his staff here should you have some questions for them as things proceed as it relates to the area we are tending to donate to Cornell. I will speak more later on in my presentation about the maintenance agreement and how we propose to turn that over to Cornell and still assume responsibility for certain construction aspects of the drainage scheme that we proposed to you. But for the benefit of the public and everybody’s refreshment, I am going to get up now and speak from the map just briefly to describe the project.
The project again is 47 lots. Those who live in the area and not as familiar with the area, this Birchwood Drive that comes up from Salem Drive just shortly after you turn off of Hanshaw. This that we are proposing to rename Beechwood Drive at the suggestion of the Town because again, that 1965 master plan envisions this road encircling all around so it was currently named North Birchwood and Birchwood. We thought in time it would be less confusing to rename this northern segment into its own name. So the extension of that into a cul-de-sac with 12 lots on it is proposed in the center of the project. The extension of Sanctuary Drive and at the suggestion of the Town staff since we submitted this we would have Sanctuary Drive as the name of the street that went all the way through to this North Birchwood or Beechwood Drive and this short segment here that is the dead end would be the Lucente Way segment. All together again there are 47 lots, all which are above the minimum requirement for the R-15 zone. The thought coming back, the staff had a strong opinion that this connection through to North Birchwood was needed to have adequate circulation in the area considering the fact that we were not going to extend out a road to Salem Drive between the south-going…(not audible)…residences. The only thing that would remain up in that area is the grass path that exists along the Town’s utility right-of-way, which would be just relocated enough through a 20 foot strip to come out to the road and into the park area eventually. We have been over this with the Cornell people and they think that would be in keeping with whatever they eventually decide to do in extending a trail out from the existing trail system in the sanctuary.
Along with this project, a lot of discussion went on about pedestrian ways beyond that one that goes along the utilities. This project proposes to have essentially a walkway from the park, down the west side of this new road, along the north side of Beechwood Drive covered ditch, along the shoulder of existing Briarwood Drive and then along the new extension of Birchwood Drive. Initially it would be separate from the roadway itself behind a grassline ditch and then as we have less area to deal with in the curve area it would become more along the shoulder again, to come out to Sanctuary Woods. The thought was that Sapsucker Woods is the bus route and the park is another destination. Again, as the sanctuary evolves their plans over the years that pedestrian way could proceed to the north through an extensive series of walkways that are off road. So that was the rationale. The dead end being a low traffic area didn’t warrant the sidewalks as much as putting one on the existing Briarwood Drive.
The project will generate traffic. We did a traffic study not too long after we last saw you. I think it is fair to say that the results of that study verified that the traffic loads in the area are very modest, even for the development that has occurred up Muriel Street and Salem Drive. I presented my figures. We did this study in a period of time when classes were fully in session, the weather was good for that time of year, there was no snowstorms occurring on the day we did the study. I mean it’s a little bit of a tight walk to do a traffic study in Ithaca and have all the classes in session, not an exam period, not on some kind of a break by either Ithaca College or Cornell. So no none of those things existed at the time that we did that study. I estimated that the peak hour traffic was about 10%. I saw some data in what went out that a Town had done a subsequent study on Muriel and Salem Drive and said maybe 13 or 14%. If you study the numbers, you will see that the difference is probably in the standard deviation. So we are all sort of saying the same thing. I based some of my conclusions on an extensive study I did in the northeast back in the 1970s where the peak hour traffic was 9 to 10%. Even if you add and used the worst number I would tell you in all truth double these numbers and they wouldn’t have an impact on the intersections there. I hope you got a chance to look at some of that material. We sort of used a technique known as the shortest route and that is how I estimated how many people might come out at Salem Drive and how many come out at Sapsucker. People are pretty smart. There are no delays now, but if there happened to be 2 minute delays on Salem Drive then some more people would filter over to Sapsucker Woods because there are no delays there or vice versa. So it would sort of balance itself out over time. The new connection between Sanctuary Drive and North Birchwood was of some concern historically as we discussed it, but I think in the end people had chose to come through the neighborhood and go to the Sanctuary that way and vice versa. It will reduce the traffic on Salem Drive in one sense and it will add to it if other people come through. The net effect I’m trying to say would be zero because it is not a very convenient cut through. You have to go through a lot of turns and stops, which we will talk about. I made a suggestion that the North Birchwood to be Beechwood, Salem Drive intersection be a 3-way stop. It is currently just a stop coming out of North Birchwood. I know some of the materials said it was a 2-way stop. The confusing part of it is that Salem Drive turns directions and it is like a through road. There is no stop in either direction. I had a feeling it was dangerous to pedestrians, if nothing else the way it is configured. So if you had a 3-way stop you might not have people coming through, as quickly on Salem Drive and everyone would have a fair chance to assess who is coming from a different direction. It is a little confusing to new people. The people who live there are very familiar with one one-way stopping when you stop at the stop in the opposite direction not stopping at all, but that is not a good situation for the long term. We would entertain other all-way stops if it is felt to be necessary for the walkway as I described it at what would be Beechwood and Briarwood and Birchwood. That is pretty much at your discretion if that is what you feel you would like this project would provide it. There has also been some discussion of either colored pavement or some kind of raised pavement where the walkway crosses Beechwood and where it crosses Birchwood down at the other intersection. Either one of those of ideas. We certainly would like your feedback on either or, or none of those ideas as far as the walkway is concerned. That covers the pedestrian aspect of it.
The soils in the area are a perched water table. There are a lot of new people in the audience tonight. It is no secret to them that the water lays on the surface in a wet season. It doesn’t really percolate down through the ground. The notion that there is a water table that supports a wetland is not true. The water is down 20 feet below the surface in this particular area of the Town. So it is caused more by what you would call perched water table and a fragipan in the soil conditions. So the soil down about 2 or 3 feet is very dense and doesn’t let water pass through it either direction. So there are wetlands there, which I will let Bernie Carr speak more to his work and identifying those. We are preserving all the wetlands. There is some idea that a very extreme edge of the wetland here, less than 5,000 square feet, I would tell you, might get filled by virtue of building this road here. My intention was not to do that and the way that the profile of the road is developed there, the wetland would be beyond the embankment for the road there. So I thought I would make mention of that.
When my two associates are done with their presentations I will talk more about the maintenance agreement with Cornell and some of their understandings that we have with Cornell. We’re attempting to sort of bring together all the ideas. The ones that you have thrown out at us, the ones that staff has, that the DEC mandates and turn it into something constructive where in the end now after a lot of back and forth and constructive conversation, we are basically going to have these retention areas that act as biofilters and become wetlands that can support added wildlife habitat as opposed to just something we had to do because the State told us we had to do it. We have a good example of what you can do with what the Sanctuary did with their expansion. So the road you ride in from Route 13 you see some wetlands and similar types of facilities that we are proposing that they developed and they're all very positive in terms of their outcome and how people have received them as habitat for wildlife. I think the added circulation gives the Fire Department less problems in terms of getting in and around the area and actually enhances the existing access to different areas. It was the choice really of the staff that we not add as much to the Salem Drive Park as we had said in the past. By virtue of that more is as part of the donated area to Cornell.
This donation is one of the largest ever made in the Town of Ithaca. I hope you all realize that. It would add roughly 10% to the lands of the Lab of Ornithology. It is, I think, a great step forward in terms of our discussion and really the generosity of the developer and what he wants to accomplish here. In the twilight of his 50 years of work in the Town a lot of people have a lot of opinions they have to offer about Rocco, but he has lasted 50 years. He served the middle class pretty well in the Town of Ithaca and I think those things are worth noting in terms of his intentions at this time. He has not gotten any younger in these 4 years we have been perfecting this project and I think with those thoughts, the water system is one thing that I would mention and Dan can probably agree that there is a lot of looping that we are accomplishing with this project that will strengthen the whole system in terms of how water passes from the Christopher Circle pump station to the Sapsucker Woods tank and then flows back into the neighborhoods and provides fire protection. So we haven’t compromised that at all with these cul-de-sacs because the end of every cul-de-sac ends up in a water main connected either to the tank site or to another main line in the area. The sewer is more than sufficient in the area to serve things. Rocco and the Town had gotten the right to sewer a long time before the recent sewer agreements, but the sewer is all available, public sewer is available. So with that I would like Bernie Carr to come up and briefly talk to you about our conversations with the Corps of Engineers, DEC, his history with delineating the wetlands. Some comment about the UNA. I hope the materials we presented to you beat that to death well enough to know a mistake was made. I mean Cornell told us when we got into conversation with them that if you look at the 100 foot width left between the Sanctuary Drive development and the Northern edge of the Briarwood, you couldn’t really even consider it a wildlife corridor any more. So the notion that it is all connected is pretty weak. But Bernie did the bird the study as you might remember and has more knowledge in ecology than I can ever pretend to have. So let me ask him to come up.
Bernie Carr, Syracuse NY
I work for Terrestrial Environmental Specialist and we conducted a wetland delineation for Rocco Lucente back in the early 90s when he was first considering 12-unit subdivision. Subsequent to that wetland delineation there was a request from the Town that we redelineate the wetland since it had been 5 years previous. So we went back and redelineated the wetlands. They changed slightly over that 5-year period. Those wetlands were surveyed and added to a survey map that you have a copy of in the submission. Subsequently we delineated other wetlands north of Sanctuary Drive in association with the development of another master plan for the subdivision.
We have suggested several plantings for the biofilters and the infiltration trenches for the subdivision to try and add some natural plantings rather than just having a hard riprap surface. For example, any place where there is going to be rock riprap we would recommend willow species, willow waddles. So using these natural plantings we feel it has a much better improvement than a typical engineering design. Subsequent to these suggestions that we provided to Mr. Lucente, we have contacted the Army Corps of Engineers, which have jurisdiction over all wetlands in New York State. Basically our questions were two-fold. One whether or not the subdivision as planned would result in any jurisdiction on their part and whether the use of the wetland areas for the 100-year storms or for a 1-year storm would have any affect on the wetlands and the current condition that they are in.
We have sent a letter to the Corps of Engineers along with our delineation report, a complete copy of the drainage report and large scale plans for their review. We have also had discussions with the New York State DEC in regards to the new SPDES program in terms of water quality and water quantity. Basically it was their opinion that an extended review period for the stormwater plan be conducted and as long as good management controls are implemented during construction, they didn’t see any problem with the design as configured. Those are the basic items that we worked on for Mr. Lucente.
One other item. We also conducted a bird survey in 2003 and the purpose of that was to determine whether any endangered, threatened or rare bird species nested on Mr. Lucente’s land. Also there was a concern about whether Mr. Lucente’s land should have been included in the expanded Sapsucker Woods Unique Natural Area. One of the things we found was when the Unique Natural Area was reconfigured, they included Sanctuary Drive subdivision. So there were 10 or 15 homes that are right in the middle of this Unique Natural Area. I think it just surprised me that you would consider private single family homes in the middle of a Unique Natural Area and we had subsequent discussions with Tompkins County on why that was conducted and why they made that determination. It was our professional opinion that the area south of Sanctuary Drive shouldn’t have been included in the expanded Unique Natural Area. If you would look at the map that is provided by Tompkins County, you would note that there are many areas of forested areas north, east and west that are not in the Unique Natural Area. So it seemed like they expanded the Unique Natural Area only south on to Mr. Lucente’s property and didn’t include other lands that were contiguous to the Unique Natural Area. So they didn’t seem to have a really good reason for the expansion. I guess that is basically the items that I addressed.
Mr. Fabbroni – You will have a chance to ask questions, obviously, but I would like Erik to come up know. Erik is doing the stormwater modeling. With the new State regulations, there is no other alternative but modeling most things. This being a pretty complex project in that the drainage goes in many different directions we basically sought out one of the few experts in Ithaca on the subject.
Erik Whitney, 409 Auburn St
For a development of this sort, the State requires us to look at both the water quantity and the water quality issues. Where we looked at this site, we looked at the points where the water is currently flowing off the site. Those are generalized. You can see them in DP 1, DP 2, 3, 4, 5. Those are just an abbreviation for Design Point and that is where there is an existing flow coming off the site. Our mission was at each of these points, post development, after the proposed development goes in that the water flowing to those design points, to those areas, is less than or equal to a volume of the predeveloped rate of flow coming off and of a quality equal to that. We had several means of doing that and what we first looked at was putting in a number of large ponds to attenuate the volume. Those didn’t really fit the site well. They require taking down quite a few of the existing trees. So we got to looking at the two existing wetland areas and making use of those to impound temporarily and outlet over a 24 hour period the stormwater volumes.
In extensive talks with the staff and the DEC before using these wetlands, there is some interest in making sure or assuring that the runoff from the development and the new in impermeable areas added by the road roof was of a quality nature that wouldn’t disturb the wetlands as they are. So what was proposed and right now this is just in schematic on this map, but the staff has a little bit more detailed design, were a number of basically water quality biofilters, small ponds surrounded by an aquatic bench with plantings on the inflow channel and on the outflow channel a wet channel with also more plantings in them. Each of the prefiltrations or quality basins before the flow goes into the wetlands would contain what the State calls a water quality volumes plus it would contain the volume of the 1-year storm coming off the area it is proposed to serve. It would contain that volume and release it gradually over a 24-hour period into the wetland. Now as you see on the plans, both the wetland to the north have a 3 foot height berm, a gentle berm proposed to be constructed around them with an outlet that would regulate the flow over 24 hours after the storm out of those. I have the exact numbers here. I’m going to take a minute and look them up, but they are a typical one-year storm that we propose to use the southern wetland and surcharge it roughly over an area of 1.4 acres to a depth of 4 inches. That will be out-letted in a controlled fashion over 24 hours such that that temporary surcharge will not be present at the end of 24 hours. Most of the trees and standing vegetation there wouldn’t have wet feet for more than that 24-hour period. In the north area, for a similar one-year storm, we are looking at surcharging an area roughly 2.1 acres with 8 inches for a 24-hour storm. This would not only take care of the volume requirement for the new impermeable surface area added by the 47 lots, but it would also is large enough in volume to address all the other previous development along Sanctuary Drive and along Sapsucker Woods Road. Both on the Dryden side and on the Ithaca side because there are some previous flow problems with quantity coming off that site. So we looked to address some of the existing problems as well as the additional flows created by the impermeable surface area added by the new proposed development.
For each and every one of the design points that you see up here, the model posted all the flows both in rate of runoff were less than or equal to the current existing runoff and with the flows that were coming out of the wetlands that were impounded at the design point one here in the northern wetland, the design point 3 in the wetland you see in the middle, they were very substantially less than the existing flows now because of the substantial volume that we were able to retain in those. It is our understanding from DEC if the Corps of Engineers gives us the jurisdiction and okay to do that, then they are not going to have any problem with us using the existing wetlands to provide the quantity control in lieu of establishing large ponds to do such as long as we provide the quality control going into those wetlands before hand.
There are two points here which basically take the area tributary to the Beechwood Drive, which by means of the grades and topography we couldn’t slow, otherwise we would have to flow uphill to get to the other means of treatment. Along those roads were proposed what we call a dry swale. It is an underdrain swale with 3 feet of filtering material and below that will be a 15 inch pipe bedded in lots of uniform size stone to provide ample void volume to pond or store the water temporarily underground and the catch basins where you normally along a roadside pipeline would have outlets in them to control…(not audible)…of some sort designed to control the outlet flow from that rate to the predeveloped rate of runoff from that area. That is the case for the south-most leg of Birchwood Drive for just a short area. You see here in design point 4 for about an acre our total and what you see here for about two acres total along the cul-de-sac proposed at Beechwood.
So all and all, the post development runoff from the total site is attenuated quite a bit from the existing by what we propose. There are two ponds on the north that we propose to run into wetland that in talks with Larry with the Sanctuary. They had some…they favored a system where we might be able to bring the…because of the topography we could actually bring those along the east boundary where the back lots ditch across lot 58, 59 and 61 to the only traditional pond we have located on the site because there was no wetland impoundment to regulate the quantity. So what we are looking at is upsizing this pond slightly to accommodate these two ponds and putting in back lots grass ditch line that would bring this flow along the eastern or western boundary down in the back lot 61 into the main pond there.
Mr. Fabbroni – The net result of that is that we would be able to eliminate those two quality ponds because they would be incorporated into the first chamber in that larger facility.
Let me just finish up here on a couple of key points. One is that Cornell has reviewed the standard maintenance agreement of the Town and they’re comfortable with that maintenance agreement. What we are anticipating right now is that the developer would turn over all of that land to Cornell once we got through these approvals and in turn then we would have a license that we would review with the three of us basically, but the developer would have a license back to go into Cornell lands and construct these facilities and have certain maintenance responsibilities during the construction period so that in the same way that the Town wants the facility turned over complete for the future, Cornell wants the facility complete to maintain. So all that has been talked about in concept and generally speaking that is what we have been talking about. That we would donate all the land to them right off the bat. We would get a license back to enter the land and satisfy our obligations that come out of this approval. That generally speaking we are expecting…we were constructing we would be maintaining that facility for 3 years or so because the construction period is the period when it is most likely to need maintenance.
Again we feel in this flat terrain the amount of erosion we have seen over the last 25 years and to come now that we are doing it in a more controlled fashion is going to be pretty minimal. If we are careful with our drainage and erosion plan, we shouldn’t leave Cornell a lot of maintenance and they will more use these as ecological features to their overall plan, these areas. So in concept, that pretty much what we bring to you tonight. There were some other considerations. There was one lot where the wetland pokes into the back of it. We would be giving you a conservation easement to go along…that would go along with any deed that got transferred on that lot. We’ve preserved the back end of three lots on Briarwood in a similar fashion and that has been successful for the last 17 years so something similar to that conservation easement that we arranged with the Corps of Engineers back then what we would propose for that one lot. Again, we have no problem with the T-intersection up at Sanctuary Drive and what would be then just the dead end would be the Lucente Way and Sanctuary Drive would carry through.
I think that basically the only question I have as we get down the line, I had some questions when we get into the subdivision discussion about just one item in the proposed resolution. Thank you.
Chairperson Wilcox – All set? Thank you. I think what I would suggest is that the two gentlemen come up and join you, one of you bring a chair. That way we have all three available because I’m sure we’ll have questions for all three of you back and forth and you can just in some way figure out how to move the microphone back and forth so we can pick you up. Eva, we’ll let you go first.
Board Member Hoffmann – Thank you. I have a few questions to start with just to clarify what Mr. Whitney just talked about using that map that is up there. I was looking at the map that we were provided with and some of those ponds look like they are in different locations and they are of different configurations than what we have on this map, which is called the Master Plan.
Mr. Fabbroni – What you have is the proposal. What that map depicts is a feature for a drainage area. What you have and the information on that map is the most current information.
Board Member Hoffmann – Oh, so that one is not updated that you just showed?
Mr. Fabbroni – That is correct. That was more to show you where the different drainage areas are. Those heavy lines that separate the different drain carries are exactly the same, but the exact design is what you are looking at.
Board Member Hoffmann – Okay, so where there is a very large circular pond indicated just north of the Salem Drive Park. It shows just one big pond there, but here on our map it shows one big one and right east of it a small one. Is that what we see here?
Mr. Fabbroni – That is the preliminary design. What you are looking at is the more accurate map.
Board Member Hoffmann – Also there is the pond, which is here located in the corner of lot 72, looks like it has been moved to between lots 70 and 67.
Mr. Fabbroni – These shown on the subdivision map are the same thing you are looking at. We just brought that map because we thought it would be the easiest to understand how the area is split up into many different drainage areas.
Board Member Hoffmann – But I also have another question. Mr. Whitney explained to us about the low berm, three-foot high berm, along the western boundary of the wetland to the north. I can see those lines there, but then there are some similar lines, which look like they are in the back yards of the houses that are built on the east side of Briarwood Drive and my question is, is that berm going to be built across the back yards of those people who already live there because they don’t exist now I take it.
Mr. Fabbroni – They are in back of the homes that exist there. That is correct.
Board Member Hoffmann – And they will be built on the land that is owned by the people who live in those houses?
Mr. Fabbroni – Mr. Lucente owns all of those lots. He owns all of that.
Board Member Hoffmann – Oh. Those are all rentals?
Mr. Fabbroni – That is correct.
Chairperson Wilcox – And they are not part of this subdivision.
Mr. Fabbroni – That is correct.
Board Member Hoffmann – Right, but they are something new that is going to be built on something that was part of an earlier subdivision then, which has puzzled me a little bit. Okay. So that is clarified then. Thank you.
Chairperson Wilcox – Who wants to go next? George?
Board Member Conneman – Larry, I wondered if you could clarify. I understand that the Environmental Review Committee looked at this and raised some questions about some lots that seem to be very adjacent to wetlands, 58, 71, 72, and 53. Do you want to com on that?
Mr. Fabbroni – The drainage and erosion plan will have a full perimeter of silt fence to protect the boundaries of those lots that are being developed against any intrusion of any erosion into the wetland. What Eric was describing where we would eliminate those two ponds is in the same area. So once we saw that concern we started talking amongst ourselves and then more recently with Cornell about eliminating those. So we are actually talking about having a ditch along that boundary that would bring the runoff from those developed lots back to the larger pond that Eva was just speaking of earlier. I could show you on the map a little bit.
Board Member Conneman – Could you do that?
Mr. Fabbroni – They are talking about these three lots most north here. So not only are we looking at eliminating these quality ponds that were in that same area of concern, but putting a drainage ditch along the perimeter of these lots and back to where we would handle the quality and the quantity aspects in this facility here.
Board Member Conneman – An open ditch I would assume?
Mr. Fabbroni – Yes.
Board Member Conneman – Okay. All right.
Board Member Hoffmann – There is also lot 53, which is…
Mr. Fabbroni – Lot 53 is the one I mentioned we would have the conservation easement on that area of the lot that was delineated as a wetland. That lot is 200 feet deep in terms of the depth.
Board Member Thayer – It sounds like they have done their homework as far as the drainage goes, but I would like to hear it from Dan as to how he feels about it and also the public has some problems that already exist up there and will these be ratified with this.
Chairperson Wilcox – He’s looking at you.
Mr. Walker – Yeah. In the whole area of Salem Drive, Maplewood, Birchwood, Pinewood, there has been a lot of excess water coming down because over the years the swamp was drained and it means the water has to go some place. This will reduce the amount of water that flows through those ditches in the peak flows and help to reduce the flooding problems that do occur down there now.
Board Member Thayer – So you are pretty satisfied with the way with the way it is working out?
Mr. Walker – Yes. Basically they are going to hold a lot of that water that flows through immediately during the storm, is going to be gradually released. So it will still flow through the same ditches, but over a longer period of time and at a very reduced flow rate.
Board Member Thayer – I expect that some of the public is here because of some drainage problems and I was just wondering about that.
Mr. Walker – Well, the whole area is very wet and very flat. The nature of the wetland is that the water drains off very slowly from right now. There is a long-term continuous flow that happens in a lot of the drainage patterns up there. That long-term flow won’t be changed. It will still occur over a long period of time and that is how the drainage system has been designed and we would be making some improvements to correct some problems where we can.
Board Member Mitrano – Fred, I had a question of the gentleman from Syracuse. I just wanted to see if I understood well what you were saying. You said when you initially did your assessment, was it this row of houses that was of some curiosity?
Mr. Carr – No. It was to the north. In terms of the unique natural area, that was included in the unique natural area. Those homes.
Board Member Mitrano – So what was your assessment? That maybe at that time that wasn’t such a good decision or that in subsequent research you understood better why that decision had been made.
Mr. Carr – I never really fully understood why it was made. At one point Mr. Wesley had told Mr. Fabbroni that if he had known that Sanctuary Drive had been built, he wouldn’t have included the area south of Sanctuary Drive in the unique natural area. Well, our first assessment was, well why would it be considered unique so we did a breeding bird survey and we followed common techniques used in the field. We also did a winter nest survey just to see if there were any raptor nests in the vicinity. So we walked that thoroughly. Then we did a breeding bird survey in that area. Basically what we found was common species that are found in the area. Breeding throughout this property. So there wasn’t anything that would say…like for example a red-shouldered hawk or a cooper’s hawk of special concern that was nesting in there that would make it a unique area.
Board Member Mitrano – So at this point, it doesn’t demonstrate any deleterious affect on more rare species?
Mr. Carr – That is correct.
Mr. Fabbroni – In addition to that, the Sanctuary people have had the benefit of seeing that bird study and they agree with how it was done and pretty much they affirm what was in it.
Board Member Mitrano – Thank you.
Board Member Howe – You probably made this very clear, but I was just curious about the south wetlands. Is that also being donated? Okay. Then I think I followed where you said the sidewalk was going to be accepted. Did you say that there was also going to be a sidewalk out Sanctuary Drive?
Mr. Fabbroni – No.
Board Member Howe – Okay. Just a loop around then?
Mr. Fabbroni – From the park down to Birchwood and then out to Sapsucker Woods Road.
Chairperson Wilcox – Eva, go ahead.
Board Member Hoffmann – Where do the buses go? The public buses. Where do they go in this area, which roads do they use?
Mr. Fabbroni – They go down Sanctuary and Hanshaw. I think…
Chairperson Wilcox – I doubt they go down Sanctuary.
Mr. Fabbroni – I’m sorry. They go Sapsucker Woods Road and Hanshaw and I think there are a certain number of runs up Salem Drive and around Muriel Street during the day. I’m looking at the staff.
Mr. Kanter – I think…I don’t know first hand, but I’ve heard people say it does go down Muriel and over to Salem. So I believe that is correct.
Mr. Fabbroni – I think that is during the peak time. It’s not every hour that they go up all they way into the subdivision there. The regular run that runs every hour comes down Sapsucker Woods Road and Hanshaw.
Board Member Hoffmann – Because it seems to me that when one looks at sidewalks and where they are, one should see that they connect up with a public transportation system. I had a question about the wetlands and the Lab of Ornithology. There was a very brief statement in the papers we got from somebody at the Lab of Ornithology saying that it looks good and things are moving along, but have they actually indicated that they want to accept these donations.
Mr. Fabbroni – Yes.
Board Member Hoffmann – Is there any letter to that affect that you have to show us?
Mr. Fabbroni – I don’t have a letter, but I have a person here who could probably tell you.
Board Member Hoffmann – Well, it would be good to hear from that person then, I think, but there might be other questions before then.
Board Member Talty – I have a question.
Chairperson Wilcox – Kevin.
Board Member Talty – With the slower disbursement of water, is there an issue with any type of mosquito? Negative impact on the area? It seems to me there would be more standing water for a greater period of time, even though it is going slowly.
Mr. Fabbroni – Well, there will be, but if you consider the nature of the whole area already, I think the fair answer is that it is not going to be a noticeable difference. There are mosquitoes there and I’ll tell you that first hand.
Board Member Talty – I was just wondering with more water would it impact the breeding of the mosquito or would it be more breeding, I should say.
Mr. Fabbroni – Probably some, but the area east of Briarwood, for instance, now is under water all the time in one area. There are areas up in the northern area that are under water all the time. So again, yeah, there will be a little more, but its not going to be like there isn’t any and then suddenly people are going to notice it. In a wet year there is a lot of mosquito breeding there.
Board Member Talty – Okay.
Board Member Hoffmann – I have a question about a technical thing that was in papers and you talked about, but I still didn’t understand what it is. Could someone explain what a dry swale is?
Mr. Whitney – A dry swale is a gentle grassed ditch, which has underneath it permeable material, gravel, with a layer of organic on top as like a biofilter, topsoil and below that is an underdrain system, a perforated pipe, which will when the water enters the swale and the swale is at a gradual enough slope, and there are occasional check dams along this swale, raised areas such that a flow from a one year event will percolate down through the porous material and through the top soil as an organic filter and eventually into the collection pipe. Where the dry swale is proposed for this subdivision, we have added a feature for storage, basically a uniform size stone and the void volume they are in and the 15 inch diameter pipe are such that we can store the entire runoff from the one year storm that will perk down through that to meet the, what the State calls the Channel Protection Vine, or the CPV, which they require to retain an outlet over a 24 hour period. So there will be structures in the catch basins and the roadside drainage there that will facilitate that 24-hour drainage period for the material that has filtered down through the bottom of that dry swale and the organic filter on top.
Board Member Hoffmann – Okay. Let me try to say it again and see if I understood. They are gentle swales with grass in them, which will presumably carry some of the water if it comes really fast slowly along, but at the same time some of that water is percolating down through the soil into a pipe that leads it away at a controlled rate. But then you also having something additional to help store that water, are those the ponds?
Mr. Whitney – This is a case where we couldn’t get a pond in and we’re along side a pond and there is no area for the pond. So essentially we put a uniform size material stone in the ground and that is above the line of the underdrain outlet and what happens is all the voids between those stones fill up. It is underground so you can’t see it. Picture marbles in a jar and then pouring a glass of water in that jar. There is substantial volume between the marbles. This is the same concept with the clean stone. The entire volume for the runoff of a one year storm is stored between the uniform stone in the void volume, about 40% of the volume of the total storm flow is roughly is available for water storage if the stone size is uniform material.
Board Member Hoffmann – Okay. I think I am getting.
Chairperson Wilcox – Eric, while you have the microphone, tell me about DECs role right now or clarify DECs role. You mentioned DECs role. Here is my take. You have proposed to DEC a rather unique way of dealing with stormwater runoff. Though you put a positive spin on it in your presentation, my take is DEC has not approved it and it could be 30 days, 60 days, 90 days before DEC comes back and says either this is acceptable or its not. How does that work?
Mr. Whitney – Yeah, we have talked with both region 8 representative, Paula Smith, and region 7 representative, Ellen Hawn, and both of them are the same opinion. Basically if the Corp of Engineers gives us permission in the form of having the jurisdiction to do this in those wetlands, use them for temporary quantity attenuation and we can meet DECs requirement to attenuate the quantity of the flows coming off the site to that of existing or less than. DEC won’t have any problem with it if the Corp of Engineers goes along with that. The lady from region 8, Paula Smith, indicated that she had seen such done and although it had taken a long time to deal with the Corp of Engineers to get that, she had seen it done. The lady from region 7 indicated that she hadn’t seen it done in region 7.
Mr. Carr – I would like to say one thing. In a typical subdivision what we see is that the trees are cleared and these large detention ponds are built to hold a 100-year storm event. In this particular case they are using smaller ponds and using the existing wetland. I think it is much preferable to upland forested buffer or border rather than making these huge detention ponds that you see all over the landscape. So it is my professional opinion that you have a better product by keeping the woods as intact as possible and keeping just those one-year storm event ponds built on the site.
Chairperson Wilcox – The issue I am struggling with is, I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself here, the issue I’m struggling with is should we complete our environmental review, what whoever, whether it is the Army Corp of Engineers or DEC comes back and says no this doesn’t work. Obviously you would have to change the stormwater detention plans. My immediate concern is that I am being asked to decide whether there are significant environmental impacts with a system, which hasn’t been approved. That is the issue that I am struggling with right now myself that we really don’t know whether, or at least I don’t know, I shouldn’t say we, I don’t know yet whether they system will be approved and whether it has the potential to work. Yes I have heard Dan, thank you very much, and I appreciate your professional opinion and I appreciate the professional opinion of the gentleman out there. I would also like to have more professional opinion, frankly, not that I am discounting anybody who is here.
Mr. Walker – Well, you have to understand a little bit of the State’s philosophy on their general permit for stormwater management on construction sites and subdivisions. They have the standard design book, which basically includes a couple dozen practices that are tried and true and one of the main practices for stormwater detention are the large ponds. So if you do everything directly by the book, which are good measures…
Chairperson Wilcox – You get a signature.
Mr. Walker – And it is easy for them to review it because they look in the book and its fine, but these are somewhat unique sighted to the sites solutions. They are still storing a volume of water. The main environmental impact could be the impact on the vegetation in the wetlands and I believe that has been addressed to show the short duration of flooding is not going to adversely impact them. Because it is not in the standard book, they can’t just automatically take their rubber stamp and say okay you did it the right way. That is why they have up to a 60-day review period for site-specific designs. Now they may very well say this is not in the book, not accept it and send it back. Then there will have to be a significant amount of discussion with them to show that the engineering is good and will work. The big pond practice, you dig out a 3 acre pond and you take all the water from the site, could work up there, but you would take down all the trees and if you had to stay out of the wetland, you would lose lots, too. But the way the topography is up there, its distributed so you can’t get all the water running one place as shown on the watershed map. There are from outlets from this lot that goes up north onto Salem Drive and there are outlets that go down further south onto Birchwood. So as flat as it is, the water can’t go all in one place. So you could build 3 or 4 larger ponds in there that are standard, but you would probably do more damage to the trees in the area than you would with the proposed methods.
Chairperson Wilcox – Thank you.
Mr. Fabbroni – That was our stance, Fred. That we could do what would amount to the 5 day review route for almost all of this project, but it would be more damaging to the woods. So our first choice was to do what made the most sense to everybody and would accomplish the objective of going above and beyond what just this project required. In other words, deal with some of the existing problem as well by the way we are going. And we had the observation and opinion of a lot of different people that because of the way the wetland developed and the way trees are that this temporary inundation is not going to have any impact on the quality of the wetland. So we have done a lot of work with the biofilters and we have talked to Cornell and they want to be involved in the final selection of plantings for the aquatic shelves and there are a lot of positive things. We have met with DEC. Once we got to the point of having the Corp being the end of the road, Bernie talked to the Corp. We don’t have a signed letter back, but we have already submitted to the Corp what you are looking at to get that letter back. So I think we brought it to the point where we could come to you and discuss preliminary approval. I mean we still didn’t know what the board thought about the project and the layout and everything. There is a lot. You can tell from the resolution that is offered that there is a lot of design that has to be perfected now to submit to the State for the 60-day review. When would we talk to you? Before we ever talked to you and got some discussion and some affirmation of the project. It’s a little bit of a chicken and egg think. I think what I am trying to say is that we have done a lot of work in the 3 or 4 last months to answer your question to our satisfaction that we are going on a positive route and there isn’t some dead end. We have a verbal from the Corp at this point, but they have to see the materials and study them and do their due diligence before we get the letter back.
Chairperson Wilcox – You have a gentleman from the Lab of Ornithology with you? Questions?
Board Member Howe – Just tell me the benefit of the southern wetland since its not contiguous and maybe just speak in general to your support.
Scott Sutcliffe, Associate Director of the Lab of Ornithology
I maybe should start by saying we first approached Mr. Lucente about 15 years ago about adding the property that is to the north to the Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary and we went back and forth for many years on that. When Larry first came forward with the plan a few years ago, several of us from the lab met with him, walked in the field, looked at the property and then suggested that the wetlands property in total be given to the Lab of O. Of course I would like the whole property, but that is not possible. And so to delineate the wetlands we looked at the wetlands sections that were delineated and said we would like to accept those as an addition to the sanctuary. We walked the property several times. We met with Larry many times and we would really like to make this collaboration between Larry and his and the Lab of O so they are in a sense designing the wetland sedimentation basin in the same manner that we design the new wetlands that are to the north of the new building at the Lab of Ornithology. They both act as buffers and maintain water levels. They also act as environmental purifiers if you will, cleaning the water before it moves downstream. We have found that the similar designs we have placed in the Sanctuary, the new designs, are working very well to date. They are only 3 years old and we would like to have final say of what they plant and how they plant in these new wetlands that they are producing. Does that answer your question, Rod?
Board Member Howe – Yeah. I mean how would you use…would you actively use this…would there be access to the southern wetlands or are you just…?
Mr. Sutcliffe – Yes. We have, as Larry has designed, the Lab of O has two access points to that wetland. We don’t know how we will manage it. We have already talked about possibly putting an observation platform in the middle of it or something like that, but we really haven’t thought that far ahead. As far as the northern piece of the property goes, that is contiguous to our existing 100+ acres on the west side of the road and I imagine that in a fairly short order we will connect our trail system, which is contiguous to that piece right into that new piece, but we haven’t designed trails as of yet or boardwalks.
Board Member Mitrano – I wanted to go back to what you were referring to, Fred, is there technically a procedural confusion that we have here or is it more of a matter of curiosity given the particular design that the applicants have applied to this wetland? In other words, are we meeting before there is a designation by the DEC in such a way that it does leave us in abeyances to how and whether we should decide? And maybe the Town Attorney would know given her expertise in environmental law.
Ms. Brock – Well, you can do your SEQR on the proposed project so it would be on the project as it has been described tonight. If for some reason either the Army Corp of Engineer or DEC decline to give their approval and they need to modify the project, then that modification would need to come back to you and you would have to do another SEQR review looking at the project as it is presented to you in a modified form.
Board Member Mitrano – In another words, may I make the assumption that the applicant has gone forward notwithstanding the fact that we do not have a determination from the Corp or the DEC because they want to get started on the project, but our determination this evening is subject to those determinations.
Ms. Brock – Both the SEQR determination and if you make a determination on the preliminary subdivision approval that would also need to come back to you for modification as well because the project has changed.
Board Member Mitrano – But you would therefore recommend that we just go ahead and proceed this evening rather than waiting for any determination before we make any decision whatsoever.
Ms. Brock – Well, you can legally go ahead, whether you want to or not is really your decision.
Board Member Mitrano – Very good.
Mr. Fabbroni – We have to come back for final for one thing and there are other things in the resolution as far as Health Department approvals and whatever. So in the best set of circumstances 60 to 75 days is going to take care of all that stuff and we are going to know a lot more at that point, but its not like you sent us off to do something that is beyond modification at that point.
Board Member Mitrano – No. I understand. I just wanted to have a clarification as a procedural matter. So is the assumption correct that you have come forward not withstanding the fact that we don’t have determinations from these offices because we want to proceed with development in knowing that there may have to be modifications if determinations are such that would require them before final site plan approval.
Mr. Fabbroni – The simple answer to that is yes. The point you give preliminary approval then a lot of expense is incurred to perfect the design and that is sort of the thought that there ought to be some indication of what you feel about the project before we go to that next level of doing final designs.
Board Member Mitrano – So fair enough. You are willing to take the risk.
Mr. Fabbroni – Excuse me?
Chairperson Wilcox – You are taking the risk that the DEC/Army Corp will provide you with the permits you need.
Mr. Fabbroni – That is correct.
Chairperson Wilcox – You are assuming that risk.
Mr. Carr – I would like to address that question. Generally under the SEQR process and preliminary site plan approval, SEQR is complied with and preliminary site plan approval is received by the Town prior to the preparation of the documents for SPDES, too. So that is generally the last thing that is done in the development plans for any subdivision or commercial enterprise in New York State. It is typical that the approval from the DEC for the stormwater is the last thing that is done. I think that you are in order to follow preliminary site plan approval for what has been proposed.
Mr. Kanter – The only difference here is that we are dealing with jurisdictional wetlands, not DEC jurisdictional, but Corp of Engineers jurisdiction unless the recent Supreme Court case changes that.
Board Member Conneman – Larry, let me ask the question a different way. You are going to do nothing on that property until you get approval from…?
Mr. Fabbroni – That is correct.
Board Member Conneman – 60 days from now nothing has happened unless, in fact, you get those approvals.
Chairperson Wilcox – He is not going to have our approval.
Board Member Conneman – But if you had our approvals, even that and then it turns…
Mr. Fabbroni – We couldn’t. We have to have that approval from the State or they can fine us $25,000 a day is the penalty, even if we wanted to do something.
Ms. Brock – And even if they were to get preliminary and final subdivision approval at some point, they still could not begin to do anything on the property until all the conditions of the final subdivision approval are met. They won’t be able to get a building permit from the Town until all of the necessary conditions have been met.
Board Member Howe – Are we still thinking we are getting to Ithaca College? I see they are still out there.
Board Member Mitrano – I agree.
Chairperson Wilcox – Can we get through the environmental review, potentially and then…
Board Member Howe – Are you going to open that up to…?
Chairperson Wilcox – Yeah. I’m going to give the public a chance to speak.
Board Member Howe – I imagine a lot of people are going to speak. Do you still think we are going to get to Ithaca College?
Chairperson Wilcox – I expect that a lot of people are going to speak, but I will try to keep their comments to a minute or two.
Board Member Talty – I think what Rod is saying it might be more of a courtesy to go out and advise them.
Chairperson Wilcox – Yeah. I went out before and they are aware of the situation.
Mr. Kanter – Do you want me to go follow up and say that it is not looking good?
Chairperson Wilcox – Yeah. When I went out before I advised them that we were running a little long. Another option by the way, not that the applicant and the agents want to hear it, we could proceed through the environmental review, either accepting that there is no significant environmental impact or making a determination that there is. Assuming that we made the determination that there isn’t, we could then reschedule the public hearing for another meeting and then go through the sketch plan for IC since that should not take a long time.
Board Member Howe – Although, a lot of people…
Chairperson Wilcox – I understand. Let’s…on the other hand it’s getting late. They may want to go home and come back and do a public hearing at 7:30 or 8:00 p.m., not a public hearing at 9:30, quarter to 10. So having said that, the gentleman from the Lab of Ornithology is up here. Do we have any additional questions for him?
Board Member Howe – He answered my questions.
Ms. Brock – This really isn’t a legal question, but I just wanted to make sure that I heard you correctly that the type of stormwater facilities being proposed here in terms of these four bays and using the wetlands to store the water, that is actually the type of system that the Lab of Ornithology built and is using. Is that correct?
Mr. Sutcliffe – I can’t say that exactly because I haven’t seen their final plans, but as we talked and collaborated to date, we are moving along that line. So, no, I haven’t seen their final plans, but what we have talked about is a plan similar to what we have done to the north of the new lab.
Mr. Fabbroni – That would be the four bays, is what he was talking about earlier. The four bays, as we are proposing with the aquatic bench and the plantings before and after are almost identical to what they did up there. The stormwater retention for the quantity is sort of the sticking point we are talking about. We can either build the second chamber for that wherever we had one of those four bays or we can use the wetland, as it is well suited for the temporary stormwater retention as long as we build the dykes outside of the wetland. That is what our understanding is with the Corp. As long as we build these dykes outside of the delineated wetland then we can use that area for temporary inundation and as we get that word back, you will have that in writing before we do any final approvals or anything. In the mean time we will work out a more collaborative planting plan. The Lab of Ornithology was just concerned that whatever plantings we do are compatible with the plantings that they have done. That we don’t end up with one species of plantings somehow being injurious to whatever they have already. So that would be more native plantings is what we are talking about tonight.
Board Member Hoffmann – One more thing, in the second part of the environmental assessment form on page 1 at the bottom, it talks about whether the action would result in a physical change to the project site and it says, “the amount of the disturbance of the land is based on the assumption that many of the parcels would not be completely converted to lawns, but would retain some woodland in the backyards. The applicant anticipates that at least 25 feet of woodland would be retained on lots with 150 foot depth, which is the minimum depths size allowed, and greater for lots with longer depth.” Now is there any way to guarantee that this will happen. That there will not in fact be most of the trees cut down in the backyards and converted to lawn.
Mr. Fabbroni – I don’t know if we’ve ever come up with a way to guarantee that, but certainly if you put that in your resolution as what the presumption of your action is, it speaks for itself. I mean that is a conversation that Susan and I had as far as what is realistic in terms of the building site and the part of the lot that doesn’t need to be disturbed to carry out that program and still have some lawn around the house. So that is where that all came from. It is a best estimate and it is something that we have to follow through on as a commitment back to you.
Board Member Hoffmann – Well, I don’t like to work with assumptions like that if I don’t have to and so I think if it would be possible to build in some kind of…I don’t know if an easement would be the right thing in a case like this, but some way of protecting the woodlands in people’s backyards from being converted into lawns.
Mr. Walker – We have put deed restrictions on lots in other subdivisions. Saponi Meadows we put a deed restriction that they couldn’t disturb 50 feet next to the stream in the back of the lots. So we can actually have that drawn into the deed for each lot and have the restrictive covenant. Just like our zoning has setbacks from side yard and rear yard setbacks. It’s the same type of line and then as people come in for building permits we enforce that. Now, will that guarantee that nobody is going to go out there at midnight with a chainsaw and cut the trees down? No, but at least the people know about it and it becomes an enforcement issue for the Town.
Board Member Hoffmann – The reason I think it is important is to protect the wetland, which is something that we have been trying to do. So if that could be built into our resolution…
Ms. Ritter – Eva, are you mostly concerned, then, about lots that have backyards that abut the wetlands more so than another property behind them?
Board Member Hoffmann – I am mostly concerned about the wetland and I think we have more reason to do it when it comes to the wetland.
Ms. Ritter – Just wanted clarification. Okay.
Board Member Hoffmann – But if there is a good reason to do it other places, too, because of the drainage problems in this area, maybe we should consider that as well because the trees certainly help to the water from running.
Mr. Fabbroni – You could specify a certain diameter tree that had to be left.
Chairperson Wilcox – Or a buffer, 25 foot zone or something like that. The public has been very, very patient and I say we give them a chance to speak.
Board Member Thayer – Good idea.
Chairperson Wilcox – Ladies and Gentlemen, you have been very quiet and very patient, and we appreciate it. I know it is getting late and as I said before, this is not the public hearing, but it is an opportunity to provide your comments on the environmental review. Raise your hand, I will call on you. We ask that you give us your name and address. Keep your remarks relative short and to the point and we would be most interested to hear what you have to say this evening.
Andrew Houtenville, 116 Pinewood Pl
I have two concerns, stemming primarily from the increase in traffic on Birchwood North that are implied with the connection and with the development of the cul-de-sac. The intersection of Salem and Birchwood North, as Mr. Fabbroni had mentioned, would need serious consideration. A 3-way stop sign would likely be needed if this was approved. I have a consideration of the driveways that are on that area and the increase in traffic. My second concern, based on the traffic flow, is increase…is the pedestrian traffic to Salem Park, which was addressed also by Mr. Fabbroni. He was incorrect that there is a 31 bus that travels hourly to the area and now the new 44 and 45 bus travel to down Salem Drive on weekends. So there is a heavy degree of traffic. That said, people are not going to take the bus to get to Salem Park. Salem Park is populated by children. They will take the bus to get to the new loop that the Ornithology Lab would be putting in and that raises my concern with if there is a trailhead put in towards Salem Drive that there would be parking issues with that regard and what kind of parking issues does this create in the neighborhood.
I am concerned about the fact that there is a 45-degree turn driving directly towards the park. So as individuals travel west on Sanctuary Drive, they are traveling directly towards the park and there is a 45-degree turn. Living near the 2 45 degree turns on Salem Drive, while people are very nice, people travel fast. That is my primary concern. I have two young children that will travel to that park and the population…the traffic of pedestrians to that park is not only from the proposed area, but of the existing area of Salem Drive, Birchwood, Sapsucker, Briarwood, Maplewood and so forth. So there is a real concern over traffic.
I only have one comment regarding the wildlife issues. A statement was made that the wildlife corridor, the concept that the wildlife corridor is laughable. I have no idea why that is an issue, but I think the reason why it is laughable, if it’s not the width. I have no idea about the regulations of a width of a wildlife corridor between the two natural areas, but it’s a laugh because people use that. Vehicles use that as a traffic area and it has been basically decimated by vehicular traffic. Thank you.
Janet Howe, 109 Birchwood Dr
I am a walker and I walk that area several times a week for exercise. I know coming along Pinewood there is drainage, like an open sleuths box extending from Briarwood down to Pinewood that always has water running it. It is open. There is nothing covering it. It is just a wooden box about 2 feet wide. Where the water goes, I think now, they did some pipe work under the road and I think that is where it goes. I would also like to say that behind our house they’re on a rise, but down at the foot of the hill there is always a damp spot and often an creek running through there. Every time more houses have been added up Birchwood North, there has been more water coming down there. I don’t know where that comes from. I am glad to hear that all of this may be controlled by the new plans and storm sewers and I hope they will be effective for the existing area that is there.
Chairperson Wilcox – Thank you, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.
Millicent Clarke-Maynard, 111 Birchwood Dr
I basically have two real concerns. I am not opposed to people spending money to build whatever they want to build. On the other hand, I have lived in the neighborhood on Birchwood Drive for the past 12 years and it has been a very peaceful and caring neighborhood. My concern is traffic, not only am I walker, I ride the TCAT bus. I am very familiar with the area. Very familiar with it. I am very concerned about the traffic, particularly at night. Although Mr. Fabbroni said something about the traffic being modest, it is far from being modest and I teach and like to go to bed at night after 10 o’clock and it just seems like there is a lot of traffic zooming up and down on Birchwood Drive, increasingly heavy traffic. Particularly when the students are gone in the summer months, there seem to be people who have motorcycles who race up and down. When they finally put that stop sign, just like an accident waiting to happen. My bedroom is right in the front of my house so I wake up quite often and quite frequently at night because of the zooming up and down the road. I hope you would consider the traffic patterns on Birchwood Drive because it is very important and the congestion of more housing being built in the area.
Another concern I have is the drainage problem. We do have a drainage problem on Birchwood, particularly when it rains I know I have a drainage problem. I live right next door to 109 and that has become an utmost concern to me. So I hope you take into consideration these two things. Thank you.
Gary Bergstrom, 113 Birchwood Dr
I’ll keep my comments brief because they build on the previous two. My concerns are in the area of traffic flow across Birchwood, especially. Is the intention to hook that road up to Sapsucker Woods Road, but more importantly I am mostly concerned about the drainage problems. We have substantial drainage problems there. Surface water following heavy storms and I hope what I heard here tonight I can believe, but we were told similar things to trust in when the Briarwood housing development was put in there. I have lived in that house since 1987 and the increase in the surface flow and drainage problems has increased dramatically since the Briarwood houses were put in and we were told very similar things in that period of time. So I am a little bit skeptical and would like to be reassured. Thank you.
Greg Ezra, 110 Birchwood Drive
I have been living on the road a long time, about 20 years. So I have been certainly aware of the problems associated with the increasing development of the wetland so I would just like to again, very briefly, re-enforce some of the comments that have been made. Drainage is a major issue and continues to be a major issue. What I have heard tonight, which I was not aware of any of the details at all is very interesting. Several things strike me. Everyone has been talking about planning for one-year storms. What about a 5-year, 10-year- or a 25-year storm? Where are we going to be when we have huge amounts of water trapped behind these earthen berms? That is the first issue. The second is we talk about insuring that the rate of outflow is limited to that which it has historically been. The rate of outflow currently with the Briarwood development is very high and has overwhelmed the local drainage channels on several occasions. We had a very scary incident at the end of last year where there were still leaves left in the drainage channels. There’s this conduit that somebody mentioned previously that runs to the middle of Pinewood where all the water from the Briarwood Development is channeled through. I do not know whether this corresponds to DP3 or DP4. I see that there is going to be no change in that general patent, which is all the water is going to go down there. It’s then split down Birchwood and Maplewood. What happened was we had a bunch of leaves swept through the pipes and blocked the pipes in Pinewood. All of the water that was pouring in from the Briarwood had nowhere to go and it rose up to the surface. Literally the whole neighborhood was in danger of inundation. Mr. Dong’s house and lots were nearly flooded out. It was a very scary moment. The Town of Ithaca people were there at night, late into the night and they had to come in the following morning to sort out the mess. The water hadn’t gone down by then. This was prior to all this. So I worry very much about the stability of the system. Just a few leaves messed up all these plans and planning for a longer term.
The traffic is certainly a problem. I will just defer to what other people have said. Perhaps more can be said on that when the subdivision is approved. Another interesting point that was made was the possibility of mandating a certain percentage of lots to be retained as wooded areas. I find that idea very interesting and I like that. I would just like to make the comment that just as a resident that striked me very much about the Briarwood development is the extent to which the lots have essentially been clear-cut. I do not understand the necessity for that. When there was discussion about the sidewalks on Hanshaw, there was an aerial photograph of the area shown at the public display at the Dewitt School and it was very apparent that the Briarwood development was essentially and empty rectangle in the midst of a wooded area. When Mr. Lucente and his construction people go into a lot they essentially clear-cut it. For what reason, I don’t understand. The trees have been progressively removed from the area. So I would like to request that the Planning Board do whatever you can to insure that we have a reasonable degree of foliage left.
Mancang Dong, 102 Pinewood Pl
I am at the corner of Birchwood. I live there for 10 years and have had several times problem with the flood. I think that people already addressed that. I just have one question. I don’t know what kind of house they are going to build. If they are the same house as in Briarwood, the one house has two families because…(not audible)… So if the same house builder is 50 families, should that be 100 families. I think the traffic should consider 100 and not 50 if a similar house. I’m not sure what kind of a house. Is it single-family house or it’s a similar house in Briarwood? You think it is one lot, but actually 2 families live there. That is just my question.
David Collum, 1456 Hanshaw Rd
I think Eva asked the question. How do we know? So when they that the water will drain off, okay, how do we know? When they say there is going to be 25 feet of trees, how do we know? There has been a history here. Fights have been breaking out over this development since the 60s. I’ve got boxes of paperwork from people. There is a contempt of court charge against Mr. Lucente for ignoring what he was told to do. I was here for the last debates on this. It turns out that there is no mention of the fact that the houses would be 100 percent rentals. The best I can tell they are 100 percent duplexes, if I had spotted that I would have begged not to let that happen. Now if you look audience, there are no renters. They don’t care. They’re not here. So what I would like to know is how can we be assured that he is not going to build 100 percent duplexes? I was intrigued by the claim that they want to protect the trees. There was some comment in there about how the trees were young and the two interest me in light of the fact that they went up and took chainsaws to all the big trees, took them all down. This is how they think. So what I want you guys to do is ask the question. How do you insure that what they say are going to do they are going to do? It is my suggestion that they are going to do what they want to do once they get you to give them the approval. So I beg you to get it in paper. I can’t believe that they didn’t show up with a letter from the Lab of O. How you could possibly show up at this meeting and say I don’t have a letter from the Lab of O. I begged the Lab of O to get it in writing. I beg everyone to get everything in writing because there is a history here of doing what you want once you get the approval. Thank you.
Charles Evenmeyer, 206 Sapsucker Woods Rd
I work at the Lab of Ornithology. I was just hired as the manager of the visitor’s center and of Sapsucker Woods. So I just got brought into this very recently. I do rent on Sapsucker Woods.
Chairperson Wilcox – Are you here on your own?
Mr. Evenmeyer – I am here on my own. I thought I needed to at least be clear about sort of there is no conflict, just so you know. I, too, have some concerns just about traffic that I wanted to mention. Because I live on Sapsucker Woods, I live a little bit a way from these areas that are necessarily being developed where they are putting in new roads, but just in the time I have lived there over the last 8 months, 10 months since the road has been resurfaced, since there…there has been a lot of changes just on Sapsucker Woods Road that have lead to a lot higher speeds of people traveling and what seems to be a lot more traffic and a lot more people using it as a cross-through to get from 13 over to Hanshaw. I agree with the last speaker about how can you know. How can you know that anything is going to happen? I just wanted to temper that. I just wanted to give my view that that also needs to be tempered with the fact that nothing in life is known. The President can say he is going to do something before he gets elected. He can put it in writing. Once he gets elected, it doesn’t mean it is going to happen. So I think what he said is right. If we want to make sure this is developed according to some plan, I agree we need to make sure that happens, but also I think it needs to be tempered with some realism about the situation. That’s all. Thanks.
Jingzhen Guo, 102 Pinewood Pl
I have one concern. I know a lot of people have other concern for the traffic, I do too, but one more concern. I want to know. We live on the corner of Birchwood, but I know Mr. Lucente said they would have built a pond in the new area when they build the house, but my concern is from the Birchwood east to the west that is not really a hill, but like this way. So even they build a pond, how can the water catch on the top and go down to the west of the site.
Chairperson Wilcox – Can you point on one of those maps where you live?
Ms. Guo – I live right here. This is my house here. This is Birchwood. Last winter, the water halfway to my driveway, halfway to my yard because the water is at this site is higher than my house this way. So this comes down to our house and then Birchwood all the way down. Even they build a pond, the water still go down to the west. They build a pond, how can they catch the water from the high place.
Chairperson Wilcox – You don’t see how it can impact you at all or make it any better for you?
Ms. Guo – Yes, because it goes down this way. Thank you.
Brian Howell, Birchwood Dr
I just have a question for the first gentleman who made a presentation here. He referred several times to receiving approval or understanding from Cornell. Cornell is a big place. A lot of people have different responsibilities. I wonder, could it be determined whether he was simply talking to the Ornithology Lab, or civil engineering, or plant science or who at Cornell…
Chairperson Wilcox – How about we’ll ask him when everyone in the public has had a chance to speak?
Mr. Howell – Good.
Chairperson Wilcox – We won’t have to ask him. Larry will step right up and tell us. Anybody else?
Fran Bergstrom, 113 Birchwood Dr
I just want to emphasize that there are a number of children in the neighborhood. So I am concerned about the safety of the children. As far as the buses, they are not allowed to stop at each child’s house any more. So the kids have to congregate on corners and a lot of parents do take their kids because they are so concerned about the traffic now, but this is something that needs to be addressed. The safety of the small children.
Mr. Houtenville – I actually didn’t get a chance to speak at the last meeting and I wanted to say that I actually liked that plan better because it did not have the pass-through between Sanctuary Drive and Birchwood North. I think that that pass-through, if it all can be avoided, should. I understand that there are fire access concerns with cul-de-sacs, however I think a 45 degree turn right in front of a playground, which is going to be populated by children is unwise although there is prior existence, I think, in the Town over by Gaslight Apartments. There is a nice little playground that no kid uses. There is never a kid in that playground and it’s probably because it is right on the turn, right across from Phil Danker Soccer field.
Chairperson Wilcox – In the Village of Lansing. Thank you. Larry, do you want to address the question of the Lab of Ornithology and who you have been speaking with?
Mr. Fabbroni - You may remember or not remember when I was here 3 years ago, we were having this conversation about who talks to who. So I went away and engaged both the Lab of Ornithology director, assistant director, the assistant director of real estate. Those are the two key departments that have been involved. More recently, the legal department has been involved in looking at the maintenance agreement and the licensing that I referred to earlier. So I guess the comprehensive answer to the question is we have been dealing with the director and assistance at the Lab of Ornithology, the assistant director of real estate, Tom Livigne, and one of the members of legal counsel of the University, Stephanie Seckler. Those have been primary actors. Ron Roarback who managed the trails for a while was a key member involved and that comment by that wildlife corridor. He made the comment that in the most ideal circumstances it would be 500 feet wide. We have been able to keep one down to the Salem Drive that is at least 200 feet wide. The comment was that that southern area was cutoff at the time Sanctuary Drive and the northern lots in the Briarwood subdivision went in. So there was only 100 feet left at the point we were discussing the two being tied together. A lot changes over 50 years of a person’s life and business. If you look at where we came in with this proposal to begin with 4 years ago, I would like to say you can recognize the differences in terms of what is being offered to be left open and so that is a partial answer who will never believe that what we are proposing to you, we will follow through on. Everybody learns from what they have done in the past. Those who point out what has happened in the short-term with the Briarwood subdivision ought to look at the area just to the west on an aerial photograph. If you look at a 1954 aerial photograph of Maplewood, Pinewood, Birchwood, you’ll see an open field there. When you drive up through those lots today that Mr. Lucente owned a lot of those properties for a good length of time before he sold them, it is a totally relandscaped area. You would never believe that was an open farm field.
Board Member Conneman – That’s a monologue. Not an answer to the question. The question, do you have any letter from Cornell that says this is the greatest thing in the world? You have made tremendous progress and I admire what you have done and what Mr. Lucente has agreed to give to the lab, but it would be helpful if you had a letter that says something about this. Just because you talked to everybody, you can’t believe Cornell until it is in writing. Believe me.
PLANNING BOARD – tape 3
Mr. Fabbroni – I believe I could have a letter next week. I certainly would have a letter before you made any final approval. I have every reason to believe from everybody I’ve talked to that they will accept this donation and that we are well on our way to working out an agreement as to this interim period where we have obligations to the Town to make improvements and they will have centuries of obligations beyond that.
Chairperson Wilcox – What’s your pleasure guys.
Board Member Talty – I have a question to the woman who came up here with regard to the drainage issue. Would DP3 or DP4 be a current resolution for this area on drainage? Would that assist her drainage problem in this area?
Mr. Fabbroni – It should help her out. If I could point out on the map. DP5 for one comes back through an existing ditch along the backside of the property. For DP5 would bring back to this pond before it goes into the wetland. This whole area here that I could imagine in an uncontrolled fashion right now because of what she pointed out, this area has been estimated and comes up sharply, if you look at the profile of the road we bring it up gradually, we bring this drainage from this side of the road through a culvert down to this pond. So this whole are here drains, and this area, drain to that pond. A large part of this area right now in a very wet condition or a sudden event like we had at the end of February or the beginning of March we had a heavy rain storm, on a wet situation instead of that flow going down right passed her house now, it’s going to go to this retention facility and through the wetland and through this control structure here. The other point that was made is there are designs for the one-year storm and there are designs for the ten years storm and the hundred-year storm. You will see design figures and we already submitted the runoff numbers on it so we are not just focusing on the one-year storm. This retention is for a hundred year storm as well. When you get to the larger storms you have to provide for overflow because you can’t design for the greatest catastrophe ever, but it is certainly going to improve the situation that people talk about through this sluice way. And one lady talked about through the tie ditch and as far as the debris there are trash racks that trap the trash and let the water through more effectively than the traditional open-ended pipe. As the one gentleman pointed out quite rightly, Ithaca there is a sort of Russian roulette to open ditches every February and March. Is it going to thaw slowly? Is it going to happen all over night? Was it a heavy snow pack? So you have to sort of, we’ve gotten better and better with these orifices and these control structures and protecting against ice just blocking the whole system up. The first debris that comes down in the spring blocking the whole system up. You know, with the existing open ditches you still sort of have a Russian roulette. Will water flow under the ice or will the ice collapse and plug the whole system? If you have an answer to that then you’re in the wrong business.
Board Member Talty – Larry could you comment for the folks in the audience on exactly the data that you gave us, the rainfall data, for what a one-year, ten-year, one hundred year…
Mr. Fabbroni – I’d like Eric to speak to that.
Mr. Whitney – From historical rainfall data they’ve assigned the one-year storm frequency 2.3 inches over a 24-hour period. Ten year storm frequency in Tompkins County 3.9 inches of accumulation over a 24-hour period. A hundred year storm 5.5 inches of accumulation over a 24-hour period. That describes the storms as far as the total volume over a 24-hour period.
Board Member Hoffmann – A couple of people brought up the question of what kind of houses would be built. One-family or two-family so therefore how many residents there would be coming in with these new houses. I know we got some figures in the papers that we got, but perhaps I could ask you Larry to talk about that for the benefit of the people who asked the question.
Mr. Fabbroni – Our best estimate is 50% one-family, 50% two-family. Now how did we arrive at that? Currently, interestingly enough we are building one-families again. It’s pretty much a market dependent thing. When the interest rate is down people can afford one-families. If the interest rate goes up the people who traditionally in the middle class which this neighborhood has supported well for forth years can’t afford a $300,000 home without a second unit in the building to rent. Mr. Lucente, maybe he doesn’t want to admit to everybody, but he’s 75 years old now he won’t be renting for a whole lot longer so people who are concerned about these not turning over and being sold, I think are thinking about Mr. Lucente 20 years ago. He made a pretty good living of rental, sales of homes after 15 years and he’s still successfully in business fifty years later, but Eva our best estimate based on the fluctuations in the market and the interest rate is we project that half of these lots would have two-families and half would have one-families. The current design for the two-family, again to speak to some other issues, is an up and down split foyer as opposed to a side by side type of arrange which Briarwood pretty much was which would lead to less footprint on every lot as far as the space that a building would take up if it was two-family. But as I say, currently the homes being built are one family right now.
Chairperson Wilcox – For the record, the zoning allows two-family houses on every lot.
Board Member Hoffmann – When you’re talking about the rental houses that I think you said are going to be sold? Is that right?
Mr. Fabbroni – Traditionally after 15 years Mr. Lucente has put his houses up for sale. If you look at what is going on on Meadow Lark and Cardinal as an example, which are not in the Town, you would see what I’m talking about. A lot of those homes have been sold in the last 5 years after he rented for 15 years, but he can speak for himself, but at the age of 75 he’s not going to be renting these new houses he’s building for 15 years.
Board Member Hoffmann – There’s nothing wrong with rental houses. We need some of those too, but there’s for instance that whole row of houses that belong to Mr. Lucente along Briarwood Drive that I asked you about before and there’s some other occasional ones that say Lucente including quite a few of them that say Steven Lucente on Sanctuary Drive. Now do you know anything about those?
Mr. Fabbroni – I know about Rocco’s in particular. Most of those rentals are either to families are graduate students with children. He prefers to rent to that particular segment of the market because they are more stable, they don’t turn over from year to year. Traditionally the graduate students come in for three or four or five years and if you go up and down that street you’ll see children in the yards and some verifications of what I’m saying. It’s not what we all sort of fear is a total student neighborhood. I mean he as a rule does not rent to undergraduate students in that neighborhood. Steve Lucente is a total separate operation from Mr. Rocco Lucente. They have very little interaction between them. I think I stated that three years ago. They are father and son, but Steve and his wife run their own business pretty independent of anything Rocco does. So he owns those buildings on Sanctuary Drive and more recently he sold, he himself has sold three of those and has another few up for sale. So they’re currently, if he follows through on his plan he’ll have sold about half of those to owner occupied situations.
Chairperson Wilcox – They are huge buildings.
Mr. Fabbroni – Now if I can offer an opinion almost too big for the lots in that case.
Board Member Conneman – The comment about traffic, I think everybody out here, if you build one family homes you may have one or two cars. If you build rental homes you may have multiple cars. Did you take that into account when you said the traffic didn’t make much difference, it wouldn’t be much more?
Mr. Fabbroni – Yes, I projected 76 units on the 47 lots so that would take that into account, which means each one of those additional units you project an additional ten trips a day for.
Chairperson Wilcox – Is it our please to go on for another ten minutes or so? Okay. Normally we end at ten. Okay.
Board Member Hoffmann – Well, if we can answer questions and things like that, but I think it’s too late to try to make a decision tonight.
Board Member Conneman – Larry, I also have a question about deed restrictions. Susan may want to comment on this, but it is possible to put deed restriction in terms of whether you can have a buffer zone and so on and so forth, and those can be enforced. I don’t know about anything to do with trees, but you can have deed restrictions.
Mr. Fabbroni – You can and we do on three of the lots. I mean not to go into the whole history of the wetland and the remediation on the Briarwood project, but there’s three lots there where that kind of a restriction exists in the deed for the lots. It’s been very successful and held up for seventeen years without any threat whatsoever, so it can be done.
Board Member Howe – Because of the traffic issues I see in the environmental assessment form it mentions that we could explore the possibility of incorporating traffic calming measures and I would want to see that explored fully.
Chairperson Wilcox – And those traffic calming measures which we could look at as part of the actual subdivision and the layout of the roads could mitigate, it could mitigate, it can’t prevent people from speeding. That’s enforcement and other things, but that would help.
Mr. Kanter – It could help primarily with safety.
Chairperson Wilcox – And we could talk about the connecting of the roads. That was actually something that went back and forth between Larry and staff and even I was asked to contribute my opinion and I felt safety was important and having the roads interconnect. There is certainly another point of view about having more cul-de-sacs.
Mr. Fabbroni – I have a submission I made in January…
Chairperson Wilcox – Absolutely, and we changed it on you and I understand. I talked to Susan and we kicked it around, they kicked it around, she asked my opinion…
Ms. Ritter – And we also looked at the minutes from 1993 and that was a direction that was…
Chairperson Wilcox – …suggested by this Board.
Board Member Talty – I have a question on a variety of 90-degree turns throughout Town of Ithaca, Lansing, whatever. I know some of the 90 degrees they were talking about earlier and my question is I don’t see guardrails anywhere. Is there a reason why there isn’t a short section of guardrail for these 90-degree turns? That’s my question, to anybody.
Mr. Walker – It’s not warranted for the speeds.
Board Member Talty – Is that it? But can we mandate for the Planning that they put one in?
Mr. Walker – No. It’s up to the Highway Superintendent for safety issues.
Board Member Talty – Because I’ll tell you a lot of, like where George lives over on St. Catherine’s, there’s a deadly 90-degree turn there because of the trees that grow up and the playground over in Lansing through the apartments. It’s the same thing and just think that a guard rail, although I’m not a big fan of how they look, it certainly would be a great safety add to any neighborhood unless they are going to change how the 90 degree turns are because they come into them quick, they slow down, and then they accelerate out of them. So if you want to protect children I think that may be something that we should explore with that gentleman.
Mr. Kanter – Yes. I was just thinking since that portion of the road is going to be a new road there may be some way of designing that curve to be safer, not necessarily a guard rail but something built into the system.
Board Member Talty – I don’t think that they should necessarily have to change that 90 degree turn to incorporate a different type of style and wreck a lot of the lots through that area, but I do think that traffic calming, a guard rail, things of that sort could certainly be incorporated to assure the public of the safety of their children.
Chairperson Wilcox – What’s the pleasure of this Board? Well let me see, I’ll move the SEQR motion as drafted, how’s that.
Board Member Talty – I’ll second it.
Board Member Hoffmann – I feel we need time to discuss everything we have been presented with, both in paper and verbally.
Chairperson Wilcox – I have a motion and a second. Changes? You all set? I always know to look at the Town Attorney.
Ms. Brock – Alright. Because this is a coordinated environmental review and you’ve contacted the other involved agencies and they’ve agreed that the Planning Board be the lead agency we need to make sure that this review covers all aspects of the proposal not just this Board’s action tonight, which is preliminary subdivision approval so I wanted to add in the first whereas clause references to all of the roads that are being built because I think right now it’s just really referencing two of them and in fact there is going to be a little bit more which the Town Board is going to end up having to approved.
Ms. Ritter – Lucente Drive for instance?
Ms. Brock – Right. So I have some language. About halfway down in paragraph one it says proposal involves connecting Sanctuary Drive with Birchwood Drive North and connecting Birchwood Drive with Sapsucker Woods Road. I would add to that, I would get rid of the word “and” right before the word “connecting Birchwood Drive with Sapsucker Wood Road”, put in a coma and says, “extending Birchwood Drive North to the east and creating a spur to the north off Sanctuary Drive”. And then I believe we probably should also add a reference to, no, we’ve already got that.
Paragraph two in the “whereas” I would revise that to read, “this is a type I action for which the Town of Ithaca a Planning Board has indicated it’s intent to act as lead agency in a coordinated environmental review with respect to the above referenced proposal”. And the effect of that change will be to incorporate all of the proposal not just the subdivision approval.
Chairperson Wilcox – Also the eventual, should it get that far, the review by the Town Board for the acceptance of the road.
Ms. Brock – Right. Acceptance of the roads, acceptance of the parcel that’s being added to the park, the conveyance of the property to the Lab of O and that type of thing.
Paragraph four in the “whereas” clause, a similar change so that it reads “the Town Planning staff has recommended a negative determination of environmental significance with respect to the above referenced proposal”.
And another change similarly in the first “resolved” clause, just substitute the word “proposal” for “action” at the very end where it says “review of the above described action”. Just make that “review of the above described proposal” and this will make it clear that your environmental review is covering the entire project.
Board Member Hoffmann – I’m lost. Where is this last part?
Ms. Brock – Just the first “resolved” clause, the last word in that resolved clause, “action”, strike the word “action” and insert the word “proposal”. Because the word action, somebody might read that to mean what it says at the very beginning of your resolution, which is “this action involves consideration of preliminary subdivision approval” and we don’t want this to be just for the subdivision approval, we want it to be for the entire proposal.
Board Member Conneman – What word to you substitute?
Ms. Brock – “Proposal”.
Chairperson Wilcox – Just so the members of the public are still here, we’re still doing the environmental review. I don’t know what will happen in the next three minutes, but if we should make a determination that there is not a significant environmental impact then we will invite Mr. Fabbroni and the representative back at a later meeting to be determined to then actually take up the subdivision review. That will not happen tonight for sure.
Kevin, are those changes acceptable?
Board Member Talty – Yes.
Chairperson Wilcox - Okay. I have a motion and a second. I have Eva’s opinion that it’s too late in the evening to vote.
Board Member Hoffmann – And we don’t have time to discuss some of the things that we have heard and additional things we’ve heard both from the applicants and from the people in the audience, which I think are relevant.
Chairperson Wilcox – I think I have 4 votes.
Board Member Howe – Isn’t it true that a lot of the issues though can be dealt with in the subdivision approval?
Board Member Hoffmann – That’s what I don’t know and that’s why I don’t like to vote on it.
Chairperson Wilcox – I have a motion and second. Please raise your hand, all those in favor. Four. All those opposed. Two opposed. There are no abstentions. The motion is passed by a vote of four to two. We have made the determination that there is no significant environmental impact.
PB RESOLUTION NO. 2006-063: SEQR, Subdivision Approval, Briarwood II 50-lot Subdivision, Extensions to Sanctuary Dr., Birchwood Drive N., and Birchwood Dr., Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 70-10-3.5 and 73-1-8.22
WHEREAS:
1. This action involves consideration of Preliminary Subdivision Approval for the proposed 50-lot subdivision located along new extensions to Sanctuary Drive, Birchwood Drive North, and Birchwood Drive, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No.’s 70-10-3.5 and 73-1-8.22, Medium Density Residential Zone. The proposal includes subdividing the +/- 47.5 acres into 47 residential parcels (averaging 0.4 acres in size) with two parcels totaling approximately 25 acres to be donated to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and one small parcel to be added to Salem Drive Park. The proposal involves connecting Sanctuary Drive with Birchwood Drive North, connecting Birchwood Drive with Sapsucker Woods Road, extending Briarwood Drive North to the east, and creating a spur to the north off Sanctuary Drive. The project also includes the development of stormwater management facilities and walkways. The project is anticipated to be completed over a 10-year period and result in a development of one and two-family dwellings. Rocco Lucente, Owner/Applicant; Lawrence P. Fabbroni, P.E., L.S., Agent, and
2. This is a Type I Action for which the Town of Ithaca Planning Board has indicated its intent to act as Lead Agency in a coordinated environmental review with respect to the above-referenced proposal, and
3. The Planning Board, on June 20, 2006, has reviewed and accepted as adequate a Full Environmental Assessment Form Part I, submitted by the applicant, and Part II prepared by Town Planning staff, plans entitled plans entitled “Master Plan” dated 1/12/03 with most recent revision 1/21/06, and three sheets entitled “Subdivision Plat” one dated 1/21/06 and revised 5/11/06, one dated 1/21/06, and one dated 10/28/02 and revised 01-21-06, and a drawing entitled “Typical Town of Ithaca Highway Cross-sections” dated 1/16/06, four sheets entitled “Water & Sewer Plan & Profiles” dated 5/11/06, 11/10/02, and two dated 1/16/06, and four sheets entitled “Highway Plan & Profile”, dated 1/16/06, 10/28/02, and two dated 5/11/06 and “Standard Water Details dated 4/11/06 and revised 1/10/03, and “Standard Sanitary Sewer Details”, dated 9/10/02, all prepared by Lawrence P. Fabbroni, P.E., L.S., and other application material, and
4. The Town Planning staff has recommended a negative determination of environmental significance with respect to the above-referenced proposal;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board, having received no objections from other Involved Agencies, hereby establishes itself as Lead Agency to coordinate the environmental review of the above-described proposal;
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby makes a negative determination of environmental significance based on information in the Environmental Assessment Form (EAF) Part I and for the reasons set forth in the Environmental Assessment Form Part II referenced above, in accordance with the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act for the above referenced action as proposed, and therefore, an Environmental Impact Statement will not be required, and that a notice of this determination will be duly filed and published pursuant to the provisions of 6 NYCRR Part 617.12.
A vote on the motion resulted as follows:
AYES: Wilcox, Thayer, Howe, Talty.
NAYS: Hoffmann, Conneman.
ABSENT: Mitrano.
The motion was declared to be carried.
Chairperson Wilcox - Having said that, it’s getting. Larry, will you work with staff to come up with a date to come back for preliminary subdivision where you and your representatives, the agents, can be available and work with staff please. I don’t think we are going to determine that tonight.
Mr. Kanter – Is there anything additional that the Board needs to see in order to move ahead with preliminary. Such as the letter from the Lob of O.
Mr. Fabbroni – I’m going to pursue the letter in any case.
Chairperson Wilcox – The letter from the lab, if we don’t have it the next time, is certainly going to be conditioned. I think we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about traffic calming and the routing of the roads.
Board Member Conneman – Deed restrictions, I’d like you talk about.
Mr. Kanter – Those will be talked about. Those are normal conditions, but I’m just asking if there is anything the Board thinks they need to see that they haven’t seen yet.
Board Member Conneman – Well, I haven’t seen the deed restrictions, we’ve talked about them.
Mr. Kanter – You probably won’t see it before preliminary either.
Chairperson Wilcox – It will probably be conditioned to final, but we’ll make it very clear assuming this Board agrees…
Board Member Conneman – I just wanted to put in the minutes that that’s one of my concerns.
Chairperson Wilcox – Larry, anything else I can do for you?
Mr. Fabbroni – Well, my only comment on the traffic calming is as I’ve listened to everybody and I’m a pretty good listener I hope over the years there are divergent opinions on traffic calming methods so I would hope…
Chairperson Wilcox – Save it for the next meeting.
Mr. Fabbroni – My other question is why wouldn’t you adjourn this all to the next Planning Board meeting that you have?
Chairperson Wilcox – I didn’t say the next meeting, I said to the next available meeting is what I said to be worked out. We can’t continue now, Larry, it is 10:15. It’s late, we’re tired.
Mr. Fabbroni – I’m not talking about talking abut it here, I’m just saying procedurally why wouldn’t you just adjourn it to a date.
Mr. Kanter – You could if you so chose.
Chairperson Wilcox – I could if I so chose.
Mr. Kanter – We do want to talk about the scheduling of the next agenda so if you would permit Larry to stay while the Board talks about it, that would probably be a good way to do it.
Chairperson Wilcox – I have permission from the Board to adjourn 2 minutes ago.
The Board agreed to extend the meeting.
Chairperson Wilcox – Our next meeting is July 18.
Mr. Kanter – We do not have the first Tuesday meeting so it’s July 18th. Ithaca College who waited patiently in the lobby left at about quarter of 10 when they realized they weren’t going to get there. My recommendation to the Board, it’s up to you to decide, is to put Ithaca College first on that agenda.
Chairperson Wilcox – Sketch plan review?
Mr. Kanter – Sketch plan review. And do that and schedule, we have two or three other items that are pending for that meeting. Again, this could be a long discussion so my recommendation would be to try to schedule (inaudible or could it be Darwood?) for that July 18th meeting, but to put it at the end because we have these other actions that were already in that are tentatively scheduled. That’s my suggestion.
Chairperson Wilcox – Would the other two items, other than Ithaca College sketch plan based up what they already think they would take a sum total of half an hour?
Mr. Kanter – Probably more. Actually it’s three items, I apologize.
Chairperson Wilcox – Okay. Because I’d like to keep a nice two-hour block just to be safe to go the site plan.
Mr. Kanter – We’ve got a fairly simple Cornell grounds department facilities improvement plan out in the Precinct 7 area. We’ve got two special permits for things that were operating previously under use variances, which are now special permit uses under the new zoning.
Chairperson Wilcox – One is a bed and breakfast. What’s the other one?
Mr. Kanter – One is an equestrian facility on Trumansburg Road. Those two probably are fairly simple, quick items. The Cornell grounds facilities improvements, I’m not sure. It shouldn’t be that complicated, but…
Chairperson Wilcox – You never know with this Board.
Mr. Kanter – But again, when we consider rescheduling these things you also may want to consider a whole new date for Briarwood.
Board Member Conneman – What is the nature of the grounds consideration?
Mr. Kanter – It’s basically more of what’s going on out in the Precinct 7 area with construction, contracting staging…
Chairperson Wilcox – New building?
Mr. Kanter – No buildings just gravel staging construction areas storage.
Board Member Conneman _ I wanted to be sure it was not the Plantations, that was all.
Chairperson Wilcox – Larry, and you and your representatives be back on the 18th.
Mr. Fabbroni – Yes.
Board Member Howe – Should we be considering a second meeting in July? Sometimes we’ve met two weeks in a row if we felt there was too much.
Chairperson Wilcox – That’s an option to schedule a meeting for the 11th and take this up and possibly Ithaca College. That’s a possibility too.
Board Member Howe – I would rather spread things out over two nights if possible rather than try to cram.
Board Member Hoffmann – Yes, I felt we really crammed it this evening with the project and I don’t want to see it crammed again.
Chairperson Wilcox – I think we did pretty good.
Board Member Hoffmann – What purpose did it serve to hasten voting on the SEQR tonight?
Chairperson Wilcox – We didn’t hasten.
Board Member Hoffmann – I felt we did.
Chairperson Wilcox – I asked everybody if there was anything else to say, any other questions, and there was none.
Board Member Conneman – You made the resolution yourself.
Chairperson Wilcox – Yes, I did.
Mr. Kanter – So should we schedule the meeting?
Chairperson Wilcox – Is there a staff issue with doing the meeting on the 11th and then an 18th, assuming that the 11th is Ithaca College and this?
Mr. Kanter – Well, I know that Mike is off and he was involved in the Ithaca College project.
Chairperson Wilcox – But it is sketch plan review only.
Mr. Kanter – Yes, I don’t think that should be an issue.
Chairperson Wilcox – Shall we go with the sketch plan review and continuation of this. Is that reasonable?
