Planning Board Agendas and Minutes

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE COHOES PLANNING BOARD HELD VIRTUALLY ON AUGUST 10, 2020 at 6:30PM MEMBERS PRESENT: Mr. Mark DeFruscio, Chairperson Ms. Stephanie Couture Mr. Bob Bucher Mr. Joseph Nadeau ABSENT: Mr. Jack Carroll, Vice Chairperson ALSO PRESENT: Joseph Seman-Graves, City Planner Sharon Butler, Administrative Assistant Chairperson DeFruscio called the meeting to order at 6:30 pm. Roll Call: Absent Mr. Jack Carroll, Vice Chairperson, all other members present CONSIDERATION OF MINUTES FROM THE JULY 13, 2020 MEETING Chairperson DeFruscio: has everyone had an opportunity to review the minutes and are there any questions about the meeting minute from the July 13, 2020, meeting? Joe Seman-Graves; Bob Bucher is signing on now Chairperson DeFruscio; Bob we are starting with agenda item #1, consideration of the July 13, 2020 meeting minutes. I mentioned that I haven’t given to Joe the changes that I wanted for the March meeting minutes but he said he went through them and found a couple of grammatical errors that he corrected, we will go over that some other time. So I asked everyone if they had the opportunity to review the meeting minutes, if any changes are needed. So if we have a motion to accept them as submitted. I’m looking for comments from the board on the meeting minutes. Bob Bucher: I will make a motion to approve the minutes as documented Stephanie Couture 2nd. Stephanie Couture seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. YES NO Bob Bucher X Joseph Nadeau X Mark DeFruscio X Jack Carroll ABSENT Stephanie Couture X Chairperson DeFruscio stated to the Board that they are switching agenda items around as the applicant for 159 Remsen Street joined the meeting and is at work. CONSIDERATION OF A NEW BUSINESS AT 159 REMSEN STREET Chairperson DeFruscio: Next on the agenda is the consideration of a new business to be located at 159 Remsen Street, owner of the business Kelly Knutsen. Kelly can you give the board an overview of what your doing? Kelly Knutsen; I am looking to open a business called The Local. It is like an indoor farmers market located on the first floor of the new apartment building that went up on Remsen Street and White Street. We’ll have fresh local produce, grab and go food and drinks, local honey, homemade jams and cookies, but everything will be sourced from local vendors and Cohoes where possible, otherwise within the Capital region Chairperson DeFruscio; your hours of operation 7AM to 10PM? Ms. Knutsen; yes, we might end up closing a little earlier but the thought process is folks that work late or before they go to work, they can stop and grab a coffee or sandwich to go on the way out of the building or something quick on their way in. Chairperson DeFruscio; it is going in the new space right on Remsen Street, that is good. Do the Board members have any questions? Bob Bucher: no, I couldn’t be happier Ms. Knutsen; same, I thought it was an exciting concept. I’m happy and excited to see something go in that space. Chairperson DeFruscio; I’m asking now if anyone on the meeting, if they have any comments, Public Comments are open for anyone in the public to make any comments, positive, negative or whatever for the new business on Remsen Street. Joe is there anyone on from the public on? Joe Seaman-Graves: no the only people on the meeting are for Hoffman’s Chairperson DeFruscio; no public comments. Looking for viability for new business application at 159 Remsen Street. Are there any comments from the board, positive or negative? I heard positive, anybody have anything else to say? If not then I’m looking for a motion to approve the business application at 159 Remsen Street. Joe Nadeau; with no further comments I make a motion to accept the proposal as submitted Stephanie Couture; 2nd the motion and it passes unanimously. Chairperson DeFruscio; looking forward to visiting you and good success. YES NO Bob Bucher X Joseph Nadeau X Mark DeFruscio X Jack Carroll ABSENT Stephanie Couture X CONSIDERATION OF FINAL SITE PLAN APPROVAL AT 378 SARATOGA STREET-HOFFMAN’S Chairperson DeFruscio: Next on the agenda is a determination of Final Site Plan Approval at 378 Saratoga Street. Joe can you update the board on where they are with variance and everything else? Joe Seman-Graves; the Zoning Board approved them for the use variance and traffic commission Paul Johnston is fine with the plan minus—the only thing here and it was recently re-striped to, so the applicant might not have to make any changes, according to Paul Johnston which is fine, but the only thing on the plan he is not ok with is the Right Hand turn onto Spring Street which is a one way in the opposite direction. Chairperson DeFruscio; yes you can’t go up there but you’re not supposed to go up there but there is regular traffic that goes up the hill. My mother lives on Spring Street. Frank Palumbo representative from Hoffman’s; we put those things on there so to prove we’re not infallible Joe Seman-Graves; as long as the right hand turn is taken out he is fine. Regarding the comments from the Historic Board, they actually sent me something that I haven’t passed along to Hoffman’s yet, it’s a narrative. It wasn’t’ enough of a narrative, it was pretty much, they gave me a clipping from an article used in the past. I ‘m waiting to get the expanded narrative so long story short, the Historic Board is going to send me information. Hoffman’s-depending on the size of the plaque they have to put in, there might be a few location that they relocate the existing historical marker and the new plaque too. I have asked that they give us some ideas on a location but not put it on the Final Site Plan yet until we realize the size of the plaque and where optimal location will be. I can have Frank give us a couple of ideas of where they might put it—it’s just not reflected on the site plan. Frank Palumbo; Joe, sorry I tried to get an email to you today—one of the things we’re looking at doing, we want the marker to be in a place where the public can see it as much as possible and we also wanted it close to where it’s meaningful. Obviously ours is a car orientated business so we are committed to working with Joe and the Historic Commission to work out something well. What we are thinking, one thing that we did add to the plan that I tried to get email to Joe, down, if you see what is in this plan-upper right hand corner where our drive lane comes through and turns left into the wash bay down by the building there (area shown on the PowerPoint) right to the right of that, Joe if you could with your cursor come down just a little, proposing that a flag pole would go there. Hoffman’s has them on every site and what we had envisioned was possibly having a little landscaped area around there with a sidewalk that could lead in from the sidewalk on Dyke Ave.. That was our first idea, then the marker could go somewhere in that general area. There are a couple of things I think we could work at with DOT—like there is a guardrail there, there is also some guidewires with national grid. So one of the other things and Joe mentioned this before, is that if somebody was actually using the sidewalk right in about the place you have your cursor, up a little closer to where the sidewalk ends and goes to a crosswalk to the island and then further on, somebody crossing the street there or waiting to cross the street, we could put the marker right behind the sidewalk there, obviously that would be in public lands and right of way but Hoffman’s would be committed to working a final version of construction that marker and the contribution of cost of that marker. I think the word is being flexible, work with and continue to work with Joe so we would like to have this as final approval and just as building permit plans are submitted by that time, we would have worked out with Joe for the final location of it. Hoffman’s is absolutely committed to doing this, it’s not something that were going to come back and say now we don’t want to do it. It just those are locations we were suggesting and one of the reasons was that we didn’t want to have anything further that could potentially block off the site distance—so that took away around the corner from the driveway around Dyke because we are clearing that whole area, but want to make sure that cars can see there, so depending on the size of the marker, wording and what we do, whether or not we add images, we didn’t want to put anything in that zone. If we have some room to do something down on the site, but we thought that was taking away from the public area—we thought that it being at least linked in to the sidewalk was a fair idea. But we are also open to any ideas and thoughts the board may have. Chairperson DeFruscio; what we would probably do is give you Final Site Plan approval with condition of you coming to an agreeable solution with Joe and Historic Society of what and where you’re going to that on the site. We know you’re good to work with us to make it happen so we can word it that way going forward. We wouldn’t want to hold you up from starting because we don’t have a location yet. We should go right now to public comments, see if there’s anybody from the public that wants to make any comments. I would make a comment that I look forward to this business being there as well. Its been a long time since we’ve had a car wash down in our area down there, there used to be one 3 or 4 buildings from where you’re building on that is now a granite top store, it used to be a car wash and the car wash that was down on Saratoga Street just inside Watervliet, recently burned down so there’s nothing in that area to draw traffic away from you- so it’ll be good to have a car wash there. Anybody else have any comments? Bob Bucher; I do Mark if I may. I know you opened it up to public comments, I obviously share your sentiments very much in favor of the project and Frank to that point, I would love to see just a little commitment there the flag pole-some sort of—I know it’s public right of way, but I think the place for, I totally agree for that marker, some landscaping and maybe even a little concrete off shoot—just a little special place. It’s the gateway to the City—Hoffman’s is going to build an attractive building and I just think it would be wonderful at that location opposite the island to have something—somewhere in there and again understanding that it is the public right of way, but I think it would be really nice as a feature coming in the City. Joe Nadeau; I would just like to re-enforce the thought process of staying away from Dyke and Saratoga, keeping that as clear as possible, so I like the idea of staying away from that area. I agree with what Bob said, putting the marker down in that location would be better served. Chairperson DeFruscio; any other comments from the public? Joe is anyone from the public on? Joe Seman-Graves; no, just us and Hoffman’s representatives Chairperson DeFruscio; with that note, does the board have any more comments or observations, requests? If not, I’d move for somebody to make a motion to a Final Site Plan approval with the one consideration of the signage for the Historic site be finalized during the process here. Bob Bucher; would adding a flag pole too, would that be appropriate? Chairperson DeFruscio; I was under the understanding that they would put a flag pole there no matter what. Bob Bucher; ok Marty Andrews from Hoffman’s; there will be a flag pole going up so Frank and I talked about it today about how to incorporate the Historical marker with the flag pole. I think we came up with a pretty good idea we just didn’t get it down on paper for you, for everyone to see. We will run that by your group and I think everyone will be happy. Bob Bucher; ok, great Marty thank you. Chairperson DeFruscio; Bob I heard him say that they put a flag pole on every site, they were intending to put a flag pole there and marry it with the Historic request from the Historic Society for the marker of some sort. Chairperson DeFruscio; so does anyone want to make a motion? Bob Bucher; I’ll make that motion as Mark stated Joe Nadeau; 2nd the motion Joe Seman-Graves; Motion is Final Site Plan approval with the consideration of the final location of the marker and flag pole. I believe the flag pole is incorporated on the landscaping. Bob Bucher; I didn’t see it but could have missed it Joe Seman-Graves; for argument sake them the motion for Final Site Plan approval with consideration of marker and flag pole to be added. Bob Bucher; correct Bob Bucher; made motion to approve the Final Site Plan approval as stated Joe Nadeau; 2nd motion carried unanimously. Chairperson DeFruscio: Ok, so at this point I will be looking for a motion from the Board. YES NO Bob Bucher X Joseph Nadeau X Mark DeFruscio X Jack Carroll ABSENT Stephanie Couture X Joe Seman-Graves; can I ask the Hoffman crew, we’re approaching winter, what’s the time line for proceeding with the project? Marty Andrews; thinking it’s probably going to be spring start. We’ll get plans over the winter and get them out to bid early December/January with March start date—that’s what we are shooting for. Joe Seman-Graves; so we have plenty of time to work on this location of the marker. Marty Andrews; yes Chairperson DeFruscio; what is your wrap up on the Rte 7 location? Marty Andrews; we hope to be open in December. We also have a store going in Syracuse, sorry Utica starting in October—we have a lot going on. Bob Bucher; that is a good thing. Chairperson DeFruscio; we hope everything works out and hope it’s a big success and we look forward to the completion. Based on that, does anyone have any other business, comments, anything like that? On that note it’s 6:51PM anyone want to make a motion to close? Stephanie Couture; made motion to close the meeting at 6:51PM Bob Bucher; 2nd motion.