Planning Board Agendas and Minutes

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE COHOES PLANNING BOARD HELD VIRTUALLY ON OCTOBER 5, 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 6:32 pm. Roll Call: All members present CONSIDERATION OF MINUTES FROM THE SEPTEMBER 14, 2020 MEETING Chairperson DeFruscio: First order of business on our agenda is consideration of the September 14, 2020 meeting minutes. As noted, Sharon you did a wonderful job transcribing them from the recording, they are very through and it was quite a long read. I’m looking for any members of the board for any comments, changes, anything that they want to add. Member Nadeau; there’s a few comments that are attributed to me, I’m not sure they were mine, but I didn’t disagree with them so I’m not going to make an issue. I think maybe my voice and Marks voice sound a little alike and I think that’s where the confusion is so, but I did agree with them so I’m not going to do anything. Member Couture; how do we address that comment, do we have to make any notations in the notes that there could be…. Chairperson DeFruscio; we’ll just have Joe submit something to Sharon and to me of what ones he doesn’t feel that are attributed to him and I will just review them with Sharon and I’ll verify they were mine verses his and we’ll do a revised version. So, based on that I’m looking for a motion to accept the minutes with some minor modifications that Joe’s going to submit, other than that they are acceptable, even in context, only just the voices that there attributed to we may change. Member Couture; I’ll make that motion Chairperson DeFruscio; looking for a 2nd Member Bucher; I’ll 2nd motion carried unanimously. YES NO Bob Bucher X Joseph Nadeau X Mark DeFruscio X Jack Carroll ABSENT Stephanie Couture X Chairperson DeFruscio; based on that we have accepted the meeting minutes; we’ll take care of those minor voice changes that we need to. CONSIDERATION OF A LOT LINE ADJUSTMENT AT 100 N. MOHAWK STREET Chairperson DeFruscio; The 2nd item on the agenda is consideration of a lot ling adjustment at 100 N. Mohawk St. Joe do you want to indicate Joe Seman-Graves; I’m getting there, it’s this one (shown on screen). But we do have 2 lot line adjustments up at Mohawk today, Harmony Mills. This 1st one I don’t know, this 1st one is going to be between the main facility or garages and Harmony Mills 4. Chairperson DeFruscio; yeah, so it’s on the west side of Mohawk St. Joe Seman-Graves; yes Chairperson DeFruscio; so, is somebody on from the mills, care to give us an overview of what you’re proposing? Hi my name is Bill Mafrici I’m from Hersberg & Hersberg, with me tonight is Dan Hersberg which I think he’s having some trouble getting on audio, and Nadine Shadlock the attorney for Harmony Mills. The lot line adjustment basically is coming out of necessity for refinance. What had happened for some reason the garage and maintenance facility was build over the property line. So to get everything correct, we’re requesting a lot line adjustment to have both buildings correctly seated on each lot. Chairperson DeFruscio; I see it impact parking spaces, are you moving them from, I know you’re not physically moving them, but are they moving from what used to be the garage parcel to the now building 4 parcel or vice versa? Mr. Mafrici; if you can, the parking lot technically will now, will all be on the mills portion. Hi this is Nadine Shadlock; I think a little bit of the confusion here, if you look at the drawing, that shaded area that’s not the lot line adjustment. The surveyor shoes to highlight that because it’s an easement area. If you look up at the top at the tax map insert, that shows what’s happening, the lot line being eliminated and the new lot line is to the right. You see the line? Bill do you want to explain that? Mr. Mafrici; if you look further, I guess it would be further south or no further north, I can’t see it from where….. Ms. Shadlock; the lot line to be eliminated right, see it right at the, I know you probably can’t see it from where mine is Mark, but there’s an arrow pointing to lot line to be eliminated. (Joe showed on the screen) To the right of the shaded area and the new lot line is far off to the right and the property is commonly controlled, so there isn’t any issue with expanding on to this other you know, on to the other land to accommodate this change, yes you’re correct there’s the new lot line (shown on screen). Joe Seman-Graves; board members I did not understand that lot line adjustment, that’s my fault. I think I sent you the wrong information on what we being proposed. Ms. Shadlock; yes, the tax map detail, the insert on the drawing there is a simple way to look at it and understand it because the drawing is confusing, there’s so much going on with the details, it makes it to confusing. Chairperson DeFruscio; so, you’re moving the lot line from technically the end of the 4-story building all the way to the end where the garage is? Ms. Shadlock; exactly correct Member Nadeau; so that becomes all one not now, the garage and the building itself is all on the same lot? Ms. Shadlock; exactly, it’s the way it should have been Member Nadeau; ok Ms. Shadlock; correct, its housekeeping cleaning up. Chairperson DeFruscio; and you’re doing it mainly to refinance the vacant piece of property to the north of that? Ms. Shadlock; no, in truth it is to clean it up. It was identified back when the project was financed and what happened is they placed a lien on the entirety of the parcel we’re expanding on to and didn’t bother to clean it up. Why, I don’t know but that was the decision that was made at the time. I became aware of it and I, you know you need to have everything in order as far as I’m concerned, so we went in and asked our land surveyor to put together this drawing so we could come in and discuss this with you and ask that this be approved. Chairperson DeFruscio; any other board members have questions now that we understand what they’re doing? Member Nadeau; Joe does that have any repercussions on your department at all? Joe Seman-Graves; besides looking a little bit embarrassed, no I don’t think so. Ms. Shadlock; it’s confusing, so I do understand. Dan Hersberg on Joe Seman-Graves; hello sir Mr. Hersberg; sorry I had trouble logging in Joe Seman-Graves; no worries, this is a unique, well it’s becoming less unique every month that we do this, but it’s still different. Chairperson DeFruscio; so Dan we understand that they’re just look to do a lot line adjustment to include the garage and Mill #4 the 4-story building there in one lot for the benefit of financing and tax purposes. Mr. Hersberg; that’s correct that’ exactly the reason we’re here tonight. Chairperson DeFruscio; and we’ve already, since you were having problems joining us, we’ve run it by all the board members. This is Mark DeFruscio the chairman of the board, we don’t have any outstanding questions at this point in time from any of the board members. I was going to open it up to members of the public to see if they have any questions or comments and Kizzy this is an opportunity for you if you have any questions or comments to go ahead and do that. So I’ll do that right now, so we’re opening it up to the public. Kizzy Williams; well my question is when, how many mills had, were on a space they did not own? Did they get a fine? Chairperson DeFruscio; the next lot line adjustment….. Joe Seman-Graves; it’s confusing there are 2 of them tonight Chairperson DeFruscio; this one is just about moving the property line so that the financing and tax can be done, in the way that they need it to be done and clean it up. Member Nadeau; Joe I have a question, because there were 2 separate lots, was there 2 separate tax map numbers? Joe Seman-Graves; yes Member Nadeau; how will that change? Mr. Hersberg; I believe that will be updated Member Nadeau; ok Mr. Hersberg; the Albany tax map office will probably assign 2 new numbers to them to track the physical change Member Nadeau; ok thank you Joe Seman-Graves; how it works is, once this gets approved, I’ll stamp it at Cohoes, a stamped copy will go to Albany County tax department. The new numbers will be then updated in their system which will reflect in our system in a few weeks, it takes some time. Member Nadeau; thank you Chairperson DeFruscio; ok so any other comments from the public? I don’t see anything at this point in time, so not having any additional comments I’ll give the board members a last chance to make any comments, if not, if no one has any other comments, I’m looking for a motion to either accept or deny this lot line adjustment at 100 N. Mohawk Street. Member Bucher; I’ll make a motion to accept Member Nadeau; I’ll 2nd motion carried unanimously YES NO Bob Bucher X Joseph Nadeau X Mark DeFruscio X Jack Carroll ABSENT Stephanie Couture X Chairperson DeFruscio; so, based on that, the lot line adjustment for this is approved and we’ll move on to our next agenda item. CONSIDERATION OF A LOT LINE ADJUSTMENT AND SITE PLAN REVIEW AT 100 N. MOHWAK STREET Chairperson DeFruscio; the next item on the agenda is another lot line adjustment and site review for a patio at 100 N. Mohawk Street. This was a, the Mills started working on this site to build a patio, it was determined that they were working on some property that was questionable. So the City code enforcement gave them a Stop Work Order and we are here reviewing this, there’s going to be some transfer of property from the City of Cohoes to 100 N. Mohawk, the Mills and there’s; some other property from the Elks involved in this so, whoever from the Mills wants to address that or Joe I don’t know if you want to do an overview? Joe Seman-Graves; yea, I can do a quick overview. So this project initially was given a stop work order wither December or January of this year, December of last year. The patio was being constructed without a building permit. The initial site plan that we saw, sent in or the initial survey that we saw had an overlay of this patio, on it showed some of the land belonged to the Elks. There’s a couple of other things that concerned the city with the patio and I think that the applicant’s have begun to fix that if not fixed those things already. So today we’re looking at the property from the Elks that was acquired by the applicant and that’s where this lot line falls. New, there is a piece from the city that the applicant has requested to purchase and that’s on the common council agenda currently this month. That will, we can not vote on that lot line adjustment today until the council approves that transaction, that sale of the portion of the right of way. So today we’re just looking at the Elk’s, we an look at the site plan, we can substantially say we approve the site plan, but it would be dependent on that transfer going through later this month. Nadine feel free to add other parts to that if you’d like. Ms. Shadlock; I’m assuming that we can address the lot line adjustment for the Elks? Joe Seman-Graves; yes Ms. Shadlock; is that correct? Chairperson DeFruscio; yes Ms. Shadlock; very good, thank you Chairperson DeFruscio; the second part of that, what Joe was suggesting we do, we could do an overview or review of you site plan as well. So, we could do some kind of preliminary site plan approval or site plan approval contingent upon you getting that transfer of property from the City of Cohoes. Ms. Shadlock; that sound wonderful. Joe Seman-Graves; if that’s the case the only thing we ask is that you would still have to come back for the 2nd lot line adjustment, the site plan review portion would be over. Chairperson DeFruscio; so let’s handle the lot line adjustment for the property that is being added, that is part of the Elks property. And we have a letter from the law offices of, well we also have a letter from the Elks Club stating that the are agreeable to this transfer of property. Ms. Shadlock; yea I think that letter from the Elks might be on topic of supporting the acquisition of the little pierce of land from the city. Joe Seman-Graves; they actually, I could be wrong Nadine, I think the one they had was, this is the original one I sent to them that I saw from the Elks Ms. Shadlock; oh, ok Joe Chairperson DeFruscio; it’s an extension of 100’ southward from the current land markings located at the northern most end of the Cohoes Waterford Elks line. It is a mall piece of property, 100’ of property basically from the end of the Mills property all the way down for 100’ Joe Seman-Graves; and if you guys can also see the checkered portion is, just to clarify, these 2 lots lines we’re talking about today in this box eliminated, proposed and then this checkered portion here (shown on the screen) is what Harmony Mills LLC has requested to purchase from the City of Cohoes. Chairperson DeFruscio; which will be done at a later date Joe Seman-Graves; yes pending council approval this month Chairperson DeFruscio; so from the committee members, any questions or comments? Member Couture; I don’t have any Member Nadeau; no Member Bucher; no Chairperson DeFruscio; so it’s basic, we’re just adding a piece of property that the Elks has agreed to transfer to the Mills, at this point in time which will give them a part of the piece they need for this patio that they’re designing, if the committee members don’t have any comments or questions, then I guess we’ll open it up to the public to see if anybody in the public has any questions about this transfer of property from the Elks Club to the Mills for the purposes of adding a patio that is partially constructed at this point in time. Joe Seman-Graves; Kizzy I’m assuming you have the same question from the last one? Kizzy Williams; yes definitely. What would, what was the penalty for a company to come in and build on a property that they did not own, did we charge them a fine? Joe Seman-Graves; well we try to look at each project in the context of the health, safety and well being of the community. So in this case the project itself it as an unused piece of land, it was already fenced in, so we determined that they are not affecting the health or well being of the community. Once you can make that determination, and just so the applicants know who are on, Kizzy, hopefully is going to be on the planning board coming up here, so I apologize, I just want to explain this to you while I got her on the phone here. But once we determine it’s not going to affect anyone in that sense, then its, and we have a lot of these in the city unfortunately, whether people do it knowingly or not, building without getting the proper approvals first, the next step is to have them come to the boards. Now in this instance since we’re not affecting the health, safety or well-being, what has happened to the applicants is this project has been on hold for the better part of the year, they have now had to hire architects to come in and give us documents that might be above and beyond what they had to do originally in the sense that we’re now trying to redo plans for something that’s already done. So that’s always a bit harder than doing from the ground up. They have spent time now paying Ms. Shadlock who is their attorney to take care of this project, make sure that the City is amiable to the terms, the Elks Lodge is amiable to the terms of the agreement. Now if the city says, still if the city says they do not want to sell that piece to them, most likely the patio would then be ripped up. So, there is still always that fear or danger on their end, so when you say is there a fine, at best they would be fined $50 for the 1st offense of this nature. What they have actually spent in time and money is far beyond that. Unfortunately, this wasn’t handled the right way to start with, so we try to take those things into account too, Kizzy when looking a this. We’ve had a couple of other in the city at the same time, they have been handled almost exactly the same way. Like I said, we try not to put people out by just initially slamming them fine after fine, but there’s situations where if it’s affecting the health, safety and well being not only will we fine them but also take other measures to prevent anyone from getting hurt and that could be taking their project down completely, so I don’t know if that answers you entirely, I hope it did a little bit. Chairperson DeFruscio; the way I would summarize it to Kizzy is, that the Mills when we put the stop work order in place realized that there was an error and something that needed to be addressed. They did stop construction on the project and worked with us to try and determine what need to be done to move forward properly and they have been working with use cooperatively since then. So, as long as the people that are in error work with us and show an effort to work with us there’s really nothing that we do to penalize them. But if they try to continue working then there are things that will happen. Kizzy Williams; thank you Mark, thank you Joe. It’s basically they show respect, they show respect to the city and that’s all we want, so I… Chairperson DeFruscio; and their neighbors Kizzy Williams; right and I completely respect that Chairperson DeFruscio; so as long as that continues and that has happened here, then we try to keep things moving forward with them. So, right now the issue at hand to us is the addition of the piece of property from the Elks Club to the Mills so that they will own that portion of the property for this patio they’re trying to build and if there are no other public comments or questions we’ll move this forward with asking the committee members to give us a motion to either deny or accept this lot line adjustment for 100 N. Mohawk St. Member Couture; I’ll make a motion to accept Chairperson DeFruscio; look for a 2nd Member Bucher; I’ll 2nd motion carried unanimously YES NO Bob Bucher X Joseph Nadeau X Mark DeFruscio X Jack Carroll ABSENT Stephanie Couture X Chairperson DeFruscio; so based on that we’re approving this lot line adjustment. CONSIDERATION OF SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR 100 N. MOHAWK STREET Chairperson DeFruscio; the next order of business is site plan review of the patio. The best we can do for you there is give you a, either a preliminary site plan approval or an approval with contingencies based on the city and the city council on the addition of that property. So does somebody want to give us an overview of what you’re looking to do with this patio? Mr. Hersberg; essentially the outline of the patio is already in place. There’s a photo attached to this application which shows the patio in place. We weren’t involved with the original application and how they got to this point here, but it is quite confusing because you can see that there’s an abrupt jog in the right ow way line that was in 2002 was dropped back further back and if you look at the site there you got a guide rail that sore of looks like that ought to be the limits of the right of way line but it wasn’t so that sort of explains how they go to where they are and now our plans shows acquiring a piece of property which exceed the limits of that patio only slightly to give us space to finish the patio and get it ready for occupancy. The plan that’s shown on there, on our site plan if you get that one up is actually a survey of what the patio, the located patio is right now, it shows the parcel that Nadine has already brought to the Common Council for their approval. And once that’s sold there shouldn’t be no other outstanding issues and if there are, we can from an engineering stand point, we can certainly address them. Chairperson DeFruscio; on the site plan review I guess we’re looking to understand what you’re going to be putting on that patio, whether that patio is going to be used year round, again, whether it’s going to be fenced in, what lighting is going to be there, how that’s going to impact the people that, on N. Mohawk Street. Whether or not this patio is going to be just a storage or something else off season, those are the kinds of things we’re looking for at this point. From a site plan perspective, we’re looking at lighting, what’s going to be on the patio, occupancy of the number of people on the patio. Mr. Hersberg; ok we can certainly supply all that information Ms. Shadlock; yes, I am confident it would only be seasonal use and simply as a patio. I don’t think it is intended for any other purpose, but we will follow up with more information.\ Chairperson DeFruscio; so the only thing we can do from a preliminary site plan perspective, is approve the square foot print of the site plan Are you planning on having tables and chairs on there, lounge chairs? What, I guess, what’s the purpose of the patio, does anybody know at this point in time? Ms. Shadlock; I do not know, yeah you can take this Dan Mr. Hersberg; we, our firm wasn’t informed, if we had the information, we would have shown it on the site plan. We can certainly go back and discuss it with the owner and determine what they would like to show on there either as permanent or temporary furniture and whether or not there is any lighting and we can also answer the questions of seasonal use of it. Chairperson DeFruscio; so then what we’ll do is, unless someone has an objection, I think we should hold off on the site plan review and we can handle that when you do the piece that you’re looking to get from the city. Once we do that lot line adjustment, we can do the site plan review and everything then. Is there any objection to that, is there anything else that the board members, is there anything else that the board members want to see on the site plan for this patio other than what I mentioned? Member Couture; do they have any obligation or could they show us if there is going to be furniture there, if like the weight of the furniture or if it’s going to be affixed to the patio somehow? It is pretty close to the roadway so I’m just thinking if there’s any type of winds or anything like that just to know what furniture is there to ensure the safety of pedestrian or anyone walking by. Chairperson DeFruscio; I’m sure they’ll want to show us there’s going to be a fence around the patio I believe, so they’re going to want to indicate that; the height of it and things of that nature. Member Couture; and I was also curious about garbage receptacles. If the intention is for people to have picnic space or something like that? Mr. Hersberg; we can certainly check on that and show that on the next submission for the site plan. I was just wondering could this board do a conditional approval of the lot line adjustment portion of it and leave all the site plan issues to go later? In other words, once the property is sold then we’ll have all the lot line adjustments taken care of and will only be working with the site plan issues. Chairperson DeFruscio; we could do, since we have the particulars here, we could do a contingent, we could do a lot line adjustment contingent upon approval of the property transfer from the city council, unless the board members have an objection to that. Or do you want to wait until we get that approval from the city council? Joe Seman-Graves; I’m ok with it now because I’m not going to stamp anything until there’s city council approval so. Chairperson DeFruscio; right Joe Seman-Graves; on my end I’m fine with that Chairperson DeFruscio; Joe can you bring up the, that plot plan again there, and essentially, it’s that referenced piece there (shown on the screen) we would be doing a lot line adjustment approval contingent upon the city council approving the transfer of the property. Member Bucher; yes Chairperson DeFruscio; I’m looking for a board member to make a motion to approve or deny the lot line adjustment of that addition of property that’s proposed to be transferred from the city contingent upon approval of the city council. Member Nadeau; I so move that we approve as stated by Mark. Member Couture; I’ll 2nd motion carried unanimously YES NO Bob Bucher X Joseph Nadeau X Mark DeFruscio X Jack Carroll ABSENT Stephanie Couture X Chairperson DeFruscio; so you got approval contingent upon the city council approving the transfer of city property and we want the detail on the site plan. We’ll do a final site plan approval either at the next meeting or whenever you get that information to us. Mr. Hersberg; we hope to turn that information around pretty quickly, it’s just gathering some information on how the owner intends to use it. Chairperson DeFruscio; ok, I’m good with that. Joe are there any other things we need to handle with that? Joe Seman-Graves; no, not today, our next meeting is November 9th I believe, so it’s along month. You have about 3 ½ weeks to get me that information on the site plan Mr. Hersberg; thank you Ms. Shadlock; thank you very much, we appreciate it. Chairperson DeFruscio; thank you. Based on that we have no other agenda items, I would welcome the board members and Kizzy to stay on for a couple of minutes after here, but I can now look for a motion to close the official meeting from one of the board members Member Nadeau; I’ll make that motion Member Bucher; I’ll 2nd it Chairperson DeFruscio; so, based on that, I’ve got 7:07 on my Verizon clock and officially close the meeting. I’ll vote yes on that. .