Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

Okay. Um so calling to order um today's May 6, 2026. Um the this is a public meeting of the board of zoning appeals. It's about a little after 6 pm. Uh we only have one matter on the agenda. It's a returning matter. Uh the can come up. Uh area varants 2025-17 property address 581 central avenue. Uh the proposal for construction of a 32 foot post and camel sign or 5 is the maximum height permitted in the NUFC district. Um, with that said, I don't know if you want to add anything um about, you know, kind of summarize.

Yeah. What we've discussed briefly and instead of going back through, you know, but like I don't know if you want to go over your two points of

Yeah. Yeah, I can. Uh, Sam Burden Polar Engineering, Mike McCracken, Hospitality Syracuse, Inc. Mike's traveled uh from Syracuse to be here with us tonight. Um, pretty simple proposal here. We'll I'll just touch on where we were and where we are now. Um, so we're looking for the uh variance for a detached sign height where 5t is allowed and 15 is proposed. That would be a 10-ft variance sought within the mixed use form base code or MUFC. Um in our original meeting when we discussed this we the board covered um good points that we believe we have addressed in the various months to this point. Those discussion points um located around location lighting safety uh specifically site distance and accidents uh the neighborhood association and the beautifification of the sign. So I'll start with location. Um the sign does meet the required setback. We do have this extended rightway where the building is 100 plus or minus 100 ft. We're meeting this uh setback. We have the church pulled very close to the road. We have the housing on the other side that's closer towards central a where we sit back. Um we also have two frontages u as determined by planning on the site with Central Avenue and Hunter. We would be allowed two freestanding signs at this location, but we understand that one is better for this proposal. Um, safety, uh, we had a third party traffic engineer, uh, GTS Consulting, uh, pull together a traffic memo for review of the sign and its location, specifically site distance. Um, Clean Mill Health on that. And he also addressed the

accidents in the report that no impacts to motorists uh in sight distance or in uh vehicle accidents would be proposed or would would be anticipated due to the site distance that's available at the site. Um neighborhood so we reached out to both neighborhood associations. Um Mike uh as the applicant headed that conversation because he thought it would be important that him as you know uh a representative of the owners group talked directly to the owners. They uh or talked directly to the neighborhood associations. Uh we received a letter from both the associations essentially having no problem with the proposal um that's been submitted into the record. Then lighting. We confirmed with our sign vendor that the halo style lighting that's proposed on this would cast no shadow to motorists um in the driveway or on Central Avenue and it would essentially be negligible um outside of the small area surrounding the sign. And then beautifification. Um there was some conversation about just the bottom of the sign and adding some nice plantings. Uh we did add a brick that matched the building and we added just that top course as well as um a planting box on the inside. So those are the items uh we've been working on, you know, in the past couple months just to get to this point. We hope that um you know we've done enough to bring this to the board standard and what they want to see. Mike is and HRG and HSI as a collective have um invested in this community and they're excited for the overall success. I also think that the the additional tenant sign will go a long way to a second user and Mike might might be able

to speak more to um the conversations that he's had with some tenants that are looking for uh signage on central lab which may be um holding up a potential second user. But with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that the board may have. I have a question. Yes. So, there was no traffic study. It was like a traffic memo. Uh, yeah. So, he essentially Yeah, it was a traffic memo

because I ran internal numbers of crash rates in that area. It's pretty bad. It's mostly due to the slip lane few yards away. Like, it has nothing to do with that building per se, but it's just really bad. And there's a very high AADT or annual average daily travel path. It's like this was done a couple years ago. It's it's like I want to say it was around 20,000 vehicles. At first I thought it was 15. It was over 20,000. That's a great traffic pattern for businesses.

So high visibility, high conflict area, just with vehicular issues, several bike ped incences, injuries that resulted in injuries. I sent the Excel spreadsheet to the planning department. It was pretty bad. Um just that whole again it's not necessarily the building that area that slip lane needs to be removed between Clinton and um central that's been that's like the big issue but it's just tough area and the bottom where it's split where central splits. Yeah. It's like a block it's a block away or it's at the end of that block technically. Um and that's a city issue not a issue.

Yeah. Um, so to be very clear about that, so just the proposed sign with like the way it's proposed and like you know like I guess there's the box and then there's space in between which can you go back to like oh I said one where there's measurements like how much space is there? There's nine feet from the bottom or eight feet from the bottom of the white panel to the bottom of the sign. Sight distance is evaluated to the floor, you mean? Or to the top?

So you have an 18 inch brick course. So it would be 7 and 1/2 ft. But it's sight distance is evaluated at 3 and 1/2 ft essentially from looking left to right. So we have a visibility box. No, no. I I get it. Oh, sorry. Just explain it a go over this slower. Yep. So the sign from the top of the sign would be at 15 feet. Essentially the bottom of the white panel would be at about 8 ft. So the floor uh 8 ft to the to the ground

and then we'd have 18 about 18 in to the top of there. So you'd have 6 and 1/2 ft. So the space between the bottom of the uh additional like the blank sign and the top of the box you said is about six

and I've seen other signs like when I'm up in Malta or Saratoga or down in Reinbeck I've seen other Taco Bell signs and also just general large these conglomerates these fast food conglomerates. I mean, I've seen signs that have been done really well. Um, it's it's it's interesting. So, this halo lit sign is the same is the same design that we did in Malta. It's the same, but they they allowed it. They don't allow internally lit signs, but they did allow this halo lighting. Yeah. They have form based code, which is really interesting.

Yeah. And it's actually set up similar to how the formbbased code is here. And that was the first thing we we thought of was when we were proposing the sign is this matches the standard that Malta has set forth and that's why we have the same and I think in multi we do have the brick base as well so we match that. What do you have in Saratoga if you remember? It's an ugly ugly old pylon really. It's been there forever but it was a KFC. It was a KFC originally and then it was converted. But we never we do need to change the sign as Maltto is a brand new build two way back.

No, no, no. The new was a new build two years ago. So when it comes to safety, you were saying it was 3 ft for the sight lines. So like they for like the traffic and I guess I'm thinking but maybe I don't know anything about this stuff like if you're coming you know from where from the bottom of the where we were talking about that triangle rating so you're coming up central I guess there's greater than 500 ft of cycle

it's not their it's not their problem it's a city problem just to be very clear about that. Yeah. But so going back, so you're driving up and then you see the sign. I think when we were last discussed like I guess with the way the sign is currently proposed, are there concerns that was like I guess was that the bricks are not in the way of doing anything? I guess like viewing the cars coming in or out of the parking lot, right? I I'm assuming that the site issue is about like turning in and I guess getting to see the sign soon enough to I don't know

general sight line you just like you don't the sign isn't really blocking viewing cards coming in and out right that's correct one other thing if I could to keep him if we don't get this variance it ends up being that that sign ends up from the ground up five feet so that's really the two the two decision points are do you want to look through it or do you want to look right at it? And I guess that that's we're hopeful that we can get it a little up higher up in the air just for a little earlier and there's a lot of noise at the ground level too. You know, there's a lot of people walking, driving, so it's a little bit more it's a little easier to see if we can get it off the ground a little bit.

Would you be able to share more details about the site distance review that was conducted and conclusions?

Yeah. Um so GTS I just should should mention is a as well as a PE he's a professional traffic operations engineer so he evaluates these memorandums um he is a professional at this I had worked on many projects with Gordon Stanbury and he reached out to me and said that there he does not believe in his opinion that a traffic study would be warranted or that the need for any further evaluation would be required because the standard set forth by the ASHTO I call it the green book but what I'm used to is between 290 ft and 385 ft. That's for 30 mph to 40 mph zones. This location is a 30 mph zone and we are greater than 500 feet of um sight distance. So, the conclusion is that the sign will not impact intersection sight lines looking east along Central Avenue for motorists exiting the site. There's no anticipated impact on traffic operations with the proposed sign and no anticipated impact on incident patterns or rates in the area. Thank you.

Yeah. Any other questions, comments? Oh, no. I think I bombarded Sam and here with enough over the last couple meetings. No, we appreciate all the feedback. We understand you guys are are it's about the community and what you're looking to do. Um Mike also has the business that in in this area that he invested, so we have to also think of that. the sign really do feel is necessary to the long-term overall success of the business. Is there anyone online for public comments?

Anything else from the board? Any motion? I'll move to approve. Uh do we need to do the negative? I thought we did this before. I think it was just table. Ah uh the final actions I think you're amending the table. Do I need to make a motion to amend the table first? I think you can just make your you're just voting motion. Awesome. Regarding area of variance 2025-17 which has previously been tabled uh I moved based on the multiple substantive uh discussions uh that we approve this area of areas

second. Okay. Um this yes no yes yes also the motion carries. Um thank you very much. Thank you guys for your continued support of the project that we got to this point. Thank you very much.

I feel like we have Is there a motion to table then? Unless there's a to not to adjourn the meeting, please. Uh, all in favor? I heard a second, I think. Yes. Yeah. All in favor? Great. Thank you. How can I miss you?