Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Yes, you do. I would like to bring this meeting of the Bedford Planning Board to order. The first item on our agenda tonight is a public hearing. Um the regarding consideration of a special use permit application for the construction of an accessory structure, a barn over 20 ft in height and greater than 2500 square ft in size pursuant to town code 125-27D3. The owner applicant is Shan Rooney. The address is uh 245 Babbot Road, Bedford Hills. Is there someone here to speak for the applicant? I am Sean Rooney. I'm here to speak.

Welcome. Thank you. Can I hand out a few things? These are updated. I emailed. Be sure that our secretary gets a copy. Thank you. These are updated drawings that I've had modifications. I only have two of these. These are uh that I intend to be housing. I'll explain it.

May I begin? Yes, please.

Good evening, chairman and members of the board. My name is Sean Rooney. I'm here tonight with my wife Jamie on Zoom. Um, and my two sons are at home, uh, Brian and Jack. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening. I have been a resident, uh, of this town for over 16 years, a police officer for 15 years, and a volunteer firefighter for 13 years in Befford Hills. I'm dedicated to my community and and my neighbors. My wife's grandparents were the original owners of this property that we currently live at. This property has been in the family for three generations. I am respectfully requesting a special use permit to allow me to to construct a poleb barn style building on our property at 245 Babbot Road, Beford Hills. After presenting at the zoning board and listening to their feedback from them, I receive I revised my plans for this structure. I am seeking I I spoke to my engineer and we decreased the size of this building to 65 ft wide uh 65 ft long, 35 ft wide, making this building 2,275 square ft. Therefore, I no longer need need you to approve the square footage of the new building uh based off off of the 2,500 ft limit or maximum. A special use permit is still needed for the height of the updated dimensions. The new height, because I shrunk the building down, is now 28 feet in uh instead of the 30.5 ft originally submitted. My goal with this structure is to improve my property in a thoughtful and responsible way, respecting the

surrounding neighbors. Thank you for your time and consideration. I appreciate you reviewing my request and would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Do you have a a site plan to I have Yes, I have to show the audience. I know we have one in the back. This is the revised part, right? Well, that's right. The revision. This is This is Let me guess. Uh the site plan I drew the This is the mic. Sorry. I'm sorry. And you can put that up on Okay. Thank you.

Okay. This is Sorry. All new to me. So on here is my survey uh with the s. Thank you. On here is my survey. Um and nicid over here is the drawing from nicer that I got from the telephone pole to their new meter location. the electrical power going from the pole to the uh approximately where the pergola the uh fence is on the side of my house and then proceeding back to the building the purs proposed building is back here with the deduct with the reduction in size I now even though it's not uh part of this meeting I now have 11T setbacks instead of the what I requested originally at the zoning board for 6T foot set back. So I increased by uh 5T which makes it 11 ft. Um I decreased the building in size 5T in in length and width.

Um and and you're not going to bury the it will be buried. Everything everything will be buried. Sorry I should have stated that is everything it the only point it will go from the street to the pole and conduit all the way to the back. That's what is generally required. So, can you give us some idea of why this is the spot to put this building given that it doesn't meet the zoning requirements?

The zoning require Does this work? Am I Yeah. Okay. Um, the zoning requirements on my property are 50 foot setbacks. I have a 115 foot wide property by 400 and something on one side and 300 and something on the other. So, it's long and narrow as you can see by the survey. Um, I can't do anything without getting a variance and uh uh and that's why I'm here. Well, not here, but that's why I'm proceeding down this road. And where how how does the the lot fit in the neighborhood? Where where did the adjacent neighbors houses sit?

Um each side on I'm uh on each side is is uh the Gizos are on one side, Phelps is on the other side. Um but we're on the on their properties are the houses. I'm trying to get a sense of what the impact of the this be on. Each property is similar to the size of my property. It's it's long and narrow. So the gizos are on uh on this side and the Phelpses are on this side. Where are the houses?

The houses are gen are almost in line with my house. So it's right here. So there's 20 roughly 225 ft between here and the back with all screening along the gizo side and for cythia and uh and screening uh and uh stuff on this side for the the Phelps's side.

Now one one thing that I I did in particular with this building is I designed it to look like a barn. I could have designed this as a metal looking structure with just an A-frame type roof. I chose the barn style roof because I feel that in and around this area there's a lot of barns, a lot of different barns. Um there's a lot of accessory structures and garages on both of my neighbors on both sides. Um, there's an accessory structure garage uh two houses down that got a variance and and uh that was in 2013. So, this is nothing abnormal to the neighborhood to have a garage behind my garage behind my house. I also submitted uh well handed you pictures of my antique cars. I've had that first car on there. I've had that car since I was 15 years old. I built it myself. I painted it myself and I built the motor when I was at West Community College. I still have that car and it's currently in my garage. Um, the other few cars, the Model A Street Rod I built with my father in '94. Um, so he's getting up in age, so I'm preparing to unfortunately take over his vehicles at some point, which I would love to do. Um, he doesn't want to give him up quite yet. Um, he also has the 55 Ford and I also have a 35- ft camper and that is I'm sorry, a 30 foot camper that's attached to my truck in that picture. Um that camper is is what is housed in the vinyl uh portable shed right now. It's like one of those 30 foot uh 30x30 vinyl shed. Um currently it's in there. It's that vinyl shed is quite old and I've always wanted to build a building. I wanted to build it in the back. Um the uh vinyl shed would come down. The building would would go there. It's uh about 8 feet over what the vinyl shed is

right now. The vinyl shed's about 20 feet. Um with the design of the poleb barn, the poleb barn in particular has a high roof. It's the design of the roof. Um I've already limited the the size of the width. I've limited the size of the length and the size of the height comes down because of the size of the width. Two questions. Sure. What are you doing with impervious surfaces leading back to the proposed?

Everything back here is all gravel. This is all grass. Um, my imperous surfaces calculations. Um, I'm well under I think I have 15 12% or close to it left of imperous surfaces. On the survey, it has all the the impervises imperous surfaces. Um, all this is gravel though. Okay. So, it's already disturbed because you used it as the existing access for the It was it was existing when I purchased the property 13 uh in 2010. Okay. And in the proposed building, are you is there a second floor and upstairs or

There is dry storage above it because the design allows me to have a a space upstairs. Um these trusses are designed trusses are designed to only have load from the from the roof. um unless you design them to handle a load that pulls down from the floor. Um the trusses are are designed so I can have drive storage up there. There's these doors are actually not windows in the drawings that I gave you. That's the the actual look of the it looks more like a barn.

They're functioning doors. So, so this this is the the the look of the uh it's not going to have windows. It's literally just going to have two windows on each side to make it look like a barn. Running out of room here. Do you foresee using the upstairs if people are coming to look at your car collection?

Uh, no. It will just be it will just jeez. It will just be dry storage. It's not going to serve any other purpose other than drive storage. Extra storage space. Do you want to open the public? Yeah, just gonna Did you want to say You want me to go through because I have a lot. Have you looked at the municipal tax viewer about your property

about my property and what in particular are you whole host of uh geographic information that's on Westchester County and the back property where you're showing this building? Yes. which comes up as slopes over 25%. Which is a steep slopes permit. Okay. I was unaware of that and I'm not aware of that. It was not in any of my that's another level of review that we're going to have to do just to check and see whether sometimes the those large it could be it could be have some errors in it. We can comp but we have to double check.

Absolutely. a photo. Uh because even the contours the contours back there are dropping from call it 380 to 362 at the property. Well, 368 at at the property line. Now maybe we should open it to the public and then you can Okay, this you have more also. Um

can I this um I can show you these pictures that I these are based off of uh two pictures that I put together via AI. The second one is uh the driveway. I'm sorry. It's not 100% uh the way it's going to look in my backyard and along the uh back, but there is no the entire backyard of my property is completely flat. And then once it goes to the prison property, it does drop off quite significantly behind my property. It drops off behind all the properties back there, but it's not my property. Where where this is going is completely flat and it's going to be at least 15 20 ft from or more than that from the slope. So, it's not on my property that the slope is. It's on the prison property.

Okay. This is a public hearing. So, I'd like at this point to open the meeting to comments from the public. if you come up uh stand by the microphone please and and also if if you would identify yourself Okay. Good evening, Mr. Chairwoman and members of the board. My name is Alex Gizzo. We own the property next door at 243 Babbot Road. I also have some uh papers I'd like to hand hand hand up to if that's okay. Again, please make sure that our secretary and our director photographs forward into this the second letter that I submitted to the town planning uh department this morning via email. Did anybody have the opportunity to see that today and review it before this meeting?

Not before the meeting. No, I taught all day. Okay, that's fine. A copy is there. Is this is is the copy and what you just handed? It's the one that's uh has my name on top and the date on it. That's the uh Okay, that's the letter I submitted this morning. The other one are just some notes I had for tonight.

So, if you want a quick history, like uh Mr. Woody gave a quick history about his uh his wife's grandparents owning the property. We we bought the property in 1969 and we lived there with the grandparents' neighbors for many years. Then that house got passed down to uh the daughter. We lived there with the daughter, wife, Mrs. Rooney. She was a child and grew up there on that property. And then some point Mr. Rooney took over the property. I wasn't going to get into the slope issue now, but since you brought that up, you'll see in photos that I've that I've supplied to the town that there that back that back partial part of the property was very sloped. But over the years, Mr. We just had contractors in there dumping all kinds of material, leveling off that property. Fortunately, a lot of that debris, material, garbage, and waste went down the hill recently. Now, that's all been covered with mulch so that nobody could see what's actually underneath there. But those photos will depict what's underneath there. Let me start off here with my notes regarding this. Uh the numbers that you see in in my notes are going to be off a little bit now because at last week's hearing where I was under the impression that this was a 3200 ft garage that was being built. Now it's uh 2275. However, with a full second floor, that still doubles the actual square footage of the building. So 2275 doubled is nearly 4,500 ft². So, he's looking to build a 4500 square foot industrial garage with 28 28 feet high in a residential neighborhood. That's just not that's not suited for the character of the neighborhood. Nobody has a has a garage of that size in our neighborhood. Plus, when you put a second floor on it,

it makes it become easily convertible into a living quarters up there. And I'm not aware yet, but maybe somebody knows whether or not plumbing is going to be installed in this building because if a plumbing or bathroom is going to be installed in the building, that makes it very easily converted into living space back there. Mr. Rooney's objectives can be easily accomplished without the need for a special permit. He advised the zoning board appeals last week that he wants to store his camper and other collector's vehicles. We don't have per se an objection to a garage being built. We do have objections to an industrial size garage 20 ft 28 ft high 14t garage doors. Um a garage under 2500 ft² without a second floor can be built. Could still have 10 to 12 foot a single 10 to 12t garage door in there to pull his camper in. Other garage doors could be normal size, seven to eight feet in height where he could pull his cars into. The problem we're having with the property, uh, since Mr. Rooney took over and it's depicted in those photos, is that the property in the back has been turned into a contractor's yard. You'll see photos there of industrial trucks going pulling in and out of there, people that have been dumping back there, storage of contractors equipment back there in the yard. the I don't know if you want to call it a tent or whatever you want to call that garage back there that's there now. That's that's that's a violation sitting there now. It's been a violation sitting there since it was installed because it was never a permit for it. It was installed on our property line with no permit. We brought that to the building inspector's attention years ago. He took no action on it. Brought it to his attention again last Monday after we found out about this request to put a barn back there. Now, I believe he's issued a violation. And today, I'm told

that they're going to allow that structure to exist pending this application process. So, I was under the impression originally that you're not allowed to entertain a special use permit if there's an existing violation on the property. So, I'm not sure where that's going. The violation has to be issued. Yeah. Just But there is a violation there. So, it has been I don't know what the building inspector's done or hasn't done. and I brought it to his attention years ago and I brought it to his attention guess last Monday. So I don't know why if he's if he hasn't issued violation then he's overlooking it for some reason but it that the structure is depicted there in the photos that big green tarped building back there that he has says he has his camper in. I don't know what's in there but you know it's not this board is not a

that's fine a board that issues those kinds of things. I just want to make that clear.

Okay. Thank you. Um, if a special use permit is granted, we'd like to see some conditions put forth in regards to acceptable use of this building. We'd like a condition set forth prohibiting living quarters inside of the building. Like a condition prohibiting the operation of a mechanic shop inside of the building. like a prohibition prohibiting the storage of industrial and or commercial vehicles inside of this building and a prohibition for storage for rent by others not living on the property because what the size of this this thing it's not just a normal size garage like any one of us would have in our backyard to store some cars in this thing is big enough that you can fit industrial trucks inside of this thing and through the history of this property now industrial trucks have been coming in and out of there tree trucks chippers excavation machines all depicted in those photos that I've supplied. This is what's been happening back there. The the road you're asking about impervious services before and the road Mr. Rooney advised that that road was there. That that road was not there. There was a driveway from Babbot Road up into the existing garage in the house. The house has a built-in two-car garage. Drive from Babbot Road into that garage. Over the years, Mr. Rooney has has built a road running up the side of his property all the way into the back to where that trailer is. That's allowed access for all of these industrial trucks and commercial vehicles to drive up there and park in the back and store their equipment and dump material back there. I don't believe a permit was ever issued to build a road from the house all the way to the back of the property. Last week on April 9th at the uh zoning board hearing, some of the members expressed concerns regarding the size of this proposed garage along the placement along with the placement of this garage. He's requested from the zoning board that

this prop that this garage be built six feet on our property line, six feet off of the rear property line. Both of those require 50 foot setbacks. Um, some of the members made comment at that meeting that they'd like to see this garage not only downsized, like to see it moved off the property line, closer to Mr. Rooney's house, more in the center of the lot. These are big lots in the backyard. If you if you see these properties, the houses are maybe not even a third of the way in off of Babbitt Road, and then over twothirds of the property is just big open lawn in the back. So, they're big properties. This garage doesn't need to be set right at the edge of the property line in the back. It could be set more up in into the middle of the property. Mr. Rooney made a comment at the zoning board hearing last week saying that he's attempting to clean up the eyesore that exists on his property. That comment didn't go over well with the board. As one of the board members stated, that's a disingenuous statement since you self-created this eyesore. It was never an eyesore back there when the grandparents lived there and even when the and when their their their daughter lived there with her husband and kids. It was a nice big lawn. We never had a fence separating our property property. We were friendly with the neighbors. We'd eat dinner at their house, invite us over. Spent many years with these people. Both shared the common lawn in the back. Then once Mr. Rooney started bringing all his contractor equipment in there dumping and I started taking some of these photos within weeks a fence went up down the whole property 6 feet and then in the back section where he had all the contractor's equipment he put up an 8ft fence. I brought that to the building inspector's attention too and my understanding is that's been cut down now to a sixoot fence in the last week. this this massive size structure is

going to have a direct impact in the neighborhood. Um, not only it's going to set precedent for other people to build something like that, it's going to affect property values back there having to look at this this size structure.

I have two two questions that I'd like to ask. One of them one of them is I'm I'm confident that if I asked every member on the board the following question, your answer would be no. If you lived at 243 Babbot Road, would you support and allow the construction of a massive 40 foot by 80 foot by 30 foot high, two-story garage with 14 high garage doors located 6 feet off of your property line. I don't think anybody here would want that on their property, not in a residential neighborhood like this. While I may not be allowed to address Mr. Rooney directly, would like to request that the board ask Mr. Rooney the following question. Would you have any objection to your neighbor at 243 Babbot Road erecting a 6,000 square foot, twotory, 30 foot high building 6 ft off of your property? I'd like an answer to that. See if if you know Mr. Rooney is amendable to allowing us to build this same size structure that he's asking us to build. Are there any other comments or questions from members of the audience?

Comments or questions from anyone on the Zoom? Comments or questions from the planning board? My my concern was just the discussion about dumping. Is has that been ver is there an issue with that? Do we know or someone need to go look at what was actually when was it when was it last survey? I mean this is a brand new survey. Sorry. So this this is a brand new survey that was done on the June of 26, 2025.

On the survey it actually implies that you've encroached into the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility property with the gravel driveway. I put gravel uh covering the area there that was that was there. Yes, it also goes over the property line. So, you've encroached. Okay. That's where the that's where the steep slopes are. Not where this I mean it it turns into a steep slope. Yes. But yeah, but you if you placed it over the line, the property line into someone else's property line. I covered what was there, not increased. It doesn't really make any difference. Okay, I'm okay. That's

it's somebody else's property. Okay, I'm I'm going to go back to I had a bunch of questions on the other. Let's go back to your the seeker. how you answered the seeker for items 17 and items 11. You say you're connecting to a water source and ice water source. Is that true? That is not true. I made a mistake on the application. If you notice that I said yes to that, the sewer, a whole bunch of other stuff. That is I'm looking for it. That's not the right. And presumably you have an on-site safety system. Yes. It's in the in It's all the way in the front.

So, it's in the front. So, it's okay. And your 100% backup area would have to be in the back, right? You mean to put a new septic system? A new septic system. I would have to hook up to the pressurized main that's in front of my structure. That's the if I was if my system had failed as far as I No. All right. You talk about this building and mitigation of storm water. Where's that going?

Um current currently I have uh less than or the imperous surfaces. I have quite a bit of imperous surfaces already that are there. Um, I'm not encroaching on the even close to the limit of the imperous surfaces because of the gravel and and I don't plan on Yeah, but you're dump you're dumping 6 to 11 ft away from the property line.

Um, yes. And I have in the drawings in the in the drawing the original drawings that I sent um the engineered drawings they have curtain drains all the way around the perimeter that would be catching catching that water and slowing it down. Right now I have water from two properties that that slope into my property as well. So, but where's it going? It goes down the hill. So, it's going it's encroaching on the correctional facilities property again.

Well, it would go down the hill towards the Phelps property because the the way the properties go, it goes down and then to Phelps and eventually goes down to down to the prison property. Great. I have a bit of a concern about the the comment that the maps seem to show a steep slopes and that there's the potential that there's been some filling going on there. I I think we have to go take a look at this property and ourselves.

Agreed. You're you're more than welcome to Um, and we may need has the tan engineer been out to the property at all? We may need to after after we go, we may need him to go as well, depending on what we see. I have I have re and one of the main comments that was brought up at the zoning meeting was the size and uh the word uh a ginormous structure was brought up. Um I've lessened this structure by approximately in length and width and height in total about 27%. Um

but and and that's a good step forward. It's actually one of the reasons I'm still considering this. Oh, okay. Making making an effort to to respond, but it's still given the location on the property, it's still very large in a far from ideal location from the neighbor's point of view. If if you actually visualize the property, you'll understand the way it it flows better. That's quite possible and that's why I'd like to go see it and the best way to visualize it is just sit there and look at it. Sure.

Other comments or questions? At this point after we look same thing. Yeah. I mean I I would echo that on paper it feels excessive but I think uh you know being ising yeah I I think that's where we leave it. I I think perhaps we should leave the public hearing open at this point depending what what we see when we go go to look at it. We may have other questions.

Sure. Um, I did have one question. You you've got these three huge doors. Why do you need all three of them to be that

for access to in and out for the vehicles that I have? Um, it is an option that I am talking to my engineer. Unfortunately, with the zoning being last Wednesday, I had him rush to get those smaller drawings to to get the overall height that basically to get the overall height and the dimensions. I rushed him to get those um and he wasn't able to put in the the the two doors um from the property uh the Gizo's property. You cannot see anything on that side of the building. There's three doors facing Phelps, the Phelps property. It doesn't affect anybody but Phelps. And I I know that uh a whole bunch of letters have been submitted in my on my behalf uh in with no opposition to this project. I've explained it to all my neighbors um including the tenant at uh 243 Babbot Road um who can see it from their upstairs window. Um there's been no opposition whatsoever other than what you heard tonight. Can I can I ask um what's the explanation for the the number of of trucks that are in those?

I've been maintaining I I sorry I didn't quite understand your question. There there were questions that your sorry pictures that your neighbor has given us. Um I have maintained my property. I've I've smoothed out the back there. I've maintained that driveway. Um, originally, uh, you know, I'm talking about the pictures of all the trucks pulled up. Was that a one time? The trucks pulled up. I haven't seen these pictures, so I don't know what I'm supposed Okay. Well, we'll have to make sure you get a chance to see them. I I would have to review it, and I would have to That's fair. Definitely see what I'm being accused of. Yeah.

I don't think we can do anything else tonight. I think we have to uh set a date to to take a look at the property and uh I would also suggest that you do take a a look at the pictures that we've been given tonight that are now part of the public record. Did you have something else you wanted to add before I close? Well, adjourn the public hearing. Yes, mair.

Thank you. Thank you. I I didn't bring this up earlier. I didn't know how pertinent it was, but Mr. Rooney just brought up the fact that my tenant gave him a letter of support. It was brought up at the zoning board appeals hearing on Thursday night. So, after that, I asked the tenant, you know, what what what happened. I didn't know anything about it. And she tells me that Mr. Rooney came over there and never told told her about the size of the structure, this 6,400 ft, 30 foot high garage that he's looking to put up back there. He came over and asked her if she had a problem with construction noise. Being the good neighbor that she is, she said that that would be fine. So, she gave him a letter of support that was based on misrepresentations by Mr. Rooney. He's got letters of support from other people in the neighborhood, people that are obviously friends of his, but with all due respect, th those those property owners or tenants, whoever they are, there's no direct effect on those people because they're across the street on Franklin Street. They're down at the Beford Muse condos. They're not next door to this structure. None of those people will see this structure back there. It won't affect their property values. They won't have a view of it. And my concern so much with the garage doors isn't that I'm going to be looking at his garage doors because he says they're going to be facing the other properties. My concern is all the industrial trucks and equipment that's coming up there because the only reason you need 14t high doors is to fit big industrial trucks in there. His camper will fit through a 10 or 12 foot door. You don't need a door that size and you only need one door for the camper.

That's one of the reasons I'm kind of considering could would smaller doors be acceptable. Right. Now, I would just ask if I I would just ask if you do go out to view the property that you take those photos with you because you'll see all the fill that's been put in there through those photos over the years. That was a steep steep slope in the back. Started way up on the property line from where it is now. It's leveled off that. It's probably got another 20 ft at least back there. That's not his property. That's all leveled off now. All that gravel that you said on state land it is. We will go and we will look at it carefully ourselves. Okay. Very good. Thank you. See what's there. Thank you. Yes.

I think it's appropriate for you to have the last word. One one thing that was mentioned there is the other neighbors that can can't see this. Um that's completely incorrect. Jerry Phelps is my neighbor on the other side. Uh his daughter Karen uh uh Kristen is there as well. Um, and then you have Jeremy who's the one house down who all can see and because they're lower, they can actually see the entire structure, the entire the the front what I call the front side, which is the garage door side. Um, not we're having a lot of hearsay on both sides because

that's just the way it is. It's not anybody's fault. Um, that's one of the reasons I'd like us to go and take a look at it ourselves so that we can get a a clear idea instead of trying to figure out who thinks this and who thinks that and um anytime you would like feel free. Okay. We'll be in touch. Okay. Uh and I could I have a motion to adjourn the public hearing. So moved. Second. Is there any further discussion? We adjourn it to the next to the May meeting or Okay. So, we adjourn it potentially to the May meeting. All in favor?

I I All opposed. The meeting the public hearing is adjourned.

The next item on our agenda tonight will Oh, thank you. I haven't buried my agenda. Is another public hearing. This is to consider an amendment to a previously granted special use permit for an accessory structure exceeding 20 ft in height and 2500 square ft in size. This is a maintenance barn to add a ventilated coupula 8 foot by 9 in pursuant to town code 125-273. this. Oh, the um owner applicant is ASG NW Properties LLC. The address is 120 to 200 Greenwich Road, Bedford. Is there someone here to speak for the applicant?

Uh good evening, madam chairman and members of the planning board. I'm Jerry Barrett, the landscape architect and site planner for the project. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Okay. Um would you like me to put my drawing up? And if so, think that's how do I share? Join as a panelist. I think yes, I guess I want to be a panelist. Can you can we help you with the sharing?

Okay. Um I'm still here. Can you guys hear me? Yes. And I think we see you, too. You see me, too. Now, how do I get my drawing? Oh, there's the share button. Okay. Did that work? Uh, no. We now

ah, now we've got it.

Okay. Very good. Okay. So, um, this is, um, 140 Greenwich Road, the Gordon property, also known as Turtle Rock Farm. This is Greenwich Road on this side of of the property. That's the north to to to the north. Um and um it's it's a large property and in the middle of the property or I guess on the more toward the southern side. Um in February 25, we came before the board to ask for a special permit to build a barn, a maintenance barn on the property. And um so we reviewed that with the board and um these were the plans that were presented to the board. And um since that time what's uh what's happened is that this koopala has been added and it's been added as a as a ventilation structure um for you know all the heat that rises throughout the day. It's uh so the well the the way this barn was set up when we first did this um the the project manager Jim Best identified a low point in the property and we all agreed it'd be a good place to set the barn down to we could you know we could decrease the height of the barn as much as possible. Um and and we did and we came to the board and we got the special permit and now we're back because uh because the the Koopa is now on the barn which was not on the original plans for the Kahoopa. So what we we note that you know there's two houses that we identified before. They're both on Brundage Road. Um one's 480 ft away, one's 450 ft away. It's all woodland um in between. And um so we don't think the addition of the Koopa is going to really dramatically affect the impact on these two homes at 39 and 33 Bund Brendan Road. And if you I was out there last week. So this is the barn. It's been it's a handsome barn. Um and so I this

was last week I was here. So this is the house directly behind. So you can see so this is 480 ft away. It's all woods as you can see. So, you know, by next week you're not going to see anything. So, this is probably the most that you see in the worst case in the wintertime. And this is the other house. And this one's really kind of hard to see because the, as you see, the landform climbs. So, the house is the house is right in here, but it's really really quite hard to see. You can just kind of make out the roof lines here. And so, you could see the slope actually serves to to to shield that. So uh you we felt that uh we feel that the you can see this is that slope that I was talking about how it goes in it and kind of you know gets this house it kind of it kind of masks most of the house so you only see the roof. So this was the first the first house that we talked about this is the second. So we feel that this is a you know we feel that the ventilator is a is a normal it's a customary feature on a barn. It's it's a it's a useful feature and um we don't feel we'd have any more of an impact on the neighbors than than the barn did and so we're asking the planning board to amend the special permit to include the Koopa.

Could you show us the the barn? There was a barn photo that went by rather quickly. Not one of that was a a picture of the barn itself. I just have to scroll back. Just give give me a moment now. There you go. Get involved. That That's the one. Is Is the Koopa that's that we see in this picture the Koopa that's proposed? Is this Oh, it's it's there. It's installed. Yeah.

This is it. This is the real life thing. It's it's been installed. And what happened was when uh Mr. best went to the building department to you know finalize whatever you have to do to get your building permits or your cos you know it was included on the asbuilt and the building inspector noticed it and you know asked Jim what it was and Jim said well it's a ventilator and the building inspector said well we allow ventilators um in fact he even indicated that ventilators didn't count towards height so we were kind of perplexed why we needed to amend this but I guess because it's a special permit it needs to be amended so no this is this is

this picture was taken last week Okay, I have to admit when I had looked at the application and saw the size of it, it sounded like a very large Koopa, but looking at it in the picture, it does not it it seems more in proportion to the building. Yeah, that's one person if anything small to me. So, and I think a Koopa that actually does ventilate makes a huge difference in managing temperature and structure. Yeah, there's there's a reason that most Victorian barns have kulas. Was there a framing inspection done?

He believes so and Jim Best might be on back then. Well, I I think

Jim Jim, are are are you on? Okay, maybe Jim didn't get on. Well, I think what happened was, sir, is that there was a framing inspection and the coup went on at the end because they realized after they got it built, they said, "Gosh, it's getting hot here. How are we going to get this heat out here?" So, it went it went on after I think the roof was complete and then they went and opened the roof and constructed the the the the Koopa. And the Koopa, you know, it's it's just four ventilated sides. There's there's no lights, there's no windows, and there's it's not habitable. In order to get into it, you have to crawl through the roof rafters in order to access the inside. So, it's it's purely a functional feature.

Yeah. No, I would I would feel better about it if it had been added after you had gotten permission to add it. But, um, my leaning towards it has nothing to do with the fact that it's already there. I'm actually leaning towards it despite the fact that it's already there, which is a problem from my perspective. Um, we tend to prefer that special permits be amended before they the actual structure be changed.

Understood, Madam Chairman. But again, it was it was the applicant's understanding that the Koopa didn't count toward height. Well, I I I just want to make it make the the point for the record that that the fact that it's there was in in no way influencing our decision one way or the other. Understood. If we did, if we decided it doesn't belong there, you will take it off.

I'm not saying that's what we're going to decide. I'm saying that if that is the decision we made, it would be gone. But I have to admit that my reaction to it is that it's on paper. It looks bigger than what it's Yeah. And what's there looks well proportioned. This is a public hearing actually. So I would like to ask if there are any comments uh from members of the audience. Thank you. I apologize. Guess I should have gotten given you the chance to speak sooner.

Uh good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. Uh my name is Pat Kildoff. I'm a 30-year resident of Bedford and I proudly live at 33 Brundage Ridge Road. I'm one of the two homes that was uh mentioned in the mentioned in the site plan. Um, I did not come before the board last year back in February of of 25 when the application was first before you for the installation of this maintenance barn. Uh, my wife and I, we live through the construction, the the very loud noise that's basically extending on for a protracted period of time, but I'm not anti-development and I want to be a good neighbor. Uh I understand that the Koopa is already there, but I do recognize that the structure that was built um was built pursuant to a special permit which doubled maximum height of a structure that would normally be allowed under the code. You have 40ft structure and now you're going to have an 8ft Koopa that's already in place. up 48 ft of height. And then when it comes to the the plan view of the perspective from my home to the barn, yes, there are a number of trees on the property, but I have a a straighton view of the barn and the Koopa. And what I've noticed now is that even at night when I'm in upstairs watching television or reading, there's actually a light that's outside the barn that basically shines in through one of my windows. So again, I'm not I'm not anti-development. And yes, it's a it's a handsome looking structure, but it is a pretty substantially sized structure that's right outside. And it's basically on the edge of 133 acre property, you know, it's it's not really in the center of the property. This is at the edge of it, closer to where where my stone wall is.

So again,

the Koopa is up. The board obviously will will do whatever it wishes to do in terms of whether they're going to actually take the step of forcing the Koopa to be removed. I'm not here saying that the Koopa should be removed. I think ultimately what I would just like is that there could be some consideration especially going forward because I know this project had multiple buildings and outuildings that there was going to be, you know, other types of like living quarters for staff. we have, you know, trucks coming through for this this active farm property where for the first 28 years that I lived there, it was all, you know, all plain woods and and no structure. So again, if there just could be some balance going forward and if there's anything else in the pipeline, you know, I just would like to maybe have a dialogue with the ownership group there and maybe just find out and assume hopefully there could be no issues going forward.

But uh that's just my one concern right now. It's just if we can, you know, more more thoughtfully go forward with any further development uh from my neighbor. Let me ask you about this light that's shining. Um because this is something we might be able to do something about. Um is it on the barn?

It appears to be on the the perspective that I have, Madam Chair, is it's basically the side of the barn. You can see there's like a garage door and there's a light. It's probably stationed like above the actual garage entrance. So, we're not talking nearly as high as Koopa. I understand there are no lights on the Koopa itself, but it's just it's almost perfectly positioned the way it is that when I'm when I'm sitting upstairs and I and my wife has pointed out to me too, there is this light that like shines through one of the panes of our uh one of the panes of our windows. I have to tell you that this is my own personal bug bear, those shining lights. it. I cannot tell you how much I understand how annoying it is

to be able to read by somebody else's life. And it's just and it's just that I for so long there I was I was so used to and look it's it's a I love my neighborhood. I love my neighbors. I love my street. I love my community. It's and I have nothing against farms. I have nothing against Koopalas and I'm not anti-development. It's just I I'd like to get something maybe some relief with respect to this life and maybe a little more, you know, information in a dialogue that I'm not just getting the legal notices in the mail um from the Gordon entity that they're doing further development on the property.

Well, f first question for the applicant's representative. Uh, can you identify is there a light on the on the barn?

Based on um what the gentleman said, I believe he's talking about this is the side entry. If you're looking at it from the front, this would be on the left. And I think that's the light that he's referring to. Um, and but I you know what we can do is I can put um the neighbor in touch with Jim Best and they can work through this. And Jim's very creative. I'm sure he could come up with a way to shield the light, relocate the light. I'm sure we can come up with something and I'm sure he'd be happy to accommodate the neighbor and certainly uh apprise them of any plans moving forward, but uh you know I I I do know that you know, yes, it is an active site, but there's also a lot going on with preservation of land and that kind of thing going on on this property as well. So, we think it's a good project and I think Mr. best. It would be best if Jim Best meets with the with the neighbor and they work through this thing and I'm sure we can come up with something to the satisfaction of of everyone.

Are there other plans? Are you are you expecting to come before us with other plans in the near future? Anything you could speak to the neighbor about ahead of time? Well, I mean, we have a pond judging project scheduled for uh for July of this year, and that's all per the permits are in place. That's down at the entry at 140 Greenwich Road. So, that that's the next project to to go on. But, uh other than that, no, there's, you know, they're still working through the things they have going on.

I from my from my perspective, uh again, from my review from my review of the u the sketches, I saw the the maintenance bar identified. I know there was like also like a vegetable shed and there's some other some other outbuildings. It appeared to be that there's there's some other structure that's right next to the barn or as I'm looking at the perspective from from my house I see the side view and then as I'm looking to the right of that there seems to be another structure not quite as big that I couldn't seem to match up with the key of all of the different uh buildings that were identified on the plan. Again, from my perspective, it's 133 acre property, but you have a lot of buildings that are all concentrated all in this one corner of it. And I'm not sure if there are if there are perhaps other things that are not represented on those plans because I do see this other smaller structure next to the barn. And I couldn't seem to match that up with what I saw on the on the plans when I got them in advance of the game. I I think what we have here um if if you if if you look at this uh I I think the uh uh the pro the property

um Mr. Clyde Clyde Clydov's property kilog it is is here and this is the subject of this is the subject of the pretty direct view

right it's about 338 to the property line and about 450 to the house um and and then over here this is what we call the the maintenance area the maintenance barn and this is another structure here that's just kind of a storage material thing and then there's some you You know, there's some earth stock piles and there's a pile for rock and there's a pile for top soil. Over here you have, I believe what you have here is the greenhouse area. This is what we call this area the farm. And what we uh this is the greenhouse area here. There's a chicken coupe, the vegetable shed in question. I think it's recently constructed. It's right here. It's right across from that. And this is all the farm area where they're actively growing crops. Um but it's all farther away and beyond uh the barn. So viewed from from from from this property. It's I don't think you can really see any of this because it's this is kind of a there's kind of a break here and it goes from it's just kind of like a secluded part of the the barn that we the farm that we just been calling the ma maintenance area.

Yeah. Sure. Nor nor would I be objecting to any any type of farm use or anything that that's that far removed from my property. Again, what I'm what I'm referencing is something a lot if if the if the barn is what's reflected in in the red um in the red rectangle. This is something that I that I just was out outside my home yes uh yesterday and earlier today. It looked like there was a structure that was much closer to the much closer to the barn to to the side of the barn. And what is your concern? No, just there was another which I didn't see that reflected on the on the No, I think I think it's this on the plans. It just it appeared to me. I just want to know if there was anything else that was in the works or perhaps constructed that wasn't incorporated in in the in the plans.

I I think what I'm going to suggest was we really need to move on is um is that we ask you to have this the meeting with uh the gentleman Mr. best who can talk about the light and hopefully again I'm going to suggest that we won't that we'll adjourn the public hearing. Hopefully you'll come back with you completely satisfied about the lighting because it it does violate the town codes to to have a a light that has the source of illumination visible to the neighbors. So, this is um and it's on the lawn that I I don't know if lighting if there was any lighting that was part of our conditions to the original special use permit. We'll have to go back and check that. But, um

I I I don't I'm not going to take up more of the board's time. If I just get contact information for uh the gentleman who's the the applicant representative. I know you got a got you've got a full docket. So I'll let I'll let you move on to the Okay. The next So is that does that mean there everybody's and uh and and my office phone number is 20372 5805 and I'm Jerry Barrett. I'm the site planner landscape architect and I can put you in touch with Jim Best. Jerry Barrett. Okay. And Jerry, again, I'm Pat killed off with 33.

And it actually occurs to me that the other the other way we could do this, if you'd prefer, is we could grant the um if we're inclined to to do so, grant the amendment conditioned on the lighting going. Although frankly given that this is something that was done ahead of time, I guess I'm more inclined to follow the the strictest interpretation of it. So forget I made that suggestion. Uh we'll we'll ask that you let us know or the applicant let us know when a satisfactory conclusion has been re reached.

That's right. And we will get together again. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay, thank you very much. Is everybody comfortable with that? I don't think we need to take a vote on Okay, we have to adjourn now. Oh, yes. Uh, could I have a move to move to you? And is there a second? Second. We have a motion and a second to adjourn the public hearing till our May meeting presumably. Uh, any further discussion? All in favor? I I. All opposed? The public hearing is adjourned. Thank you very much. Good night.

Thank you. Good night. The next item on our agenda is to consider an application for a special use permit for an accessory apartment in an existing legally non-conforming accessory structure pursuant to town code 12579 where the previously granted approval has expired. Uh the owner applicant is George Damrosio and the address is 52 Narrows Road, Bedford Hills. Is there someone to speak for the applicant?

Hi, good evening. Uh George Damrosio, Madame Chairman, board members, thank you for uh having Okay. Um do you want to explain this?

Sure. So, I'm a new owner of the property. Um, there's about a 400 foot studio that was constructed, I believe, in 2006 by the previous owner. It's part of a threecar garage and the permit had lapsed and I wasn't aware of that 5-year renewal period. So, during some project permit um review, it's part of another project that we're working on in the house. This came up and was advised that I get the permit renewed. Mhm. And my understanding is that the building inspector has looked at it. It is still what it was originally. Correct.

Yeah. Uh this is this is a public hearing. Is there anyone here to to speak on this application? Anyone on the Zoom to speak to this application? The reason I'm doing this so quickly is that this was this is an apartment that has been approved in in the past. We have a a technicality that it has to be renewed every 5 years. Uh also it has to be renewed when a property changes hands.

So um but it's a it's a technical issue. It's not that you did something wrong. I just want to make that clear. Um, any I'm going to ask one more time any questions or comments from members of the audience. Could I have a motion to close this public hearing? Second. Any further discussion? All in favor of closing the public hearing? I. All opposed. Um, I have to say that I don't think there's any need for discussion given that there's nothing has been changed.

I have no issues with it. Yeah. Is that a motion? So move standard conditions. Standard conditions. Do we This would be a type two action under seeker. So we don't need to to worry about seeker. Um so we have a motion and a second with standard conditions uh taken from the original use permit. Uh is there any further discussion? All in favor? I all opposed. You have it. Thank you.

Okay. The next item on our agenda is another easy one. uh is a public it is the continuation of a public hearing uh per town code chapter 125-133 review of a referral from the town board for a proposed zoning petition and conceptual site plan for a mixeduse development and request for the planning board to conduct the the required environmental review pursuant to the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act. Uh, the applicant is LHP Old Post Road LLC. The owner is Alchemy Bedford Tenant LLC and the address is 633-647 Old Post Road Bedford.

Good evening, madam chairperson, members of the board, excuse me, Pete Daniel Hollis, Gatinger, Waldinger, Montleó, Gosan Hollis, attorneys for LHP Old Post Road LLC. with me, Thomas Kennedy and Clint Olsson, the two members of the LLC. Yan Johannes from CSCJ Consulting is here in person. Uh David Sessions is on the Zoom, I think. Um and Bill Bright from Delaware Engineering, who's the sanitary engineer with regard to the project. Um, since we were here last month, uh, at the, uh, last session of this public hearing, do we need a motion to reopen the public hearing? Uh,

uh, it probably doesn't hurt. Could I have a motion to reopen the public hearing? So, is there a second? Second. All in favor?

I. All opposed. Um, and I should probably add that we'll be continuing the public hearing in the same vein that we were before, which is we're looking to it. It is the equivalent of scoping and secret. It is not a scoping session because this does not involve an is at the moment. But the what what we're trying to do is identify those issues that need further discussion in the part three of a seeker uh rather than going bit by bit through through the part two. We're trying to hit on some of the more important ones. What I understand is that uh you have some reports for us from the wetlands and dealing with the waste water treatment other things. Uh for the members of the public, if you have comments, there will be because this is still the public hearing, there will be an opportunity once the wastewater treatment issues and whatever else is presented has been presented to make comments on that issue. We're not going to be entertaining comments on issues that we're not addressing tonight. We're not, for example, going to talk about traffic tonight. So, we're not going to address questions from the public about that.

And Mr. Bride and Mr. Johannes are here to respond to any questions the board might have on that. Or if there aren't any or few of them, we can hopefully begin to move on to part two. Well, we're sort of in part two. That's I think this is part of part two. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Any questions of Well, shall we start with a report on the um how did the issues on the wastewater treatment plant go?

Sure. I think we'll have Mr. Bright talk about that a little bit. Anything that you might have questions about. We were in front of the WCC a week ago tonight. Uh it was a good meeting and today there was a site visit uh that Mr. Johannes was out in the field with uh all of the members. Y or uh so two members in the uh town environment, right? So I I don't believe you would have a report yet and not on the water and wastewater uh issue, but we met with the Betrford Village Historic District Review Commission today with for a couple of hours u to go over um

we'd be interested in anything you can tell us about that too. Uh it's a little hard. There was a lot of interaction. We were discussing we're trying to stick to the point of the meeting which was to have them report back on issues within the secret process. So it may make more sense for us to wait for and they said they would caucus and then provide you a a memo within a week's time. Okay. Then I then I would suggest we not discuss that tonight that we

I really don't have any memo from either of those two commissions. Can you We've never talked about the the wastewater treatment plant in in our public meeting. So maybe you could present something about that so it can so the public can be aware of it.

Okay. I'm Bill Bright. I'm with Delaware Engineering. Uh uh where uh Oh, okay. Uh I'll just explain what's there now and what the plan is for as we move forward. Uh presently there's uh a it's a subsurface uh sand filter uh a sand bioreactor. There's two of them. Uh waste water comes out of the building, goes through a grease trap, and it goes into a a 10,000gallon septic. And then from the 10,000galon septic, it goes into a 4,000gallon septic. And then it goes into a pumping station. There's a two pumps in that pumping station. One pump pumps to the upper sand filter which is right there and the other pump pumps to the lower sand filter uh which is right there. Uh the effluent flows through the sand. Uh bacteria grow bacteria and bio microbiology grows on the sand. It's called a sand bioreactor or bofilter. Uh uh bacteria grows and microorganisms grow and they break down and oxidize the the the waste water. uh it goes from there into a chlorine contact tank. It's disinfected and then the chlorine is removed and it's discharged into a tributary of the Manyus River. Uh the current Speedy's permit flow is about 6,700 gallons a day. It receives about 4,000. So there's quite a bit of excess capacity in the comparatively in in the existing system. Uh the new uh the the uh the plant

treatment plant is called a moving bed bioreactor. It's actually the same technology as the existing plant in that it's a it's called an attached film uh wastewater treatment system. uh bacteria grows on on uh these this uh buoyant media that floats in aation tank and uh that's what breaks down the waste water and it grows a bacteria grows a microorganisms uh from from that it goes into a clarifier uh then a filter and then disinfection. Uh we don't we have conceptual uh ideas on the design. We don't have the speedies permit yet. We're in the we're uh working with DEC to uh to get a draft speed permit for the for the uh uh for the this project.

Okay. Any you have questions for me? We're just at high level right now. But uh I can talk about the permit. The permit is a five five parts BOD 10 TSS is an ammonia limit. Uh there's a dissolved oxygen limit and there's a chlorine limit on the discharge. So uh the design of the new facility will be designed to meet the the the new what we anticipate a new speed permit will be. I'm sorry you may have said this and I may have missed it. So the chlorinated discharge is going into the surface water there or it's a dis well the chlorine the chlorine is removed. It goes through it's decllorinated.

It is decllorinated and then it goes into a it's a it's called a tributary of the river. So it is going into surface water. Yes. And and and the decllorination process creates um a a waste product that's then removed. What happens to the chlorine? It's a chemical reaction. Sodium sulfide is what is the is the chemical and uh it combines I don't know the the chemistry I can get you the chemistry if you're interested in it but uh it combines uh with the chlorine it breaks down the chlorine and uh when there is no chlorine in in the discharge then

now is when you're talking about the discharge is that the system that's operating today this the is the future future system going to operate the same. The future system will have different aspects to it, be larger, uh be more more modern technology. I mean this is uh would it still be eventually flowing into the mayanis or is it it's a tributary to the mayanas? When I I mean I've been I've been working with this property for a long time for 15 18 years.

Uh the permit now is it it's called a well the stream is a is a class D stream. So, it used to just be called an unnamed ditch. That's what the permit called it. And uh uh the the limits are were were much less stringent. We we did a permit renewal in 2014, which uh upgraded the the speedy's permit requirements. Uh the plant works fairly well. It puts out a pretty good effluent right now for a very very simple system. I mean, it's uh it's a one pass biological filter. Uh

well, if it works, the simple if it works, the simple system is often the best. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that that's why I like it because it's simple and it works. Uh but the new the new permit will probably have uh more uh stringent limits probably on ammonia, maybe on phosphorus. We don't know yet. Uh just from what we we've seen in other draft speeds permits. uh and understanding region three which is the DEEC region that we're that we're we're in. Uh they're going through a process of of uh upgrading smaller facilities and upgrading their permits.

So uh it it whatever it is, we'll be able to design something to meet it though. What would the situation be if it turned out that the town decided this project wasn't going to go forward? What would the situation Say that again. If if it were decided that the project were not going to go forward or if the applicant decided it wasn't going to go forward for some reason, what would the Well, it'll depend on what the what the revised Speedy's permit is going to say. We haven't gotten it yet. So whatever the speedy's permit is uh the plant would have to be upgraded to meet that speedy's permit if it becomes if it's more stringent

regardless of what happens with the the other now the if the project goes through it would have a much higher flow rating you know so it would and what would the impact of that be we're not sure yet uh right now we're 6700 gallons so 20 30,000 gallons on something in that range. What would the impact of that be? Well, the discharge literally is I mean it's it's ex it's it's exceptional. I mean it's like I I wouldn't say it's like drinking water, but it looks like drinking water. It's crystal clear. You can see in the bottom of the tank it's uh it's uh high quality effluent.

Does it have nitrates or phosphorus in it? It it'll have an ammonia limit. So we'll we'll have to remove well it it may have an ammonia limit but it also may have a TKN limit. A total kellall nitrogen limit which would be a total nitrogen limit. We it really depends on the So we look clear but there will be in it. Yeah. Well there's nitrates and phosphorus in it. Well we I mean phosphorus is is an easy thing to remove. All right. It's a it's just a matter of of adding a chemical. If we have a if there's a phosphorus limit there's okay

right phosphorus comes out with it's actually uh it it comes out uh almost like uh turbidity would use the same chemicals. It's a fauculent just coagulates the the sediments together and and the filter or the or the right. No, my my shock is just that if there was a phosphorus limit because phosphorus is a long-term degradation to the ecosystem disappear.

The nutrient the nutrient issue in the river is nitrogen not phosphorus. In the New York City wershed it's phosphorus. So, all of the upgrades we've done, and we've done a lot of upgrades in the New York City wershed, the the primary one of the primary uh factors of those upgrades was to to bring phosphorus down to almost to non-detect. You can bring But even in the stream that's right there for the people that live there. Well, there's phosphorus in the stream. There's probably four or five parts per million in the stream already. No, I know it does, but it does. What I'm saying is it bioaccumulates. Phosphorus bioaccumulates

the way that nitrogen does. IO accumulates but it like in a pond it usually it'll form it it provides a nutrient for algae. That's the problem with it. And then and then it goes through its life cycle and it dies and it floats to the bottom. Then it and and it's still there. And then what happens to it is is it breaks down anorobically and it becomes even more bioavailable. Right? So the goal that these plants especially like the plants that we've designed on the on the wershed they're non-detect for phosphorus. We don't they basically don't put out any phosphorus. So and it's not hard to have to

Well, that's what I'm hoping this will be. That's all I'm saying. When you're saying, well, I don't know about the phosphorus. Well, it depends on the hope. Well, let let me ask a layman's question here because this is um is there any reason why the town of Bedford can't say, "Well, even if the permit doesn't require you to limit phosphorus, we'd like you to limit phosphorus because of our I've never in my 50 years in this business, I've never seen a local community become a regulator for the quality of the effluent. It's usually a DEC or a D thing. I'm not sure. I think that's a good thing that you just call that

especially as as as a matter of law is it something that we would not be able to I don't know I don't know that uh we'd have to ask an attorney for that. I don't know that answer and and the permit may have a phosphorous limit. I don't know. It's all it's really what's the waste assimilative capacity of the stream because each stream has a different waste assimilative capacity. So some streams can handle more phosphorus than other streams. All right. Phosphorus isn't bad. Phosphorus in excess is bad. Adding phosphorus to ecosystems is generally not good. Phosphorus is a is a nutrient that all I mean we all need phosphorus. Absolutely. So that's a different statement.

Now if you if if I think it's we can't get too far into No, I can talk to her all night. I love it. You want to keep going? This is what this is. Um, I would I'd like us to explore that that possibility. Um, phosphorus is generally in a permit when there's a pond downstream,

right? So, if there's a number of ponds downstream, you'll get a phosphorus limit. That's what the EC has been doing lately. And the limit might be a one part per million, could be a 1.5. It really depends uh on the size of the plant. There's a lot of factors that go into what makes a phosphorus limit, what what it is. New York City's phosphorus limits, they go anywhere from a from a 0.5 uh to a 1 uh to a two. That's as high as I've seen them. But uh phosphorus is easy to remove. I remember some of the bad old days in upstate New York where the the water would have 8 in thick ground floating on top because of the process

because it used to be a part of uh detergent. It was so much more prevalent. But streams, most streams carry about four parts per million of phosphorus in them just naturally. Well, any other questions? Maybe we'll make some history and become the first local. Any other questions? U as we move in the process and and uh work with DEC on the permit and things like that. I mean, there'll be a hearing for the permit. I mean that every speed permit has a hearing. So, uh that's just I mean we'll be back,

right? No, our our and we're not looking at this as oh this preludes doing this project. Yeah. No, it's how do we make this the best we can as we go forward.

I will guarantee you that the effluent coming out of the plant will be significantly better than what the quality of the water is in the stream right now. I will make that that's I've never seen a plant that we've designed that isn't of better quality than what the stream is that we're discharging into. That's the whole 1972 Clean Water Act. That's what it's about to take to take treatment plants and clean up the effluent so they're better of better quality than the receiving stream because then you bring the quality of the receiving stream up. Yeah.

Okay. I don't know if there's it's it's getting late and I don't know. Is there another topic? A hand raised I think. Ah sh. Yeah. Yes. Uh yes. Uh this is George Henchel. Hi Mr. Henel. Yes. Uh 101 Seminary Road. Um I had a question.

Yes. Uh regarding regarding the treatment plant, uh if this project was to go forward, could that plant be building be located not in the wetlands buffer zone? Um there's plenty of property there and I thought um I didn't see any reason why it had to encroach into the wetlands buffer. This is the uh 100 foot buffer edge of the wetland.

So there's there's limited area put the plant in the plant would have to the existing plant is already in the buffer. They can't hear you on the Zoom because you're not using a microphone. Sorry. Just the the existing the existing plant is not a building. Um the existing plant is underground. Right. Correct. Yes.

Yes. So I just wondered if the if this proposed plant should it go ahead if the building could be located not in the wetlands buffer setback. 80% of the new plant will be will be subsurface. The only thing that's that building that houses two clarifiers and two filters and the electrical service. It's not a it's uh it's not a big building. It's there because that's where the discharge is. Well, you could pipe the discharge over to the to the stream but not have a building in the wetlands buffer.

Yeah, I'm qualified to answer that. I mean the the the effluent obviously would have to be discharged to the stream. If this building was outside of the buffer, it become a very prominent feature on the site uh where we're showing parking and and the building. So from our perspective it made sense uh given the fact that this is a disturbed wetland that the the the adjacent area is already developed that the small building adjacent to the wet wetland would have a smaller impact than locating this building so prominently um in the landscape. And is the subsurface part of that all in the wetland buffer as well?

I don't know if we know that yet. Bill the subsurface the subsurface aspects of the plant. Do we know where they're going to be located in relationship? We haven't located them yet. Yeah. Uh but I mean the septic the the the uh the two influent tanks the the main primary treatment they're going to be subsurfaced. The uh biological process aation basin they'll be subsurface. Can so can that be not in the wetland buffer? I did not I mean I I don't care where they go, but that's a possibility. It's a it's logistically this is something that could be done. It's feasible. That that's the question.

I mean, we have we don't even know where they're going to go, right? No, we have we have no idea where they're going to go yet. Pardon? But but you could try and do that. That's certainly Well, we have we still have to go back for a wetlands permit. down the line. I think the question really is to make it really simple. Can you move that thing into the bottom of your building? Move the building. Yeah. Move this move this waste treatment building that's structure that's above grade. Move it into the bottom of the new building. I don't understand.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's um it's a facility. It's got a current space current placement. playhouse. Um, we we're having the microphone problem again. Sorry. Can somebody give So, it's it's the playhouse who owns this building. This facility is correct. But aren't you amending that and you're combining?

So, and and that's a correction I just checked with um Bill on because what you were asking I wasn't sure if he was understanding. If not, your question on if nothing happens here, this does not the permit we're applying for now does not go into effect and all this extra cleaning up of this facility does not happen. It's got a current running permit under the old um effluent rules that would continue. So, okay, that's an important piece too,

right? So the new effluent that's become tertiary instead of secondary and all the new things the bells and whistles and the upgraded and safety measures that happens with the new plant being built uh instead of the other. And then as to what Mr. Chney was asking when you amend the permit to do the new um facility, the new system, could it potentially go in the basement of the structure of the building to eliminate anything that's above surface?

We Yeah, that's true. We can't put it in our We don't own it. The the current permit is is is speed these permits is under benchmark realy. It just happens to be on the land that we have a land one will be under who? The same benchmark because the amended is the permit. You're just amending the current benchmark realy speedies permiting agreement requires cooperation, right? And the underlying agreement in our leases requires cooperation for both buildings to use it. This building if it goes ahead and is built it's a land lease building. It's a building that's on the the current Yeah. It's a 199 year land lease. 199 lease.

Yep. Benchmark has a 199year lease. Our clients would have a 199 year sub lease. We have somebody else. No, no, no, no. Is that Clayton Rose that has his hands up? Sorry. There's someone with a hand raised on the Yeah, dear. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Click.

Yeah, just a a quick uh uh just a quick item here. Um uh Dan Dan Hollis uh represented accurately our uh I'm sorry, I'm chair of the uh Bedford Village Historic Review. Uh and we did meet for a couple hours. Dan represented that absolutely accurately. I just want to um clarify one point. Uh I'm going to be uh out of the country for a week. We've got another member who has conflict over the next week. So, uh, a week uh for expectation on that memo is not going to be realistic. We'll work on it as quickly as possible and give you a a target. Give Jessica at the planning department uh target date tomorrow. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rose.

Late breaking news. Okay. I'm sorry I interrupted this conversation. I mean, in all of our design, we we haven't considered that to put it in the in the bottom of the building. Uh, it just hasn't been Normally, you don't put a wastewater plant in a building like that. I was just trying to get it somewhere else. We're giving you a lot of interesting things to try to I mean, we've we've made them look like mansions and farms and barns. You can you can make a I mean you can make the building look any way you want to blend in with the surrounding area.

Yeah, I think it's more that it's a desire to keep it out of the wetlands buffer as well, not just the appearance. I will say that we did many wastewater treatment plants in New York State are in wetland buffers and wetlands because obviously they're near the streams and they're downhill from everybody else. So many many municipal facilities are in wetlands and flood zones and things like that. Also because they were all done before we knew better. So it's because so many of them were built before we knew better.

We did meet with the the commission both at their meeting and on site today and that particular issue did not come up. There was not a a uh any indication that they objected to the location of the treatment plant. Not saying that it's not wise to look for other alternatives, but that they are not v they were not seemingly not focused on that particular issue. Yeah. I guess the theory is if it's going to fail, which would be the problem if it were in the nonbuffer area, it's the same result. So if it's if it's well built and wellmaintained in the buffer, it's a self-contained

if it's 18 or 40t outside the buffer. uh it's more of a perception. The question is the quality of the installation at something of this level. I would suspect again outside my realm of expertise but logic sometimes takes over for me.

We will probably get an answer to this before the the time is out. Not tonight though. Any other questions from uh members of the audience about the issue of the wastewater plant or anything connected to it? Is there any other topic that you would like us to address tonight?

Well, I think that there are a number of topics where we could probably agree that there's no or small impact. Are there any of those that we can deal with in a a quick way to limit the areas where we do have to do or have further discussions with the with the board?

I'd rather I'd rather not do something like that without having announced to the public ahead of time that we were going to do it because what you're suggesting is making a a decision about it. And I agree that there are some things that I would be truly shocked to find out that we were going to say needed a part three. But I'd prefer to perhaps for the next time we could say we were going going to do perhaps we could start off the next meeting with that and then go to traffic after that. That would be a possibility. Okay. That's um is there any possibility of the other topics that we do have a a decent since you said um for other topics that

Yeah. I'm I'm getting people's saying that we've got a lot on the our plate, but we always do. So, um, do you have topics prepared for tonight? That was actually what started this is I asked if there was something specific that you would like to do. What we had done was um we took a crack at preparing the part two EAF. Um, understanding the the topics that were discussed at the last meeting, um, uh, we're not going to we're not going to formally do the the part two partly because this board is going to do its own part two.

Understood. But sometimes it's useful to use that document as to go through the topics that are potentially concerned. But we'll be running that discussion. Understood. But that I that's I think we think that's kind of where we are in the process that we need to go through that part two to understand what we need to evaluate in the part three.

Okay. I I I fail I have to admit I fail to see why it has to be in the order that it is on the page of the part two. We've we've clearly already identified a number of things that are going to have to be done in a in a part three. Maybe I haven't been saying that when I talk about um looking at the wastewater treatment plant, but I think this dis discussion of the uh of the the permits and what what are the other alternatives to keeping it in the wetlands buffer and that kind of thing is clearly something that's going to be discussed in the part three.

C I would I would imagine it would be. Yes. Um, and that's part of what I say mean that that we're getting at when I say that you see it's getting late. Um, which is the problem. That's the problem. How about some of then the topics like you mentioned like storm water is one of them that we've prepared you know stuff for so we could maybe talk on if and there's a couple other that and I are both starting another we have five other okay well five other topics

let's let's say in practical terms how much do we save by by starting the the storm water now when two of my members are totally exhausted and another is understood understood I I you had just asked if there were other topics, so I was just maybe putting some out there. I I think I'm getting enough vibes on either side of me that I don't dare

um go go any further. I'm sorry the the earlier things took as long as they they did. Um, but I think we've had a good discussion on the wetland issue and I hopefully believe that you've given some things to think about on on that issue. Start off with that. the next time we could we could

I mean we we really there really wasn't that much uh of a discussion with the Wetlands Control Commission any issues that they raised in the meeting anyway uh or at the site visit today I as I learned from Yan that we haven't addressed adequately from their point of view the fact of the matter is what's there is untreated I mean let Yan talk about that yeah I I don't want to they c we certainly had a discussion of the wastewater treatment plant uh during the wetlands uh meeting and and Bill was there and we we basically had the same conversation with them as we did with you this evening. That's what I was hoping.

Yeah. Um but they didn't seem focused on understanding the the quality of the effluent that was going to come out of the system. They weren't concerned or they didn't seem concerned from my point of view of the precise location of the building and the buffer. Well, Certainly there everybody was um intrigued and to to learn about the processes of the wastewater treatment, but they didn't seem focused on the location of that building.

Well, I think that and that actually makes sense to me. It's that's not the the normal purview of the wetlands commission. That's the kind of site plan thing that the planning board does. It's not unheard of in this town for two different boards to

have opinions about connected issues. I mean, I'm sure that this board will have some opinions about the um the historic nature of the the uh property as as well. That doesn't mean that we won't be giving a great deal of difference, if not most deference, to the Bedford Village Historic District Commission. But we might have an opinion or two as well.

Right about uh but I think I think I'm going to call a halt to this and ask for uh a motion to adjourn the public hearing at at this point. uh lest we spend more time talking about whether or not to talk. So moved. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion, a second to adjourn the public hearing until May. May 11th. Um all in favor? I. All opposed. We will see you on May 11th. And we'll see you May 11th. Thank you for your attention tonight.

Thank you. Next item on our agenda, hopefully some of these will go faster. Um, this is another continuation of a of a public hearing uh to consider final subdivision application to create one lot where three currently exist pursuant to town code article 4, 107,27, and 28. The owner applicant is DP21 LLC. The address is 793 Bedford Road, Bedford Hills. Good evening. Good evening. Before we start, can I give a plug to the last applicant?

Not to Mr. Hollis or to Yan, but to M. uh to the the engineer. Um they did a project for us. They are fantastic engineers. They know how to design wastewater treatment plants like I've never seen before. Very, very, very knowledgeable and capable. I with with that said, there are many issues that you're going to have with this project. I don't know that the wastewater treatment plant's going to be one of them. They designed something for us where there our phosphorus removal. We do 3:1 removal and we had like a micro what are they? Micro filters.

Yeah. And it's one of the best facilities in the state of New York. Fantastic. Yeah. Okay. Sorry about that. Well, thank you, Whitney. Um, you want me to stick around for your rap? What? Um, anyway, Whitney Whitney Singleton, Singleton, Davis, and Singleton on behalf of the applicants.

Oh, I'm sorry. And Pete Katzone, engineer. And we also have Jay Black in the background. So, we were here for preliminary approval at the last meeting and there was a question that came up that your board brought up and you were questioning whether our seeker forms were accurate because we showed part of the property in the flood plane which it is but it is hundreds of feet or yards away. Yeah.

Di diagonally across a 38 acre. Are you going to add an explanation of that as a as a comment on your part one so that people looking at it understand that even though it's in the flood plane, there's a reason we're not talking about it. Right. We we will add a a comment. It is on the 799 uh parcel, but it doesn't affect 793 7 95. I just like, you know, with with these odd ones that come up this way, when you don't put the comment on it, it looks like we said, "Ah, it's in a flood plane, but who cares?

Um, okay. So, we uh submitted the um the plat um to the town of Bedford and also to the uh village of Mount Kiscoco. Uh we hope to receive uh final site plan approval on the plat tonight. Um and uh we will be in front of the village of Mount Kiscoco on the 28th and anticipate having a similar uh outcome. Fingers crossed. We also submitted the plat to the health department uh for their determination that it's non-jurisdictional. So, um we're waiting for confirmation on that.

Uh but I I think we're ready to go with the plat. Of course, we're happy to answer any questions and uh go through any of the previous discussions and uh you know, whatever issues this board may have. Well, first thing, has there has anything at all changed? Can I Well, let me finish this and then you can ask the stupid question. You got it. If I You got to do the smart question now.

And it is a smart question. Has anything changed between the preliminary and final session? Uh nothing has changed. The only thing is uh 333799 is a single deed and we were presenting it as two separate for Bedford. We were presenting 799. For Mount Kisco we were presenting the 33383 uh subdivision. Um but because Yeah. Did that make sense? I mean, he just threat some

the portion in Bedford involves different lots than the portion in Mount, right? So, our previous submissions just showed Bedford. We did have a summary sheet which showed the entire site for the purpose of filing and we coordinated this with the surveyor. It needs to be one deed for okay um 3337 one plat or one deed

one it's both one plat and one deed for seven uh 333799. So our plat has two signature blocks. One is for the village of Mount Kiscoco and one is for the town of Bedford. Okay. and the zoning tables are uh not sure why this is we have both coming out uh without all the information on it. Oh, there it is. Uh can read that. But we do have definitely

I'm just trying to figure out how to zoom in on this. Um but we do have um the representative data for the Bedford side uh for for 799 793 795. So um if you'll recall there are two lots here. 793 is directly adjacent to Bedford Road. 795 is this rear lot which has the building on it. Those two lots will be combined and we'll be taking this uh portion away from 799 and adding it to the new 793.

So the the short answer to your question is there's no change.

No change, right? But I I think that one thing that we should point out just out of a I don't want to say an abundance of caution. It's really to CYA is what it is. When we went to Mount Kisca, um there was a little bit of concern on their part that we were showing something on the plat which was not consistent with their prior understanding of what was approved even though it was in the town of Bedford. But at the same by the same token, our surveyor has to show what's an existing condition and it has to do with that opening right there. That is the access point that is in the field. It has been there, but I think there was a concern on Mount Kiscoco's part that we were transitioning to a restaurant use as part of this approval. Um, maybe some wrong information got back to them. We we just want to go on the record of stating we are here solely for the subdivision. We will be coming back to you for any restaurant use that might go in that building in the that site in the future and we will be going back to Mount Kisco

I presume it would be for any use you would not just any restaurant use. Yeah. But I just you know did anything come up between our last meeting and this one? Uh yes but it doesn't affect the plat. I just wanted to be, you know, abundantly clear on that. I appreciate that. That's And now you can ask just that you no phosphorus production. Well, it was about the health neutrification is down the tubes having a koopa. Yeah. Um the you said the health department said it's nonjurisdictional.

Just I I didn't I sort of thought they had jurisdiction. We're not creating any new lots. Oh, okay. So, eventually if you do a structure, it is jurisdictional over Right. So, so that's it. I told you a stupid question. I'm done. Thank you. So, I don't think there's a great deal for us to discuss at this at this point. Um, not on the

No. Um, if we were to approve this tonight, the conditions would essentially be just the basic subdivision conditions. It doesn't go and I would just also tie a condition to ensuring that everything was so their signature. Yeah. Yeah. I I I had a conversation last week with uh we were supposed to be on tomorrow night's agenda and they asked if we could be pushed to the 28th and so I spoke with this month.

Yeah. So I spoke with Yan. He said there's no issues and they just needed more time to work on the resolution still. I think you should make that a condition. So the the the condition would would be that um Noisco also signed the plat. Correct. Uh, and I would presume that we would want to include any conditions that Mount Cisco put on the on the plat as conditions that we would require as well. Do you anticipate any conditions placed upon your subdivision components of Mount Cisco's approval for on the on the plat or on the resolution either?

Um, no. I'm not I I don't I haven't seen the resolution. It will be forwarded to me in advance of the meeting. Okay. But I don't anticipate any and I and I don't anticipate any changes to the plat as far as conditioning the approval on Mount Kuska signing. If they don't sign, we can't file the plat, right? Yeah. But it's still I mean, you want belts and suspenders, do it anyway you want, but I'm just Yeah, we're not we're not I like belts and sus suspenders. What's that? I like belts and suspenders. Um Okay. So, can we have a motion? Motion to approve with those conditions. Is there a second? Second. Is there any further discussion? All in favor?

I. All opposed. You have your subdivision. I Tonight was interesting. Three garage projects that were controversial. We've still got a couple left to go. So,

was that Oh, that was a continuation. Well, we're going to close the Could I have a motion to close the public hearing? So, moved. Second. All in favor? I. All oppose. The clos the public hearing is now closed as well.

Okay. The next item on our agenda is uh to consider Steve Slo's application for the construction of a new single family home with on-site septic landscaping and related apartments is pursuant to town code 102. Uh the owner applicant is Ed Mando Simone. Uh and the address is Ningham Road, 7 Ningham Road. speaker. I can have you use that one actually so I can interact with the board. Since I'm not a public hearing, I'd like to talk over here and just go through quickly the boards I have here. This is not a public hearing. Yes.

Finally. Uh my name is Peter Scott. I'm an architect engineer and basically I'm representing uh Oh yeah, you lost the zoom. Oh, we're desumed. Did they think that we adjourned the meeting? can't even register. I'm sorry. We We've lost our meeting. We love computers. Oh, what's up? Well, now now we're back. Thank you. Okay.

All right. Uh so very quickly, uh Peter Scott representing the applicant. Uh basically it's a vacant lot on Noddingham Road. Uh it's in the um our uh half acre and it's about 26,000 square ft. Uh before you is a map that depicts what the neighbors are. Uh our property is in the center of the of these array of lots. Uh we've got 60 on the on the east side and 44 on the west. There's a vacant parcel behind it which has some history with the property. This property here uh contains a road, a driveway that used to end exit to the rear of the property and it still remains with a little retaining wall etc. Uh our proposal is to develop the property uh and this just we have a septic approval already from the health department a primary reserve. This gives you a continuity of what you're looking at. And u very quickly, this is a map basically that depicts what the neighborhood looks like. This is these are the properties across the street. Uh and this is on um Robin Hood Lane. Uh and basically this is the neighbor to our east. This is our neighbor to our west. and we're making a house pretty much very similar to what's on the right or left, a colonade uh two-story building. Uh we have a garage uh proposed outside of the footprint cuz we're trying to keep the footprint of the house downward as much as possible. We don't want it sticking up in the air. So, we decided to put a little garage addition on here 24x 24 and a driveway extends into into the uh driveway as shown. We have 3D modeling and I can bring I'll bring it at the uh if we have a public hearing. What are we doing on the property?

Well, the the property is uh uh encumbered with an interesting setback arrangement I've highlighted on this map for you. And basically what happened is for some reason the property to the right uh has a straight rear property line. The property to the left has a straight property line. But because they narrowed the property out, it doesn't have the enough distance from front to rear. So according what we did is we uh we set the house at a location where this um the eastern side was in the setbacks front and back and it's also uh beyond the um it's uh it's 40 ft versus 30 ft required. uh the left uh uh or western portion of the u of the property is far away from the neighbor uh that's about uh over 130 ft. We made the house in the front uh beyond the front yard setback and we need a variance in the rear because you can see that the because of it the uh geometry of the lot. The rear property line slopes inward and we need a uh a um we biased the house as far as we could uh to the east to get it closer where it's more conforming. Again, this is like 6 ft apart over here. And then basically need a variance at these two corners of the building. To mitigate that, uh we are proposing uh a tree buffer of like 25 pines along the rear. The house the lot behind us is vacant. Uh it's a big open space, but we are putting the trees anyway as mitigation in the front. Even though we're conforming with the front yard setback, uh we're planting uh numerous uh street trees and decorative trees. Our tree removal is like 44 trees, but we have lots of little saplings all over the property and we're replacing it with 34

uh controlled trees as you see before you. Again, the septic system remains as approved. The the primary will be here. We're not we're making this reserve. So, we won't cut the trees here. It'll be held uh in for perpetuity whenever we need to utilize potentially ever have to utilize the uh the reserve. So a tree buffer remains on the u on the uh eastern side to to provide uh cover to existing house here. He's 21 ft from the property line. We're 40 and 1 ft. But again, we're not touching any trees on this side. Okay.

So we biased everything. This gave him this buffer. Put the second septic over here which will look like a a lawn area to the neighbor. Uh and basically our biggest uh obstacle is to meet the driveway uh grading requirements in the town. We have to push a driveway in there at 4%. And that and this this contour in the front of the property dictates the height of the house. So what is our steep slope permit? Our steep slope permit is this in a nutshell. Uh these are these are grades more than 15%. They're centrally located in the property. You can see the driveway with has a flat grade. We used to cut through the property and in green here is a wall. And so what we're doing is we're cutting uh into the hillside uh to create this house envelope, but we're leaving the front intact. So what we're doing is we're kind of a cutting in here. We leave all the trees uh intact in the front and we're we're moving through the topography to make the uh the um the garage work with zoning requirements and the house is attached to it.

The garage is technically underground. It's technically uh yes, it's it's pretty much in the great underground. Yes, it it it serves as a we put a um we we put a uh a um a deck on top of it as a as a for the first floor basically. Yes. Correct. It's it's actually a foot and a half taller than the first floor cuz we we we want to keep the house as low as we could for the neighbors, etc. What's the green illustration in the in the back?

Uh this is going to be tree line, etc. There there is a there is a slope that we're creating when we're cutting into the hillside. We have a retaining wall here. We've got a planting uh area between it. And we we can either cut this and and leave this as a stone face, a rock cut face, or we can put a wall in there. Either one. We'd like to keep it as a stone face if we could. But again, belt and suspenders was mentioned before. We have the same attitude in my office. We show it uh you know uh both ways if we have to accomplish it that way. So we um so again everything's conforming except for the rear setbacks. Coverage is fine. We're 50% amount of impervious. We're 9.6% coverage versus 15%. So we're far underneath the thresholds for this. Uh and um we haven't gone to ZBA yet because we're it was recommended we come to you first. Uh we got some review memos from the town engineer. We responded to everything. Storm water works perfectly. It ties into a big catch basin here which is 9 ft in the ground. We've got plenty of u uh kind profile to make the the pipes work and everything's pretty much self-contained. Drains out this way. So uh again the health department looked at all these piping and plans and everything. We have an approval from them.

Well, it seems reasonably straightforward. We we do not have an okay from the town engineer, so we can't give you an approval tonight. Yes. Um the one thing we can look at easily here is that there aren't a whole lot of alternatives to that would allow you to avoid the steep slopes impact. Correct. And that's one of the things that we do need to consider. If there were a lovely flat area and you just didn't want to bother with the flat area, that would be different. Yes. Yes, doesn't seem to be a problem when I look at that map. Correct. So, other than that, does anybody else see anything that Do we need a public hearing on this?

We don't always do public hearings on Steve. Okay, very good. Uh, we can we can appear at the next meeting. Uh, we were hoping to go to zoning board of appeals since we've uh settled all the issues that the town engineer had. I just didn't get a memo. That's my problem. Well, I don't think you need to have the steep slopes permit in hand to go to the CBA, do they? No, but if I can just presume for the applicant, I think it's probably more the assurance that the placement of the building would result in the granting of the variances and usually they hold off in case there's something from the steep slopes permit that would

cause the building this location or sighting to be altered. That's that's actually why I brought up the issue that I don't see any alternative that's available given the topography. Okay. Um would that be enough? We could write a me I I mean I can easily get that language over to them that that does everyone agree with with me on that? So it is the consensus of the the planning board that that you're not sure. Let's talk about the rock that you're going to be chipping. Yes. Are we creating any more any additional steep slope by chipping in? Well, no.

Really get through the topo plan. Sure. Um, so what we're doing is we're mitigating the uh slopes with a wall. And so basically we uh this is all required to be 3 to1 slope to the health department. In the rear we put a wall, we have another wall above that. And we're grading. Everything is 3:1 throughout the site when we're done. So, whatever we end up with, it's all graded at 3:1. And um uh I'm using some of the cut we have in the rear to fill in the front of the house just to get the grades all to work and and literally keep some of the material on site if we could.

But, uh the when it's all finished, it'll be at um uh 2:1 at the most, but most mainly 3:1. And it looks kind of like you're putting a swale on the back of the along the back of the house. Yeah. What I'm doing is I put a swale on top of this upper little wall area just to collect any runoff even though the high points right here. Again, I I don't want water flowing over a wall. So, we basically we we pick it up and and and run it through drains out of the site cuz there was reference to 120 120 truckloads to be removed. 12 12 trucks per day.

Yeah. Yeah, what it is is basically is because we have to establish our slope at the driveway uh and we're we're meeting code requirements, we we have to we have to hammer material out. It's 3 foot of overburden on the site because we have we have um deep test holes. That's the key number I wanted was 3 ft. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, you're doing it. So, what's happening is we had 8 foot here and we got seven feet here with our test holes. But again, uh we did the cut and fill analysis, but a lot of it's going to be um overburdened. Water discharge off the property is okay.

It's being collected and brought to a storm basin out in the road. There's a there's a catch basin right here. That That's my question. That's okay. It can go off of It doesn't have to be contained on the property. Well, it's contained and then it's filtered off site via the catch. Okay. Yeah, that's what that's allowed my understanding. Yeah. No, which is much better than mine. Typically will let you tie into something. Okay. Yeah. It ties in. It's a halfacre zone. Uh I spoke to Will about it and uh treatment is not required because of the size and the age of the facility. It wasn't the treatment. It was the issue of not discharging water beyond the property.

Yeah, we have catch basins and swailes. Everything is collected in in an array of catch basins right here. So, it's all controlled. Okay. So, um uh that's pretty much it. Uh I can attend it next meeting once I get a final letter from Will. Uh we gave him a swip. We gave him everything on this project. He's he has that in his possession just like you guys have the copy as well. So yeah. Um and uh literally uh we like go to ZBA and just basically u show them our models and the modeling everything.

Okay. I don't I I think you can feel comfortable telling them that this sport had no uh objections to the layout of the property as you presented it. Right. And I think that might lead them to consider it without Yeah, we've mitigated everything, the storm water, the uh cut and fill, the grading, the tree buffers, plantings, and we already have health department approval. We got that first to make sure it was viable. Yeah. So, I I I hope that you can get to to the ZBA when you want to. Yes.

Even if we have I don't know what the timing is on their next meeting. I probably it was probably yesterday, but uh I would I would if I were you, I may get in trouble for this. If I were you, I'd try to get on the the next CBA agenda rather than waiting for us. Correct. But certainly, unless there's something unforeseen and the the we addressed everything. It was pretty straightforward, his memo seemed, right? We were just waiting for him to say would madam chair would you like a formal letter from me to the zoning board if you think it would be helpful and not

yeah I could just state that there's really no viable alternative to resite the proposed house and it's correct and it's attached garage and therefore the state slopes permit doesn't have an alternative to look at so their application would be valid to the z so so pending the approval of the town engineer where we believe that we will be able to approve this. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

That's okay. All right. Uh and this was not a that was not a public hearing, so we did not have to to do that. The next item on our agenda is a Steve Slo extension. Uh we would uh request that we approve its oh to extend for for for 6 months the um extension granted to 40 44 West Patton Road.

Good evening. Tim Allen of Bibbo Associates representing Linewalk. Um you'll recall I think I was here on the last extension we had asked for. Um this is a residential remodel at 44 West Patton Road and um it's really the property consists of a large flat area where the main house and the accessory uses and then there's a slope that comes down into a lower field um which is down in this area and essentially it's a staircase that is uh coming through the upper area to the lower area that is the steep slop disturbance. Um I believe they're wrapping up most of the construction now. They just didn't get to this winter time. So, this is kind of the

the landscape and the finishing of the project. There doesn't seem to be any reason whatsoever to me not to grant this extension. I agree. Could I have a Could I have a motion? So, moved. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? Um, all in favor of granting a six-month extension of the steep slopes permit. I I All opposed, you have it. Thank you. I hope it was worth waiting for. The next item on our agenda

is another Steve Slopes permit application for site disturbance activity pursuant to town code uh 102. And I believe this is a this is at 45 Mosado Road in Katona and it's writing a violation if I'm correct.

Yes, a little bit of reactive mode unfortunately on this one. Um, however, uh, the Eric Dorsch, KSCJ Consulting, uh, representing, uh, our client, Locon Enterprises, two fine gentlemen at that live out of town that are looking to, um, improve the interior and the exterior and the site of this property that they've recently invested in. Um and they went ahead and started making some cleanup effort to the site and the rear of the house is um the rear of the lot is very steep which I'll go into in a little bit. But however, there were uh a lot of invasive porcelain berry and uh honeysuckle and a lot of overgrown vegetation on the rear hillside that was left in neglect. Uh the prior owner uh had a rental situation. Um the tax assessor had the has the house at six bedrooms. Um the our client is looking to get uh less than that. Um, so it's been a little bit of an interesting situation. Uh, the house is on Mato Road in the Katona Hamlet right adjacent to 684 in the Sawmill Parkway, uh, built at the turn of the last century. Um and so our client got a violation by disturbing the steep slopes by removing the vegetation which they were unaware of that is you know that they were violating that uh code and they were unaware of those uh that enforcement on the steep slope. So they received the violation and they were also unaware of the whole wetland um permitting process at the local level even the state level.

But we've ruled out that the DEC does not take uh uh jurisdiction over uh there's a pond to the north on the adjacent property. A portion of that 100 foot buffer is on the subject property. But on that note, we've received our administrative wetland permit already from uh Paul Janig and we've gone through that review. Um so we're here to talk about the steep slopes. Um let's see. I just wanted to go through my list. Okay, turn the page. All right. So, this is a little enlargement of the lot. Um, there's roughly 60 ft of grade change across the site. Uh, we're at 280 ft in elevation on the eastern edge of the property at Mustado Road and down to 220 ft in elevation on the west side of the property adjacent to 684 and the Sawmill Parkway. Um, so it's a challenging site. Uh, a lot of the prime real estate on the site is at the bottom of the hill. There's a generous lawn down here. Uh, there's a patch of frag mightes that exists that we're proposing to remove as part of our mitigation plan. Uh, I'll show you that in a second. There's an existing um, seepage pit for the sanitary system that it was in disrepair when our client bought the property. They said it was a whole mess. So, we've um

the clients hired some uh a separate consultant to handle that and they've gotten that uh approved to replace in kind with Westchester Health Department. So, we've already received that approval. It'll be a new uh sebage pit in kind in place. Um and they've also when they were clearing the hillside, they took some of that organic debris. Um, and there were some stones and also a couple, I think, old buckets and things. So, Paul Jennig wants them to clean that up and they'd be happy to do that. Um, and that's going to be part of the plan. Um, I wanted to show you real quick a couple existing photos of um that our clients found in the in the house when they bought it showing um some terrace gardens that were in the rear of the house from the uh not sure if it was a previous owner, but it could have been the owner prior to that. Um that's depicting natural field stone terrace gardens. It looks like the person was an avid garden avid gardener there, but it depicts a you know a simple house on a hill uh with this terrace garden in the rear. Um when the shrubs and the vegetation were removed on the rear hillside, those rocks and that terrace uh dryllay walls were were demolished with it. It was not even clear that they were there because the the vegetation was so overgrown on the hillside. So currently the hillside is stabilized with vegetation. There's so fence. Um the owners are in full they have full intention of um you know owning up to their mistakes and and rectifying this whole situation. So uh I just wanted to point out a previous plan just to give you an idea of an illustrative view of what's being proposed.

Um, the footprint of the house, the garage, it's all going to remain the same. No change, no change with the front walkway, the front wall. The ch the only changes or additions is going to be adding a gravel patio in the back and a field stone wall around that. Um, since this design, they've opted to make this little portion next to the house just lawn and just have one staircase coming off the rear covered porch instead of two. And because the site is so steep, there's really no nice access to the rear lawn in the back. And so what we were thinking and the client has approved is to provide just a simple lawn pathway through a meadow on the hillside which will help stabilize the hillside and provide the native species as opposed to the uh invasive species majority that were there previously. Um all natural material you know blue stone field stone boulders very very simple. Um, and so they were appreciative of that. And then this diagram kind of shows you a little bit of the slope. So in the cross-section here you can see um that the existing grade in the rear is much steeper. Well, let me let me say that this section is cut adjacent to the house here, but then in the middle of the long pathway. So it's a a section that is curved and so there's just a little break in the middle here at at a portion of the the curve. So it's

generally depicting the uh 25% pathway that we're proposing as a long path down with the majority of the existing slopes uh 25% and over but no slope will exceed to um 50%. And the idea is to restabilize the hillside and make it more uh beneficial to the ecosystem, the habitat, but also look nicer and have better access to the rear of the property. So, as I mentioned, uh the client opted to just have lawn on the side. This is the updated design and just one staircase off the beer covered porch, a gravel patio with a field stone boulder wall uh adjacent to it and some solid blue stone slab steps off the terrace and another boulder wall up here to help with grade control. Um, we didn't include the previous fieldstone terrace walls, dry laid walls that were there in previous coverage cuz they weren't there during the time of the survey. But with that, we're still in conformance. There's no postmanagement uh post storm water management constru uh post construction storm water uh improvements required based on the the size of the disturbance. So this is this uh grading sediment erosion control plan allin-one. Uh the shading there depicts slopes that are 25% and above. So it's a challenging site. As I mentioned, the

whole rear of the site is flat lawn as it gets to the toe of the slope. But the house was basically built on this hillside and it overlooks 684 on the sawmill. You can see in the existing grading underneath the the previous in those pictures that was shown there was a little flat lawn here just below some of their terrace walls. I believe they were in here those garden walls. Um, we're essentially taking that flat area and putting up at uh closer to the house as the gravel terrace instead, more accessible to the house house, more better better circulation, better utilized. Uh, and then there's that long path instead of coming uh off the middle of that further west. It's easier and less intrusive to the site if you just come off the bottom side and uh maintain that 25% max slope on the lawn. The um the total disturbance or the site is uh 1.025 025 acres, 44,000 and change square ft. The um the proposed disturbance is 9,583 ft in total.22 acres and out of that uh the the disturbance on steep slopes is 4,724 ft.1 acres. So a little less than half of the proposed site disturbances on the steep slopes. We tried to balance the cut and fill in this proposed project as much as possible. Um, so that's what we're trying to do. Uh, you can see in the red here is the proposed cut. The blue is the proposed fill.

And I think that it keeps the existing character of the site but improves the circulation and uh stabilizes the site which was disturbed unknowingly and provides a better uh native um planted situation for the the habitat locally and it really doesn't change the character of the neighborhood. It's uh or or the property really for that matter. It's just kind of an upgrade to what was there in a way. And um that's it really for the proposed steep slope disturbance and the cut and fill. Let's see what else is here of the mitigation plan. So, as I mentioned, the uh the meadow mix on the hill with some native flowering trees uh dabbled in there. Uh and then some plantings adjacent to the house. Uh we were we're in receipt of a memo from Hans from Fran's office from Will dated April 8th. He sent it last week and we're more than happy to address those comments. There's not none there that we have issues with. uh and would we'd be happy to move on to those and keep uh moving ahead in the process?

Well, I I don't think you you have to move on with him about those, not with us. Yes, that's correct. Uh and I believe that he did in fact recommend approval. I'm trying to find it in the memo. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at October's Do I have I may not have the April one in my files?

Yeah, I don't remember him recommending approval, but uh it was actually from his colleague um what's her name? I haven't met her yet. Sh. Uh, no. Excuse me. Oh, her name is not on here. Sorry. It came the one from the 8th. Anyways, April 8th.

Let's see. Yeah, it says our our office takes no exception to approval of this project subject to the conditions that the following items be addressed by the applicants. Okay. Yes, that's the the the language that we need. I see. Yeah, I was looking at the comments instead and those were burned in my memory instead of that. It's fine for there to be comments that we could make part of the resolution, but right 10 engineer has to say they recommend approval. Understood. Understood. Thank you.

Um, so that is the important thing. This does seem to be a very uh wellthoughtout attempt at writing this the situation. Uh I it seems to me that it's kind of a slam dunk to approve it with the with the conditions. Yeah. Um we do have to do seeker. It's an unlisted action under seeker. Um can we well f first of all could I have a motion that it is an unlisted action? Is there a second?

All in favor? I I All oppose. It was an unlisted action under seeker. So there is a part one. You said it was an unlisted action under seeker, not type two. Yeah. Yeah. It it would be nice if it were a type two. It would be easier, but it steep slopes ordinances in this town are always unlisted. Okay. They're not in any type two list. So even though that's not necessarily the driver of this whole project, it's really just to make it a rear terrace in the back. It's it's really about the interior and exterior improvements of the house. that was

I'm not saying it would be a good idea for us to make some modifications to the law hint but right now this is what it is and it's it doesn't mean we can't do it quickly. You you've filled out a a short form, right? Yes, we have. Uh it's just it takes me a long time to scroll through 118 pages on my I understand. Oh, it's all one file for you, every application. Yeah, that's fun.

Yeah, I wish we could do something about that because I don't really need the entire 80 pages of stormwater charts. Now, okay, sounds good. Okay, so part one, um, brief description of the proposed action is fine. We'll want to Um I I don't even want to read it. I want to go through it because I don't see see anything on page one that's problem residential forest. Post action. No, it is the CA. No traffic. It It is near public transportation services. You can walk to the train station from him. He's all page two looks fine to me. Anybody see any problem with to page three? Um, no flood plane, no animals. Well, none that are threat threatened or endangered. Um, storm water taken care of. Looks

Looks good. These two looks good. Okay. So, on to part two. Who would like to do the reading of the part twos? I have a blank one here. If I Yeah, I can. If I can find it in my file. I've got one. You want me to read it? Yeah. All right. Part two. Will the proposed action create a material conflict with an adopted land use plan or zoning? No. Regulations? No. Will the proposed action result in a change in the use of or intensity of use of land? No. No. Will the proposed action impair the character or quality of the existing community? No.

No. Will the proposed action have an impact on the environmental characteristics that cause the establishment of a critical environmental area CA? No. No. Five. Will the proposed action result in an adverse change in the existing level of traffic or affect existing infrastructure for mass transit, biking or walkway? No. Six. Will the proposed action cause an increase in the use of energy and it fails to incorporate reasonably available energy conservation or renewable energy opportunities? No. No. Seven. Will the proposed action impact existing A public private water supplies? No. No. No.

Public B public uh private wastewater treatment utilities. No. No. Eight. Will the proposed action impair the quality character or quality of the important historic archaeological architectural or aesthetic resources? Nine. Will the proposed action result in an adverse change to natural resourcees erggo wetlands, water bodies, groundwater, air quality, flora or fauna? No. No. 10. Will the proposed action result in increase in the potential for erosion, flooding or drainage problems? No. No. Will the proposed 11 will the proposed action create a hazard to environmental resources or human health?

No. All right. Where'd it go? Yeah. Right. Uh I propose that uh based on the information analysis above and any supporting documentation that the proposed action will not result in any significant adverse environmental impacts. Does everyone agree? Is there a second? Second. All in favor? I. All opposed. We have an a deck. Thank you so much. Don't read yet. TBD just have a a made there. Okay.

Um could I have a move to approve with the condition standard conditions all those? Yes. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? I. All opposed. Now you have Steve's permit. Thank you so much. Really appreciate. Okay. Thank you. And if you don't mind, we'll run right into the next application. That's absolutely fine. Thank you so much.

Okay. The next item on our agenda is to consider a Steve S application for the construction of a new single family home and related impertinences. The owner applicant is Brad Realy Corporation. The address is on Hannes Road in Bedford Hills. And I've seen this a long time ago, but how many years is it? Um, I may be the only one who's actually seen it.

Oh, I remember this one. Yeah. A little bit of history. Uh, I think we were back before this board in 2017. I had to go back through some of the old minutes and uh, uh, Ed Delany of our office was handling this back in the day. Um we were before this board at uh a meeting and um that meeting was essentially discussion I think with many meetings before that we had the discussion of positioning of house and how this all was going to lay out the the access through and at the very last meeting we were talking about landscaping and guide rail on this driveway. Um, just to refresh your memory, uh, Hannes Road is here. The lower, um, condo project is below it. This property was actually, uh, like a leftover piece of property that was part of that, uh, development below. Um, having said that, see the actual surface steep slopes. It's not incredibly large throughout the property. Driveway comes in um several times up the hill. Some steep slopes in the middle here will be disturbed. uh as a cut and fill through here, cross the pitch of the driveway, the slope in here and the slope in the back of the discharge. Um back in 2017, we had been before the board. Uh there were outstanding comments from Han Engineering at that time. We had left this board and actually responded to those comments to where he had issued post meeting an approval letter back in 2018. Um, so we had responded to those

comments again with the landscaping and what have you and the guide rail and some other comments that he had had. So he had actually signed off on this property back in 2018. We just never came back to this board to get the approval um for some reason. Do we have a copy of his sign off?

Yeah, I had actually submitted that part of the the package that we had sent to you. uh but nonetheless it's now been reviewed again uh by by Han and Will and uh they've come to the same conclusion in recommending approval to this board. Um so the two issues that were outstanding back in 2017 were to provide some guide rail along some of these uh sloped areas as we come down. um and a landscaping plant which I I believe was questioning what was seen from above. There was a landscaping and uh Norway spruces on the top of the property and also uh mitigation and um some screening at the entryway along Hannes Road is the landscaping along with the mitigation for wetlands. Um wetlands had approved this in 2018. Um their approval expired in 2022. So, we've submitted a new application back to them to renew that original permit. They've asked for some additional information before we get on agenda, but we plan to give them that. They wanted the uh updated wetland and just make sure that it hasn't changed over the years. So, we're working on that now.

So, what should have probably been wrapped up in 2018, we are now before you in 2026 looking for uh the same approval. Yeah, this is one I have to admit I never liked it, but I think it's the only way that it works. It's not an easy property. Um, but uh

it's one of those sad things that if you had been laying it out in subdivision times, you you could have accessed that part of the property over level land, but all the level land was separated from it before it came came back to us. But anyway, I think it it was ready for approval. a couple of a number of years ago. I think it still is. I don't know how the rest of you feel about it.

I believe prior to that last meeting that I referred to, I I recall um going through some alternatives and looking at various house sites and I think we kind of we had one down at the foot of the the property which I liked better. But yeah, it uh I know we went and did a field visit. Yeah, we did at least one, right? Yeah. I mean, that would be the the one thing, but I think Do do you remember Diane? Were you on the board for this one? Was it just Michael? I forget which two of you's been on the board longer.

I came before you came. I don't think I went on that sidewalk. I don't know. I might have I know this is right above Kahala. It's the last piece that was left over from the light. Okay. project. Yeah. I think that's right. It was part of I did go on that. I thought we were positioned that it was going to be approved with the last where we left off. That's that's what I thought too. Um Madam Chair, the minutes do make record that uh basically the board had gone through and looked at all the options on the table and sort of determined that they had exhaust all the options and this was the the plan that seemed the least impactful overall.

Yeah. So we do have record of that. That for one seems to be what I remember too. So, um, do we have a copy of the short form part one? And I'll trade you the one for so uh, f first of all, could I have a motion that this is an unlisted action? So move. Second. Is there any further discussion? All in favor? I I All opposed. It is unlisted action. Do do you can you

Yep. see one of these. Okay. Um page one looks fine. Mostly residential. Yeah. I don't think might say parkland but it's not that close park though. Yes.

But is it permitted use? It is consistent with the adopted plan. Um is it with the CA? No increase in traffic. We're saying yes for public transit though. I guess it depends what you consider close. It's believe a train station. Believe it or not, people from Lake Murray do do walk to the Bedford Hills.

So I I would say that is legitimate. I forget where the bus comes too. I think one of the buses may stop that. But I don't know. Anyway, the uh the the train is close enough, but the drama is up the hill from the way, right? It's before you make the sharp left around, but it's up the hill. Yeah. Yeah. Way up the hill. The hardest part of the walk is being on your own property.

Okay. Would the proposed action physically alter encroach into any existing wetland or water body checked? Oh yes, that's that's at the foot of the property. I forgot. So the answer is yes. And everything on this side looks good. It's not part of the 100redyear flood plane. I don't see anything on page three problem. Yeah, agreed. Okay. Do I have a volunteer to I can do it.

You want to do it, Jared? Go through part two. Okay. Back to part two. Uh, will the proposed action create a material conflict with an adopted land use plan or zoning regulations? No. No. Will the proposed action result in a change in the use or intensity of the use of land? No. Or small? No. Will the proposed action impair the character or quality of the existing community? No. No. No. Will the proposed action have an impact on the environmental characteristics that cause the establishment of the CA? No. No.

Will the proposed action result in an adverse change in the existing level of traffic or affect existing infrastructure for mass transit, biking, or walking? No. Will the proposed action cause an increase in the use of energy and fails to incorporate reasonably available energy conservation or renewable energy opportunities? No. No. Uh 7 A. Will the proposed action impact exist existing public or private water supplies? No. No. Uh or B public or private wastewater treatment utilities? No. Will the proposed action impair the character or quality of the important historic, archaeological, architectural, or aesthetic resources? No. No.

Will the proposed action result in adverse change in natural resources? No. No. Will the proposed action result in an increase in the potential for erosion, flooding, or drainage problems? No. No. Will the proposed action create a hazard to environmental resources or human health? No. No. So based upon our findings in part two, I move to check uh or determine that uh this will not have um any adverse effect this that's a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Any further discussion? Uh I no

all in favor. I I all oppose. You have an egg deck. Um could I have a motion to to approve with standard conditions and all those? Yeah. Oh yes. So yes an appearance between before wetwoods. That's a motion you made. That's your motion. Who's seconding it? Second. Got a motion in a second. Is there any further discussion? All in favor? I. All opposed. You have it. Thank you. I wasn't sure I'd ever live to see that, but you have it.

Have a good night. Good night. I'm running. I have to be up at 3:00. Okay. Oh, could I have a motion to close the motion to close the hearing? The the close the meeting meeting. Meeting. Sorry. Meeting meeting. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? I. All opposed? Everything is closed.