Zoning Board of Appeals - Regular Meeting

Oh, good. Here she enters.

Perfect timing.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to call to order the Zoning Board of Appeals for Thursday, July 9th, 2026. My name is Peter Michaelis. We have a fairly good agenda before us. The way we operate is the our secretary will call a and read the application. If it's your application, please come up here to the podium over there the stand and present to us because this is a public hearing. People have a right to know what's going on. And they can make and then there will be a question and answer period if you have if you want to make a statement or say something about an application please address all issues that you have with an application to the board and not to the applicant who is making a presentation um with the oh the only thing is uh on our agenda we had a um an application for 64 griffin avenue um if that's if this was what you were here for that Application has been adjourned, I'm presuming, until September, which is when our next meeting is. In any case, let's begin. We have a couple of carryover applications to start with.

150 Bedford Road, LLC. Contract Bendy is seeking a variance of Article 3, Section 125-29.7b and Article... 10 section 125-102a of the zoning ordinance for 150 bedford road katona section block and lot 60.7-2-39 in the commercial commercial business zoning district to permit the construction of a 15 unit multi-family dwelling consisting of a six two bedroom and nine one bedroom units with a full basement level for storage and mechanical room resulting in 4 600 square feet Of 1st floor area where 4,000 square feet is the maximum permitted in the central business zoning district and where the required parking spaces for a 15 unit multifamily dwelling is 26 onsite parking spaces where 23 onsite parking spaces will be provided resulting in a deficiency of 3 spaces in the central business zoning district.

Good evening. Stephen Helms with the homes group architects representing 150. LLC, JAMIE PROVENZANO, AND MARK PICUCCI WHO CANNOT BE HERE TONIGHT, BUT I BELIEVE THEY'RE ON ZOOM. This project became was presented before your board a year ago. I don't want to give you a little history on it. We went to the planning board after that we met with the fire department. We got a bunch of those meetings done. I want to just correct that. We have 26 spaces required. We have 24 on site. So it's a deficiency of 2 spaces. Not 3. That I think is a type of. That's number we are seeking to variances. It is a 3 story building on a vacant lot, 15 units. The parking is in the rear of the property. I have a survey here showing the footprint of the building. I have a site plan that's on the screen. That's a. The building that's post shade and yellow is the subject property again parking in the back. We have a front and a rear entrance. It's 3 stories. It's a gamble roof design to help keep the scale down. We do have, I believe, 3 affordable apartments in this complex or development. and um it was designed to adhere to the building code or building coverage for a cv zone district which is 20 with 19.6 or 19.8 so we comply in that fashion we do meet all of our setbacks again it's the footprint for a single use is 4600 and the code says 4 000. so that's one of the variances we're seeking tonight and the second one is the efficiency and parking um We did talk about compact parking with the planning board, but they would prefer to just keep them regular size 9 and a half spaces wide by 18 with a wheel curb or 20, which we have demonstrated. We are, we were at the planning board 2 or 3 times with your board recently, but you could not vote on it because of the, I guess the planning board had to declare themselves lead agency or something to that effect. And I have a rendering, I have a floor plan and. answer any questions that come up. I know the planning board wanted some additional renderings perspective from the north where Arroway is looking down at the property, which I have illustrated on the bottom left there to try to depict what it's going to look like. And coming north, you really won't see it until you're right in front of it. The three trees that are there now are going to stay. which will give a nice screening. Those are fairly nice mature trees. It's not going to be a white building. That color came up in the planning board. We want to warm it up a little bit, introduce some stone. That's my presentation. We did, like I said, meet with the fire department. They're okay with the accessibility. KEVIN WINN, SEWERT CONNECTION IS OKAY. PLANNING BOARD, I THINK, LOOKED VERY FAVORABLY ON IT. AND OUR ENGINEER, MR. MONACO, IS CURRENTLY ADDRESSING SOME LOOSE ENDS, AND THOSE WILL BE ADDRESSED MONDAY NIGHT. IT'S COMING MONDAY THE 13TH.

YOU'RE STILL HAVING TO GO BACK TO PLANNING BOARD?

YEAH, WE HAVE TO GO BACK FOR HOPEFULLY PRELIMINARY SITE PLAN APPROVAL. And then we can go deeper into our construction drawings, but we wanted to get everything lined up and we need variances.

Basically, the variances are just the, the 2 parking spaces 2 parking and the square footage.

Yeah.

Yeah, the footprint square foot of the building would be in 46. But not a building coverage, not an impervious variance, not a setback variance. The building is set back. So it lines up with the, I guess the 2 story white building right on the South of that, which is, I thought was important to keep that streetscape. Uh, like I said, the trees are there.

Which you're looking for a fence.

There'll be a fence around the back of the property, a retaining wall and a fence, but I don't believe we're putting any fence in the front yard.

It says permitting. Well, what can I get 150 already a record sense that in the public notice?

No, no, no different place.

Okay. Where'd you see the 150 bed for the road? There's already a record sense. Is it different from this? Yeah, it's really weird. Yeah. Oh, it doesn't have it in the notice.

It's not in the notice.

What? Maybe it's different.

I don't understand. Yeah, it must be. Yeah, thank you.

Yeah. Yes. The on this, she continues on about erecting his defensive like, oh, that was the.

Original notice that went out last year and that wasn't.

Oh, okay. That was that was appended from something else. Yeah.

So that's no longer longer on it.

Now that was for a different problem.

Yeah. Okay. Now, to the business, I mean, was that lecture probably? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was that.

Yeah.

Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to speak on this application or on the Zoom call?

I don't have any hands raised on the Zoom call. If anybody wants to speak, raise your hand.

we'll keep it open for a bit longer um i've my own personal opinion that the the 4600 and fourth the difference between that if i'm not mistaken is simply when uh the town passed that to stop the cvs from going into arrow way right which was kind of arbitrary um so i don't have a problem with with your going for 4 600 square feet and certainly we all know that parking is tight we've certainly given variances for more than two parking places um Is the is this resulted in 1 or 2 parking places per unit?

Well, the 1 bedrooms require 1 and a half space and the 2 bedrooms require 2. okay. So we certainly have enough spaces on site to accommodate each part. And there is, I believe, 2, 2 handicap. We have 26 spaces. If you're over 25, you need 2 spaces. So we comply with that. And if we need to get a pass for the 2. Deficiency will get a town effort.

I think we've seen that on another application. Yeah, they, they were short on our call this 1 in the last few months. Yeah. And they, they said they would do the same.

I think the landlord can, I guess, put in their lease, you know, maximum 2 cars. I mean, if someone has 3 cars, they may limit their. So, you said 1 and a half space 1 and a half to the town code is for. Uh, 1 bedroom apartment, I made the comment, I don't know how many people have 1 and a half cars, but, uh, yeah, yeah. Someone might have a motorcycle someone will Uber or Lyft, but up here, I mean, it's closer to train tracks, but, uh.

I think 2 out of 26, so that's 1 and 1 and a half with that overlap. If somebody wanted to get in there, or would they not be able to use that at all?

Like, the affordable apartment, if they have 1 car, then that picks up that deficiency that, you know, again, I. What an affordable unit is so big, it's 1 bedroom, so they can have 2 or 3 people.

How far is the nearest town parking lot from the town parking lot?

I guess it's. Up by the blue dolphin down by the blue dolphin is the closest 1. it's feasible to and that's empty. I mean, a week a week weekends and at night time is plenty of parking.

It depends on how far you have to walk and you have to get to your, but it doesn't have to be.

It doesn't have to be a town from what we've allowed in the past for the permit is that we allow the. Or we look for the property owner to secure an agreement, a parking agreement that demonstrates they have that deficit parking spot within. I think we had 5, like, 500 feet or something like that of the. Of the subject property, so that could be either by way of going to a municipal lot, or if there's an adjoining commercial owner, which you have in this place, or even residential owners that have extra parking spaces. Yeah. And you can, um, you can demonstrate to the town building department that you have cured those. And then that's how that that variance. It shows.

That's been the development next door, which is 140 Befford road. Same owner, different company. LLC there. Trying to fix their building up now going through process of what's the best tenant for that. So, when that's all set and done, there may be an overflow or excess parking that they can work out a pass, which is adjacent. So, but right now we want to go on its own legs.

Yeah. I'm not so inclined to print the variant on the parking just because at this juncture, what you've seen is that it's helpful for this approach. It has not proved to be, I think, problematic for the development that we've done this for, but it's also then help deal with the concerns about parking issues in town and having to deal with the on street parking issue. They're not being sufficient parking during the day and elsewhere coming and going largely night issue. Um, but that that's how we dealt with it and we have yet to have any, we have to be alerted to any significant issues by.

I think we're saying we haven't reached the capacity of park of parking these on the buildings that we have that we've granted already. And at some point, you know, maybe the capacity would be exhausted, but right now it's still there. Correct.

Question came up from the planning board with respect to site distance, which we have 350 feet each way. Good site distance leaving and coming into the site, which was an exercise we had to go through.

And what I was going to ask is, I didn't see in the way that this is laid out or contemplated right now.

What is the thought for how deliveries and drop offs actually had the engineer do a delivery? I have a print of it. If you'd like to see it, that will be presented Monday night. Where the driveway on the North is wide enough. So a delivery card can stop someone can go in and out block up and go around the parking lot and turn around. Okay. So that was proven down.

Okay. I'm looking at your landscape plan has the planning board requested also the landscaping.

Yeah, they're talking about native. Yeah. Are these all native? They should be 3 trees are going to stay, but we did make reference to native. Yeah.

I would double check. I don't I don't know that. And.

That may be a condition of the planning board resolution to make sure that they're all native.

Yeah. Well, it's important visually to soften the facade of the building. As well, you know, and give people privacy on, you know, for their right. Okay.

Anyone else anybody else in the audience? No. And if that's the case, can I have a motion to close the public hearing all those in favor? I public hearing is closed.

Thank you. So, you could not have to work that if they have a. Side by side parking.

This is the plan and driving around.

I don't I don't have any issue with the request for the variance of the 600 square. I would suggest that we kind of maintain the same practice of requiring the developers off site, altering the parking spaces and part of it is to demonstrate that they have that license. Or at least some place for those parking space, the requisite parking spaces. In this case, it's a deficit to parking spaces. And then, since I've been involved with that more recently, I only would remind the applicant and like, and make a note back to the planning board when it comes to the affordability component. There are supposed to be deed restrictions are like, they're supposed to be put in place when you deal with the affordability component consistent with the housing affordable housing regulations currently in fact, in the town.

Outside the deed restrictions. Yeah.

So, on the, in the affordability provisions of the code, it talks about when you do affordable housing and you're representing and basing it on on that complying supposed to be deep restriction. So, all that our mind is the applicant and the town of those particular provisions, because in the past, we haven't always cross referenced back to them during this part of the process. That's why I said that aspect I would ask to be noted back to the planning board as a reminder. I've been working with them separately.

I think that 4,000 square foot was really set up years ago for like a store, so they wouldn't have a big anchor store to discourage that type of use.

Correct. So I don't have any issue with the 4,000. When you look at the overall impacts we're talking about, usually when we're talking about coverage and the like, we're dealing with environmental impacts. We don't have a variance that's directed really around that particular issue. So, I don't have a particular concern when it comes to that aspect of the requested variance.

And the sidewalk will continue for pedestrian travel on the correct side of the road there.

And then the variance, I suggested how we would deal with the parking aspect of it and the building was otherwise in compliance with the code and the planning board is dealing with a specific site issue. So it's just, I think, referral. Or conditioned upon planning board approval.

I will ask you if you would to make a motion before it before I do do this recent changes in New York state code regarding secret. We need to bring this up, answer a bunch of questions. Will the project be connected to an existing community public water system at commencement of habitation? The answer is yes. Will the project existing public sewer system at the commencement of of habitation? It will be Kevin when is provided approval for that is the project located on previously disturbed site and 1 that a has been substantially altered by our current or previous improvement or use at least 2 years before submission of an application, which is yes. abuts, adjoins, or is opposite from another parcel that is or has been occupied by an improvement or use other than the industrial or agricultural use at least two years before the submission of an application. That's also yes. Is not located in a FEMA-designated 100-year floodplain or special flood hazard area, which is yes. And has not been used for agricultural purposes in the immediately proceeding 2 years or 3 of the last 5 years before submission of an application. Yes, it's not located in a coastal erosion hazard area. That's also yes. Will the project contain less than 20% commercial retail community facility or other non industrial non residential use measured by gross floor area? Yes, it's 100% residential gross area. are less than a 100 dwelling units proposed yes are any single family homes proposed on land less than one acre in size which apparently is not applicable in this case That's it and that's it.

I will turn that into 2. does that require a, uh, we would require a resolution of the board to authorize an exemption from secret. This is the new legislation that the governor adopted that exempt certain residential projects outside of New York City. WHICH WOULD BE APPLICABLE AS LONG AS YOU AGREE WITH THE FACTORS RECITED BY THE CHAIR. BUT THERE SHOULD BE A RESOLUTION.

NEW SPEAKER I WOULD RECOMMEND THAT WE AGREE THAT WHAT I JUST READ IS ALL ACCURATE.

NEW SPEAKER GOES INTO THE RESOLUTION.

NEW SPEAKER I RECOMMEND THAT WE ISSUE A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE WAIVER OF THE NEED FOR CIPRA BASED ON THE CHAIRMAN'S READING OF THE VARIOUS CRITERIA THAT ARE OUTLINED AND ESSENTIALLY INDICATING IT LEADS TO REQUIRE REQUISITE Criteria for a waiver, and that that resolution be included as part of our approval.

2nd, I just have a final question. Here's a 2nd.

Oh, sorry. So I all those in favor.

I have a question.

I wanted to ask you about handicap access. You have a number of 1st floor 1 bedrooms.

It's an elevator building. It's an elevator building 3 star.

1st, 2nd and 3rd, let's say someone comes in and, you know, they need. Access of so they full access into the building and is there a parking spot?

Yeah, that would be allocated allocated up front and a walk that meets a D a requirements for pitch. So, what would that be?

Any of the apartments could be? Yeah, they're actually. Yeah. Okay. Great.

Yeah, they're all be.

Okay, great.

So, Meredith, if you want to continue.

I would move to approve the application for variance as it pertains to 150 Bedford Road LLC and the variance requested with respect to the fourth at the first floor floor area of 4000 square feet limitation in the central business district where here the applicant in fact has 4600 square feet that variance is we believe is not It's not problematic in that the app, the benefits sought here by the applicant cannot be achieved by another means feasible to the applicants. There'll be no undesirable change to the character of the neighborhood or detriment to nearby properties. Again, both of those are in part, or rather the 2nd of those qualifications, no undesirable changes that we still are meeting the overall coverage requirements are within the code requirements as those. Coverage is usually pertained to the environment and here they're still compliant with it despite needing this variance for the 600 square foot delta in the central business district. The variance requested, I could say is numerically substantial, but the variance requested will not result in any adverse physical or environmental effects in the neighborhood or community. Again, that number is not pertinent with respect to building coverage or impervious coverage. And as such does not necessarily relate back to questions of the environment, alleged difficulty is created, but that's only 1 of the factors to be considered by the board and making its decision and is not termitive. Uh, Now, with respect to the request for a variance of the 2 additional 2 parking spaces, I would move. I would ask the board consider that we grant we request the applicant seek 2. Licenses or leases off site parking spaces located within approximately 500 feet of the premises that can be either on a private property owned by a commercial owner, or by a residential. Property owner provided they have appropriate parking on their site and it's permitted by code. The applicant will need to demonstrate that they have that those licenses or leases throughout the terms of the occupancy of the totality of the building. If those parking spaces are at some point become not not available, then it'll be a determination of the building inspector as to how to resolve that particular question as to the parking spaces and units. Um, whether a new license or lease is required, or whether the seal for those impacted singular unit would be because we're talking 1 and a half parking spaces there then would be impacted and occupy where they could return to us.

And something happens now, suddenly take away those spots. That's why, you know.

All right, then they have to return to us. Again, the benefits off of the applicant here, we've found another way to deal with address the parking deficiencies by having this off site requirement license lease. That as a result of that, there's no undesirable change the character in the neighborhood because the park is still being met off site or rather not on the road. The variance is not substantial because it's been addressed. The variance requested will not result in any adverse physical or environmental effects in the neighborhood or community. The alleged difficulty is self-created, but that's only one of the factors to be considered by the board in making this decision. With respect to both variances, the applicant shall use their best efforts to ensure their building permit is issued within 1 year of the board's approval of this variance and then diligently pursue such construction to completion. The applicant shall submit a certified as built survey, including building and previous coverage calculations, the building department prior to the issuance of the certificate of occupancy. They'll also be required to submit a copy of the license or lease agreements to the town that will be kept on file and must be retained throughout the tendency of occupancy and use of all of the units of the building. And if there is a change to that, they will need to come back to us as it pertains to parking. The application is also conditioned on planning board approval as well as compliance with the affordable housing provisions within the town code. The variance is granted in accordance with the plan submitted to the board. Last dated 12-23-25. And they consist of six drawings. I'll second that.

Yes, yes, yes, great.

Thank you very much.

Excuse me if I can just interrupt. Is your sign person here? Yeah, okay. Just asking move on to number 2 of the carryover.

Edmund Simone is seeking a variance of article 3 section 125 dash 11125 dash 15 and article 5 section 125 dash 50 for Nottingham road, Bedford Hills designated section blocking lot 60 dot 10 dash 2 dash 39 and the residential half acre zoning district. To permit the construction of new residents on a pre existing legal non conforming lock with a lot does not meet the minimum 100 foot effective square requirement in the residential half acre zoning district and where the front yard setback results in 31 feet to the covered porch with 35 feet is required and where the rear yard setback results in 33.6 feet where 50 feet is required. And where the retaining wall is greater than 6 feet in height and where the rear yard setback results in 21 feet where 50 feet is required for a wall that exceeds 6 feet in height in the residential half acre zoning district.

So what we did is, since the last time we were here, we addressed many issues with the town consulting engineer. And of most significance is that we installed a stormwater management system which really wasn't required to address issues of the neighbors. We've added a infiltration structure in the middle of the property, and we included a rain tank in the back of the garage to collect storm water. And by adding those two components to our projects, we were able to reduce the volumetric discharge from our property to what exists at two locations, one to an existing catch basin across the street, which was of a concern with the neighbors the last time I was here. We also mitigated any stormwater management to the next catch basin down the road to the east. And so we have a net zero increase in stormwater discharge from our property with the components we've added. We submitted a very lengthy stormwater management report. It was reviewed by the town engineer and approved, and I submitted a letter to that effect to your secretary, and she received it as well. The other thing we did is we did a study. It was requested last time we were here to basically summarize the project. We're in our one-half zone. We basically are looking for two variances. The first variance is a variance for four feet to the front of the residence. And in the back, we're asking for variances which range from 16 feet to 22 feet in the rear of the property line. Again, the rear of the property line is nonconforming. It has a big dip in it. And we're under the minimum square as required. What we did is we biased the entire house to the rear of the property line. The blue line on this map in front of you depicts our setbacks. Basically, as you can see, we're asking for a variance of four feet in the front. why we're doing that is because we have a four foot wide step out the front door we have two two proposed uh steps from this platform in the front that totals six feet we're two feet back with our house from the front yard setbacks we need a variance of four feet just to cover the steps uh with which is apropos to other uh applications uh other buildings that exist on the roadway We don't need any variances from the side yards. Again, the rear yards I spoke about, the eastern side of the building is conforming with the setback. Just when this property line dips inward, we need a variance here, a variance off the garage, and a variance at a wall. Since our last iteration, we did redesign all the walls, and we reduced the extent of the variance required at this location of the project. What we propose as mitigation is we have a extensive mixed evergreen buffer to the rear because that's the part of the project which is most impacting the neighbors. In the front, we have an extensive landscaping project with natural trees, which is depicted on this plan in front of you. And these trees, they're added to the front. As you can see, the trees are in the rear, and that's how we mitigate it. We requested to do a little study, and I hope it's here. Let's see. Is this it? Nope, wrong one. Okay. Whoops, there we go. So what we have... We created a plan which depicts the elevation of our proposed project to that of the neighboring projects to basically talk about the heights of our project on the property. The map above you depicts the adjoining property to the west. We're right here, and this is the house to the east. Now what happens is that this driveway, as you can see, has many grade lines. Nottingham Road has many grade lines across it, and it climbs at about 5% slope. So between this house and the center of our property, it drops about 8 feet, and it drops about another 8 feet to the center line of our property to the east. The house to the west is about two and a half feet above the roadway of Nottingham. We're about nine feet above the roadway of Nottingham. And the house to the east is nine feet above Nottingham, as you can see by all the contours on the existing map. What we did is we pushed the house into the ground as much as possible. Our first floor is lower than the top of the garage. And why we did that is because we set the elevation of the house pretty much the same elevation as the house to the west. They're actually like 0.25 of a feet difference in height. So we kept these. These are the same elevation. of relative degrade. Because the property drops nine feet between this center line and this center line, this house is actually nine feet below this house. But it's pretty much what's happening with degrade, with the slope dropping. The relationship, again, between the driveway height Pardon me, the Nottingham Road elevation and the building height of the existing house to the east is the same as we propose for our property. So we're keeping the relative elevation of our structure similar to the neighbor to our east. To the west, again, we bias the house to the east side. And again, that relationship is with the same height, the cross.

And we provided you a plan with some grading lines and reference lines to verify that.

The elevations were determined by our surveyor. We took elevations of the neighbors. So there's no guesstimating here. It is certified by a surveyor. So with this project, we have a lot of comments. And basically, I'd like to run down really quickly to just paraphrase where we're at. And I might use my client here. So what were the neighbors talking about? The first thing they are talking about is, is there a cemetery? Yes, there is. It's on the right rear side of our property. We pushed all our disturbances away from that location with our proposed development of the project. And there is a access easement on the neighbor's property, not our own. So that basically is resolved despite the geometry that exists on the site. I talked about the stormwater management. We've completely mitigated that with our infiltration practices and rain storage. So we took care of that. I have a list of all the comments. The height of the house, I just presented that to you. A lot of the houses are split levels, but if you go past this house, All the properties to the east are two-story houses, just like we're proposing. So we're not making anything abnormal with the property. I've got pictures of all the neighboring houses, which are two-story houses, separate garages, not underneath. They're attached. And that's exactly what we're proposing here. The only thing with our garage is we're not putting a roof on top of it. We're keeping it as a flat deck. Basically, the other issue they had was the wall heights. We proposed some retaining walls. We did submit designed concrete walls for the town engineer. We are licensed engineers. I'm a structural engineer. We prepared the plans in compliance with New York State Building Code. And what we do is, when we complete the excavation, we ascertain the type of base material we're sitting on, and we'll file final certified plans to the building department. But we did submit a full set of all the calculations and design work to the engineer for the construction of the project. And to mitigate the walls, we're colliding them with stone, which is shown on the, elevations we propose, and that stone work is shown in these renderings, which will make it blend in with the back of the property. We are showing a full second stone wall or retaining wall above a planter. And we hope not to include that wall during construction. But if the rock is fractured and not solid, I have to put a wall there by code because you're not allowed to have rocks falling without either retaining wall or wire mesh protection, but we're conservative. We're proposing a second wall, but we think we'll probably be able to remove most of that with exposed rock. What else I had?

I think that was pretty much it.

So if I can answer any questions, I'd like to move forward.

Could I ask what changes you made in the facade wall facing the street on Nottingham? The facade itself of the wall is going to be faced with stone. Is that what you said? That's correct. Okay. But the height dimensions are all the same.

Uh, we made the wall slightly higher when we revise a, pardon me, slightly lower when we revise the walls. We are a 10 foot wall and an 8 foot wall behind it. Before we were taller.

On the Nottingham side?

Yes. Okay. Which faces Nottingham. And we also shorten the wall up significantly. We reduce the length of it by 40 feet.

And the trees that you have there are beautiful. They're fully. Pretty fully grown out compared to the house, but what are you do you have a planting plan of the size, the specimens and the time at which they will reach a good height to buffer.

Sure, we have a planting plan.

Okay.

So basically the plants we proposed, they are listed on the SY2 and they're all labeled on the plant itself. So we're removing about, we're removing 49 trees in the property. They're all insignificant in the area of the house. They're all six and eight inch caliper, it's small caliper. In addition, there's a roadway that extends through the property that has no trees on it whatsoever, just little saplings. So what we're proposing is I have a tupelo, eastern red-butt, and American hornbeam. That's pretty much some of the larger trees in the front we're proposing. And then we have secondary dogwood, tulips, and winter king green hawthorn. And we're proposing those for a little bit of color and variety.

I think they're pretty much all native. They are native, yes. So height at installation would be what?

I'm proposing six feet pretty much for all the trees as a minimum.

Okay. So they'll take a bit.

Yeah, two-inch caliber, two and a half. The evergreens in the rear, we have a mixed species of those, and we're using everything from green giant arborvitae, which grow really fast, white pine, white spruce, eastern red cedar, and Norway spruce. So pretty significant trees. And basically, they're much taller. The trees in the front, we propose them, they'll be about 25 to 30 feet tall. But the ones in the back will be larger, of course, and they'll screen the entire hillside. Currently, there's a vacant lot behind us, connecting to a house really far away in the back.

Well, I'd like to thank our secretary, Kim, because the cemetery committee, which I'm on was concerned about the access and I know you have that, but I'm just going to give you this for your records. Because town would need access to that cemetery. And I know it's not involving your has to stay.

Yes, Dave, we aren't touching. It's on the neighbor's property.

Thank you. Have you received our town engineer finally responded yesterday? Yes. Basically, I mean, some of it is that there's a bunch of suggestions and things that they would like to see you do, but that in general, they don't have a problem with the steep slope disturbance. And, of course, they're asking that you capture all the water through the various speedies permit and all the other stuff that you have to do.

Yes, we're all set. We've got everything. Yeah.

I'm Peter and I'm assuming that these items 1 and 2 that they like to see in the resolution or for the planning board to put in their resolution. So we don't. Yeah.

Well, we would agree to that. Yeah. I mean, we just, we would just agree to the letter and then let's put it to the planning board.

Correct yeah, just stake out, but we had to verify everything before we do the work, coordinate efforts with the town Pre inspections. Right? Pretty much what it is.

The town inspector will be on our inspections list. All the inspections done by the town engineer and also final sign off.

Do you have an idea about what hours you're going to propose for the rock crushing?

Yeah, it's going to be during the week 8 to 5 and then weekends we are only only maintaining vehicles. We're not doing any rock crushing on weekends at all. It's just. You lubricate the machines in between working during the week.

Well, I guess we'll get involved in that too.

We found something with the town without all the hours. It's actually in notes that Han's office requested. It's all spelled out. Everything's spelled out on that.

Okay.

There was a mention about dust control. We are proposing and requiring dust control for the project for the neighbors. It's a standard practice with this. We just spray it with water just to keep any issues with any dust leaving the site.

Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to speak on the application or on the zoom call?

If you're on zoom and you want to speak, please raise your hand. I don't have anybody.

Okay. Well, I mean, the other place to go back to take people can talk about this as a plan. So.

Any more comments from us or yeah, I would just thank the applicant for addressing the storm water issue. That was a concern the neighbors had raised and putting in an infiltration system. I think will definitely help with some of that stormwater run off that were concerns to the neighbors. Also, I know the that we had gotten the letter from Andrew. Told you, I'm not sure how you spell that. He's a, I guess a neighbor here and he had seen the previous comments, previous submission and whatnot. I had commented on Hans last report that had indicated there were still concerns based on the new report. I presume that those have largely been addressed and so that's why Hans office is finding everything satisfactory. You do note though, in among the conditions and stuff that are being discussed is the. requirement to return to westchester county department of health yes to deal with the walls and the proxy and have them look at the walls in the proximity to the septic system we're we meet code compo we're code compliance with the separation we submitted the package two weeks ago after the meeting and with westchester county we wait yeah so i'm just uh just making note of it also

So that letter also had some comment about blasting versus jackhammering. And whether a county permit is required, I don't know. They said, no, I said, no, so he's still on the same plan with how to remove the rock that you have to deal with by.

Yes, yes, we're limiting it to that. It's on the notes on sheet 85. Okay, great.

So I do have a question for you on that. So, in Hans report, it makes notes that you had indicated that the. retaining walls, they won't have a final design until after you test the quality of the rock.

That's correct.

So when you look at one of the variances that's being requested in part deals with the size of the wall within proximity to various setbacks. And we have plans that show rock walls at certain heights today. I assume that those heights that we're seeing on the plans are the maximum they would expect the retaining walls to be. That's correct. And that if possible, through the design process, they may in fact be reduced.

That's correct.

Okay. Yes.

So, obviously, this has been a very, very difficult site, and I appreciate very much your diligence and working with the boards and working towards a, you know, very, you know, very good solution for this very, very difficult site. And just addressing our concerns also neighbors concern. It's still a very, very large undertaking in terms of infrastructure and wall, but, um, I think you've done a good job and like a challenge like a challenge. Yeah. I'm ensuring this application. So appreciate that. Thank you very much.

I would also say, as you proceed, it's a great idea to let the neighbors know. You're we're going to have some trucks there today, or, you know, any updates that people can. Understand what's happening during the process and knowing that. Oh, we're going to be stopped. We're starting, but we're going to be finishing on such and such anything like that.

My client wants to work the neighbors. He's going to live there. We'll be there. We have to be there for the compliance with stormwater management and roads control. And so we're very open with the clients. I spoke to a lot of them as I walked by during the course of this design. And so we're not going to be invisible. speak to anybody who wants to talk to us.

No, I mean, you know, letting people know something's going on, you know, just a flyer or whatever is a good way. So, you know, there's, they understand what phase is happening and whether there might be some noise or whatever.

Good idea. But we definitely do that.

Thank you.

Eric, how do you feel about doing a resolution on this? Um, then then let me put forward that we, I proposed that we grant the variances as notice.

Do you want to close the public hearing?

What's that? Yeah, I can close the public. Sorry, but can I have a motion to close the public hearing? So moved all those in favor. I public hearing is closed. Um, this has been before us now for this is the 3rd time. Yes, yes, exactly. And thank you as I said, as you've heard some of our members say, for the changes that have been made and it's been very helpful to get the, the report from our own town engineer and all of that backing up a lot of the concerns of the neighbors and that sort of thing. Um. so i propose as i say that we move forward and approve the um the resolution as noticed um with the knowledge that you will be going back before the um planning board and that you have a fairly large hurdles to overcome with the han recommendation including i see one for 125 000 Yes, as a bond to be held and to make sure everything works properly and that the neighbors aren't being flooded and that sort of thing. And I gather our town and our town, Kevin, when is also an agreement with the, and seeing the plans as well to see how the water is going to run off the property use of the facilities, the town facilities under underneath Nottingham and heading to Robin Hood and that sort of thing. Doing so, we believe the benefit sought by the applicant cannot be achieved by any other means feasible to the applicant. I mean, it is a constrained lot because of the way it dips in. It's not a perfect rectangle. It would be kind of an odd house if you just built with inside the lot that you have. There will be no undesirable change in the character of the neighborhood. or detriment to the nearby properties. We've understood that you've taken a look at the height of the other properties on either side of you to make sure that the house isn't going to stand out in any large way and you've got plantings and things to make it look smaller or to modify it a bit and to hide it somewhat. I mean, it is understandable that it may seem like it's going to be a change because, again, it's been empty and have been essentially a mini forest, I guess, in a neighborhood. So there will be obviously some change. But that would be what we'd expect. The variance requested, we do not believe, is substantial. The variance requested will not result in an adverse physical or environmental effects on the neighborhood or community because as we've already discussed at several meetings now, all of the various efforts you and our engineers and your engineers have come up with from retaining the runoff and the septic locations and all of that, and the Coltec systems and things to hold the water on the property. The alleged difficulty is self-created, but it's only one of the factors to be considered by the Board in making its decision, and it's not determinative. If approved, the applicant shall use their best efforts to ensure the building permit is issued within one year of the Board's approval. And then diligently pursue such construction and completion. This is, of course, is based. I would say, actually, I would, I would move it to a 1 year of the planning boards approval since you have to go from there and that will extend the process out a little bit. Okay. So, let's make it the 1 year of the planning boards approval, which would be your final approval. Um, the applicant shall submit a certified as built survey, including building and impervious coverage calculations to the building department prior to the issues of the certificate of occupancy. I suppose we should also get some kind of indication of what the consistency is of the retaining wall since we don't know that. And you're not sure of what that's going to be until you discover what kind of rocks you have.

That's fine.

Yeah. um and the variance is granted in accordance with plans submitted to the date board dated do we have plans what's your plans a lot of plans it's referred to as nottingham road the drawings are referred to as nottingham road nine nottingham not no no what uh the date oh the dates oh yes they're dated seven oh seven seven seven seven twenty six seven seven twenty six And we reference, I mean, whatever recommendations we put in that Han is suggesting need to be incorporated into our into our resolution. And then we also need to add to that the. The letters that we received, one from Roman King, 16 Locksley Lane, and also one from Andrew Oliu, as long as he's given an address for Robin Hood Road. We'll add that to the record.

I'll second that.

Mr. Marin?

I'm going to abstain. I was not at the earlier appearances by this applicant.

Miss Lee? Yes. Ms. Van Lovren? Yes. Ms. Black? Yes. Mr. McHale?

Yes. Thank you very much. Good luck in the next round.

524 guard hill llc is seeking a variance of article 3 section 125-15a1 for 504 guard hill road and 524 guard hill road in katona to permit the installation of piers at a height of 93 and a half inches and an automatic gate at 87 inches in height where six feet is the maximum height permitted for piers and gates if located 20 Feeder more from the front property line in the residential 4 acre zoning district. I think you need to be allowed to talk. Is there someone to speak on this?

What's that?

He's on zoom.

Nick. Can you guys hear me? We can hear you. Yes. Okay.

Nice to be in front of you guys again. So since we last spoke, you guys asked me for some photos from the house and what it really looks like when you have the headlights coming in. So I did receive some of those. So let me just share my screen real quick. Thank you. So we have this picture from outside the house here. Zoomed in photo. And then I do unfortunately only have this one photo from inside the house, but it does give you a good look at just how bright the lights can be from inside the house with this issue. After speaking to the property manager there, so to speak, He told me that they are willing to bump it down six inches like we discussed last time. They are willing to bring the gate down to a total of 80 inches, the gate itself, and then the pillars will go from 93 to 87 respectively. And then he also asked me to mention that you see these plants here, the hemlocks, the previous owners used to keep them at about 16 feet high. But they're planning on bringing it down to about six or seven feet in total height so that that will soften the appearance of it and not give it a complete privacy sort of screening deal there. So, yeah, we have the photos from inside the house, outside the house, and they are willing.

Okay. Basically, you're talking about eight inches over, eight inches higher.

Is there a reason why your client can't comply with the code at six feet here?

The main issue is because there is a bit of a incline when you go up or down Baldwin road to where it, uh, once you get by the stop sign there, I believe on Clark road is the road there. Once you turn right from there, you're pretty high above. So our height that we're proposing will be a little bit of a nice meeting space. I mean, obviously, ideally, they would like it to be a little bit higher, but it's just high enough so that when you're in the stop sign area, it actually ends up being.

Uh, just enough to block out the headlights, Baldwin roads a little bit higher than that than the house. So it's, it's, it's looking down at the house. So it's. It's not, it's not lower. It's, it's a bit higher. The road's a bit higher. You're coming down at it.

So that would be the rationale behind that.

What about and what about the other, uh. The 1 on further up guard Hill.

When we discussed in the last meeting that we can make that the six foot to make it by code. Make that compliant. Yeah.

Because that doesn't have a direct shot to the house. Any other questions?

So, You know, there's lived in bed for a long time and relatives on guard Hill and this is always a real fun. This stuff come down, see the house and horse parking front, I guess, by the previous owner was always really neat. And we have a conflict here, a conflict that the board has to. You know, it's constantly dealing with, which is that we have this strict code offenses and we have constant. Battles with. gates and pillars that go up and then we have to forgive give forgiveness and so here at least we were asked to prove something that's well outside of the bounds of the code and so if this high sort of fortress gate goes up then what's the point of having this driveway the way it is kind of defeats it all so the way i come down this is the change the entrance change the driveway put in a proper gate that meets code and then we're all happy I find it kind of odd to plant a really tall gate in this entrance that now everybody coming on Baldwin Road sees this, not the house anymore, but just this big fortress gate and I don't get it.

So you're suggesting a different curb cut?

Yeah, change the carpet if the light is the issue and you don't like the lights coming in, then change the direction of the driveway. I don't. My, my issue is, is that why do we need to have to adapt or start adapting the code? And give an exception is that that's outside of, I think what a variance is all about. But that's just my.

so the driveway would be more of a curve curve change it out of the path of the lights i don't i don't think that it's the driveway itself that's triggering the problem i think the problem is the road leading up to that intersects because it's four away yeah but you have this axis correct but that's also part of probably the appeal of the so then doing a curb cut is substantially different i agree i agree on the one front i don't think that the variant the I don't really see the variances as being requisition here. I mean, it's not it's the 6 foot. I think will actually provide them screen across the lights come in car lights are low on the car relatively long. They're going to come in and they're going to hit reflect off the fence. You know, which is what you want and then and also, I just know for the record Steven to go submitted to us study. He did. He's a local architect. Provided a study that looked at the light analysis and like, and admittedly, it shows it doesn't block the 2nd floor from from from regular regularly height defense would block the 1st floor from that screening. But the secondary point he makes, which is fair is many of the community members have to put up lines in their house on the 2nd floor or elsewhere for some level of privacy. So, I don't think it's I don't think there's an excessive need or justification. The house is very, we've had other requests for high fences, particularly where we actually have a house that is directly on the road or in very, very close proximity to the road. And in those instances, they literally have the headlights, maybe 6 feet. from where their windows are because of the road we don't have that institute i understand that the interest in privacy but i don't think that that's what justifies a variance under the code here for it to your point if they want to avoid the lights going in they could change the curb cut ask for a different curb cut and put allow the uh the natural screen to go up and by the way i don't have a problem with natural screen the code doesn't deal with the fact of natural screening so many other properties and neighbors have more screening that's not just fencing but has large Plantings along the front property line that exceed the structural requirements. That's not an issue under the code. So I personally didn't take any friends that and it's not a requirement to turn them back to a particular height. But I still lean to the question of of the fence and the height because I don't know how. You look at it and say, the screening purpose here of a larger fence is to basically screen the entirety of the house for many headlights. If we start to go down that as the rationale and justification for it, it leaves me very concerned for what fencing is going to look like and be justified along the next application, because the home that's actually up against the property line is going to say six foot fence only covers this much. I need an eight foot fence. I need a 10 foot. I mean, I can, I can, I, so I don't particularly see. The justification here, you know, when we look at the impact and the offshoot of this, where that goes with that being the justification for saying, I need to have a variance, particularly with the house. So far set back from the road as it is, and having it, in fact, partially mitigated by putting regular high trends in there. You're not even in a setback issue there quite frankly.

I agree with you. I think we're saying that the fence is really not going to solve the problem or mitigate the problem. It will partial.

It will deal with the first floor for sure, which is where the direct headlights would go. And then I think that the answer is that there's other very common methods for dealing with it on the second story where it may not be as mitigated because of that height differential that the community at large uses all the time, which are lines and shades.

I mean, the other thing we have to think about, I don't know what the extent the traffic. It's so severe that this is happening all night or whatever Baldwin is, as we know. I mean, I know the area over there and it's not heavy traffic, but there's periodic traffic.

So, I don't know the extent of how long I get it with these new led lights. I mean, they are like torch laser. I get I get the issue. I, but I think there's also so much setback here in this property. There's such an opportunity to make a cool back. I don't know if we can justify variance based on the fact that there's so many options available to do a better job.

I think the point is, is other creative ways to try to mitigate what the applicant is raising as the reason for justifying the need.

So, should we ask them to explore other options? Explore an option that doesn't require a variance. And we don't have to have a discussion.

Well, they dropped it down. I mean, it's only, we're only, they're basically going 8 inches higher than this is by the most allowed by code.

I know, but it puts so much pressure on this board to keep up with. There's so many requests and there's so many. I mean, I don't know how council feels about this, but we run into an issue with being consistent and being properly protecting the code.

It looks like Peter also looks like they're seeking a variance for the height relating to the peers. Also, not just the gate.

I think that has a great.

The peers come down to 90 inches instead of whatever, I guess, if they, you know, everything was that variance for the peers, not just the gate. Yeah.

If we bump both down 6 inches, the peers end up being 87 inches. But I still agree with the.

Well, I agree with the previous comments here by the members of the board that I think there are clearly alternatives to granting this variance that can and should be explored.

Right, because it's for me, it would be very hard to read all these points in the rest of the variance criteria with the straight face. Right? It's difficult.

Well, it sounds like what you're suggesting though, is that they were to choose a different curb cut. So the lights wouldn't hit directly on the house coming down. Baldwin, they would then plant that area out. So you wouldn't see the house at all when you hit the corner, but then let me look, it's, it's.

I think there's 2 pieces. I feel that a lot of what the applicants looking to mitigate could be addressed by a regular height fence. That's the 1st piece. So, so to me, like, the, the. Putting the fence in is fine, but I don't think that variance for the height is required. I think the secondary aspect of saying, well, what's not blocked because of we don't have the additional height of the fence. Right is really going to the 2nd store and my point is on the 2nd story of the house. There's certainly other things that you would regularly utilize to mitigate that. Particularly if you're talking about bedroom spaces in the evening, you're going to pull blinds or curtains. If you say it's a busy road and you worry about, like, you're going to pull curtains there. So that then mitigates what the applicant is saying is the issue, which is headlights spilling in at night. You're not dealing with headlights being distracting during the day and being on and all the traffic coming by talking about at night. And on the 1st floor, the 6 foot fence, we may get to have the view of the headlights coming in on them, particularly in the 1st floor in the evening. So that's really what the concern is a regular fence. I agree to address them. They can do that by abiding by what the code. Provides. If they don't like that option, and they want a much higher alternative, then I think Roger makes a point of saying, well, then maybe you need to look at a different curve cut so that the general public and general cars aren't have that opening to come in at all. But that's not a requirement of the board and it's just another option. The other thing would be to look at what additional plantings could you create further in that create that higher canopy that screen that 2nd story floor from the headlights. You do have room there to do that. I think part of the appeal of the architectural design and appearance, the house is probably. The driveway that's aligned the way it is and so there's not a lot of interest to shift though, but that's that's not on us then to say, we have to change the code in order to address them. The problem with what we've said consistently with the town and fencing and gate is part of the fence concept is that the code was put in place to have a height limitations on it because we did not want the town and our call it to simply become walls. Okay, that you were going to drive through with no view or idea of the surrounding aesthetic. We do allow fences of 6 feet because we do believe that neighbors are entitled to a certain level of privacy. But what we did not want is to have. particularly when you go back into Bedford and into Katona and the smaller roads in Bedford Hills, when you go back then, if you were to think about the setbacks between the road and the properties and where people put the fences, if you let people do 8-foot, 10-foot, and it slowly creeps up walls, then all we're going to drive by is fences throughout these neighborhoods and communities. And that has not been the intention, and that's why the code had this limitation on the height overall. So, again, if you really want that wall sense, then what we've allowed and encouraged is the landscaping aspect. But here with the applicant is has articulated is that they're trying to deal with headlights that are coming in from vehicles from the road. I can see that from what the applicant submitted in the light that there is a problem with headlights viewing into the house. I do think a regular height fence could readily address that. I think when you come to the 2nd story, you use the typical approach that. Almost all homeowners deal with just putting up blinds or curtains or otherwise, and that deals with that issue in the evening without any particular heavy burden on the applicant. And is it absolutely appropriate method for dealing with that issue?

Is there anyone in the audience that came to speak on this 1 or on the zoom call?

This is directly in front of the. The road here, right?

Yeah.

If they were to ask a highway department, Kevin, when we have to take a look at it for a study also to see if there's in by moving that curb cut. Are they creating a dangerous situation? Because you've got to be careful with that. I would definitely seek for.

Correct but there's I think there's a lot of different ways, particularly with why they're requesting the variance. I think I don't think that that's the only potential solution. And I also don't think that this is particularly uncommon. Issue within the town, and that they are not.

In the worst situation, compared to many of the properties, we've dealt with the help is how far back to what they need to be to be outside of them. I forget what the.

When it becomes 1, 6, because how far is it full from your step back?

Yeah.

50 to 70, if you're over 60, you have to be certified and they have 405 feet or they have 3. yeah.

That's 300 feet or so.

Yeah, I was just bringing it up just in case that they choose to go that route that they would need.

That's all we've discussed various possible alternatives. Maybe we should leave it up to the applicant to make a choice whether they want to explore any of those and then come back and see where we stand.

Right? I mean, like Peter always says, you can, you can certainly ask for the bulk for the board to review the, um.

I'm inclined to say no, but it's up to the applicant how they want to.

What do you have to say as far as the application in terms of what other options might be available?

We, in the last meeting, we did discuss all of these alternatives and as far as the homeowners answers go, the answer still remains the same. They would much rather prefer to have a gate there. I believe the. The planting issue is a bad idea. But I believe their issue is more so than it'd be. it's pretty hard to get you know throw like maybe a tree in front of the house or something because of the shape of the driveway it's just a straight shot directly to the front door um and the they already have the hemlocks that are all around the property that the old homeowner was keeping at a height of uh 16 feet it says here uh and they're willing to lower it down to six to seven so that it's not just this uh you know complete wall off of a property Like, it's being characterized, and it's also important to note that again, we're only going to be 8 inches above what is the code allowed. And also, if I may share my screen again, real quick.

You have 2 issues, your, your gate is only going to be 8, but your pillars are still going to be at 90 inches. 87, 87, we're going to bump it down. Yeah.

And also the pillars are not going to be super visible because of the hemlocks. It's not something that's going to stick out too much. Let me share this screen real quick. So these hemlocks right here, these are where they're at in the 16 foot length. So eight would probably be about here. And then if we go 80, that'd be even further down. So I would say about in line with the middle of the second floor windows there. And then the design of the gate itself does have this transparent panel here. So this one foot panel here is going to be a window, so to speak, with just pickets in it. So it's not a complete wall off. But I do understand the concerns, though.

And if I suppose he wants to say something, it's just asked.

82 more discussion on 70. 7, yes, 80 inches on the gate and then 87 on the peers. Where 72 is allowed.

What's that?

Yeah, and that's that's something we haven't asked for that.

Yeah. My question is, why are you cutting back the hedges or bushes on either side? If that might give you a little additional. Protection from the light, like, you're going to lower them. That means to me, you may get more light.

No, it's the homeowner's decision. It's not. I believe if I, if I'm not mistaken, I think it's just to make the property look later. That's all.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm sorry that we. We didn't close the public hearing. Do we close public hearing?

Yeah. Do we need to?

Well, I need to find out what people want to speak on the application. Still. Anybody was there anybody on zoom call, but if they're going to come back.

I see.

So you'd like to them to think about changing the direction of the driveway.

No, if they're asking. Or for a variance at the 20 feet, I think the gate should be the height. Maybe we don't compromise and you push it further back, push the gate further back. Yeah. I mean, how far back do you want this?

How far back do you want to get to go?

10 feet.

I think 10 feet, 10 feet. Okay. And then, and then at that height, that 10 feedback, 80, 80 interest would be okay for you.

I mean, I'll be okay with it again. I'm just worried in the precedent and the direction that we're setting. Right? It's going to have to really think about that.

I'm having trouble hearing you if you want this to be part of the record, you need to get into the mic again.

Like, I don't want this to turn into a negotiation, but then becomes a thing that every application we could run into this. Right? I mean, I am just really worried about we have our battles with applicants or the board has. battles when it's a mea culpa. I'm sorry, I built this without a permit or I changed the height. I didn't know it was a big deal. And then we're faced with the argument of do we force reconstruction or do we accept it? We're starting to get such a muddled record of where we're going with fences and piers. That here's a situation where it's, it's hard to justify. A variance, so, you know, I just don't know what the best mitigation is here.

You know, when we look at, we dealt with a bunch of these on like, we didn't have the direct question about like, we dealt with a bunch of these on like road. And in that instance, I think we had 2 where we had just the pillars were taller than 6 feet because of the length of the gate required a certain anchoring in order to open those. The gate itself though, wasn't open really open. This being requested here is more akin to what we have further up up where Ralph Lauren has his property and he has the tall gates, but they're pulled back inside of the setback. See, he doesn't wind up having the issue with regard to the variance for that again. Part of. What I'm concerned with is we have had a lot of fence applications over the years asking for variance as to the fence height. They are frequently tied to a question of headlights. We've been very cautious about how and why we give those variances to ensure that we don't wind up with precedent setting that allows us to just continually increase the scale of the fences. I, I personally just don't have a good comfort level here of what what it sets in the tenor because this is not an uncommon ask. And I think there's other ways that the applicant is seeking to be mitigated can be mitigated as a practical measure. And I think the 6 regular high defense largely deals with that issue on the 1st floor of lighting coming in and that you can do blind on the 2nd floor. So, I'm just stuck there as to like, why. how am I carving out their property of this application from being distinct from other applicants who come in and ask for the additional. And I haven't, I apologize to the applicant, I just haven't heard anything that lends me that clarity of that distinction there that I can, I have comfort level. That's my own opinion.

And where do you stand?

I, I think that we either vote on the variance. They indicated that the owners 1 is not interested in exploring any options. So. Those are the 2 choices is they don't think they don't want to look into any options. We have no choice but to. To vote, there's no sense in postponing it because they're not interested in looking at options, but I think some of the options that we've suggested with. Mitigate, you know, go going back further into the driveway.

A regular size fence was there a discussion from the homeowners of moving the moving the gates back?

I wrote about that. It actually was not brought up in the last meeting, nor was changing the cut of the driveway. Now, I can ask them about pushing the gate further back. My only concern is that that sort of makes it weaker to where the further back the gate is, the more light that you can allow to spill over the gate and through it. You know, in theory, the closer the gate is to the headlights, the more light you're blocking out in a cone sort of shape there. I can ask them for sure. How many feet would you say that you'd like? Are we going with 10?

Well, I'm not, if I may, I'm not sure that it's up to the board to tell you where to put your gate. So I think at this point, the board, you've heard the thoughts of the different members of the board as to the application. I think you should either ask us to go ahead and vote on it or say you'd like to consult with the owners and get back to us in case there's any changes. If you're not authorized to agree to any changes now or suggest any changes, I don't think it's up to us to design your gate.

Yeah.

Uh, in in that case, then, uh. I believe we should just push it up.

He wants to continue the public hearing.

Yeah, push it and push it to another to turn it to September. Let them talk about it. So, yeah, some suggested the idea you've heard some things about pushing the gate back. 10 feet 15 feet.

Yeah, sorry, I meant to have a Jordan for September and then that does give me time to actually have these questions asked to the homeowner. And then if they say that they don't want to do it, then maybe I could just even cancel the, the, the alternative altogether. And then we could just go ahead with code, but we can just adjourn.

We can just adjourn this to September.

And if you want to withdraw from the calendar at a later date, we can right?

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Do you want to make a motion to adjourn it to September for now?

Yes. Do you make a motion to adjourn it to September meeting? Public hearing to September.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. To September. Okay, let's do new applications.

Well, it's an old one, but a new one. Taylor Marie Harris Trust 2012 is seeking a variance of Article 3, Section 125-25B3A and 125-27D2 and F and Article 5, Section 125-50 for 145 Broadbrook Road in Bedford Hills. to permit the construction of a 12,300-square-foot 20-stall barn and a 3,600-square-foot shed row addition to an existing 14,400-square-foot barn where the building coverage results in 5.27%, where 4% is the existing building coverage, where 3% is the maximum building coverage permitted, and where the total barn ground floor area results in 30,300 square feet where an accessory structure shall not exceed 0.5% or 3,866.39 square feet of the area of the lot and to permit the installation of two half baths where one half bath is permitted and to permit a total of 24 horses where a special use permit was granted by the planning board resolution 0915 on March 24, 2009 for a maximum of 19 horses and where a maximum of 16 horses is permitted on a 17.75 two acre parcel.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening.

Jamie Spillane, Hogan Rossi & Liguori. I have with me tonight David Zublin, who's the designer and will be the constructor on the project, and Matt Bode, one of the owners of the property. Also available via Zoom is David Sessions, who's our engineer on the project. This property has been in front of the planning board for site plan and special permit approval. It was referred to your board for the variances, and we will be going back to the planning board after being in front of your board, hopefully with approval on all of our variances. So as Kim indicated, this property has been in front of you before over the years for various variances in regards to the commercial boarding operation that's currently existing on site. The property is a farm operation within the Westchester County Ag District. And so some of you might be familiar with the fact that there was previously an Ag and Markets opinion on some of the different structures on the building, saying that the applicant could construct those buildings. There were some shed row buildings that were constructed that THE APPLICANT WASN'T REQUIRED TO OBTAIN DIFFERENT VARIANCES FOR GIVEN THE FACT THAT IT IS AN AG BUILDING WITHIN THE WEST CHESTER COUNTY AG DISTRICT. THE APPLICANT, THEIR NEW HOMEOWNER IS TO THE PROPERTY. THE HOME IS IN THE FRONT OF THE PROPERTY. THEY ARE RESIDING THERE. TAYLOR BODY IS AVAILABLE VIA ZOOM AND MATT IS HERE AND HE'LL TELL YOU A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HIS HORSE OPERATION WHEN WE'RE DONE DISCUSSING THE LOGISTICS OF WHAT WE'RE LOOKING TO DO HERE. They are on-site homeowners. They'll be living on the property except for the winter season where they'll be in Florida with the horses because they are active equestrian riders. So the plan is this farm operation has consisted for a number of years as a somewhat piecemeal operation. There has been a beautiful center farm building when you pull into the back of the property. That's really the gateway to the farm. And then there has been numerous small barn buildings. This plan is to really consolidate into one effective barn that's attached to the existing indoor riding arena. It makes it a more fluid and beautiful facility than the kind of piecemeal situation that we have existing currently. I'm just going to turn this around so you can see the buildings that are being removed. Like Scott, I like standing in front of my map here. Currently, there is this existing barn that is really the entranceway, as I indicated. It has a beautiful center that you can walk through to the back farm operation. There is four stalls existing in that building, and we are not removing that building. Then there is a barn here, a barn here, and two shed row paddocks here. These are the buildings that are all going to be removed upon the project being approved. There is currently the existing large indoor riding arena here, and that's going to be the center stage for the new barn that'll be attached. So all those barn buildings over here are going to be removed. We're going to have the current entranceway barn here with the four stalls then attached to the existing exercise barn here. There'll be 20 stall barn. Then they're proposing some shed road that'll just be in connection with that barn use. So there's not going to be any horses stalled in here. This is just in connection with when they're riding a spot for the horses to be. There's also plenty of paddock space on the side here and a proposed grass arena here and an outdoor riding arena in the back of the property. It's all very fluid what's being proposed. They're proposing a gate up here in the front. So that when you come into the property it adds safety for the horses and for the riders right now you come off the road There's the house it kind of separates that house operation here from the farm in the back So the horses won't be able to run out front and it is a distance from the street But still they won't have that ability to run up to the front where the road is in in addition they there are going to be keeping the grooms quarters and housing the same that's existing on the property so On this side of the property is 684. The manure storage will be over here, so there's not gonna be any neighbors affected by the manure storage where they're planning on placing it. As I said, there's currently no residential structures over here. The closest residential structure on the neighboring property is over here, and this stall building is actually further away than what's currently existing on the stalls over here. As I indicated, this is a farm operation within the Westchester County Ag District. There's an argument that we don't need to be in front of the boards today because of that fact. However, we do wanna work with the town because the new owners are living on site and they wanna be good neighbors and work with the town and have an operation that everyone knows of. It's beautiful for the town and everyone is aware of and approved of. The 24 horses that are proposed on site, there's currently approval for 19. It is a 17.75 acre site. Currently, your code says one horse for the first horse needs two acres and then one acre for every additional horse. Ag and Markets guidance talks about the number of horses per acre. Generally, that guidance says that If your horses are gaining their sustenance from grazing, you should have approximately one acre per horse because they need that much in order to get feed. These aren't horses that are getting sustenance from grazing. These are only using those areas for turnout and paddocking. These horses are fed. There's manure that's picked up. It's not that they're using these areas in order to... This is a situation where that one acre per horse is really not applicable. In that situation, ag and market suggests up to five heads per acre would be appropriate when the horses are using that acreage for grazing. This is a situation where we have show horses on site. These aren't retired horses that are grazing the site. I'm gonna let Matt talk a little bit about his operation and the horses that are gonna be there so you have a better understanding of that. But the one acre per horse is really not applicable to the type of operation that's running here. And we do believe that Ag and Markets would support us. If we had to challenge that provision, we're not seeking to do that. So I'm gonna turn it over to Matt to tell you a little bit about his horse operation. Then if you have any other questions, we can get into them about the building construction, and any engineering questions. But we are in front of the planning board who are dealing with any of those questions. And we did have comments from Han in front of the planning board regarding any stormwater management. And they did suggest that the planning board could move forward with any comments being addressed after that fact. So we're in a good position with the planning board on that matter.

Hello everyone, Matthew Boddy. I'm an international show jumper. I've lived in the United States for 14 years. I've competed at Nations Cup level, competed for my country and Grand Prix level and continue to on the international stage. I've been in the area for the last 10 years and I've settled with my wife and my first one-year-old son in Bedford, and I hope to run my operation out of my farm. I live there. We have a string of horses that we compete at all levels. I have a a turnover rate of horses which uh you know jump at the top level horses that we've bred um that have competed and um i have some clients that uh private clients that want to follow us around the show which i train and help but relatively small to what we you know what we used to in bedford so that's about it

when you talk about your clients and the like, can you just describe how many of the horses that you're anticipating on site are yours and what about you versus having client horses on site?

Well, we tend to run between five each between me and my wife. And then it's very dependent. It's It's sort of feast or famine with clients. I can rarely take more than two because of my time constraints with my own career. Usually they have one to two horses each. But, you know, again, it's so seasonal, the operation that we're doing, because I spend the winter season in Wellington, Florida, because that's where the globe goes to go shopping. So, again... my my chief concern is being able to train at the international standard that i am me and my wife are at and and offer you know a reasonable um place to train for you know for some of my uh sometimes in september for the horse show at greenwich i would have some international competitors like stayed for a few days but you know not 53. so yeah i should have gotten into this a bit um

When you say commercial boarding operation, I think a lot of times it's akin to seen as like horse shows or things of that nature. You probably think of old Salem or a farm like that. Commercial boarding operation just means that there is boarding of horses by clients on the site. You're never going to have 20 people coming on the site to all ride horses at the same time that belong to them because these are trained by the owners of the property. So your traffic to the site is minimal. One or two people a day might come to check on their horses or ride, but it's not commercial as seen with a commercial venture in a restaurant or, like I said, a show stable. There's not going to be any shows on site. shows that the family participates in or their clientele participate in will be offsite. So this is just for their use and their clients use personally. So you won't have people coming on the site to watch or anything of that nature. It's not going to be a public site.

Sorry, I wasn't clear on that.

The variance that you have from the town Indicated there'll be no delivery operations and no more show. So that's, you know, that would be in compliance. My question is that you have permission for 19. Forces, and you want to expand that to 24. So, some of those courses will be arriving for shows and then they'll leave. I mean, is it a constant 24? And how will you house them with these new buildings? Because I know you mentioned. You have 4 horses I walked through this morning, 4 horses in the stalls that you run, you run through then a very large.

long shed in the back so um so right now you don't have that many horses there no i didn't see them no and um you know again it it really right um it really does it does rotate a lot because of where we're at with with our with our schedule like we've got uh you know obviously next cycle of championships that come up we we have to you know acquire in the next few months some horses but i mean it's never gonna my time frame doesn't allow me to do more than five or six you know in other words you can't train more than five or six not not myself no horses would come in and they would be brought they were already trained or whatever they would be going to a show or something correct yeah and a lot of them are away a lot of the time you know at different shows competing So a lot of the time, the logistics of what we do, the horses are in different places and I fly to them.

But still you need the higher number of 24.

Absolutely.

And your new buildings are going to... Which building are you... You're taking down the small outside sheds. There's that long building. Yes. And that's where that's going to stay.

No, the large building when you walk in with the four.

No, the one behind it, the long.

That's going to go.

That's going to go.

Yes.

Okay. So just.

When you walked into the building up here, there was a number of buildings on the side that you kind of walked past. Those are all going. Then when you're walking forward, it's kind of in front of you, but to the left, that's the indoor riding arena that will be staying, and the stalls will be attached to that building. And in the center, correct me if I'm wrong, Matt, but there'll probably be a hot walker in the center of the building.

I'm sorry?

Yes. That's essentially like a treadmill for horses that will be in that area.

The long, narrow building is going to go and a new facility will be there. Yes. Behind that, you have large turnout, I guess.

Yes. Now, all that turnout will be on the side.

On the side?

Yes, on the side of the property here and in the back of the property. That's the side of 684, is that right? Yes. That's on the 684 side. And there will be some shed row attached to the exercise barn there. But like I said, that's not stalls for horses. And even though the approval was for 19 horses, there was technically 24 stalls on site when the new owners bought it. So the stalls on site will be no different than what they purchased. And part of that was likely because of those shed rows that Ag and Markets had said, That no additional approvals were needed for.

I heard you speak about bags and markets and we have obviously a lot of force facilities in Bedford and are you stating that the ag and markets regulations would override that for zone codes?

So Ag and Markets says that a town cannot unreasonably restrict a farm operation within Westchester County Ag District. There is a procedure by where Ag and Markets can review a town's zoning code. The prior owner had gone through one of those review processes with Ag and Markets for some of the farm worker housing onsite, and Ag and Markets did say that that farm worker housing should be permitted onsite, and there was, also other issues with Some of the shed row buildings that there was litigation that was settled between the town and the prior owner The most towns take the position until ag and markets tells them directly of one of their code provisions is unreasonable that they ask that applicants apply Comply with them and that is what our client is doing. They do wish to work with the town. We do believe that this is a Beneficial facility even outside the fact that it's in the Westchester County AG district And the way that it's being proposed would be a benefit to the area. It is a horse area I went up there and visited the site Matt was nice enough to give me a tour of it and And going up, you can see there's various equestrian facilities. It's not out of line with the character of the neighborhood. And some of the variances that are being requested, you know, we could build multiple barn buildings and get around them. However, then we're back to that piecemeal operation as opposed to one building that accounts for it. For example, you can only have one half bath is permitted in a barn. If we had multiple barn buildings, then we could have multiple half baths, but then we get back to not having one efficient farm operation on site. It becomes this piecemeal situation like currently exists, and that's what we are trying to avoid with the new facility. It's not efficient, it's not conducive to a beautiful looking farm operation, especially with the buildings that exist that need repairs that would be so substantial that they wouldn't be worth the repair cost. Other than, like I said, that one gateway building that is quite a beautiful asset to the farm.

There is also the welfare issue of the horse who's been together. They travel together. They live together. They're herding animals. There is the welfare concern about being able to keep them in that and exercise them and keep them in the right sort of... There is a little design behind the madness.

The one question I have goes back to the scale of the buildings. the coverage which is you know we wind up over on coverage here because of the buildings and so my question really goes to how are you dealing with uh runoff from the buildings and the roofs are you doing a containment system what is the drainage plan so we have um dave sessions available via zoom but there is a stormwater plan that was submitted to the town engineer as part of the site plan approval process with the planning board um there are some

comments from han but his uh he indicated that those were not comments that could not be dealt with after an approval uh by the planning board okay yeah so the runoff from the roof lines of these buildings is being addressed by a stormwater yes yes yeah and that's being and that's being actively dealt with with the the planning board applications okay

Yes, I'm particularly interested in some sort of a. parallel review of the barns that you're taking down, the sizes of the stalls, and the type of support facilities that go to a good horse operation that maybe is lacking now and that you're including in this building that would add, you know, justify or add to the square footage.

Oh, sure. The original building was, it's been sort of growing over the years, and I guess the The ability to be able to wash them after they've been worked, that's something that really doesn't exist in the barn right now. It's been a converted stable. One of the stables has been converted into a wash stall. Some of the barns that we have, particularly the eight-stall barn, is actually below the grade of the actual barn. And of course, like the last few days in the storms, it's been flooding, you know. So, you know, just general things like that. The barn itself is over 100 years old. We tend to keep it because it's such a beautiful thing. We can't get rid of it. But, you know, for what I do, you know, with the modern, these horses are athletes. And, you know, we have to be able to... timeframe in the day with the people that work for us. We have to be able to wash them, dry them, and then get them into exercise or get them into their leisure period or travel them or whatever. Things have moved on since this facility was built. I think it's pre-'80s, Dave, is it? Pre-80s? 80s. That goes for a lot of the indoor exercise area for the horse and of course the outdoor. The sport is evolving at a massive pace and we have to be able to exercise them on the many different footings. One of the main welfare issues of sport horses in this modern era is that we have to condition them to be able to go on many different surfaces. We've found out through veterinarian and veterinary science over the past few years that we have to be able to condition them with different surfaces hence why the breadford riding trails are so attractive to us the the road the dirt road we ride the horses out there their limbs are conditioned for all surfaces and that's why this property was so interesting to us because it has all of that and more so we just need to be able to modernize it so we can you know use it so when for instance like the last two weeks have been challenging weather you know in the stables we've had to use fans to

know get the hot air out of there because it's been unbearable and then obviously in the rain some of the buildings have been flooding you know and hopefully with this you know we we've been able to get around it yeah it's been a challenge the stalls are 12 by 12 which is a recommended size it might seem like a slightly large because you can do smaller but that is a recommended stall size and that of course adds to the size of the overall building having that We're not willing to cut down stall size and the safety of the horses and the comfort of the horses to get that smaller size. What are the stalls now?

12 by 10. And it was standard procedure at the time. It was seen as a, you know.

So when you exercise them, you're going to bring them on that large turnout area?

The large area, yeah. Oh, sorry, yeah. The indoor exercise.

Yeah.

It's actually existing. We just need to be able to bring it up to a reasonable...

I'm glad to hear that you're planning on bringing the horses out onto the roads in Bedford because it's been a long time since you've seen the horses on the road. Yes.

It was actually very nice when we were at the planning board meeting when we walked out afterwards. One of Matt's neighbors walked out after us just to say, I'd love to see your horses on the trails because the trails don't get used enough. And for someone to come to the meeting just to say that we want to see the horses out and about was very nice. And as to coverage, you did note that it is an increase in coverage. 3% is permitted. 4% is existing. We are asking for an increase, but it is only 1.27, I believe, percent higher than what's currently in existence. And it should be noted we are under the impervious coverage limitation still significantly despite the fact that the building coverage is exceeded. So for a farm operation, it is a reasonable development coverage amount considering having a farm operation in this area. But the code provisions don't necessarily look at just a farm operation. They look at a residential house. You might not necessarily need that kind of coverage, but when you get into a farm operation in the Ag District, this is actually, I believe, for this size site, a pretty low coverage amount.

Um, this is the North elevation that you'll see after you get into the phone. This is the gamble point. It was the addition that add to the exercise barn. This is the shed road. On 180 feet, 24 feet down the side for storage materials.

Jumps trailers, tractors, et cetera, et cetera.

They don't have 0 garage based on direct. This is the schedule that this. When we were investigating the design of this barn and the function of the barn, we were there last week. We were there in August. We were there in September. We were there in October. We're looking at the wind, seeing which way the wind flows. This property is low. As far as wind is concerned, it's low. Every horse has an outside wind. It's larger than we normally go for. This barn has a 10 foot ceiling. It's larger than we normally go. We have a 14 foot aisle. It's about cubic volume of air. There was no place to put a barn on this property where every horse is going to be happy when it's coming across typically from the West and summertime. From the West to the South time in the winter time, it comes from the North to the South a lot. There's a courtyard in the middle of this, there's access from 2 sides and. These are the, these are the only a access points that has been changed. It's not a lot. There was no. The site plan, when they come through the building, whenever a truck comes around this end, he's going to back up all the way down here to put hay and shavings into these wings. This door is a 12 foot door opens to the center aisle that lines with these 3 of these 2 openings. There's no doors have blocked these off for air. We're just trying to keep the air moving and stuff. Great question.

I have a question please on the dirty business of maneuver. I noticed that my friends in the writing lanes have asked me to look into. Is there another way to deal with the newer as each horse gives? What? 3040 pounds a day and everyone has to pile it into the dumpsters and wheel it up and truck it away and all that. And, you know, I don't know. You seem very innovative in terms of the housing of the horses. If there's. Anyway, to some people have talked about composting. Is there anything new in dealing with that level of.

There's a lot of above-ground composting systems that are available through Agapark. It's the concrete air flowing through it, the pumps and airs. I've seen it work in a few farms.

The problem is that neighbors, it's going to be a lot more odor.

It's a three-bin system, one, two, three. It goes through three stages. It's going to be removed as a top spot.

Council gives grant money to facilities like yours. So be great to see something innovative. Absolutely. I also think that the trucking business. The good part about this is that all the vehicles that are coming on your property are going to go past. The house, they're not really no neighbors will be terribly impacted by, you know, what is going on in your property will just impact you on the property. So that's a benefit that, you know, to the extent that increases traffic in the neighborhood. The traffic will be coming into your property, but also going off perhaps more in the neighborhood. I don't know if it's yeah.

And that was 1 of the other considerations about the far back. So then it doesn't stop traffic at the front of the property. Cars come through the gate will be all the way back. So anyone can come fully and they're not going to see the road.

The 1st set of gates is 100 feet from the street. No, tractor trailer is going to block the street vendor. Nobody who has to come in event. Yeah, they're going to be able to, or even an emergency vehicle would have to block the street. They have access.

You also have 3, 3 properties over 20 acres in a row here. The 1st activity less than than this, because there was eventual. And those properties are all changed and improve that from this was already in existence.

No, I see the, I see the aging conditions at the building and. These buildings are like, are they fully equipped with air conditioning and fire protection in the building? The store no, no, no, just fresh air. And then on the fire protection, what is that?

It will be no fire suppression.

No, no.

Let me open it up and see if there's anybody that wanted to speak on this application, either in the audience or in the Zoom call. Got one person.

Hi, my name is Lara Lebrun. I'm at 135 Broadbrook. So I'm the most impacted neighbor by this project. And I want to start by just saying, in general i'm very happy that matthew and taylor bought the property it needed an owner to live on the premises and oversee things and that i'm very grateful for and i do support them in their farming operation i'm glad to see that that they're they're improving the property i would agree that all these old buildings are mostly not really functional for horses at this time and something needed to be done for sure And I'm sure it's going to be aesthetically pleasing. My only concern, and it's a very big one, is that it is zoned for 16 horses. Now, they talk about a special permit for 19 horses. When the Rona Farm existed, it had 19 stalls. Yes, they were very old. I don't know that they were ever all used. I would say some of them... probably couldn't be used for many, many years. It was granted a special permit because under the planning board code, my understanding with a quick cloud search was that if you have an abutting property owned by the same land owner, that there are special circumstances where they can increase the number of horses that special use permit is not transferred as far as i know they have to get another special use permit for their property under their ownership um i have two horses on my property and um i would say i have i don't even have a barn i have basically a running shed and the running shed has two stalls that can be closed my horses don't like to be closed up um they've actually banged the doors they love to be out um and they graze on those two horses graze on an area that is equivalent to the paddocks that have been circled by the highway and i would say that they do they graze it down i mean i'm actually doing a ton of research on rotated grazing programs um we as a community have these ratios of horses to acreage for a reason there are capacity issues um yes i know that these guys that matthew is not putting horses on it all the time. And they're rotating them through. But they are, 16 horses can do a lot. 24 horses, it's a lot more. And I just feel strongly that these zoning ordinances are in place for a reason. They're in the place for Safety of the horse, for the neighbors, for the community, for the environment. And in terms of manure, I can't even possibly imagine in that area to leave that much, it's a lot of manure. I mean, they really need to curve. And that's a really good question that a lot of people ask on small farms. There are definitely ways of doing that kind of composting. But when you see these big farms and you see the piles that are created, you would understand that it's very difficult to do. but it's not just i love horses but it's not just the 16 horses it's it's you add on to that that's that's more grooms there's pretty much four horses per groom or groom every groom i guess that's kind of like the ratio so they're more grooms there's more traffic there's more clients there's more um you know manure removal there's farriers there's vets you know there's a lot more activity um and quite honestly i was hoping for i wasn't expecting this this is a big building i mean when i when somebody walked out of the room here seeing it they go wow I mean, that was my answer. I saw I literally cried because I was like, what they're putting in is bigger than the writing, the indoor writing facility, which is the size of a warehouse. So you're basically talking about a building that's like it's like two warehouses. I mean, it is huge. And I understand, I mean, everybody's been trying to load this property, and that's always been the problem. It's like there are four residences on the property right now. You know, the town didn't want the two apartments above the equipment barn, and it was forced on the town through ag status. so i just i i struggle the ag status thing is a whole other issue because if we you know this is a quote courtesy meeting to let you guys allow what's going on here but You know, it goes beyond here. I mean, everybody in this town, historically, they've had to give huge easements to even get indoor riding facilities. They've had to buy up acreage to have enough acreage to justify having an indoor facility. And something with this property is everybody tries to load it. And they get these permits, not even because they have the horses, but that they can sell the idea to a trainer who's coming in and to get more money it's just of course yes i would want to put 24 stalls on this property too because guess what the next guy that buys it for like 24 stalls that's great that's big money it's like an apartment building every stall that's cha-ching you know it's it's the lease the stall fees that people are paying in this area would be 5 000 a month times that by you know if somebody's going in to buy it 60 000 per horse i mean that's there there's good reason to want to you know load a property like this but i feel like this town has we we have standards it's like sunnyfield is i don't know about you guys i drive by sunnyfield and like I'm coming from the city and it's just like this. I just like breathe. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm back in Bedford. This is so great. It's so beautiful. So open. And you see the grazing horses and it's great. But imagine, you know, imagine that loaded. I mean, courtyard farm, people love, they love living there because they get to see the farm and they see the fields and it's really beautiful. This is a bucolic road, Robert road. It's, i mean 24 horses is a lot and i'm not i'm not trying to unreasonably restrict them 16 horses is a lot for this property i've never seen 16 horses on this property i can't imagine 16 horses on this property but 16 horses is fine that's i support that great i i have to imagine once i get to 16 horses i it's loaded. I feel like it's loaded. So I don't have a problem with them, you know, building a lovely barn, but I build it for 12 horses and leave the four, you know, the beautiful forest, you know, forestall barn that's 16 horses. And then as far as, the drainage for that barn yes it does flood but nobody's put money in this property all you have to do is is put drainage pipes that's all that's it it's perfectly functional it just has never had any you know loving care it hasn't had love and care in decades so I'm really glad that you know we have people here that are interested and and preserve and making this property great but I think it's, I think this is too much. It's just, it's too many horses. It's just too big. I mean, take this and put 12 stalls. And also just so you know, a shed row is all you have to do is put barn doors on that and their stalls. I mean, that's, that's a big sneak in for more stalls for a lot of these big barns. And, They're using that 24 because they feel like they're grandfathered for 24. They're not grandfathered. There's no grandfathering stalls in this town. There are barns all over this community. They inherit a seven stall barn, but they're five acres. They can only have four horses. And there's a reason. It only has capacity for four horses. And as far as Cornell is concerned, one horse per acre for grazing. That's grazing, that's not just acreage, it's grazing. So what they're grazing is really the concern here. It's not that they, I mean, 16, they have 17 plus acres, but they're obviously not grazing all of that land. And the Derby, People don't put grazing horses on the derby section. That's usually preserved for a beautiful jumping kind of arena. So anyway, these are my concerns. And I don't want this town to be put in a position where, oh, so wait, going back to the 24 grandfathered stalls. First of all, Rona Farm started with 19. And the reason they had 19 is because if you see the Mara property up there, it must have been spun off at some point. somehow somebody at one point put in another stall there in one of those buildings to make it 20 and then in the middle of the night another shed row shed row was brought in that had four stalls in the middle of the night without permission and that's why I was fighting it for the last zoning board because I was like please remove the shed row because yes it's a rounding area era and error in terms of coverage but but for people when they come in they see a shed row with four stalls they think that's a stop that's a stop they want to fill it and that's the problem with this 24 number is because it was it was there and they're like well it was there so we have the right to so I just don't want to see I would like to think that we I don't think you would be pushed around from ag status for the number of horses here. And I think you do have the power to comply with what everybody else, their standards are in this town. Um, and yes, yes, this does impact me. I mean, you load a farm, like I love having horses. I think they're great. I have my own horses, but when you have a loaded property like this and I'm their next door neighbor, their property goes up. Mine goes down a lot. Nobody wants to live next to that. You know, they look at it and it's like, it's huge and it's traffic and it's activity and it's noise. And there's a lot that goes on with that many horses. So that's, that's what I have to say. Thank you. Thank you.

So I'm just going to give Eric his mic back.

I have a question for you, Eric. I guess my biggest concern here is the variances on the land. Matt and Taylor may be great stewards of this, you know, what they want to do here. If we grant 24 stalls here,

No, wait, it's not 24 stalls. There's 2 things going on. There's the stalls and his number of horses. So we regulate by the special use permit, the number of courses. Then separate from that is the coverage issue, and they were describing the uses of the building and that included the stalls. We don't regulate the number of stalls. We regulate the number of.

Horses on the floor, they're asking for 24.

I understand, but just for clarification purposes. Okay. When we talk about the pieces, we're regulating the number of horses is that is the worst question. Stalks is goes under the. Umbrella of the use and the air square footage that are being asked for the building. That's how we describe these, but the special permit pertains to the number of courses, but the planning board gave the permission.

Correct planning board gave them permission for. Uh, no livery operations and also, uh.

19 horses, so there was this, so a special use permit does not run with the land. So, the transfer of the ownership, the transfer of ownership of the property did not grant and the new owner, the rights of the special use permit. All right, this is not the variance runs with the land. So, the arguments for carrying a special use permit are distinct from how a variance carries forward. So, the question has to the 1st, bit we're dealing with, and I'm going to separate into 2 parts. Our 1st, bit is the variances that have requested to coverage and the like. Okay. And we start with the 4% that was grandfather basically, by way of the existing buildings. they don't that doesn't necessarily stay in place because those buildings are going away and torn down their footprint is not remaining in place they don't have the 50 percent that they're pertaining they're reserving them building over so essentially when you do a whole new build you start from square one so we're going from three to three percent to five point two seven all right so that's the first bit of the building coverage issue That pertains into the questions that we ask always when we ask about coverage versus impervious. The applicant has said, and the applicant shows we're not over on impervious. So that's not an issue when we usually ask about building coverage. We ask how much does it impact the viewshed? What is the bulk issues that we're dealing with? And how are they dealing with runoff associated with those building structures? So, the applicant in this case has said, we have stormwater system. The planning board is reviewing that. That is where the athlete is to be reviewed. The question that comes to us is really the bulk and mass when we talk about coverage and whether we have a comfort level as to that. The overlapping part that becomes a little more complicated here is when a property is recognized as being in an agriculture district and is a recognized agricultural property. It's not, they have to have both with just property representing that they do.

then the act asks you to essentially use more discretion in the same way you wind up with like ralupa and when we wind up with schools and churches there's more discretion that's given to those types let me let me just are you applying for a new special permit from the planning we are applying for a special permit and it includes for 24 horses but i i just want to note that the special permit that was previously granted and the town code provision for the keeping of horses does not say that it expires upon a new ownership that's that's an open question that that's that's an open question but i i have addressed it with the town planner before who indicated that ownership does not um expire a special use permit it's somewhat moot because they are applying for it but we are applying for a new special use permit we never came in here and said we believe that we're grand fired fathered in on this this permit that exists we came in saying we're looking for 24 horses on the property And so that hasn't been our argument. If we were taking the position that we're going to do what we want, we would have done that. We've come in front of the boards, we've told you everything we want to do on this property, and we've presented everything that we have looked at so far in making those determinations on what's appropriate for this property. As far as the view shed question, because I know that there was talk about driving into the town of Bedford,

the and seeing the different horse farms along the way all of these buildings are in the back of the property from the road you are not going to see these these buildings uh even from the neighbors this is not my issue what i'm what i'm what i'm concerned about is what if when you're not there we're giving are we giving permission for 24 horses You're running and explaining to me what I've heard so far is a very neat operation, hunter, jumpers, whatever you're doing. But we've had other issues with other, I mean, a tiny farm that has literally eight horses on it that neighbors are complaining about because they rent the stalls out to other trainers.

So I think I can answer that concern. As Eric was indicating, we are applying for a special permit. If the planning board were to condition that special permit on ownership, then any new owner would still need to go in from the planning board for a special use permit. So even though a variance might be approved, they would still need to go in front of the planning board for their operation. And if the planning board determines that that operation shouldn't have up to 24 horses, then the variance is going to still exist, but it's going to not apply to the property under that ownership.

So there's a variance given on this?

There's two things. There was a prior variance given for the property. It's an impact coverage, right?

Yes. Correct.

Yeah. All right.

But not for the number of course.

No, but they understand how variances work. When you tear down the buildings that weren't what the variance approved, that variance is nullified essentially. Okay, it doesn't just continue forward. Okay. But that's that's not really I mean, the question is broadly speaking under the question of the variance is whether the board is comfortable with the building coverage that's being requested. Now, again, overlapping issue we have here is in district and there is. Deference given in some ways under the district to allow for more liberal interpretation. Of what's permitted in, like, it does not necessarily supersede, but it does wind up being it has to be carefully considered and you have to give more weight to the to be asking the agricultural needs of the app.

So, and the variance could be conditioned upon that. It's still that it's maintained as an ag. You know, as an ag districts, it's an ag operation farm operation farm operation. So you couldn't just lose your farm operation status and still have 24 horses to me.

If you condition on that right on the coverage, right? So it's 2 different things.

When was the house was just bought when. Last summer and and did you did you did you apply for an ag district designation?

When you're in the Ag district, it's renewed every eight years until such time as you say you don't long want to be in the Ag district.

It was gotten under Mancini.

It was gotten, I think, before Mancini. I could be wrong about that, but I believe- No, you are wrong on that.

Oh, okay. They have to provide essentially certification verification that they continue that commercial operation. Yes. So there's two pieces. You have the Ag district that you can be within. And then the owner has to validate that they still have the operation that is essentially that exemption.

Yes, and every year we have to reapply for an agricultural exemption, which we did, and it was granted on the property.

Right. They have to make a certain amount of money or demonstrate that they're making a certain amount of money, certain other requirements.

I'm just curious because I know that it was gotten through Mancini because Mancini owns the adjacent property up front. Yes. In fact, a lot of the things that were granted to your property was granted because it was connected to the Mancini property. Yes. Therefore, we saw and other boards saw it as a much bigger hole other than just under 18 acres.

And it is an interesting question because that provision, the special permit was not approved for the multiple properties. It was only approved for this one. So even though you might have viewed it as a larger operation, the lots weren't included in that approval process. So that's always interesting when that comes up. For example, sometimes a board, when a property owner owns more than one lot, they'll make both lots be included on a permit. So that question doesn't come up later because, you know, future owners who buy one parcel see an approval that's only for that one parcel. But those lots were never used in connection with the 19 horses. There's approvals for additional horses on those additional lots. And so they were never used as part of the operation when it was up to 19 horses. And still it functioned appropriately with up to 19 horses on it. as matt said there's likely not going to be 24 horses on the property often so that issue isn't going to be something that it's going to now seem that the property is inundated with horses but given the size a lot and its appropriateness for those amount of horses the applicant is seeking to have up to that number of horses so aside from the number of horses which

It can that's getting rather sticky. I see that these this facility is run down. Everybody is saying it is run down. It's more and it hasn't been maintained and all that. So, I think it's a positive step that you are. Redoing these facilities, so they're probably set to care for high quality. Forces and have a professional operation there. Yeah, it's still, I think it's yes.

Sorry. The number of horses and, you know, for basing itself. you know, whatever you like to base on. Grass does not grow in winter.

Right.

So basing the horse's entire diet off of grass is only a spring, summer, maybe a little bit of fall.

Right.

Right. So basing that number is a basic assumption. Horses eat hay. We pay to keep them in it. They all do.

I wish we could see photographs because it's free. It'll only take a second because it's only two lines from the ag and market guidance that I had submitted a copy of. If pasture is to be used for sustenance, then one acre of pasture per horse is usually appropriate. If the area is to be used for a turnout area, then five or more head may be carried on one acre of land. Many commercial horse breeding equine operations are closed systems where they're conducted on smaller acreage, feed is brought in, and manure is exported off the farm. And that's directly from the ag and market guidance on minimum lot size and number of horses.

So I'm going to go back, though, to how you framed what your needs are and the like. Special use permit is really supposed to be catered to what the actual needs are and how it flows. You can also come in to extend and amend the special use permit. So what I would suggest based on the applicant is that look at maintaining essentially what the current town code is the 16 horses under the special use permit. Um, because there are secondary impacts that that you have when you have other horses, you need to have other people on the property to help maintain them and take care of them and the like. There's nothing wrong with that. I understand that. But there's the applicant here has not had an operation going. There's no validation to say, I need to have 24 horses on site today. I don't need that permit operating now from what the applicant has admitted. They have several horses themselves, plus they board several horses. 16 horses would still give another buffer of at least another five horses based on what the applicant's own testimony is on rotating horses. If the applicant comes forward and says, look, we're using the stalls. I find that I have more clients coming in and I have a higher use for it. The again, I'm going to separate the 2 pieces. We can ask the question of coverage. I have no problem with the scale of the barn that's requested. I even have no problem with the number of stalls that are requested quite frankly. All right limited horse riding experience. I've had there were times when you need to have multiple stalls. Once being clean, there's repair this going on. You needed to store extra material or head. I don't have a problem with that. All right. But I don't think the applicant has provided information that that has has. Requires us to say, you're going to make an argument to say, I got, I'm having 24 horses on this site on a regular, consistent basis that I could go to New York state and say, you're not being fair by granting me 24 horses. I think what the code provision provides now fits in terms of what the applicant is has testified that their needs are. I'm not going to scale back the barn or like, I don't know what the long term needs of the applicant are the like, but I would do over 20.

Okay. and there is one in fall as well right now okay if you you are they all are you planning on having them all at your your property we have uh we have horses in new jersey uh that they're in fall and they've been breeding and we pay for them to be there right now and they're waiting to come in for the when the facility is breaking okay that wasn't what you you had shared with us before so i didn't i wasn't aware that i

I'm trying to understand what the needs are, right?

That's part of what- We also breed horses too. So, you know, hence why we- So. The New Jersey facility currently has three of our retired horses with foals and yearlings and foals.

Okay, so you yourself probably have. You said you have 20 horses that you have, and you're looking to bring the majority of them here, which is why the request for 24 stalls is being sought.

That's my issue is they already got a previous variance for 19. it wasn't there.

It wasn't there. It was a special permit for 19 special terms. But we would.

Okay, let's also be clear the way that the agricultural district rules work, and the way the code work are 2 interplay code provisions. Our town has a set of guidelines that says, this is what we believe is appropriate for horses and the like. The agriculture district, New York state sets out these other guidelines as to basically. Part of the discretion that an applicant has, and the town has is to have this discussion about which reasonable or not within the context of a special permit here, because that's how we're controlling the number of forces. The question is, is when you go down the criteria, is this going to serve a community need or convenience? And so that's that's part of the reason I was asking you about, like, what forces you have and what the needs are and what you're like. Because the questions you go through a special permit is, is the location size intensity is appropriate. The applicants for passage provide a testimony from from the district that supports their position about the number of courses in the light. They also provided evidence. The town is given a special permit for up to 19 horses. Previously. We've heard that they're looking to increase and provide an appropriate number of stalls in a larger area that they have turnouts here. They're going to have a proper, you know, um. Dealing with when you were in the light that they are looking to do this is their own commercial operation. It's largely tied to the fact that they're training horses as opposed to doing a riding a riding school. Let's say, you know, other people's horses all the time. We've come in and going in the lake. You can also then set conditions around the special permit and the number of horses because it is a special permit and say, look, we can do a trial run on this. We could let this go for a number of years or not. You know, what you don't want to do, you don't want to get into an unjustified position and just dig in as to the town's position when you're up with the state and act, because what you're going to do is the state usually has preference over the local unless it's a strong inclination. Otherwise. Here we have some testimony from a neighbor about concerns of operations on the property, but in truth, very few of us have seen the operation of 19 horses on this property to say it's detrimental and can't be handled. So, you know, there's not a lot of room there to lean into the again, the building coverage issue deal with is being going to be dealt with coverage and run off. This is going for the planning board to make sure that all safety and health issues and circulation are being dealt with. So, it comes down to, I think, whether the board is comfortable with the coverage. And the scale of the buildings, and then when you look at the number of horses being requested by the applicant, does it meet the criteria for special permit and either concerns or constraints we want to put on that as to how that that occurs.

So, I'm comfortable with the variance for the coverage. Why not in cooperation with the planning board say that we allow the continuation of 19. And but defer to the planning board to agree to that. In other words, you know, they should also agree to that or, you know, not restricted to 16. we control the special permit on this.

No, the special permit is the planning board, right?

This one is this particular special permit is the planning board. Yeah, this is a special planning board and we are in front of recommendations on how we feel about it, but we have the same.

So, you're telling me basically, because again, I don't have a problem with the building in the sense that where it's located is pretty hidden. I drove in today. Can't can't see it back there from anybody and runs along the highway essentially. So, which is why we approve the indoor writing when we approve the indoor writing. But you're telling me that. a new owner comes in, sees that they've got 24 stalls there, with a potential even more that they could add, you're saying that we could control the number of horses they have through the special use permit?

The planning board. What's that? The planning board.

The planning board, right. The planning board could condition their special permit if there's a new owner that they have to come back in to either renew or get a new special permit for that number of horses that they want. They could condition the special permit on that. You can't condition your variance on you have to come back if there's a new owner to renew the variance.

Well, if they come back for more horses, sure.

Yeah. Right.

It's for that amount, right?

Yes. Right, right.

Yeah, you can't, you can't.

It can't be over the amount that you're allowed. Right. 4 degrees to go up to 26, they can't still have to come in front of you to come back for years on end.

We well, we can give a variance based on the acreage of how many words yes, total number planning board can can grant the number the special permit for the number of courses.

Yes, the planning board has to review the operations and grant a special permit. So it's a both boards are involved in that. You're giving a variance for acreage. That's what we're requesting from your board. But we still have an application in front of the planning board, and they still have to approve the up to 24 horses. And if there was a new owner of the property, they would have to go back to the planning board for the number of horses. And it wouldn't be, they wouldn't have to come back to you for a variance for the acreage necessarily, unless they're proposing additional horses.

A special permit is triggered when it's 10 horses or more. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, that's right. They're under the amount that's required for the total. It doesn't come to the.

So we do our decision on the variance. Based on that, and the planning boards would determine the number of horses.

So, we still grant the variance for the number of force may validate it by way of the special phone that they could grant less than that. If they can vary it, we can recommend they can only add it or less than 3 with the applicants.

So, like, I know.

If we say we're only giving a variance for 19, if we only give a variance for 19, then the planning board can only approve this.

I think they're allowed to have 19 based on the acreage, so anything over 19. No, they're allowed to have 16. 16 based on the acreage? Okay, gotcha.

Oh, based on the acreage, but they had a variance.

No, they had a special permit for 19. For 19.

Yeah.

which expires at a variance for 19. Well, it doesn't say it doesn't say they may not have been required to get the variance at that time.

All right. Yeah.

Right.

so if you look at the horses in the area and i don't know what the historical background is but i know a number of the horses in this area have are on farms that have less than the acreage requirement and have significantly more if you look to north salem which is another equestrian community where we do a number of special permits In that community, the special permit procedure, it goes in front of the zoning board. So it is sometimes common for the special permits to be in front of the zoning board and the zoning board has the option to vary that. So you don't need a variance. They can waive that requirement. And I've dealt with plenty of operations where there's a three acre parcel that has 12 horses on it because of the types of horses we're dealing with in this situation. So it's really a matter of turnout. And operation management, and that's why it's so important for the special permit to require renewal with the new owner, because that new owner then can be gauged to make sure that they're doing the appropriate turnout for the number of horses. So, granting the variance isn't going to change that a new owner would still have to get the special permit for the number of forces that they're requesting. And as to any concern about a shed row being opened up to a barn, that would be in violation of the variance that was granted and any special permit that was granted. And that becomes an enforcement issue. Clearly this applicant isn't going to do that, but if you had an owner in the future who went in and opened it up, then it would be an enforcement issue. But of course, that's always a concern when anything is granted that a future owner might do the wrong thing, but we can't condition approvals on What future owners might do that's that's wrong, especially in a situation like this, where we have a farm operation and district. I mean, going through, like you said, the North Salem properties where we have a number of these special permits, I would say probably 60% of the farm operations are more than 1 horse per acre. You know, 1, 1 acre for the 1st horse and then 2 acres for the 1st. Yeah, I've seen with regard to.

My horses are athletes. They're not going to go very well for me if I leave them non-ventilated. And that's the assumption.

this is all I mean I don't mean you seem incredibly like you take great care of your horses um I I'm a big photographer of Polo uh horses and I know that I mean I get a lot of grief from you know hear from PETA about how terrible it is but these horses are taken care of unbelievably well that I see you know I mean they're showered after every So I get where you're coming from. I'm just looking to a bigger... If you want to know, you're right near Courtyard Farm that was mentioned. That's 32 acres. Sunnyfield Farm, 120 acres. What's that?

There's over 200 horses there.

Where?

At Sunnyfield Farm. At Sunnyfield Farm.

I'm just saying there are 120 acres there though. And if there are 200, if there are 200 horses there, you don't get a sense of 200 horses. You can't tell that. Yes, exactly.

You can't be able to tell there's 24 horses on this farm because they don't graze on a farm like Sunday.

These paddocks are basically so that horses can get some vitamin D an hour a day.

Some of these horses have coats.

They can't eat in the sun.

yeah no we're just we're just concerned about i'm just concerned about p24 what's that six months is it your voices in florida or the whole operation the whole operation

they're closed yeah they're not going to be running any operation during the winter months since they reside on site they're not going to have any remainders on site

I know there was comment on the employee quarters.

We're not seeking any additional grooms quarters or anything that's already been approved on the site in connection with this. We do have owners who live on site, which is in some of these farm operations is not the case. The benefit of that is having that additional hand to check in on the farm really 2 additional hands because they're both active equestrians. And it's most of the horses on site are there. So.

So, what do you want to do? You've separated out.

I don't like I said, I have no problem with the coverage variance. Yeah. Does anybody will do them in 2 pieces? Just just because I think 1 refers 1 requires more. They're back to the plan. The height is the plan.

I think that before we do that, I need to close the public hearing. If there is any more anybody else wanted to talk on this. If not, can I have a motion to close the public hearing? So move all those in favor. I public hearings closed. So, why don't you do this different sections? I love listening to you speak.

I'm going to be heard in 2 pieces. So the 1st variance that we're going to deal with is with respect to the coverage. We're dealing with a request for 5.27%. Where 4% is existing building coverage and where 3% is the maximum building coverage permitted in the residential 4 acre zoning district and where the total. Farm ground floor area results in 30,300 square feet where an accessory structure shall not exceed 0.5%.

Can I interrupt you for one second? Is the tennis court in that calculation?

Yes, half. I think the code says half.

It's half. Yes. I'm curious because that usually takes up a lot of time.

I know. Half the tennis court is included in that calculation. I know on the previous application, that was one of the questions was about the tennis court calculation.

Sorry, no time for tennis of the area of the lot and to permit the installation of 2 half bath or 1 half bath is permitted in the residential zoning district. So, with respect to those particular issues, the 1st, 1 deals with, I'm going to deal with this, the coverage again, the benefits off by the applicant cannot be achieved by another means feasible to the applicant. They are removing multiple buildings on the property and consolidating. the use and function into a singular larger structure on the property. And it's intended to allow for greater air circulation and storage and utilization for equestrian purposes on the property. There'll be no undesirable change to the character of the neighborhood or to detriment to nearby properties. In this case, there was an equestrian use on the property. There was a large exercise barn to begin with there on the property. Granted, this is Increasing in size, but again, I think it's consistent with the general use and character of the buildings that are there. Additionally, the building itself is placed most closely to the 684 property line and is further set back from the main road. The alleged the variance will not result in any adverse physical or environmental effects in the neighborhood or community again, with regard to the runoff from the building. Those will be contained within a stormwater and on site stormwater system. The alleged difficulty is self created, but that's only 1 of the factors to be considered by the board and making its decision does not determine it as to the 2nd variance that we deal with regard to the size of the accessory building where we have it exceeds the 0.5% here. Again, this accessory building, there were multiple accessory buildings on the property. Previously, and such that the benefits off by the applicant cannot be achieved by another means feasible. It's consolidating the uses into a larger singular building structure instead of multiple structures on the property here. The size of the accessory use being for both souls and a barn exercise. Barn are both part and parcel is to the functionality of the overall facility and to increase it. It's functionality. So I. That's part of the reason why the size, the accessory structure is so large when compared to the traditional residential home here, the variance requested is substantial. The variance, Request will not result in any adverse physical or environmental effects in the neighborhood or community and the alleged difficulty is self created. But that's 1 of only 1 of the factors to be considered by the board and making its decision. Another aspect here, when we don't talk about both of those 1st, 2 variants, the fact that we're in agriculture district within agricultural use, that's been there. They have certification for that use such that it qualifies. It's another reason that we look and look to and support the applications here with regards to the coverage and the size of this accessory building itself. Now, we turn to the question of the 2 half baths where 1 half bath is permitted in the residential forest district again. Uh, the app, the benefits of care by the applicant cannot be achieved by another means feasible to the applicant. There'll be no undesirable change to the character of the neighborhood or detrimental nearby properties. The variance is, I would argue in this case is not substantial. It's a 2nd half back in a rather large building overall. The variance requested will not result in any adverse physical or environmental effects in the neighborhood or community, and the alleged difficulty is self-created, but that's only one of the factors to be considered by the board to make its decision and is not determinative. Now, as to the fourth variance here that really comes into play, which is as to the number of horses that's permitted by way of the acreage of the property here, Under the code, 16 horses are permitted on the 17.75 to take a parcel. I asked the board. What is the number of courses that we are willing to grant a variance for here? The applicant is seeking a variance to allow for 24 horses on this 17.75 to acre parcel. Again, this particular variance gets tied into the special use permit. That is also pending before the planning board. So our determination is 6. serve as the cap for what numbers the planning board can consider in their consideration of the special issuance and special use permit. So we have gone from what I would say is said is the code is 16 to the African testifying that they have 20 horses to the request that we go up to 24 horses by the applicant for the application. I just want to know where the consensus report is on this.

Can we just not make the recommendation to the planning board for 24 horses based on a special permit? Because if we grant the variance, the variance runs with the land, doesn't it?

So, the variance does run with the land. Yeah.

So we would change it from 16 to, I mean, we would allow 24 horses.

Well, you would allow, but they'd still need a special permit for that number of horses.

So even though, even though we grant a variance for 24, they still need a special permit for anything over 10 horses. Right? Yes. Okay. And that can be denied.

Yes, well, that could be limited. They could limit it to less than the 24 hours operation.

Okay. So, and the type of horses, so there's no, there's no harm or loss by keeping it 16.

So, well, the planning board then could only grant the special permit to allow for 16 to 16, because we're not allowing the adjustment for the acreage that the code has. It's a hand. It goes hand in hand. So they control the operational factors under the special permit, but we control the number because of the acreage requirement under the code. So we're setting the cap of what those horses can be. So, if we want to, if. So, can we do a special permit? Well, in this instance, the special permit no, we can't hold special permit jurisdiction has been delegated by code on this particular the planning.

Right.

All right. But the number, of course, is because of the acreage issue sits with us.

There's an acreage requirement. Yeah. In the code, you have to have a certain number of acres for a certain number of force. So you're considering whether they can exceed that requirement. Gotcha. There's also a spec. There's a 2nd requirement for a special permit. If you have over 10 horses on, I guess, any size property basically.

Yes. Well, then here's what I would say. We grant the permit for 24 horses. Grant the variance for 24 horses with the recommendations of planning board. that they agree with the 24 horses for these owners as a special permit. But at a time that the ownership changes, it needs to be re-evaluated from the special permit point of view.

I'll agree with that, but add to that further. I'll say the variance is conditioned on the fact that the property sits in the agricultural district and that the owner has an agricultural operation. In fact, when it comes to horses, that that operation pertains to the training of horses as opposed to the providing of lessons and or the commercial livery service where we're simply boarding horses. Exactly. Those uses are not running with the 24, the variance for the 24 horses.

Yeah.

All right. So in that sense.

So we're protected, well not we, but the variance is protected in the sense that If something changes, or the special permit gets withdrawn or or changed.

It doesn't matter what are we gave if the ad district goes away, it goes right? If the light, if the user's agricultural license goes away, it goes away. Even if it's still in the district. The only variance that allows for 24 horses specific use of training of boarding and train boarding. Horses for the purpose of training your own forces and or that of what I'm trying to categorize this.

So, it's boarding of horses and the training of horse owners essentially. So no, no, for higher lessons and no cursory, not for for hire.

Lessons, and not for the port, not the business of the business of simply unilaterally boarding courses.

So it's not a hard bond to marry.

So no, it has all these conditions. And the recommendation to the planning board is that the special permit include those parallel provisions in them.

And those are consistent with the code in addition with the addition of the ag district and the ag operation, but the other provisions are consistent with the keeping of forces provision.

And then the special permit is going to deal with seasonal use the type of use.

Yeah, that's up to the planning board, but you can certainly make recommendations that if it's a change of owner, you know, that, and then it should be tied to these particular operations of this particular one is that the operation will only be in place for 6 months.

And they will not be present in the other. The other is that the facilities being upgraded and expanded to be able to handle the capacity. That's all covered.

I wouldn't I wouldn't go to control the timing. Right? Yeah, I think that's getting that today. And that's not what I think is a long term. That's too particular to the owner as opposed to the property.

Well, I mean, it's like, to me, it's additional justification that it's not going to be, you know, I.

That's what at this time the owner thinks that their particular uses, but a variance runs with the land now with the owner. So I don't think that that particular control is appropriate. And sorry, what was the 2nd 1?

The other 1 is that the facility is being upgraded to the capacity that they're asking.

Oh, it's really not more than that.

Doesn't matter.

Yeah.

The only thing I would throw in this is that the, as it is currently located, the manure will always be on 684 side of the facility, not to, at least for the neighbors' sake, that it's not on their side.

And so those are all pertaining to the variances and how it carries forward.

Um, because that gets moved right now right now you were, you have a newer thing that's closer on the other side. Yeah, it's going to be a little over. I saw some guy up a high of dumping. Yeah.

Got you. Yes. And the, uh.

The other sorry, 1 of the thing that we didn't touch on, but it is a good point here and the neighbor did raise it about a concern of the viewing because of the bulk of the building. I'm going to ask you an applicant for a moment though. I didn't see and I apologize if I didn't note it. What screening is along that.

The neighborly property, so there's there's ample trees currently existing. I just did a. This is the property line here in question. So I'm just sorry.

um what i what i would say is that um and acknowledge for the board and this is going to be part of the variant condition for the for the coverage which is there's an existing applicant shown that there's an existing tree line that runs the neighbor's property line there along there and i would just ask that a condition of the um of the variance is that the how many three do we talk about

Do you do you know kind of how many trees run along that line?

There's a bunch of trees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Give me a level on 6. I think it's mostly on her.

All those trees that you see are on your bridge.

I know. Give me a minute. I'm there. I've got it.

Hold on from here to here.

Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. I want to know. Sorry, everyone. All right, so that's 320. That was okay. Okay. Sorry, right?

Lights is usually planning right now. We can put that in as a recommendation all along.

What I would like to have is not an installation today because the trees exist, but we know that things can happen. The tree line idea is to be maintained.

when the indoor was originally granted there was a condition of a planting plant that was supposed to be done that was never done um by fancy further to the house so maybe this no to just screen that whole like the indoor so it was supposed to span that whole kind of line And he never did it.

So what I'm suggesting is that it go. This because this is where you would cover the whole so right now they're screening. You can sorry I don't remember your name. They're coming up for a minute and the applicant just saw this. So I think so. So what they. Provided to us, right? So we've got this. This is on your side. Yes. Right now. Okay. When I, what I've represented here is that we go from about here. Let's say you see it here. It's hard to tell between the 2. Let's say it up here. If there winds up being screaming down between this section, they replace them on their side of the line. So that then what you have is you could have an idea of a consistent. Tree line. Okay. That's not part of the planning board will take care of that. We can recommend the planning, but they look at the planting plants. That's not what we can do, but we, what. What we can do is we can ask that this tree line screen be maintained, which is again, their building is going. I understand, which is why I said, if something happens to the trees here, they have to replace a tree on their side to fill the screen there.

Okay. And we don't have any objection to that. That's very reasonable. Okay.

Is your outdoor riding ring lit?

I don't believe it's not lit, the outdoor.

The outdoor riding ring? No. I have an indoor. I have an indoor. Yeah, gotcha. The only outside lights on the building.

open gotcha everything otherwise down you mean like break-ins

All right. Back to this. Okay. So I've shown the neighbor. What we're talking about is roughly this, about 400 feet of shared property line between the property that's located to the west here, and there currently exists screening between those two property lines, but it is currently on, the screening is largely located on the neighbor's property. What I'm directing as part of the variance here is that it is the applicant's obligation in the event there's a break in that tree line because landscaping comes down the lake, that replacement tree, be installed on the applicant side to fill in that gap. That area, that length is about 400 feet is not the entire property line. The intention is to allow for consistent screening between the neighbor's property and the new building that's going on. What I would ask and recommend to the planning board is they look at the question of that screening in more detail and ask to understand the planting plans as they exist and to the extent they think it's appropriate to propose new landscaping. The board here is not, I'm not pressing for new landscaping on it, but that is as a condition of the variance. But of course the planning board can request and require more landscaping as they see fit as part of the site planning process.

I just also, I just asked for the manure to be on the 684 side, but could we also, could you give, if you're up to 24 horses or 20 horses, that the frequency of pickups in another place we had, there was something called a fly trap system.

What is that? It was a 30-yard fly trap.

Well, yeah, but how often does it get picked up every Monday? Every Monday? Yeah.

And they're also in the current special conditions. There is something about not during school bus hours and all that stuff. So that there's no pick up during school bus hours. That's.

That's I think the carding companies are aware of that.

We can get an eight. All right.

Okay. Is there anything else? Okay. Then what I would look to do. Is based on the conditions that we previously noted, I would add the following conditions as well. The applicant will use their best efforts to ensure their building permit is issued within 1 year of the board's approval of the variance and then diligently pursue such construction to completion. The applicant shall submit a certified as built survey, including building and a previous coverage calculations to the building department. Part of issue and super certificate of occupancy. And then the variance will be granted in accordance with the plan. Oh, and of course, it's conditions still on planning board approval and health departments and. I'm sorry, June 26. 26.

I will second that.

Mr. Marin?

I vote yes.

Ms. Lee?

Yes.

Mr. Van Lovren? Yes. Ms. Black? Yes. Mr. McHale?

Yes, you got it.

Thank you.

The rest of you are responsible for the rest of the match. Do you want to just have a quick moment here? Sure. Mr. Helms won't mind waiting a little longer.

Do you have a nice fork? I heard you weren't. Oh, really? Oh, really?

Oh, God.

It was quiet. I went to the beach, but it was hot.

It was hot.

And Saturday, I didn't realize we went out to look for a restaurant. Most of them are closed. We did find something.

Did you put anything on the computer?

No. Yeah, one more. Yeah. That's for the not this application, but the next 1, so I don't want to show it, but I want to just know if you had it. Yeah. Yeah. 1 90.

I spoke to send you the way, you know.

Say, 1, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90.

Then the only 1 is smart. Just.

Right.

We have to have a reason to say, this is why they could be. I would like to be. So, I'm going to wrap my head around it, but this is this was a good question.

Yeah, that's nice. There is no, that's fine. You don't have any, uh, they just put me in on the buildings on the building. It's a building.

They are allowed to get conversation. What they need is a call to show.

I know, but I think they're right. Oh, that's why that's not. Control. Control. Control. Control. Control.

Control. Control. Control. Control. Control. Control. Control. Control. Control. Okay, wait, I don't know. If you have any suggestions, because we're, although it's slow, but we're supposed to kind of get together. Yeah. Okay. I think Do you have minutes for real estate?

Every two years I have to take another course. Yeah. You know what's really great though is they have one now called Keep Me Certified. I'm much more audio than reading. So these are two people that talk through everything and then there's little quizzes that they keep giving throughout it. So it works really quickly.

Here they come.

Thank you, Peter. What did you do? Nothing.

He was curious where you went.

He pushed the panic button. Try to be quick.

No, you want to get out of here.

No. I'm not going to explain that one.

Oh, yeah, they're familiar with this room.

All right.

You're 190 Cherry Street? 190 Cherry Street. As well? I'm on three. You're on three tonight. Wow.

Packed him up tonight. Yeah.

we have we have on our application 190 cherry street 190 realty corp 190 hook road it's like i'm gonna play one night i go out and you know get a 190 number exactly wow okay ready to move along yep please hold on one minute no cherries we go with your breath

Just for the record on the last application is 1 slight change to the resolution because you frequently have a barn where you have Barnes, they can apply to New York state for an exception for from complying with building code because there are certain types of things in the light that they don't have to apply for. They can get an exception to it. We need to change our variance requirements. Usually require them right to do their best efforts to ensure a building permit is issued and then they wind up getting. Uh, construction and essentially a CEO at the end of it in this case, if they apply for the exception from New York state, then they just have to show that they comply with the zoning requirements that parameters that we've set out and then the permit will be closed. Okay. There's no certificate that will be issued. Okay.

Okay. Thank you.

Yep. Okay, sorry. Now you can read the next one.

Are we recording Peter? Yeah.

Okay.

All righty. Moving along. Daniel and Catherine Wilner are seeking a variance of Article 3, Section 125-11 and Article 5, Section 125-50 for 190 Cherry Street in Katona. permit the construction of a one and a half story addition to pre-existing legal non-conforming residents where the combined side yard setback results in 32.46 feet where 45 feet is required and where a variance was granted on april i'm sorry on february 3rd 2022 resolution 02-22-6 for a combined side yard setback of 35.8 feet and a half acres of the district

Good evening. It's been three hours. If you remember, it's Stephen Helms with the Helms Group, architects representing my clients, Daniel and Catherine Wilner, who are actually on their way to Cape Cod. So they wanted to be here, but they may be here Zoom, but they're out of town. This is a pre-existing non-conforming house. This is the third project I'm involved with them. They've lived in the house, I don't know, maybe 10 years. They have three kids. Um, it's a half acre zone district and, uh, basically we want to take down it's an attached garage and a kind of a storage shed behind the garage, a slab on grade. We want to remove that and put in. Basically, the garage back a slightly wider couple of feet wider to allow them for a snowblower, uh, tractor bikes, things of that nature and then create a mudroom. Uh. Instead of always using the front door, so we are seeking a side yard and because the lot is narrow, the setbacks are 20 and 25. Our right side yard South side yard setback is 15.9. We need a combined site here and set back. So really it's 2 variances. We, the garage is set back. I went through the 5 point exercise. I don't know if I have to read it all, but we have mitigation on the left of the property on the north side. I did the addition to that client several years ago. She's in favor of the project. Our neighbor, our client met and talked about it. She has no objection. I'm not sure if she wrote a letter or not. Uh. Uh, the garage, the driveways all established a set fix in the front. So that was the only opportunity to put the garage back. We are doing a 1 and a half story. Uh, I just like to show you the elevation. It's the garage here. Keep the scale down, just put a shed dormer and give them a couple of like, an office space for them to work. On the 2nd floor, it's really a store and a half, but, uh. That that's basically it. I don't think it's going to impact the neighborhood. I think it's an improvement to what's their, their livability. And we know we have to get an as built survey and coverages and that nature. They may paint the house white, put shutters on it. Garage is what we want to.

We're going just above the garage, right?

Yeah, take the garage off and replace it. We're actually going to reuse the garage door, but just try to carve out some additional living space. Not a bedroom. There's no bathroom up there. Dry space. And they like the garden. So the mudroom has a lot of windows in the back and it's just adding a little needed space. But unfortunately, it requires a side yard set back.

And hopefully, yeah, no, I went by and looked at it. It seemed perfectly. That's what I thought you were going to be doing. Only house I've been to that three cars make the driveway and not a single person was home. But anyway, it was, yeah, it seemed like a logical, I figured that's what you were going to be asking for. Yeah.

On your application, you have the existing impervious is 2641 square feet. Then you have proposed is 2866, but up at the top, you have. 1962, but I'm not seeing where the additional impervious. Coverage is going whatever 2 to 300 square feet on the. On the zoning chart on the application coverage calculation. I see that you have the increase, but I don't see what part of what area is having the increases that the apron.

No, it's on there. It's on the variance application.

Okay. Part of the hardscape is increasing. Is it the flagstone walk, the patio, the curbs? No. No. No. The coverage is fine.

I just wanted to see what was increasing.

Right. You mean overall, the overall?

Well, the addition is, the replacement addition is wider.

Okay, so the increase in the garage size is causing the whole wider and deeper.

Thank you. Now, basically. Just find the line.