Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, welcome everyone to the planning board. It's um 7 PM. I'm gonna start with roll call. Julia Weisberg here. Marcus Cassich here. David Austin present. David Creel here. Greg Cranford here. Sean Davies on Zoom. Right, Sean? We can see you. There he is. Okay. Um and Matt Fox is excused this evening. Um, okay. First order of business is to review the minutes um from last month's December meeting, December 9th. Did everyone get a chance to get those? Jessica circulated them last week. Any uh comments or changes, additions?

Everybody's good. Okay. So, I'll make a motion that we should accept the minutes from the December 9th meeting. I'll just need a second. Second. Second. David Austin. Thank you. All in favor? I I um I also want to acknowledge our second town board liaison who is uh starting off the year with us, Al Dixon, seated right next to Rick.

Thank you for helping us. Um okay, we and just again to know we do have Shawn Davey who's not physically here, but he is on Zoom and we can see him. Um all right. Uh let's act on the bills. We have Whan Feler uh which is our attorney. They submitted a bill from December uh for the amount of 3,468. Uh the bulk of that as I reviewed it was Fowler uh subdivision and site plan review legislation edits and composition. So that was the bulk of that bill. And the second bill was from our engineer uh Rainer Group uh Rick Wesnovski for his services again December and that was just his attendance to our meeting. That was the bulk of the bill for $300. So again to repeat it's $3,468 for Whan Feler for our attorney and $300 for our engineer. Um so can I get a motion to uh accept those two amounts?

I'll make a motion to accept those two amounts. Marcus, thank you. and a second. Second, Greg Cranford. Thank you. All in favor? I I Okay, that carried. Um, and that is it for our uh business meeting. So, I need a motion to close the business meeting. Motion to close. I'm looking at you, David. Okay, David. Second. Great. Thank you. Okay. All in favor? I

All right. Going into our work session and it should be a light light agenda tonight hopefully. Um, okay. Okay. So, the Ratican um lot line adjustment, we uh they have until March uh 10th of this year. They're still waiting for an updated survey. On our subdivision uh applications, we have the Bloom, which I discussed this past month. Again, they're still waiting for the uh final uh application submission, but they have until February 11th. I guess if we get closer to that, Jessica will touch base with Matt Sherman on that. Uh West Neck Creek Cottage um subdivision as well. We just are waiting for a final application. They have until the spring, April 14th of this year. Um, Ballard Trust subdivision, we just wrapped up that first stage and now we're waiting for the, uh, final submission of their major subdivision and they have a deadline of June 10th. Um, Crescent Beach um, LLC, uh, we just approved their sketch plan last month. You'll all recall that. So now we're waiting for the final submission and um they have all the documents that they need to review and work on that. So uh we're not going to be discussing that and their attorney uh sent us a memo just to remind us uh to not have us not to have them on the agenda for discussion until they submit their final application. Um Row Minor subdivision, same thing. We're waiting on a revised sketch plan. I guess they'll they will let us know when they ready to do that. and the white performance bond um ever famous that appears on our agenda every month is still there. So I think that's under um your office.

So this is for some final subdivision approved that they've never it was approved and I I it's been on the agenda. There are some minor things that I guess the town was going to work out on that um in terms of the bond. I've never seen anything to review. I don't know. But maybe that's something you we can discuss with Albert and me. Um I guess whoever white is if they want to move the subdivision alone. Yeah. No, no, no. It's uh basically it's about the road for the road. Yeah. It's going to start work on the road till they get the bond approved, right? Accept it.

Uh the last I heard from me and Albert, you can check on this too, was that it it was under the town attorney review. Um so Thomas, I guess, is working was was looking at it. That might maybe that's something you can help us with, Albert. mentioned to Thomas. Sure. Yeah, it's a good idea. I think part of it they haven't been shoving on it because they can't do much work on the road in the weather, current weather, but yeah, it' be good to get it done. That's why you accept performance bonds.

All right. So, um Keml and Ferrara uh 13 Dickerson Drive is under our uh wetlands review. So, so we actually had this before if you recall and they just did an updated um wetland application and just in a nutshell to bring us all together again, what happened was uh some walls came down when they started to do the work. The walls exhibited rot. There was also an issue with the stud spacing and dimensions of the board. I think it was like 2x4s and it should have been 2x6. um and possibly an addition uh to a room on a sorry an additional room on the second floor, although that was out of out of the wetlands boundary. So, it was kind of um irrelevant, but basically they acknowledged in their little cover letter that they're they're building to code. They're just replacing the the ride walls and they're building it better to code. Nothing else is changing on the application. Um, and I did kind of remind you that the CAC looked at it as they did before and they didn't really change anything. So, I I personally don't have anything more to add to it than what we already had said since there's not much changing.

Yeah. I mean, there's no expansion. No, there's no, it's just basically they discovered some rotted wood and Yeah. So, um, Sean, you saw that right on Zoom. Um, Cam Lars, anything anybody on that or nothing to add on it? Seems pretty routine. Okay. So, um I think we'll I think this wouldn't necessitate a formal memo. Again, I'm just going to we'll just send a quick email over to the town board saying we're going to stick with our original memo. Okay. It seems perfectly.

Perfect. Okay. Um on to site plan review. So, Sylvester Manor Educational Form, I know that some of us did visit the site. We had initial application with drawings and so forth, but um as I discussed with with Meg um who's here now just entered the room. So um they're going to the town board is going to put together for Sylvester Manor a comprehensive checklist from all the committees and things that were needed and we'll wait for them to give one response. So, for now, we're not really going to be discussing it um because as we said in our review, it was difficult to determine what we should advise them on and we can't really determine those things based on where the activities are happening. So, I think some better drawings and uh some answers to those questions would help. Um second, okay, Shelter Island Historical Museum, that's a new application. Uh I neglected to say in my sort of like update to you uh guys over the weekend was that the preliminary conference is tomorrow. So since we haven't even technically gotten our marching orders I mean we typically know what those things are parking flow comp plan compliance and so forth. Um but I think we should just we should really wait and as David Creel noted some of the ar it refers to architectural plans on the site plan review and I don't have those. cuz I don't think anyone else got him either. So,

I don't believe it was in the printed the one printed copy we had wasn't there cuz I reviewed it. Yeah. So, David is going to be attending that um conference for us uh because I have a conflict tomorrow. So, David Austin will be there and let's you can bring us up to speed. We'll come back hopefully with our normal list of things we need to do and I'll get to figure that out. Is this mostly a structural revision to make the barn compliant? Yes. Group assembly or something. They're basically making it it can be o it's occupancy. So basically they're they're making it so it's a in a uh occupiable space which means

you know insulation all the stuff you have to do to make it actually legal. What? I don't know. Because I mean, yes, many of the things they're doing are for egress uh and fire safety, but it said they don't have to comply with the energy code cuz it's going to remain non-conditioned space. Oh, sorry. No, not this right. It's going to be But I think they're insulating, but they're not heating it. It didn't They may be, but it didn't say that they were insulating it. So, I mean that's why it would be nice was the They did say they're going to sprinkler it, which then leads you to believe that I guess it's a dry sprinkler if it's an unheated building, but yeah. Um, we'll find out more.

Well, you're going to find out more once we have once you have the conference tomorrow and you let us know. So, okay. So, I I think we just hold all the discussion for now until we have better information. Um, I think that's all I had on that. Let me just check my notes. Uh, are they going to submit a more complete package following the conference? We'll find out tomorrow. Yeah.

Um, okay. I think that's it as far as site plan review except for site plan review legislation. So, let's we'll get stuff out for that. Okay. So, um, just to remind everyone, this is the last evening that we are working on site plan review edits. Um, this has this is our hard deadline this this evening. Um, because I have already uh tked Jessica to uh launch you all the wetlands review document again. I mean, you you got it once before, but just in case it got buried in your inbox, she she'll resend it tomorrow morning and we'll get working on wetlands review um to update the wetlands code for next meeting. So I really want everyone to focus a lot of attention and time and attention on that for next next meeting.

And do you want us to mark it up in a live same thing? Yeah. Yeah. Live back. Put comments in the same way we pretty much we handled the site plan review.

Um just give me a second to uh pull up uh so so okay we had I know David Austin, David Creel, you had a few more little things. three, four, five, it's about eight or nine things. Um, pretty much looking over my nose personally, I agree with most of the discussion. Um, I think I was the one who mentioned also and David Creel did too about the 4 in rainfall on page four. You know, we might want to It seems like that's sort of like the trend people are moving and and we did I remember I remember specifically two applications where our engineer had the person work on a 4-in rainfall. per hour or per 24 hours.

It's 24 per hour. It's 4 in an hour. No, but you know, I looked up Suffach County he have and apparently during some hurricane a few years 13 in an hour. You can't not very long or Yeah. I didn't say it doesn't have to be that long for that. That's right. So I we're not gonna do anything. It's only going to get worse in terms of storm water. So yeah, I think that's why we're trying to go to 4 in if it was 24 hours.

When I was in law school, there was a place down in Virginia with the hurricane. We had major flood uh which was pretty awesome actually to see in person. But I think the highest rainfall in the the city was placed in the blidge was like 17 in over 4 days. So you have 4 days storm. I was six in my mind that 70 ines is a lot of rain even over four days. Can we get our engineer to give us some well-reasoned guidance to that number? before it goes to not if we're done today. Uh well, we get 50. You know what? But it's in it's in the document the comments in there. The town board is still going to be working on this. Hopefully they'll ask an engineer.

Yeah. I mean that's that's a plug in whatever the engineer recommends. I plug that in. Maybe we should put in 4 in or recommended by engineer. Just make it that way. The final version is you have the number there. No, no. I'm saying for the re version we're giving to the town board. Yeah. Yeah. And that way cuz they don't want they don't want the comments on the side. They want words. That's what I would do. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. The storm water tool that you use in New York City has different tabs to check. Current 2040, 2060, 2080, 2100.

2080 is a whole different story than what we have currently. So I think it doesn't hurt to look forward in this. kind of assumed that when this is when you guys are done tonight on this, this will go to the town board. Right. Yes. Exactly. So, we just want to be there to discuss it. So, right. Well, I would obviously bring that up verbally. I actually think we've done a pretty good job on this. I mean, it's it definitely has been flushed out. So, it's better than the what we currently have, I believe.

Yeah, of course. All right. So, how about we just go through each page? We'll hit these eight or nine comments. Um, so the first one is on page one. Um this actually is a good point. Uh so in terms of like it says doing well any work in preparation so no land clearing grading of land or any other work in preparation and David you had a comment on that that that seemed quite broad like any work one word site need to put that's what I've done I think that was my land or something. Yeah, that's perfect. But but can I just ask I don't know if you're looking at him with the comments or what I did.

I didn't look forward. So I got David Austin and David Creel commented on top of him, but I didn't get to him for that first cuz I responded directly to David Austin. So then when David Creel's comments came in, I already responded. So I had to respond separately. So comments on both of your comments. This is why we should do it online because then it'll be the you'd see it. I should or have a cut off and say all comments by 12:00 or whatever. If we're 9.3, I think we just the word site for site. Okay. I just lost my question. Yeah, Sean, go ahead.

So, just question. I I mean, I like uh that clause. I just want to be clear. So I assume since we're not directly regulating trees or clearing it is more about we would like them to come to us so that their use of the land and potential natural kind of coverage which we're trying to accentuate. we have we can have some opinions before they just wipe it clean, you know, so to speak,

right? Um, actually, so Sean, uh, David Austin later on, it might be, uh, might be a little bit further down, he does mention that there's another paragraph where they don't talk about clearing of trees, but it actually should be in this one, right? I I just I believe it shows up later as isolated phrase. Well, Rick replied that was sort of it was re the reason was yeah for this yeah your comment was that anyway you can do your own comment if you want uh it was intended to reinforce the position that work needing site plan review cannot begin until the site plan approval

here's the starting principle if you're going to regulate something that you have to tell people they can't start any of the stuff you're reviewing until you approve it. Yeah. Very simple. Yeah. You don't want well, you know, this is not if it's even though we might not even though you may not regulate the independently, if it's site work in connection with the project you were reviewing, none of the site work should start until you give it approval. If you don't do that, you're going to be a mess. So, whatever they're doing in connection with that application, that project, you get approval, then you start working on the project. I mean, you got to get approved. You probably need the building permit. Yeah. Then you start working on the project.

I I agree. I'm just and I don't want to over complicate things so it relatively quickly of whether there is any nuanced addition to that because we know that people love to game this stuff and so you have a lot. I'm not planning to do anything. I don't plan to go site review. I just wanted to do this or that. And so when can you say it's related to you know a site plan or not? And so you know do we say when it within a period of time within can be reasonably concluded to does that add any value or are we just going to have to kind of like use our judgment when we think somebody's overstepped because it seems like it can be gamed right

I don't I don't think in my experience it's not that common. An applicant is going to submit an application. There'll be a site drawing whether they're by an engineer or a landscape architect or whatever. And their their plan should show what they propose to do including if they're doing any grading or any clearing any you're missing the point that if they feel that there is going to be obstacles in that before they come to you, they can just say I have no no plans to go for a site review. There's nothing in mind. I'm just doing what I want on my land. and then three months later, four months later say,"Oh, I'm going to decide or someone came to me and we're going to do a business there. Now, I'm going to come to you." Sean, Sean, are you sort of hypothetically saying, let's say someone has a 5 acre um commercially zoned piece of property and they think in the future they may be applying for um a site plan review, but preemptively they go in and clear the full five acres. Is that what you're saying? There's no there's nothing that there's currently nothing that if they're not applying for a site plan, there's nothing that prevent that.

Wait, can I just say that that's not going to be tackled by this either because this is only this is when we have site plan review. So the answer question is I think Sean is asking a good question. Saying if you're planning to come to us, don't start working until whatever. How did we know if they were planning to come to us? They can just go and I I don't want to over complicate but I'm just pointing the obvious in that someone can just do it say I wasn't planning to come. They can. But don't you think it should isn't that something we should do now? We let something I don't know how we can't propose. There should be a town code that addresses that. But if there's no site plan review simply for

lot where should we make a recommendation? It's not going to fall here though. This is site plan review where something is triggered. They go to the building department and and and now they get we get the application and now we know. Okay. Or actually forget it's going to be coming to us. That's the that's certainly a problem. The issue I think will arise primarily with clearing the land. Yeah. You guys don't want to have site plan if you're clearing. That's fine. That's up to you. In East Hampton Town, they make it really simple. If you have commercial property and you do any clearing, you need site. Why don't we do that? That's kind of why they don't want to do that.

It's on the town board's agenda. It's on It was at I I remember Albert brought it up at last I think last Monday's meeting, right? So, yeah, it's on it's on their radar. I think it's the priority. It is being discussed. Yeah. Okay. But where would that go in zoning or something or whatever? is why couldn't we just make this clause to say that and then if the town board chooses to say no that's too stringent to force everything to come to site plan before they play with their I thought we were actually

the problem is if it's before the site plan so they're not submitting anything the site plan review code is all about once a site plan is sent in so it has to happen outside of site plan as where

that's the town board's 109-4A which is I think what we talked about the second sentence says no person shall undertake or carry out any such activity of use that's activities you use you know mentioned above remember this doesn't apply to residential um including any grading clearing or trigger rule associated there well okay I guess I see what so they if they're doing clearing gradient tree rule that they claim is not associated with their challenge, then they may not.

That's my point. I mean, is that some of the language we're using, people just walk right through it. And that's okay if we kind of accept that, hey, you know, unless it happened the week before they came to the site for plan review, like it's we're going to have a hard time connecting them. If we just accept that, that's fine. I'm just pointing out that literally someone could do it, you know, two months before and then say, "Well, I just agreed with a new business last month." And so they're on. It needs to be a broader zoning code in the commercial that you can't do clearing without some because it has to be exist outside of and then let it point to just take out the first sentence where of paragraph A and that's what this would then imply.

We can't in this legislation effect outside of site plan. But we can we can ask I just sorted lot I'd like to be informed about it. Just a second. Can I can I just reiterate that this is on the town board's agenda. So they this having what Sean is asking about some sort of broader legislation maybe in zoning, maybe another part of the code. It it either will happen or won't happen, but it's going to be a part of the town board discussion. Greg, that's the first thing. Okay.

Second thing is, and I'm just speaking for myself. I I don't I'll fill the rest of you out on this, but 109-4. I personally don't have a problem with the sentence that uh Rick just read, which was no person shall undertake or carry out any such activity or use including grading, clearing, or tree removal, etc., etc. I also just want to add though that David Austin noted that the word tree removal was put here. It did not appear earlier above, right? And I think if I don't have a problem with it being typed here again in 109-4, but if that's the case, I think it should be also mentioned further up on 109 to make it consistent. I'm sorry Dave. I I missed what you

No, it's I think it's it's you think it's too too I don't know if it's necessary but any other work in preparation in theory land clearing and grading the the are any other site work is kind of the broader all-encompassing and the first are a couple of examples you could add it but I don't know if it changes the the legislation any legal just note that in subsection B of 109-3 that's the section before 1094 109-3 B which is business and and crazy business commercial district. Mhm. I struck five. If you look at five

that's where I was initially covering this all clearing and grading in business district would have required ciph. So if that was the case, there is no then there's no getting in under the door because if you're doing doing a grading on commercial property, you need cycling. Why was it deleted? Because you the consents of the board was that I don't think you're in favor of it. Well, I'm in favor of some of us were, some of us weren't.

And Meg Meg I think signaled pretty clearly like that's out of scope. You know, it it is should be handled separately. And just to be clear, I I would I'm not necessarily advocating that ours needs to be broader to cover any activity in commercial lot. It's just that the language that we're using is kind of meaningless because there's no way to know when it's in connection with a plan for a site plan unless you try to tighten up the language in some way, shape, or form. And I we don't need to beat that to death, but unless you say something like can be reasonably concluded to be in connection with plans for a site plan review both in, you know, proximity of time or, you know, whatever. Otherwise, it it it's kind of meaningless. People are just going to say, I didn't plan to do it in connection with the site plan. And that's fine if we're comfortable with it. I'm just pointing out that it it is one of those clauses that people are, you know, can avoid and just lie. Why why can't Julia why can't we leave uh trying to get to the correct number

B5? Yeah, B5. Why can't we leave that as Rick originally wrote it? I don't think we all agree.

Let me just finish asking my question. Um, why can't we leave that as as Rick originally wrote it here and let the town board address how they think that works into the broader zoning um principles that they are trying to coordinate. And the reason I ask that is I feel that by deleting it, it it leads the impression that there is not an interest in having any review of that. And I for one do have an interest. I can't speak for the whole board. Um I I think part of the problem that we've had is that there is too little oversight of tree and topo integration into planning in general and maybe it's all a zoning thing. Where's the East Hampton uh notation? But the regulation clearing green would go well first of all East Hampton has all their stuff in the zoning chapter. So site plan review is in zoning east

but what requires site plan approval is in the zone is in the site plan article of the east coast. So you don't put it on your site and I I I I could have the wrong assumption here, but I assumed that when this went to the town board that you would see the history of the edits, right? Or am I wrong on that? I think you I

assumed that you were going to be leaving some of this so they could see how we worked through it. So, Greg, that's why I thought even though it's struck because some of us didn't agree with it. I thought that that was going to remain as you can see what was removed from the document this way. The town board is looking over it and saying, "Well, how come they took that out? We might want that." That's what I assumed. Um I wasn't sure if you were Yeah, because we did we were split. So, yeah, we were sort of split. Some of us were saying maybe not. Maybe I'm the only person who's concerned. No, you're not the only person. But I I express I I expressed these concerns with you too. So I several of them actually

but I think there was a very signal from the town board that they're they're they're not going to do that in this section. So well I I think that that doesn't affect my opinion. I mean that's fair enough. Um so I feel that way.

What about do you feel that way? Uh I do but I am looking as I stated in the meeting on two on in uh December I'm looking for a way to balance this out because we are going to get varied applicants everywhere from individual business owners small mom and pop entrepreneurs all the way to corporate corporate applicants and the concern was also that we didn't want to have this leak into residential applications that this was supposed to be geared for business so I had concerns about striking a balance there. But in general, as I stated on on December meeting, I'm all about tree preservation. That's why I just joined the subcommittee with Sean because it's a it's a major concern of mine, you know, across the board, but we've got to be careful how we do it. So, um, as Sean said, you know, we we got direction that this might not be the appropriate place to put it in that the town board will address it under their own discussion. So, but I think we should leave the history of the all alterations to the document because that would reflect everyone's uh feedback, right?

I don't know. It seems that in deleting it, it leaves the impression that we are in agreement that it is not an important factor. Did you read the sentence that says unless decision is later made to regulate land clearing or grading beyond a certain amount? The idea is we're trying to send that message to the town board to decide if they want it to be that it's on it's on B5. So where they he crossed out all clearing and grading and then in uh yellow highlight it says this was deleted unless a decision is made to regulate land clearing. Oh I see

that's that's a note to it. In other words, you have sort of you can say all clearing rating prototype 10 square ft or you could say all clearing ratings of a certain amount so that you don't catch the dimminimous stuff. What about invasive species? I mean you need to you're saying this is why it gets this is why the reality is because you also want to apply this to residential in some form probably. I think that's what we thought said the town board should worry about it because it's broader than just commercial site plan. It should probably be a broader clearing grading

and it may then say for these things if it's commercial it goes to site plan for that part and this part it's you know goes into the building I don't know what it will be or special use not attempting to to regulate clear the gradient on residential property unless it's connection with special permanent use like you know hospital but he's saying that because we did sort of start going in that direction on during one meeting so I acknowledge what he's saying the idea that if they're going to address it they address it in a central place and they address it for all properties rather than we try to tackle it just for commercial and then res

or or they end up only doing it for commercial but they do it in consideration of a the policy that could apply to all but then they decide where maybe that's in zoning or something another thing that comes to play David what's clearing you as like definition clearing is a verb this is exactly why is I've always taken the view that you were removing selected individual trees. In other words, not broad scale removing stuff. That's not really clearing. I removed that tree. I removed that bush is is invasive. That's miscanthus. I took that out. To me, clearing is you go into an area and you at least within that area, you remove everything whatever it is.

Clear cutting. Yeah. Maybe a small area, but you clear cutting it. Hence my angel tree. That's not that's not clear. And that's why I was concerned about the language of tree removal because that is could be singular. But let me Yeah, but we're starting let me go back to 1094 because we got off on the wrong foot. 109-4A which is what we started talking about. You are reading that as though it tells you what subject to site plan is. No, that's in the section above that 109-4 is telling you if you have a site plan application and you are describing what you're going to clear or grade or what trees you're going to remove. That's part of your site plan application. This is what you're proposing to do.

You can't do any of it till you have your approval. That's what 109-48A is about. So, if there is tree removal in your site plan, blah blah blah blah, then you can't start doing it, right? part of your proposed site plan that you submitted. What I'm saying is common sense you don't start work if there's a site plan. Yeah. Yeah. Makes makes sense. Can we go ahead to the next comment which is David Freel? Okay. This is on uh let's see what

going down to B5 uh the construction or expansion of any parking area servicing a commercial property and David you added on institutional educational religious section especially yes that's five this is uh 109 3 A sorry B you responded with the it's special permits required and there's a special permit required inherently it's a site plan so you don't need to say oh okay

so the question then why do we specifically single out commercial property that's kind of the broad okay hold on remember something if you look at 109 we're referring to 109 next to it shows on page one right there two subsections to it section A is residential zoning districts. You have certain kinds of special permit uses that you allow in a residential district by special permit, educational institutions, a few other things that are sort of broadly described in the code. Um, remember that then B only deals with business subsection B is business property own. So,

so we don't necessarily need to reiterate that by adding the three uh descriptions. No, if you're on commercial property, um, most things are going to require sight. Yeah. If you're in residential property, most things are not unless there are things like the special property. The museum for example, right? Exactly. Museum would be I think it's exactly exactly right. But I think they're actually on because they're on 114. So it's considered it's a commercial zone. Commercial education museum. visit. Yeah, it is cuz it's on 114. 114 all the way down. It's 16. So, yeah, 16.

But if you did propose a museum in a residential Yes. Then you'd have to do better. Exactly. All right. And then uh moving downward 109-4. Uh approval required authorized review. Uh David mentioned how many times are we going to say green? I think we just we covered that. You just I understand now the difference between the two sections together. Thank you. Now we moved a few pages forward. There's no comments until we get to down here eight. I think it's page eight. Minor site plans. Um

I'm on 109-8. Oh, we have stuff in seven. Right. We have 77 about the 2 in versus 4 in. We just kind of said that. I know, but we going through. Sorry. Sorry. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So, I think we'll we'll leave that comment for the town board and let let that I don't know if we're going to So, my recommendation I guess we can leave all the comments. You need to I was thinking what you should do is put it because they may not read comments, but if it's actually in there highlighted like same way you did the other ones would probably better just because I worry about them not same problem I had. Right. Right.

Only so only looking at the body of it. Also, if you print it out, you'd only get that. You'd only get what you want is it to be really explicit like this. Yeah. So Rick does not play to include the comments when it so I'm saying is since we since like the the same way you did the highlighting where you added in some it's really easy to see those comments since there aren't that many comments from this last review. Could you just take those and insert them into the body and then this way and cross them out. Yeah. Just take the comments out then the text basically in 109 summarizing there's only like nine comments or just say say the where it says 2 in and say or or perhaps increase to four or something just put something

again I I'm assuming I'm going to be discussing this right how are they going to discuss it without me as the we're moving toward four and two yeah so or what I mean per we're talking about changing it 2 in 4 in here, which inherently is saying over a 24-hour. Oh, it says 24. It says 24-hour period right there. Yeah. Yeah, it's 24 hours. That's what we've been talking about. But I think again the right answer is probably talk to an engineer and understand the current risks, but then the town board has to make a decision.

Um, okay. So, the next one is under 109-8e. Uh, Rick, you had put a question there. Do you want the need for a variance to prelude possible minor site plan review? This is a good point. Totally up to you guys. The East Hampton Town Code says if you need a variance, then you don't have the opportunity for minor site.

I'm questioning is really basically whether or not you have to have a publication. That's the thing. If you're minor site plan, the planning board can approve the application without it determined it's minor enough. You are not required to have a site public hearing. If you trip some certain wires, if you don't meet these criteria, then you are a major site plan not full site plan as we talked about that for formal site plan is

full instead of formal. Yeah, I like that. Um, so if you are if you if you have both these parameters then you are a full site plan and uh you have to have a public hearing at the plane. I'm not sure and it's totally up to you guys but just because you need a variance which will require a public hearing before the zoning board should that mandate you're it's only coming back to you if the zoning board grants the variance because the way I have set things up if you need a variance you got to get the variance so you comply with zoning before you come before the plan if you otherwise don't be zoning right you shouldn't be granting in my opinion you should not be granting site plan approvals conditioned upon the grant of a variance

get your variance now Now you conform to zoning with a with a variance. Now basically you'll conform with the zoning then you come see us. So is it necessary to have a second hearing? I just throw that out there. Eastampton says that if you need a variance you have to go through full sight planet board and you know I'm just suggesting maybe that's overkill. That's it. Yeah. It seems excessive to have two public hearings on the same you have to meet the other criteria. You have to be swollen.

Yeah. I think it's I think leaving it to the into where we make the decision whether it's minor or full uh and not have it be required is cleaner. Um I think again if there's a variance going on that got site that got approval and there was a lot of upheaval in the public meeting approved well then it's going to fall under that condition of there's major uh uh interest controversy and so we'll have a full one. So it's like if we keep that clause in well no the clause is making says it has to clause says if it has a variance period it goes to

I mean the clause about public there's some debate Oh no yeah we're leaving that in right I we haven't covered that one yet. Oh, okay. For some reason, I thought we That's next. I didn't know that. I agree that we can be using our judgment on based on the variance and others of of whether we want to see it again. Right. That that seems that seems reasonable to me. I don't if anybody else has strong vibes about it. Let me just say one thing. So 109-8 which is minor site plans starts by saying notwithstanding the provisions of 109-7 which is full site the flame board may in its sole discretion wave the holding of a public hearing. So you have discretion,

right? That's why I don't know that making it mandatory to have a public hearing because you need a variance. Maybe they went to the zoning board, no one spoke. It was totally non-controversial. They got their variance. Do they have to have varian at the planning board if you would otherwise? Well, I would think really the reason why you want a public meeting is because there's other factors in the site plan that requires a public meeting. So that would come up in the variance, right? So So I'm saying is they had a variance. If it's small, there's no issues. They they come to us for the site plan whether or not it's a full site plan or a minor will be based upon the whole the whole which would which would include the variance if it right because you have the discretion you you have discretion.

Yeah, I think we all agree on that point. So we can I think so non mandatory just because you need

next one is down to G yeah G H so he basically said the application has caused no significant public controversy. So how do you how I I just don't know what the what he was asking what is significant. I think he said EA has a civil provision. It almost never comes up.

Okay. You either the board usually knows whether something is going to be controversial or not you know and usually if it's small enough to meet the minor site plan criteria under 500 square feet and all these different things then it's very unlikely it's going to cause significant controversy. If it does, you you would probably know it. My my experience here on this island is is that it's not sign we never have significant public controversy. We have a very small number of very loud people. And so that's is that truly significant public controversy or is it just a couple of people being really loud? And so I don't know that this is where I get this in the space of like do we want to put that in the code and like

I I favor removing it. I don't think it adds value. It could be again part of our our decision, right? So yeah, you have disc you have discretion whether or not to wave the full site under which to say wave a public hearing. I I I personally It's interesting that you said it's in East Tampa, but it hardly ever comes up. So it's almost like why especially in East Hampton, right? Well, I suspect it was put in there because people wanted it. A very small loud. Yeah. So let's take that out. Right. Right. Okay.

Uh next one moving down would be physical compat. Is that okay? Can I move? There was the avoided one which I br it was a nit on a word and I understand. So skip it. Okay. 1099 under standards a physical com compatibility. Uh extensive clearing and grading shall be avoided to the extent possible. And this is where again I it's fine. It's it's just a different use of word than I than in my brain. But minimized to avoid some it's it's a lawyer word. But I but didn't you bring that up relative to its ambiguity.

Well, every no matter what there is going to it's it's well actually it's an I just use the word minimized. Well, again, to me, it's a it's a uh Well, what did I suggest? I I put in a different word there. Suggested one here. And minimizing extensive clearing and grading where possible. That's what I wrote. I said avoided to the extent possible. And David Austin pretty much said, you say minimized. I can do that, too. I forget what I said. Hold on. You said something different. You comment on this. No, you said avoiding to the extent possible doesn't prohibit. It means that alternative solution has to be considered. I actually don't get that interpretation. Yeah,

like maybe. But it's the same criteria is for you know wetlands. But David, you have to show that you can't do anything other than what they're proposing. No, that's that's a specific about last time. Did you not make a comment about this last time? Well, I'll I'll read David Fel's talk.

David Fel said avoided to the extent possible in quotes doesn't prohibit it. It means that alternate solutions have been considered in preference to quote extensive clearing and grading that this par that this paragraph can be seen in various state this paragraph can be seen in various state and county planning documents. Improvement is always possible. Just the way the sentence is written right now, it's extremely vague. It It's not a very strong statement. I don't think it is either. Shall be avoided to the extent possible. It's almost like why have the sentence in there? All you have to do is come in and say, well, we we we don't have any possibility.

Well, that's our that's our judgment, though.

You don't Here's the thing. The worst use of the term to extent possible is to say that you don't want to just say extensive is not allowed. There may be a need for it. Maybe it's not possible to avoid that clearing in which case it's no to the extent we minimize it to the extent possible. It's not possible to minimize them any further. So it's it's an attempt to give the board discretion to deal with different differing sets of facts. It's the reason I'm asking is it seems to sort of relate back to what Sean had brought up originally uh relative to the um hypothetical situation of someone having a piece of property anticipating a site plan and then three years before submitting a site plan going in and doing a massive clearing on an undeveloped property. Um, this seems to to make that kind of action almost codified as

No, no, no, no. These are standards that apply if there's a site plan application before you. Yeah. So, we have the ability we have the ability to kind of use our judgment to say, well, why are you clearing that whole area there? Couldn't you do this? Couldn't do that. And kind of engage on it, right? Yeah. Well, do you have any thoughts on how it could be clearer? I actually like David Austin's uh suggestion minimize. I think it's a little stronger than, you know, avoided is just I don't know. It's it's a weak it's a weak verb. I was trying to Yeah, I was trying to understand like what was the actual goal of the sentence, you know? It's like like to me avoided kind of gave even more wiggle room. Could you read your sentence? Your proposed sentence. I didn't have

It's only just changing the word avoided to minimize. By the way, I'll just tell you something. That language I took that directly from you at the top code. So I didn't invent healthy. Yeah, that was their I just borrow I just And that appears in state I mean cuz I Googled the sense and it appears and it appears in various they borrowed it from somebody else. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody somewhere wrote it once and everybody stole it. That's the way it works. But minimize to me is fine. You can say minimized. That's fine. Yeah. I I agree with that. Let me do that. That's changed. Now everybody's going to go to minimize. It's the It's the new

This is what I wrote. I have the rural open space environment of the town shall be fostered by preserving wherever possible large trees, scenic vistas, and other natural features of the site and minimizing extensive clearing and grading where possible. I just cleaned up the sensitive. I did where possible where I just I felt that was better. I just where possible. Huh? What if you just remove the where possible? Why? Why have that should be minimized? Period. Minimizing sounds of clearing grading should be minimized. Period. Shall minimize. Yeah. Period. I would do it as a separate sentence though. Yeah, I agree.

I would take the and out for the period then say extensive clearing waiting shall be minimized. Okay. So, yep. Good. I will say this is basically doing the same as an architectural review board but not for architecture. All right. After that there's let's see that's it except for I just said that oh wait gross floor area. Sorry on page nine. Page nine. But that's not us. This was just a note that had put in. Yeah. Use the term in this code. That's my problem is yes

it's a really bad practice to use undefined terms no it does require definition and it's actually probably a we have this problem in in the wetlands coach I mean in lots of areas that we don't have a consistent acrosstheboard like coverage what what do we mean around these things and so to me I think it's great that you're raising it that it should be raised up above but it also probably needs to affect more than the site plan code right well if it's in zoning. I don't know that I did a word check in the zoning code to see if I don't think gross glory is used in I don't think I could do it's not under the general definition you said it should be in chapter 133 back up

we don't have any definitions in the cipher but you should never ever ever write a code that doesn't have definitions every term should be defined one of the strengths of these tent town zone code which was written by my mentor Russell Stein who I still consider the best code drafter I ever that one of these is a practice of is is you define everything and then you got to check and make sure the definitions work within your code because otherwise you get in trouble if you have a definition that doesn't make sense or it's you know private but what I've done there are no definitions in in the site chapter 109 and you do have definitions fairly good extensive in zoning I'm just saying you know what whatever definitions in zoning we're going to use I don't want to reinvent the wheel and have a whole another section and then at some point your definitions aren't the same. But it does mean if you're going to use that word, that term roads flurry in the zoning code, we do have to check and make sure and see whether it appears in the zone code because if it does, we need to make sure it appears says what we want it to say. I don't think the term G ro gross area is used in zoning. That doesn't mean that you might not amend the zoning code someday and put it in. What I we needed I can't use the term gross floor area. That's not defined anywhere in the code.

Do you think do you think it's better to have all those definitions within each section or one overall? One overall. I agree. That's what I used to do in contracts, too. So, you put at the top. There are a lot of terms in here that aren't necessarily defined. Screening, grading, clearing. Clearing could warrant definition. Grading. Grading I think is simple enough. I don't know that he contract it might they might have defined very Russell defined everything. Yeah. Well, I think that's that's the challenge with doing these incrementally in your notes like what's a basement and what's you know well that's a valid point.

What's a portf moves basically where they're going to start it's where you find the new wiggle room because you didn't because you remove the wiggle room. No, it's it's in New York State building code. Well, that doesn't mean it's the same term in the building code and sometimes you don't want it to be. So you your own code should define your own tricks. Yeah. Um anyway, but that's a broader I agree and it's by omission I guess the other can ask question um of uh Albert and Meg. So in terms of the comments that we have on this last like almost final version, you guys can read those, right? We just Yeah, you can send to us maybe markups and your red line and everything. Yeah.

All right. Yeah. So then we can follow the train of thought. I mean, I'm just thinking maybe Rick doesn't have to really like move these over like I mean you had you had a good suggestion because there's a couple changes we just recommended. I think we should get those changes there have somewhere to change it. I think that is that sufficient or Yeah. And then we always Yeah, we have that. I'm going to try to work on this tomorrow while it's still fresh in my mind. It's perfect actually cuz we're sending wet wetlands code. for you if you get ads. You can win next. I I'm with you on that. One thing if you missed by the way, penalties the last thing. Oh, penalties, right?

So, actually Sean had that comment and I'm 100% with him. I I think it I think it we should definitely have it not be too light. I think we all we all said that. But are penalties normally in the subsection or are they I thought there was a broader penalties defined by the town board. They do they go through and they vote for all the penalties. It really should be in the chapter of the code. I'm I'm just asking how it is currently. I don't I think in zoning I'm pretty sure there's a section in the zoning code about penalties. It's got to be and they amend it every now and then. Remember you're doing site plan unlike you've carved the site plan chapter out of your zoning code which is not disastrous. Well, it's been that way.

Yeah. But then you should have your own penalty clause in under cycling. Yeah. And I don't care what dollar number you pick. Okay. I do. Yeah. You guys, you may very well, but that's not my charge. My charge is to make it so that it's relatively easy to change. Uh and that's why I think rather than putting it in, this is going to be adopted by local law. There's certain formalities involved in local. Exactly. It's easier if you allow the town board to make changes to this by resolution. Resolution does have to consult the separate documents.

So he you have in the comment or such greater amount as may be established by duly adopted resolution. So Sean, you were say you were saying that like a fine of not less than 500 is still we don't know when and if the town board is going to do that and so if we want to make this you know significant when passed you know now put in a big number and if they want to change it later they can change it and if they want to change it based because they don't like our number that's fine but if we have all said it should be five if not $10,000 why are we leaving it at500? 00 and and go resorting to the old pattern of people break the law, pay the fine, and move on.

And I would say I'd be fine with a bigger number, but then I would remove the word greater and say or such amount as maybe established other because if we say 10,000, the town board may make a decision and they are voted in here to make decisions for by constituents. We're just a group of volunteers. They should be able to take whatever price they want. Yep. So I don't want to by by doing this It only has to be greater. I agree. Well, I'm not saying it doesn't it can be less. They can make a resolution to say no, it's $500. I will say this though, if you said like before, right, I'm not going to say $10,000. But if you say $1,000 and the town would think that's too much,

they should probably change the actual section by local law to make the even lower. I wouldn't have it says in the code $1,000 or such other on the amount and then adopt the resolution saying no. Do you need even then you even need the RC greater amount? It usually just goes up by the way. No, but but but do you even need it because they could just change the number? Is this allowing it? We're going to just do you can do a resolution and not have a public hearing. And you can do that and basically it doesn't amend this or is it just another

No. In other words, the way I'm proposing it would be worded, it says a certain amount. Write down $500 or some other greater amount as determined by the town board by resolution. It does mean that if you're prosecuting somebody or if somebody wants to know what the penalty is, they do have to find out whether there is a separate town board resolution that's not in the code. Exactly. That's what I that's problem. You have to consult something else to know what that other number if there is one is. This is why I kind of prefer actually kind of having it all the prices out completely separate so you could see all the current pricing versus buried in code in various places. But that's just me.

So that's but again that could be the town clerk pulls them all and keep the current so they have that separately. It's not and that way that will cover the problem. I usually don't. Yeah. Okay. Maybe I'm making it harder than Is it just me or or does 500 seem really low? It does seem like nothing. I don't know. It's sort of like Dr. Evil doing $1 million, you know. So, I think 5,000. It's not that I think 5,000 sounds better. 5,000 seems too low. 10,000 seems too high. Let's meet in the middle. David, I thought your was too low. I thought your caveat was good

about or such amount as by the town board or something like that that's in there. See the thing is this. Remember that a judge will apply the law, okay? That a judge is forced to go by at least a minimum, but you can have violations that are pretty trivial, right? If somebody, the idea is not to have a flat fine of $500 because that's negligible for a lot of people. $500 is some other amount. The $500 is the floor, but the court might impose a higher fine up to whatever you say the fine would be, $10,000, whatever. And that's more of a disent at the end of the day. to a certain degree you have to rely on the discretion of a judge. I think

I agree. I I would leave it you want to leave it at 500. Yeah. If you can impose depending on the severity a higher just say just say you know just not less than 500. So we could just say can be up to $5,000. No, no, no. I don't you want to put a I wouldn't ceiling or some other amount set by the, you know, currently it's less than. Well, then so what we're backing into is that we're saying it should be as written, which is $500 or a higher amount if

or greater amount as may be established by the duly adopted resolution of the town board. Well, is it the town board or is it the judge who can who can apply a higher ground? Board can impose both a floor and a cap, right? Judge then can do anything within that within those parameters. And this says of not less than 500. It this is not giving a cap. Yeah. In this legis, right? That's right. Can we just say the floor is a th00and? Yes, sure. That's what I'd like to do,000 for the floor. Okay. Yeah, I'm just gonna Sorry.

Sean, wait. Sean's trying to say something.

I'm just gonna As far as I know, the judges on Shelter Island have s historically not been pound the table on fines and what have you. So, that's why I've been saying hold people's feet to the fire. Don't let it be that the judge says, "Yeah, whatever, 500 go." you know, walk because they go to they historically have moved to the lesser of, you know, the penalties and so all of these regulations become a waste of time because people just do what they want. Well, the problem is even worse than that because the problem is actually that we don't go and check site plans and actually get the actual conformance anyway. So, it's a it's a it's a bigger problem than just the fact that once if they happen to get to the judge. If the problem is we don't

we have very limited compliance and that's the challenge. So I think unless we're going to hire a bunch more compliance officers and go out and actually which would actually probably generate more than enough revenue to pay for the compliance officers if we want to do that if we want to live in that place but that's a town board decision. Yes. All right. That's it. Okay. Are we leaving this in before? Yeah. Well, for them to you're leaving it for them to consider about Yeah, I think something. And if they don't want it, then we have to figure out what we put in. Well, then we define it.

Well, that because I am using that term Gloria to determine the break points of whether or not eligible for minor lighter measure. So, didn't want to adopt Gloria, then do I put something else in there or do you just weigh it? Well, I think I well, I think what you'd have to do is you'd have to go to some of the terms that we use in other parts, which is basically maybe just uh footprint or something. You know, it have to be something simpler because we already do use those kind of definitions in other parts of the code. I don't think it's as good as what you have. But I don't think there's a definition of floor area. There's no under 133. There's no but there is a definition of What percent? Maybe

we use we use there's a percentage of lot coverage. Right. Coverage. I guess I'm thinking coverage. They define coverage is defined. I forget. Check. Check. I don't know. I can't remember. A computer is sleeping. I don't have it in front of me for the I will short. We have coverage. Uh anyone remember definition? I don't think so. I don't think we do. I'm search. Oh, we do. We do. Um we do the definition of coverage. Float coverage. Yes, it's in 1331B. Percentage of the lottery exclusive by blah blah blah. Sorry, I have to go to But what's covered by I'm getting to it. It's a definition. It's in It's in section 133 terms and definitions.

There is lot coverage coverage cover of a lot. The percentage of a lot area exclusive of wetland and the land underwater occupied either by building area or by driveways and parking areas. Any lot with deed access across a flag lot should also be deemed to be a flat lot. Calculation of lot coverage for any flag shall not include the flag strip covered by what David buildings and driveways. Yeah, there's a lot of porches patios and they don't count towards coverage didn't they don't count as lot coverage. Uh can you lot area percent exclusive of wetland land occupied by building area or by driveways? Buildings have roofs under your

building area or by driveways and parking areas. It's all included. That excludes a lot of stuff. Yeah. Decks. Buildings are defined in your code as having roofs. Same as each end. So it doesn't have a roof like a porch or a patio or a deck. Well, not a porch. Porch porch has a potential patio and deck or swimming pool doesn't count towards coverage. Not in our code. That's a loophole. Not going to fix that today for now. There always does get into imperous surfaces someplace else. Then you got to define the per circuit. We need to close the meeting. Do we? Yes. Can I make a motion we close the meeting? Yes. Seconded. Second.

Second. Okay. A lot of seconds and thirds. Okay. All in favor? I. Thank you everybody.