Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Mr. All right. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Like to call the meeting to order. City of Rome Planning Board meeting for uh July the 1st. July 1st, 2025. Marc Espazito, planning board chair. Uh this evening we have vice chair Joe Kandra, Eric Gonzalez, Britney Fermola, and David Smith. We have a full uh planning board here tonight. Um mute this thing. And uh we have uh Danielle Salsbury all the way down to the left. Jim Rizzo, Corporation Council, Garrett Wyoff, Community and Economic Development. Our agenda, first item, review and approval of the June 3rd, 2025 meeting minutes. Get motion. I make a motion to approve the minutes. Second the motion. All

those in favor? I. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Public service announcement. Upcoming meeting dates. Our next meeting is on the 5th of August, first Tuesday of the month. And then September 9th, that's the second. I believe it's we skipped because of uh Labor. Yep. Labor Day. Uh we set the schedule in uh January for the year. A lot of times it's not the first Monday because of a holiday or election day or something. Um sometimes we move those dates, but they're set in January. Old business. Uh on the table we have uh two items that are linked together. We have a seeker item three on on the agenda is seeker review. Item four is a site plan review. They're both for requests by the Humane Society of Rome LLC to construct approximately 19,817 square ft animal shelter at 6247 Lampere Road. A very nice looking building I might add as well. Uh can we get a motion to remove the seeker? Make a motion to remove three and four from the table. Second. All those in favor? I. All those opposed. Motion carries. Petitioner, please come forward. I think last month we tabled. We're waiting for some seeker. Yeah. 30-day seeker. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we got an update. Nancy, just a couple of minor tweaks. What happened to our Does it work? Oh, no.

We had an easel, didn't we? We never Oh, yeah. We usually have people I I will ask Amanda about it. I have to get a grant. The expensive easel. Um yeah, so we tabled last month. We are back. We did update the site plan to address some of the Garrett's comments. We moved the dumpster out of the dumpster enclosure. We added a project schedule. We provided a detailed landscape plan meeting to believe the city's code. We added a bike rack and we show a fire department connection. I believe those were the main points of his comments. We're still in our design going through the grading and storm water management. We'll be getting a permit from the DEC for the storm water disturbance over an acre. We're doing septic system design. That'll be reviewed by the health department and approved. Um, and we had a pretty pretty thorough discussion last month about the operation in the building and we'll we're here to address any other questions or just keep this thing moving forward. That's a beautiful beautiful plan. Yeah, Lynn does have the building renderings if you want to look at those. Again, it's uh it's large, too. Oh. And I'm sorry, we did submit the JD, the online JD request to the DEC for the wetlands. Our wetland guy walked it and said, "We were doing our project. There aren't any wetlands, but we'll still went through the motions and hopefully get the negative letter back from those guys." see the outside

[Music] is in this drawing um we have what I didn't mention is a surgery center. So this whole area is a surgery center so that we can spay and neuter our own animals and do lowcost spay and neuter for the public as well as help some of the other shelters. Um so we have a vet office our um vette full center and then I'm not sure if I did mention but because of all the cruelty cases lately and it's just getting worse. We have a cruelty officer right now. We're taking on our own cruelty cases, but we'll handle whatever we can for the city. So, we're working with the mayor's office and dog control, and we're housing most of the cruelty cases right now. So, the surgery center was very important as well as cruelty. So, the humane society is a not for-p profofit. Not for-p profofit. And then you coordinate with other shelters in the cities, towns. We um we get our funding because we contract out with the other towns um to bring in because dog control they can't house them or they don't have the area to house them. So they bring them into us. So we contract out with 21 towns to help with revenue. Um we rely on donations and grants. Um basically that's it. Amazing. And then where's the I mean it's it's a massive facility. Where's the next large facility 20,000 square foot? Most of them are this size. We're under the regulations of a market laws. And what's happening is they are demanding what we build, what we use, how we run our shelters. So it's not the mom and pop shelter anymore with a small pole barn. We are, you know, demanded to build this type of shelter. Well, and if you look at it, it's really it's it's

large, but we're only going to hold the same amount of animals because you can only adopt so many out, right? You can bring them in, but it's all about length of stay. So, the key is to get them in, get them adopted, and get them out so you can constantly make room for new animals. But if we build larger, you can't sustain it. You know, this is about a little bit what we have now, a little bit more. Um, and I don't know if you knew the community room will be great because the public will be able to rent it out, meetings, um, just uh, fundraising every weekend for children and families and chip and clip clinics and um, training programs and things like that. So, pictures with Santa and so this room will bring us lots of money and be really good for the community. Um, and this just offsets this community room. And then these have um we have windows and garage doors that open up so we can actually go outside and you know have an event. Um and then of course the restrooms and everything to hold this end when you come into the vestibule. This is just cat colonies and it's pretty cool because they can actually see outside. So there's like screened in porches so they can the cats can feel they're outside and then at night we just take them in and this is all covered. So this is the cat colonies. Um, this is the counseling room. So, when you come to adopt, you know, we sit down and go over, you know, if it's the right animal for you. And this just maintains the middle of the building. This is food prep, storage, laundry, commercial laundry, uh, washers and dryers and things like this. So, this runs the house. Um, and then these are just our kennels. And then in the back of the kennels, um, this is almost like a greenhouse effect. So, it looks like they're outdoors. So they can get out of their kennels, have some exercise room, and then when we want, we can take them out into these enclosed runs that are

all chain link fenced and so that they can exercise. What's nice is we're away from the neighbors. This is 365 near the woods. Um, so everything up front is more business end and this is more kennels, so we neighbors don't hear the dogs at all. And then this end of the building is surgery center. Um, and then this is dog control. And this is nice because right now you can only bring a dog in if we're open. There'll be a swipe card system. So if dog control finds a dog at night, you can bring them in. There'll be kennels available and we'll be able to accommodate the towns more efficiently. Um so that's more of the stray area. Garages to house our vehicles, storage, generator. In the back of the house is staff um cruelty and uh bookkeeper. So, it just flows nicely. Dogs and cats. Can you accommodate right now? 25 dogs. Um, and we're probably at 80 cats right now. What about other animals? Is it just dogs and cats? Dogs and cats. Dogs and cats. Yeah. And we don't, you know, unfortunately we can't handle ferals, but it's all, you know, just cats that can be adopted, you know, just cuz we can't adopt them out. But, right, that's simple. And then parking. The other thing that we did is if you do have to surrender your dog, I always say this is the happy moments when you're adopting and everybody's happy and the kids are there and all this, but when you have to surrender, it's devastating if you have to give up your pet for whatever reason. So, we've created an entrance here where you can actually make an appointment, come over here where it's private. We take your dog in, get all the information, you leave the dog with us, and then you can leave so that you're not going through, you know, just seeing all the other families adopting. So, it's a little more private here. That's nice. Mhm. Do you have uh like when you receive an animal and by the time you want to

release them, is there a time period that you uh kind of as long as they're ready, they have to have a full checkup. Um they have to have their vaccines and they have to be spayed and neutered. So if they're not spayed and neutered when they come into us, then we have to pay to get them spayed and neutered. And then the animal shelter or the vet hospitals are so backed up right now that that's why we need the surgery center because we can spay and neuter and we can push them out sooner. But they go through full physical um and evaluation. You're going to have your own vet to do the surgeries. Yes. or we're looking for someone like part-time, you know, that, you know, either had his own business and wants to just help us part-time or anybody coming out of college, you know, but we're a lot of the vets, a lot of the shelters, especially in Rochester, they have several vets that come and work for them, you know, just different times. So, we're open to anything, but we're going to need the vet. Yeah. you know, and there's grants out there to um you know, for vets as well as cruelty officers, but again, it's just length of stay and getting the animals in and out. Very well thought out. Yeah. How many towns? 21. 21. But with the new egg and market laws, it could be more because now they're not allowed to house them at all. They're not allowed any dog control to have even if they had a small area. They won't meet the standards. So, they have to come to us. So, it's un, you know, it's good for us because that's revenue, you know, but it's unfortunate for them, you know. All right. Any other questions? City place on the boulevard here. They can't house the dogs there either, right? No more. They're I think they'll be compliant. Oh, they will. Yeah. They're planning on at least being able to house their own dogs. Okay. Yeah.

And um you know, we've we're right now she's taking we're taking most of the cruelty cases. Um but we're working with each other. We just had clear the shelter day. Um unfortunately it was graduation weekend. We didn't have a lot of adoptions, but we had three or four adopted. But yeah, they'll be fine. You said you have grooming area as well. We have a grooming area. So, in the middle here, it's really to groom our dogs so they really show well. But we can do a fundraiser or if someone's going into the grooming business and they don't want to have their own business and pay for their own brick and mortar, you can lease our space and then more revenue. Yeah. Everything this building is that we've kind of put together is every room in every part of this building will help us um bring in revenue. It's the only way we'll be able to sustain it. cost a lot of money to, you know, run a 20,000 foot. Yeah. Like right now, our budget is $675,000 to run where we are. And it's horrible. And we know that this will cost us more, but it'll be more efficient, you know, and we'll just be able to house the animals better and I think um just bring in more revenue for us. But, you know, it's a full-time business, you know, and Excellent. Any questions? Yes. No, I think we're good. Um um members of the community, any comments? Four or against? Okay. Public comment. CED. The 30 the 30-day seeker window has now closed. Responses were received from both uh DOT and DEC. Uh no substantive concerns from uh DOT were received. uh DEEC highlighted the presence of regulated wetlands on the parcel albeit not the area that's going to be impacted by this project and

per their new uh policies requiring a wetlands JD um that was conveyed to the applicant and they uh initiated that process. Uh our department has reviewed and submitted site plan for compliance with the zoning code um and have confirmed it is compliant with the code. We recommend issuing a secret negative declaration for the project and conditionally approving the proposed site plan contingent on uh receipt of that uh wetlands JD from the DEEC before they get a building permit. Okay. Thank you. City. Say it again. Road is a city road or that county. That's a city road. Um it's the the 500. It's 500 ft. Yeah. Stay right away. Can we get a a motion on negative uh seeker? I make a motion to issue a negative declaration for uh item three. Second the motion. All those in favor? I. All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Get a motion on the site plan review. Make a re make a recommendation for a conditional approval with the submission of the DC wetlands. Second. All those in favor? I I All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Good luck with the project you do. It's great work. There's so many pets out there that you know, my daughter adopted a dog that was abused and neglected and it took nine months to get him. But now he's the greatest, happiest little guy. His tail's always going, so it's Yeah. Anyway, thank you. Yes. Thank you. [Laughter] All right, that was items three and four. New business. Uh, site plan review request LLC construction of a 400 square f foot

leasing office for a self storage units at 2016 Batau Place. Hi, I'm Matt Kugan with Drew Construction. I'm representing LLC. They own and operate the movein storage facilities. Um, this current property on Betto Place has four storage buildings, um, totaling 150 storage units roughly. We're proposing a new 400 square foot leasing office. Um it'll be occupied by one employee for daily use of administrative tasks. Um monitoring the facility. Um we're planning three parking spaces, one handicap, two standard with an access aisle and um concrete walkway. Okay. It's pretty small. 400 square feet. Is there a bathroom in there? There's one bathroom. And then is that's for the employee employee. Imagine if someone was there as renting and they had leasing a thing and they had a Yeah. Um Okay. Will you be looking to put a restroom in there? Yes. There's planned to be one restroom. unisex restaurant. No, it's okay. So, where you where you connect to the sewer? So, we currently are working with an engineer who recently developed a septic plan. Um, I have those plans here. Um, septic. There's no sewer there. Yeah, the the closest sewer is on

Erie Boulevard. There's there's not one on Batau Place. Um, so we have a small leechfield design. more cost effective to just do. Yeah. And and simpler to do that inside the city because municipal usually they don't allow. We did not um we are looking to get approval. Um because the actually I think the city border is like right on the edge of this property. The city border is right on the edge of this property I believe. Um so that's something we will have to look into I suppose. I'm not sure. Yeah, the sewer is probably Well, Ryan's had sewers, but that's private. Yeah. And you know, I believe it, you know, the parking lot's very large, so the sewers, their lateral is far away and it goes directly down to Erie Boulevard as far as I'm aware. So nothing runs through Batau Place. No, nothing. Right. So the bougie's got sewer. um running sewer fastrack fast track. Yes, I asked him. He said he's on an independent septic system. Yeah. That would come from engineering. I'm pretty sure engineering public. Yeah. But so they get it brought up to them before. Yes. Um I spoke to the water department, sewer department. Um forgot the name of the gentleman I spoke to. Yeah. Yes, I believe so. Um and you know I I asked him uh to send me all the information he has of past surveys and and you know they did not locate anything on Batau Place um besides water

supply uh storm. Um, so I think uh Tony Nash seemed to believe that they they would get approval to do a septic system in this location because it's kind of infeasible to run a lateral all the way to Erie Boulevard. So if the board was concerned, you could attach a condition just to make sure that the it's signed off on by uh water department. Uh got to get all their permits, right? They have to get those permits anyway. So, it may be redundant, but if the board was concerned, that would happen. Well, not health department. I said that you want they don't want people put septics in their sewer, whether it's I mean, did you guys know cost on getting it or maybe from that location through Erie? We did not get a preliminary estimate from anybody. Um we just figured based on experience that a small leech field would be much more cost effective and also concerned with you know easements and things going through properties. So So there's no connection from where the property to correct somebody else's property. Yes. And then Yeah. and the the nearest manhole for each for the sewer. There's one on this side of Batau Place and and one on the other. So, you'd have to kind of tear up portions of Eerie Boulevard there. And don't think something we want to get into. Lightning. I think it's just wall packs on the building, right? We have a wall-mounted

uh light, battery backup above the entrance door, and a um 18 foot pole light that's on a twoft base, so 20 ft total. Anything on the flag pole? No, the flag pole, I believe, is 20 ft tall. um that's something the owner is going to provide and um he has um a company that he works with with movement storage that does all of his flag pulls I suppose. So what do you think you want to put in or just They got a permit for permit and field, right? Yeah. Well, they get they do part of the permit process as long as they don't and then if they don't get a permit for a leech field, then they'd have to come back if they're going to connect to a sewer. With the advent of the new um so with the advent of the new administrative site plan modification, if worst comes to worst and a ruling came through that said you can't have a leech field. If they wanted to have um sewer, uh it wouldn't necessarily have to come back to the whole board. It would go to you and the planning director uh with the whatever ruling it was saying we need this modification and then you guys would decide either send it back to the whole board or we could approve the modification as an administrative modification. I didn't see that. You said they submitted. We did not submit it for the planning board application. Uh we just have the site plan here. Um we do have a septic design um that was wrapped up after the um after we submitted the application though. Where are you trying to position? Where you trying to put it? Looking at the plan in plan view here. Just to the right of the building. Um

I think it was a behind it. Nope. Um to the right of the building here. Yes, I believe that's uh east. How far is your go? Is that all your is that all part of that parcel that all that area? Yes. You already did a per test there? Yes, it bked at uh 6 in and I believe it was 30 minutes per inch. So we have the leech field is 34 feet is the um percolation bed length 3 ft wide. Um the overall mound is a little bit larger. 50 feet by 20. So 30 foot runs and there's how many runs? There's two laterals. one, you know, it's a T that comes into the center and then you have a lateral going one direction and a lateral going the other direction. This would be like two basically two. Correct. Yeah. Well, they have enough room if they all right. Any other questions for the applicant? Thank you. Thank you. Uh we're going to do an electric heat pump. Air to air. Electric heat. So you're going to put pipe it up. Is you going to use just like a mini split you're saying? Or you put it in the ground like a geothermal? No. Most likely a mini split with an interior air handling unit ducted inside um to provide heating and cooling and then outside air to air. Yes. For 400 square feet. Yeah. Right. All right. That's all. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Uh members of the community, we'll open the floor for any questions, comments or against community and economic development. Since the proposed construction is less than 4,000 gross square feet, the proposed project qualifies as a type two action for Seeker and doesn't require further review. Um our department has reviewed the proposed site plan for zoning compliance and found it to be compliant. We recommend approval. The proposed site plan is presented. Uh the project is located in close proximity to an underground water line and we remind the applicant to be aware that they need to coordinate with the city's water department during construction. Um and that's pretty much it from our end. I got one more question. Trash. What do you do for trash? Currently I think um they're on the um city trash route. Um they have the barrels provides. Um I believe the intention is to continue to use those. Do they have dumpsters for the storage units? They don't. If you do that, then everybody be in there. So, if you have to clear something out, they bring in a dumpster, load stuff up, and or sell the stuff, whatever. Yeah, I believe that's how they would do that. City trash collection. I I didn't see a bike that they're my favorite, but this is underneath that size commercial. Yeah, cuz for 400 square feet, it's one per 500 ft. The requirement. Somebody with a bike rides a bike might need to rent a storage unit. You're not wrong. Um, but the the tra the cut off is usually 500 square feet. So the last place be to put 300 bicycle park spots. So I just want to make sure our formula broke down with a million square foot. Uh, yeah. Anyway, I digress. Um, any other questions? Nope. All right. All right. Uh, motion regarding item five. Oh, I got community. Yeah. Make a motion to approve the site plan. You get a second.

Second. All those in favor? I I. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Good luck with your project. Of course, you know, this is still got to get all city permits, comply with state, federal, city code laws, and can't have, you know, if you strike out on the the septic system, you just can't have the train run out in a parking lot, you know. Thanks. Good luck, guys. All right, our sixth and final item. We have a request from the Department of Community and Economic Development for an opinion on a historic district project located at 320 North George Street. Hello, sir. Good evening. Welcome. Would you rather have this up here? You can all look at it or is this okay? I think it's I pass it here. We'll pass it around. It's a nice picture. Yeah. Come on. I'm not allowed to touch anything with glance. All right. My name's Andy Loland. I'm an attorney. Microphone. Make sure they can hear. I'm sorry. Surely you're an attorney with the Well, no. I'm an No, I'm not with the firm. Um, unfortunately. Well, first of all, a little history lesson. Mr. Rizzo might know me. Uh, Mr. Rapki, who was the owner of the property and myself both started with the city corporation council back in 1984. I think he's probably the only one who recognizes probably doesn't recognize me but recognizes the name. And Mr. Rapkkey was um a council for the planning board for quite a few years. Uh and I had the good fortune of representing the historic preservation commission for many years as well. So that's our background. Um and Mr. the law firm well anyway backtrack. Mr. Rabky had planned to be here. Uh he found his daughters had given him and his wife a trip to Greece. He thought they were flying out tomorrow. they ended up flying out today. So, he called me in a kind of a panic and say, "Would you mind?" So,

with that, I offer you uh some whatever thoughts I have. Um so, what Mr. Rapki is looking to do, unfortunately, every other property around him was damaged in the storm. His survived very nicely, but with that, he's now looking to put a roof on because that roof wasn't damaged in the storm. Uh and he's um he's retained uh cobblestone, which has 60 years of experience. Um he's looking to replace a metal roof uh with a shingles um and the existing rubber roof on the side of the property if we were to look at it. See if I get it right. Will will also have a rubber roof replacing on it. Thank you. Got a nice picture. So, uh the um and and we've looked at the property uh the property next door at 318 has shingles. The property Kitty Corner has shingles. The church has shos. And for the most part along that property line, most have shingles. There's still a few metal roofs left. Um he did get a quote last year for a metal roof and it was approximately $56,000. Uh so this is slightly just a little bit more than half. Copper roof is 56,000. The metal not even copper. No, copper would have been in probably the six figures. Yeah. Yes. So the existing roof is not copper. No, the existing roof, as I understand, is metal. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, he's looking to he's got some damage to the property. He's been trying to get to it, but uh with with the storm, any roofer has been lost for the last year or so in this area, and it's just accentuated the last few weeks as well. So, he's looking to have a shingle roof put on um and uh replace the rubber with rubber. And we don't have a color yet, but if the board has any opinion on that one way or another, I'm assuming he's probably going to use a slate color. It's not going to use that. We're not going to use fluorescent orange. Um although we we might be a little advertising but um he um he certainly

wants to keep the property the the law firm he's been with he's been there over 40 years uh the Cook law office was there for years before uh Frank Cook if those who may remember him may not was Cook and Cook for a long time before he added. So uh he's kept the property up. he's like to maintain it and uh he's just obviously trying to mitigate the the dam any potential damage from water into the property and you can see practically speaking you're not seeing the roof to speak up per se because of the roof the way the roof is designed. So we're asking your consideration as far as authorizing that or allowing that to occur. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Any questions? Appreciate it. No problem. So fresh. Well, you know my first my desert plan. Thank you. Appreciate it. Members of the community. Okay. No comments. So, yeah, go I mean a dark color would I think would definitely, you know, fit in. It's already, you know, got the rust look. So, I would say black would probably or any type of dark color, slate, black. What do you think? Buildings. Anything but blue, green, brown. Yeah. So I make a recommendation that they can put the uh asphalt uh asphalt roof in the making a recommendation at community economic development. Yep. So motion they Yeah, I recommend Yep. recommend asphalt in K. Yep. Architect the shingles. Second. All those in favor? I.

All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Motion to adjurnn. Motion to second. All those in favor? I. All those opposed. Motion carries. We're adjourned. sign for you. Thank you. Thank you,