Planning Board - Regular Meeting

All right. Thank you for coming out tonight. The town of Mount Pleasant Planet Board meeting regularly scheduled for August 17th, 2026, 730 p.m. We have business items and a new application. It is a rather late application tonight, so we'll get right into it. Adoption of minutes from the 7-2-26, 7-20-26, and 8-6-26 meetings. I'm going to do those individually. For the 7-2-26 meeting, any questions or comments?

Make a motion to approve the minutes.

Motion from Eileen.

Second.

Second from, I heard, to JD. Second from JD. Walter?

Aye.

Jean?

I'm accusing myself. I was not there.

Eileen? Aye. Oh, John. Hi, Ms. John. Steve? Oh, and Steve's not here. I'm all confused today in J.D. Ignore the man behind the screen, like the Wizard of Oz. Okay, so an aye from me. Okay, next up is the 720-26 minutes. Any questions or comments? I'll take a motion.

Motion to approve the minutes of the 720 meeting.

Motion from Eileen. Second. Second from Jane. Walter.

I recuse myself.

Okay, Jane. Aye. John.

Aye.

Eileen. Aye. JD. Aye. And aye from me. And finally adoption minutes from the 8-6-2026 meeting. Any questions or comments?

Motion to approve.

Motion from Eileen.

Second.

Second from Walter. Walter. Aye. Jane.

I'm recusing myself.

John?

Aye.

Eileen? Aye. JD? Aye. And I'm recusing myself as well because that was one meeting I did miss. Okay. CONSIDER ADOPTION OF RESOLUTION OF APPROVAL FOR SUBDIVISION APPLICATION PSD 26-6 A LOT LINE CHANGE FOR THE DEDICATION OF .23 ACRES OF LAND IN THE TOWN OF MOUNT PLEASANT TO 780 KING STREET FROM 790 KING STREET AND RETURN THE DEDICATION OF .22 ACRES OF LAND IN THE TOWN OF NEWCASTLE TO 790 KING STREET FROM 780 KING STREET. 790 and 780 king street chapel call 100.17-1-30 31 32 and 33 town of mill pleasant 108.5-5 108.5-1-10 108.5-1-1 and 108.05-1-9 town of new castle laura michael strober clarence joseph dunn Okay. So that's, that's a long one, but that's an adoption resolution for King street. I'm just gonna paraphrase it down to their lot lane change between those two homes.

Make a motion to consider to adopt the resolution.

Motion from John.

Can I just ask that we put in a whereas clause that says that the proposed lot line adjustment creates more regular lots and increases the conformity with dimensional requirements of the R120 4D district?

Yeah.

Yep, that's fine. Eileen said the note earlier today. That's a good comment. It just reinforces why we're doing that. So I think that's totally fine. There was also a blank in the resolution about the date of the final plot. They gave that to us on Friday, so we have the correct date. So you can adopt that subject to those two modifications.

Okay, so we have a motion from John. I guess it's subject to what John would say, right? Yes. Okay, so then we have a second? Second. Second from Eileen. Walter?

Aye.

Jane?

Aye.

John? Aye. Eileen?

Aye.

J.D.?

Aye.

And an aye from me. Okay, that was easy. Request for a six-month extension of the resolution approval for site plan application PSP 25-01, wetland application W25-01, and steep slope application SS25-01 for an NYC DEP Kentico ECU connection KEC contract for shoreline stabilization of the Kentico Reservoir to protect an additional 1,600 linear feet from storm-related turbidity. NEAR THE RESERVOIR INTAKE UPPER EFFULENT CHAMBER INCLUDING THE REMOVAL OF ACCUMULATED SEDIMENTS IN SUPPORT OF THE EXISTING WATER SUPPLY USE CREATING A TREE REMOVAL WITHIN THE 50-FOOT WETHERN BUFFER 117.11-3-10 WESTLAKE DRIVE VAL NEW YORK NYC DEP OKAY SO THAT'S A SIX MONTH EXTENSION AND THAT'S BEEN AROUND FOR A WHILE AND THEY'RE DOING WHATEVER THEY'RE DOING

So this is a little bit unusual in that the DEP is requiring the contractor to pay for their building permit fees. The contractor required an invoice from the town to pay the fees, so there's back and forth, and then the DEP has to approve that from the contractor. So it's a convoluted way, but they haven't paid their fees yet, so they need to.

It's all back office minutiae.

That's a new one for us, that somebody hasn't paid their fees on time.

That just sounded like Mike McLaughlin, minutiae, was a word he would use. Okay, so any questions or comments on that? Okay, we'll take a motion.

What is the motion? Six-month extension. That you write a resolution for that? We don't.

We do it as a motion of the board that goes into that.

Okay. I make a motion to approve the six-month extension of the resolution of approval.

Motion from Eileen. Second. Second from J.D. Walter. Aye. Jane. Aye. John.

Aye. Myself.

John accuses himself. Eileen.

Aye.

J.D.

Aye.

And aye from me. Okay. We're good to go on that. It's an aye from me. NEW APPLICATIONS PROPOSED 20 DOCKLAND LANE CONSTRUCTION OF A SINGLE FAMILY DWELLING HOUSE LOCATED TO MINIMIZE GRADING TO BE SET AT THE BASE OF THE ROCK SOAP FOR MINIMAL ROCK REMOVAL EROSION AND SETTLEMENT CONTROL PLAN IS PROPOSED ALONG WITH STORM WETTER MANAGEMENT. Application steep slopes PLSS 26-11, wetlands PLW 26-3, location 20 Dogwood Lane, Brightcliff Manor, section block lot number is 98.16-2-14, zone R40, owner and arbiter is Benjamin Porto, engineer, architect, Cronin Engineering. Welcome.

Good evening. Steve Marino, principal with Tim Miller Associates. I'm the wetlands part of this application. With me this evening is Patrick Bell of Cronin Engineering. He'll be talking about the steep slopes part of the application, and also with us is Mr. Porto, the owner of the property. We are here before the board for both a wetland permit and a steep slopes permit for the construction of a new residential dwelling at the very end of Dogwood Lane. The property, as you can see, is a long, narrow parcel with kind of an odd geometry at the entrance to the property. and then a wider area at the rear. Back in May of last year, I delineated the wetlands on the site. There's a small pocket of wetlands intermixed with some rock, exposed surface rock at the front of the site. There's a water course about 100 feet into the property, and beyond that, there's upland area, which leads to the proposed residential portion of the property. And here you can see colored is the steep slope area in the back of the property. Our proposal is to cross the wetland and stream coming in off Dogwood Lane. If you've seen the property, when you see the property, you'll see that there's really no access to the buildable part of the parcel without crossing wetlands and or streams. What we've done is we've worked to where the narrowest portion of the wetland is where the stream crossing will be and are proposing a bridge, a 20-foot-long bridge that will actually span the entire stream so there'll be no direct stream disturbance. Beyond the stream crossing, we have a driveway that leads to the back. And then Mr. Porter, who's an architect, is in the process of designing a residence to be placed right at the toe of that steep slope area there. There's enough room on the property to build the residence he envisions without going very far into that rock in the back there. The crossing of the wetland and stream will require about 1,600 square feet, a small amount of disturbance to the wetland. Like I said, we picked a narrow portion in order to cross there. Total within the 100-foot buffer is about 17,000 feet. We recognize that Mount Pleasant has a 50-foot buffer currently, but we're thinking ahead. We understand that the 100-foot buffer is in the near future. We're conceding that and building our project based on that 100-foot setback. Along with the residence, the house built in the back of the property, we have stormwater management proposed. pick up runoff off the driveway. The driveway itself will be gravel. So there'll be minimal runoff from that area, but there's a runoff coming off the roof of the house, et cetera. So we have stormwater proposed in the area to the, uh, to the east of the proposed residents. Stormwater management will be taken care of on site. And then as part of the disturbance within the wetland area and buffer, we're proposing a mitigation plan. which will include enhancement of native species that are already on the site with trees and shrubs and other planted material along the length of the driveway as you get to the house, all within the 100-foot buffer. Um, I, we've received memos both from Mr. Cleary as well as the, the town's wetland consultant. I know that that one consultant was out there today. We only received the comments as we were walking in. Um, I believe that most of the questions that the wetland consultant answers is asking is already contained within our, in our wetland complete wetland package, which was submitted. Um, but we'll, we'll be sure to respond point by point to, uh, to those comments. I think Mr. Bell then can now just kind of briefly touch on the steep slopes aspect, and then we're certainly open to any questions from the board.

Thanks, Steve. Good evening, Chairman and members of the board. Yeah, the residence was placed in an area to try to minimize the disturbance of steep slopes as much as possible while still providing areas for stormwater mitigation. and the applicant reasonable use of the property. There is no basement associated with the residence, so there's not going to be any excavation. There is some grading on the backside of the residence into the steep slopes, but we tried to minimize that as much as possible while still fitting the residence on there. And the comments that we received from Mr. Cleary, I believe that they're contained within our plans, but we will address those in response.

Okay.

Thank you. I just want to make a couple other quick points.

With regards to the comments from your consultant, he did ask that a mitigation plan be prepared. There is a mitigation plan which has already been prepared. This is it right here, which is in the package you received. In the package, there's also an illustration of what the residence will look like and how it fits into the property. So I think it would be a great idea for you to take a look at that while you're going through the application package. The memo references the stream on the property as being a trout stream. We don't believe that's the case. We've had discussions with the DEC. It's our understanding that that's a Class C stream, not a Class Bt stream, which would be for trout and which would require a higher level of excuse me stormwater management but we'll look into that again just to confirm that we've contacted the dc uh... you may recall that when we first started looking at this property the new uh... dc regulations were in effect that required us to look at smaller properties in smaller wetlands in terms of what might be regulated by the dc we have received correspondence with the c that this property does not fall into those new regulations and now since that since we got that response the new regulations have been thrown out by the courts anyway so it's kind of a moot point but In any case, the wetland on the site is not regulated by the DEC. And the CIC has been pulled into this conversation, right?

I don't see Steve here tonight, but they've gotten the referral. Okay. One thing I would mention, Mr. Chairman, so we haven't heard from Dave Smith yet. So there's two things that, Steve, you didn't mention, which is – the bridge that will span the wetland. It's a watercourse where there could be, the foundations or the footings may have some influence on flood storage in that area, so we need to understand if it's being displaced. If it is, you gotta restore it somewhere else. And the other thing that wasn't clear is utilities that have been brought to the house so this is the only spot on the site you could put a house they found the right spot the site's constrained in every way but the one spot they found for the house is an appropriate location but getting it requires that bridging but sewer water how is that getting in there is that on the bridge is it under the bridge that needs to be explained well that's an important point too thanks pat is that we've worked with the village of briarcliff manor

public work water and sewer are available in dogwood lane so we don't need to worry about wells we don't need to worry about septic systems on site so we are able to to uh tie into the uh but will the utility lines go under the stream will they go you know because they indicate you know four feet down but

You're going to dig under? You're going to divert the stream? How do you do that?

As we finalize the details, we'll confirm whether it's going to go under the stream or whether it's going to be hung underneath the bridge. There are different ways to do that. And I think one other thing that Pat had brought up when we had our previous informal discussion is that because of the way the lot lines are set up on the property, the property actually is not conformant to zoning. There's a setback issue. We need a 60-foot setback, not from the street, but from this property line here.

You got 25.

I think 20 or 25. So we need a variance. MS. Can you explain that?

Because the house is 300 feet back from the front-front property line. Why is that interior?

MR. Sal is considering the back interior line is also a front yard.

MS. Because it's parallel or generally parallel to – okay. MR.

So we were concerned about that. MS. So you still need a variance. MR. So one thing we would ask tonight, I think, is that the Board refers to the ZBA to start the process in getting the variance. And then certainly once we have the variance in hand, we'll be back to finalizing things.

I do think we want to knock on Steve Caffey's door. And Dave Smith. And Dave Smith, because I think if there's something from the CAC, I think the ZPA should also have that as an input. But I would, I know Kellyn came out tonight. Kellyn, would you like to say anything?

You submitted this? I didn't get this in my packet. That's what I thought. It sounded like from your memo that you didn't get some of the stuff that we had submitted. I didn't get this in my packet, so that's good. Can you tell what page is that?

It says site plan.

It says June 25th of 2026.

Utility and grading plan.

Utility and grading plan was the base map for the mitigation plan, yes.

So for me, I think I'd like more information on your delineation, some photos, just to give the board some information on what it currently looks like. Because when I was there, I saw some skunk cabbage. I saw some fern within the rock. So just to confirm if that's a flood storage area or if that's part of your .

So I'm going to ask a small favor. Anybody who's speaking, just grab the mic because people actually do listen to us. And you can just pull right off the top of that thing. Just pull hard.

There you go. So what I was saying is I think it would be good for the applicant to provide some photos, the delineation sheets if you did any Army Corps sheets. If you took any soil samples, that would be good. I know on the rocket it's difficult. but i know when i visited up in the rock outcropping there were some uh obligate species in there uh today and it looks like there's some sort of flood storage within that area or even before you're crossing here so that's my concern right in here where you're talking about your infiltration garden because also the rock kind of comes this way towards. I know there's kind of a little ebb right here, but there's a lot of rock in this area. It's not just this little tiny piece. There's a lot of rock in there.

This is all rock through here and a lot on the other side of the stream as well.

Yeah, so the whole thing right in there is rock. So how are you going to chip that out within the 50 foot? Are you going to remove it with heavy machinery? I think that kind of that methodology is going to be key. And then how you're going to span that stream, you know, per the DEC requirements. And then your utilities, where you're going to place those utilities. And then I think this is good to have because I didn't see this before. So thank you for that.

In the package that we submitted, there are a number of photographs of the site. There's a representative photo of the bridge that's going to be used on the site. So I think once Cohen gets a chance to really go through our package, I think he'll get a lot of the answers he's looking for.

And I'm going to ask you a leading question that I know the answer to. Uh-oh. But I want to say, in case anybody's watching, is there a reasonable way to put it?

access to that drive to that house any other way no thank you yeah i think obviously that's the most important consideration it's the wetland spans right across the front of the property along the street um and then there's the stream does the same thing uh west to east or east to west um so really the only way to get to that portion there that buildable part of the site is by crossing

And the reason I asked that question was a leading question because we do take, and I'm sure you do too, the wetland issues seriously. And I don't want the public, if they are watching, to think that we're minimizing the impact of wetlands and all of that. So I want to make sure that that we're aware of the fact there's really no reasonable alternatives.

We believe that we're that we are and we've designed this to minimize those impacts. Like I said, we're crossing at the narrowest portion of the flagged wetland. The driveway is as narrow as it can be. It's going to be gravel rather than asphalt. We're spanning the stream with a bridge rather than putting a culvert in the stream and crossing over it that way.

What are the plants you're going to do in the wetland or anything? Are you going to do any plants in the wetland?

There's gonna be plants in the wetland along the edge of the wetland and all the way up the driveway within the 100 feet on both sides so that we can supplement the vegetation that's already out there.

So the only important thing is if this ever does go down to becoming a reality, we have to make sure that any future homeowner or this homeowner knows that this is this is a meeting no more. I want to make the bridge rider, I want to put a hot tub in there, I want to this, I want to that, whatever they want to do. Only because I've been on the board for a long time, people come back to us and they say they want to make a bigger, better, different, we just want to make sure that's understood. A walking trail.

A 12-foot-wide paved walking trail.

I think also maybe a construction phasing-wise, some sort of part barrier to ensure that any construction vehicles coming in to to create this house, I think making sure that they have to stay on this narrow path.

Let me ask you this other question now. So in inclement weather, you're throwing salt and sand on that driveway. When you're plowing that driveway, where is that salt and sand going? that's the other question so now and I'm just predicting the questions are gonna come to us so if you're especially from our CEC they're very very thorough so as an example if you're putting salt and sand on to that driveway and you're plowing that's that driveway now when you plow the snow goes into the string so is that salt and sand going into that string

We will look at that and figure out a way to manage the salt and sand, or at least plowing, snow management. We'll come up with a plan for snow management.

And there's no plan to put pesticides, herbicides, or anything like that around? No. That's all wooded, right?

It's all wooded, and it's fully the intention to keep it a natural site. As you can see, there's around the house, and you'll see when you look at it. Actually, I'll show you right now. That's an illustration of the residence as it's proposed.

It's got a gravel pad around it. This is the garage here built right up against that rock outcropping in the back of the site. And existing stone walls will remain or be restored.

A small patio area right in front.

And that's really it. And here's my take on it. I'm never concerned about the person who's doing the development. You meet the 20, 30 years. I'm always concerned about the guy who moves in after you. And what I'd like to do is just document everything. So if we want to make sure that whatever we do documents the fact that this was the intent of the board and protecting the environment, protecting the woods, protecting the stream, and that it was this board's decision at that time to make that decision based on that fact. And if you're in the house for 20 years, God willing, 30 years, God willing, whatever the number of years you want to be there, and somebody else buys the house and then wants to knock down all those trees, you want to document in that resolution that that was not the intent of this board.

Well, you know, our intention, Mr. Porto supports that as well. It's our intention in terms of documenting everything. We will respond to questions we've gotten both from Pat and Kellen in writing so that everything's on the record and in the board certainly in their resolution when we get to that hopefully we'll have specific conditions for that.

So we do need to get some stuff from Dave. I do think we should just it's probably new to the CAC but I want to make sure we get the CAC engaged. And that's it.

chairman i think if the if the town has a mechanism if the property change changes hands if there's a flag on that to say okay this new owner has to you know sign an agreement or whatever an acknowledgement to say you know we understand that we cannot do x y and z you know perhaps this is an unusual application just for the what steve described this is a gravel driveway they're not plowing so they're going to be inclined to use salt or other mechanisms that may not be necessarily appropriate next to the stream so

That protocol needs to be clearly established between those two smart guys, and the future owners need to know about that. So I like Kellen's suggestion, which is like we do with accessory apartments. If it changes hands, got to come back to you and the new owner, and you get to say new owner, make sure you do the following protocols.

Right. Because we've been burnt a couple times over the years.

Yeah. Yeah. Can you... Think about, or if you haven't already, how are you going to get rid of the rock? That's where your driveway is. At the back of the house, it looks like you're going to have to, are you going to chip? Are you going to blast? Those things are... We brought our engineer for just such a question. But also, probably related, did you do any kind of perk test to see whether that stormwater detention is going to work? Because if that's just the exposed rock, then there's rock a foot below. Have you...

We haven't done the field testing to this point, but we will get that completed in regards to the to the rock. The removal will be by chipping will not don't propose to blast it. And to whatever extent we can use the rock on site, we will. Otherwise it will be trucked off site.

Thank you.

Question. Are you designing this bridge for truck and construction loading?

Yes, yes, it is cool that heavy machine fire and coordinated with the fire department too. So whatever vehicle their worst case vehicle, they're going to tell me what that is. So you've got to accommodate their loads, not your loads.

I'll defer to the applicant on that, but I believe that's all accounted for will be accounted for.

Those loads can be significantly more substantial than your normal SUV or vehicle, particularly if you're hauling.

Yeah, the fire department will tell you what it is.

It may have like an H loading, an HS loading.

But I have to say, I do enjoy the fact that that house is

not a typical house and it's going to blend in better than some of these thick built houses that are just gigantic homes. And so it looks nice.

I would point out, Mr. Chairman is encouraging because it's not as though they're just sort of sticking something on the site. It's designed for this unique site, which makes at least this applicant is demonstrating the sensitivity, whether the future owner is going to maintain that or not, but clearly this, these guys got it. So I know they've designed.

I know who you are just for the record for people who want to see who you are.

Sorry. This is Ben Porter, architect and owner of the property. Just to answer that question on audio, the HL93 is the designation for the bridge to support vehicles, fire department, that level of stuff.

Okay. Okay. Anything else from the rest of the board?

I recommend them to the ZBA.

Do you want to send them to the ZBA or wait for the comments?

Normally you get at least Dave and CAC's comments before you do the referral. That's your typical procedure.

I would, Aaron's had a caution because of, why don't we get the CAC comments and Dave's comments and this May. That's fine.

Okay, so no motion needs to be made. We're just waiting. Okay.

Thank you. All right, guys. Thank you very much. I'll just say motion carried.