Planning Board - Regular Meeting

I would like to call the December 16th meeting to order. Um attendance. Mr. Shuels present. Mr. Scully present. Mr. York here present. Tony Dickinson present. And I will be chairman tonight. Peter Kho will be absent. Yes. And I would like Mr. Shufeld to lead us in the pledge of allegiance.

Everyone, please stand for the pledge. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. So, our next next administrative item is going to be to review the proposed changes to schedule.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Um, I would like to make a motion to adopt the minutes of the October 21st meeting. Everybody in favor? I'll second the motion. Oh, sorry. Everybody in favor? I I Okay. Now, we have before us uh proposed changes to chapter 285 of the city charter regarding zoning regulations. And I understand that we need to schedule a public hearing.

Madam Chair, yes. I would just like to uh correct something in the I would just like to correct something in the city council resolution. Okay.

Uh it does say that the failure of the planning board to report its recommendations on or before December 24th shall be deemed an approval of the proposed amendments. Uh I guess I I think I need to own that mistake. It should not have said December 24th. I write the legislation for the council. Perhaps I wrote it for an earlier meeting and just forgot to change it. But the the board generally has up to 62 days to review something like this. Um our the next meeting of the board uh in January will be w within that 62 days if uh and that would be time enough to make a determination or or recommendation or unrecommendation whatever you you care to do as well as hold the public hearing.

Okay. Okay. And I I will if you'll authorize me, I will uh report to the council uh on this so that they can correct it when they after they get your final report. Okay. I will give you that permission. Okay. And our next meeting is January. The date on it.

Do we have to have a motion on that? January meeting date is uh January 20th. January 20th. You make a motion to schedule a public hearing on uh the repeal of and amend uh section 285 of the pl of the code. Second. All in favor? I I all oppose. Motion is carried. So, I will make a motion that we will have the meeting for this hearing on chapter 285 on

January 20th. I thought it was earlier. Yeah, I think we just Okay.

So, are we ready, gentlemen?

Ready? Ready. Okay, our first order of business will be PLPC2040019 Eddie's Lane. Do we have someone here that would like to speak on that?

Yeah, if you don't mind. Uh, good evening. uh Nick Costa from Advanced Engineering and Survey. Uh and we're here tonight to present the uh uh the project that's being proposed at uh Eddie Lane. Uh this was before the board uh uh back in uh October I believe it was and uh uh we revised the uh drawings based on the uh staff reports and uh uh we the applicant here is proposing to develop 72 apartments in eight buildings. Uh and uh we do have the uh copy of the uh current staff report and uh there's there's nothing within that those uh comments that we received from the the the staff report that are uh uh major. They're they're pretty much minor. Uh I've spoken with the uh the applicant. uh he he will allocate uh some space in each building for uh the the bike racks or the bike storage. Uh he he he's not going to be seeking a waiver for that. Uh that that will be uh allocated in uh uh in in three of the buildings uh they're they're being built. Uh the uh uh the other items uh as uh as shown on the staff report are just uh you know minor uh items as I as I mentioned that uh we will be able to easily address those with uh some signage for the trails and uh kiosk for the for the

trail. Uh so you have a monument sign. Uh did you get a variance for that? No, we haven't. you have it. No. So, we have to um take that in consideration that that's going to Yes. You know, and they don't need to come back for that to us, do they? Later in I'm sorry, I I missed what what is it? They need they need variance for a monument sign, you know. Um so, but they wouldn't have to come back if they get the variance. That's all within if you want if you want to approve the application on the Have you had a public hearing and stuff like that? This is Yeah, we're at this is public hearing. This is the public hearing. You can condition the approval. Okay.

Yeah, that that's correct. Uh so uh there will be extension as I mentioned the last meeting there'll be extensions of uh water and sanitary su sewer and the storm water will be manageable on site uh and uh uh there is a comment with regards to having hydrants uh placed close to the building which uh we will add you know we will have to add some hydrants. Uh again, those are those are pretty much the the comments that I see here. Uh as you can see on the on the screen, that's the layout of the uh of the buildings and the uh circulation around the uh uh the road. Uh

so these are the same drawings we saw last year. That's correct. with just the minor uh edits that we did to uh we added the playground area. Uh over in uh

uh and then we uh the the trail again uh some signage was added to the trail. U uh that that's all that really changes. We we did some uh layout revisions to the parking area to uh have sufficient maneuvering area for uh uh the when the dumpster gets picked up. Uh but those those were pretty much the uh uh we we checked out the setback to the to the parking. That was another comment that was uh brought up. And uh we are we are within the uh that you know we're we meet that uh requirement uh and it's been noted on the drawings. Uh so if there are any uh questions that be more try to answer those.

I have some questions. Um you have on your map one of them that I looked at. I've looked at so many snow storage areas. Yes. Okay. Um, how do you move that snow to those snow storage areas? Are you having sidewalks and curbs and they're beyond the sidewalk? So, how do you move that snow over there? they they they would still uh place uh the the snow, you know, push the snow over and and clear the sidewalks so that uh you know, they would not uh the snow storage would not uh spill over onto the sidewalks.

Okay. So, when you plow the streets, where does all that snow go? It would be as uh depending that doesn't show the snow storage areas, but wherever the snow the green space that was used for the snow for the snow storage would be accessed uh and and the plows would push it onto there. It's like a mountable curb might be appropriate in those areas. Yes. Okay. All right. Um the area between building five and four that great big green space um is that there because of storm drainage in there? Uh

yes, that's correct. Okay. So there is no way that you could move your amenities into that area because it has to be used for the snow for the drainage. The drainage and that's also the lower area. Uh so it it lends itself to uh operate as a storm water management area. Okay. Okay. Um so your amenities that's all going to be out in the open. Is there going to be any say you're going what are you going to do with the amenities? You're going to have a little small park for the children. That's correct.

And what else is going to be there? There's also uh some tables and a barbecue area right adjacent to that. Okay. Is there going to be any coverage for that? I we don't show that, but we can certainly consider that as a as a Y. Would you consider fencing that area in for the children? And yeah, I don't see why uh they can't be fenced even, you know, maybe a low fence so that I mean just for that whole amenity area so you can you know if you're cooking, your kids are running around and they take off on you, right?

Uh whatever that that would be a nice I think. Okay. Okay. Is there anyone here that would like to comment on this project? Anybody on Zoom? No.

Okay. So, is everybody good with I'm good with So, I'd like to make a motion to approve uh this application uh contingent or coincidental to uh getting a variance for your minor sign. I second that motion. Do you want to include the fence? Excuse me. Do you want to include the fence in your condition? Um, yes. Do you want any definitions for it? Do you want Do you think timber rail is the best option? Do you want to leave it to my discretion and review or I'll leave it to your discretion? Lucky.

Why don't you start from the top if you wouldn't mind from the top of the motion? The motion. Would you make the motion again if you're includes both conditions? Uh I'd like to make a motion to approve this application with a condition of a coincident to the uh variance for the monument sign and suitable fencing uh regarding any common area use for parks or recreation for the children to be approved by the city engineer. To be approved by the city engineer. Yes. J. I second the motion. All in favor? I I

opposed. Motion is carried. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. The second um on the agenda would be PLP20250056. Uh Toast of Hudson. Is anybody here to speak on that?

Evening. I'm Jeffrey Goldstone. I'm the architect for the project. Goldstone Architecture. I'm Garrett Brown, owner of the property.

Okay. We're looking for uh our final approval for planning for the project. We have gone through the uh zoning. We had two uh variances granted to us for the heights of the decks and one slightly larger than allowed sign. We've uh completed the historic uh review. I know the the staff report says we're in the process. It was the historic review as far as I understand was fully granted. Uh we met the conditions of the first meeting and and met with them the second time.

Okay. Um we have submitted to the city uh the utilities uh calculations for the additional sewage flows. Um, and we have added, um, we will add, let me just say it that way. Although we have a drawing to show how we do that, the long-term bike parking that's been provided or that's been suggested, something we had, uh, missed. And we'd like you to uh, understand that there is short-term bike parking immediately across the street from back. We weren't planning to do additional parking in that location. So, where would your long-term barbecue for the bikes be?

I can I'm going to pull it up. You can pull it up or I can show you. I actually brought some copies of the of the sketch that we did for it if you'd like. And this this would fit. You all have copies, I believe, of the lower level. So, the longterm parking long We're showing

room adequate for eight bikes. I believe six is what's required by the zoning ordinance. happy to to run down the the summary of the project again if you like, but I know we before you we described it before and seen the drums. So maybe for the benefit of the public if you could just a quick summary.

We're actually asking for your approval of a four-phase project. First phase would be replacing some of the decks behind or all of the decks that are behind on the river side of the building and adding new decks, a new lower level deck. point to appear for you here and can you take the microphone with you? I'm sorry.

Sure. Uh replacing the deck that's here now. Adding a new deck where I'm pointing here and a second floor deck here. That would be the first phase of the project. On the second phase, we'd be adding the tower that allows for an elevator to be used to access the upper levels of the building of the restaurant part of the building and the and the Rev Hall part of the building. That elevator would also access the upper floors of the building and in subsequent phases adding an oyster bar on the fourth floor of 417.

417. Thank you. And then in the last phase doing residential units, 11 residential units on the upper floor of the remainder of the building. That's a short summary, but that's what we're making. Okay. Um question Yeah,

so I wanted to ask Chris about the uh the cso offsetting. Yes. So it appears what would really trigger that is probably the fourth phase adding you know residential units upstairs. So essentially that would probably trigger it under permitting at that point. But either way, yeah, I probably would just condition uh city approval of the CSO for each stage of the building permit just to ensure it gets looked at.

Okay. But since there's no increase in occupancy or bathrooms or sewer capacity for the first few phases, that's really building department and engineering. So, you know, in our purview, you know, we're we're looking at, hey, what the impact and are there big changes here that we need to address? But that's really more what the nuts and bolts of construction of the apartment part of the project. Is that what we're talking about? A condition would be appropriate because Frankly, I mean, this is sort of a collapsed review. I mean, with these phases, right?

So, normally if you were just reviewing a a um a residential development by itself, 11, you would require or at least, you know, require that there be a CS CO. So, if we're doing this approval including phase four, so you make it conditional. We should make a condition um that uh includes that. That's so that way they won't have to come back to us when they do phase four. Is that correct? That's correct. Correct. Yeah. And we we understood that. Yeah. Okay. Good. Okay. Public hearing. So, anybody from the public speak?

Would anybody from the public like to speak on this proposal? Do we have anybody on Zoom? Okay. I'd like to make an appro um a motion to approve this application with the condition of the uh meeting of the cso on phase four of the project. Um well on each phase on each each phase of the project uh with that condition. Um uh I second that motion. Everybody in favor?

I. Anybody in opposition? No. Well, congrats. Congratulations. You're all You're all set. The next item on the agenda is PLPZ2023 0045 at 185 Earl Street.

Good evening. Uh Greg Connor with Architecture Plus. Kristen Kagg, director of real estate Unity House. So, since our last uh planning board, we did go to the zoning um board of appeals to get the variance for the 50% um transparency on the ground floor. They did grant us that um variance looks much better.

Uh so, we are seeking final approval. I know we're still working through our uh finalizing our easement on that end, but um other than that, it's just the staff comment on commercial signage details. I wanted to just uh kind of chime in and say uh that I received your email um and before I had a chance to respond to it, I was going to direct you towards

this gentleman here who is our corporation council. So you can follow up with him in terms of what's needed. So did you did you say you do have the easement agreement and it has not gone to the corporation council yet? So it's we're giving an easement from one property to right I understand you own both properties together. So we just haven't given it to but it's so you haven't seen it yet? I have I have not. Okay. Have you sent it to me?

No, we're just trying to finalize that with Union House's legal council. So So So usually that might be in the form of um kind of a a covenant that runs with the land or something like that. So you would you could um one or or an easement one part one you could deed to yourself from one parcel to another an easement.

Okay. Essentially uh giving this the dominant parcel which is the one that owns the easement the right to go on the land of the the servant parcel for whatever purposes you you uh write it up. But um you know and you wouldn't want it for the entire parcel. You'd probably want it for a limited area. It's it's mainly to for the trash I guess. Correct. Right. Al alternatively, you could sell a strip of land and subdivide a little bit. I don't even know if that would result in a review or not, but I'm not sure. Probably be a subdivision, right?

Yes. But some subdivisions don't unless it creates another build a new build of a lot. I'm not sure if it's uh if it's review lot line adjustment. A lot line adjustment, right? Right. Uh the other staff comment was just commercial signage details. Um I think our previous elevation does have have some information on that, but if it's missing anything um from the code, we can certainly supplement that. Um well, I saw those details actually after you mentioned that. Um, I would probably just say like when you when you apply for your signage, probably have them drafted up on a separate set of documents to show a little bit more in detail like with the sizes of each letters and and how it projects off of the set of wall.

Okay. Those are the only two items. So, okay. Is the application perfected? Oh, yeah. They have a complete application. They're here for a hearing tonight. They already have their application. I saw emails before where the fees hadn't been paid or something. Those fees have been paid. Okay. Okay. Do we have any Well, do we have any questions? Good. No questions from from us. Okay. Um, so is anybody here would like to in the audience would like to speak on this proposal? No. Anybody on Zoom?

No. Okay. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to approve this application condition review and approval of either the easement agreement or the lot line adjustment. Whichever way you go by the corporation council by the corporation council. Right. A second. Everybody in favor? I opposed. Motion is passed. Thank you. You're all set. Thank you. Next item on our agenda is PLPB 20250038.

Yeah. Um, if you want do you have a USB port or Oh, there it is. You can just kind of check like just join the meeting there. Yeah, I'm in the meeting. I didn't see if you don't have sharable features, let me know. I think you should. There you go. Okay, there we go.

Uh, so good evening. Joe Dannibal with the Environmental Design Partnership here on behalf of RJ Valente Companies and our application for the Bellabita Residential Community uh to be located at the location of the former Uncle Sam's parking garage. Um we have been here at several meetings uh at this point in front of the planning board. We've also held a uh community or like a town hall style meeting where we invited members of the community to speak about this project. Uh that was done very early on trying to get as much information as possible gathered um so that we could put together the uh best possible uh project for the city. Uh quick quick review as a this is uh located in the location of the uh former Uncle Sam's parking garage. It's in between third and fourth streets uh north of Fulton Street and south of Best Western Hotel. Uh it's adjacent to uh the Riverfront Park. Site itself is 2.13 acres. Uh it's a consolidation of four different tax parcels that have been purchased at this time by the applicant himself. Uh we are looking at constructing a five-story building. First floor would be a parking garage. Second story uh through the fifth story are residential units. On the second story is amenity space approximately an outdoor space of 30,000 uh square feet or outdoor amenities. We're looking at 193 units with 236 parking spaces in the garage. Uh that is set up to provide one parking space for every bedroom within the uh facility. Uh there is additional parking located around the peripheral of the site. That would be on street parking. that is actually, you know, public parking can

be used by anybody. Uh, entrances to the garages are located on third and fourth street. Uh, as discussed at our prior meeting, we uh pushed those garages, we've inset them into the building, so now a car can pull in and be out of the sidewalk while that garage door is opening. Um, I'd like to, you know, identify that the former Uncle Sam's parking garage, the entrances to the parking garage were on Third and Fourth Street. Uh, we've actually changed their location slightly, pushing them further away from the intersections, which do make them a safer, uh, location for the garage entrances. um museum place or the land that is in between our parcel and the best western hotel. I think if everyone recalls our first application had that shown as a uh dog park, outdoor amenity space and green space. Um, at the request of the city, uh, we met with the owners of the Best Western Hotel, um, and we developed an agreement where Museum Place would be reconstructed and and also reconfigure some of the parking on site to provide additional parking space for the uh, hotel. And that is what is being done in that area today. We have a one-way street with parallel parking uh, that is privately owned. There will be an easement over that private alley at call a street private alley uh for um the benefit of the best western hotel and ultimately that is something that easement will be provided to council for review. uh we've been identified that we need uh at least one variance the on that property line. Uh our building is supposed to be within 10 ft of that

property line due to the agreement that the city requested us to work out with those owners. The building is now 29 ft away from the property line. So we do need to apply to the zoning board of appeals and obtain a variance for that setback. Uh I don't think that's a a big ask since we are working with the city to provide ample parking. Uh there's been a request to provide a loading zone. What we are looking to do is we're going to take two parallel parking spaces directly in front of the entrance and mail room on the fourth street side. And that'll be striped off for uh delivery, loading zone, uh Uber, taxi pickups, things like that. so they can get off the street while people are using those services. Also, the mail room, the the mailman can come in, park there to go into the mail room and then provide mail as well as any other services that be dropped off moving. Um if it's coming in by a large tractor trailer um that would be something that we worked where the parallel spaces would be coned off in the morning so that that place space would be reserved for that moving truck in the instance uh that it's needed. All other moving would occur through the parking garage. As I said, the current plot of land, the application is on four separate parcels, all of which are owned by R.J. Valente Companies. Uh, we will be providing a consolidation map or a lot line adjustment map to the city and through an administrative action, those parcels will be consolidated under a lot line adjustment. As I identified, the first floor of the building is a parking garage with 236

parking spaces. We have a mix of uh standard vehicle parking spaces, about 158 of them, and compact car parking spaces, 78 of them to get us up to the 236 spaces. Um there is a trash room located on the first floor with trash shoots from the upper floors. uh within that space those are trash compactors. So we need very limited space in order to provide garbage service to this building. They all come down into the shoots into the compactors are compacted down and then on garbage day weeks pickup whenever pickups are getting scheduled. Those uh compactor spins will be rolled out to the street and picked up by a trash provider. Um we have three primary entrances. Uh main primary entrance is located on fourth street on the first floor of fourth street. We also have access to the residential floors from the Fulton Street and on the museum place side. Uh I'll say a fourth entrance although it's just an entrance. There is a stairway on the third street side that leads up to the second floor amenity space which was requested by the board and the city for fire access to that area. So that is also provided which would be a fourth access point uh to the building. So, there's an access point on each street. Uh, also, we're providing the CDTA with a break room, uh, if you will, that has been reviewed by CDTA, uh, the location and the use of the space inside. Essentially, it's a break room, bathroom for the drivers to get out and do what they need to do in between routes.

Uh, bike storage. We are providing uh nearly 80 long-term bike storage spaces and almost 50 short-term bike storage spaces at le the area for them. Um phase one of the area we would provide the uh long-term bike storage in the room start from the first applicant. I'll take the mic with me. uh in a room down here and then secondary once this room fills up uh bike storage would occur in this location. Uh we have made some modifications to that area where we now have 4 foot of space between the hanging bikes and the front of the garage spaces. We're going to install uh plastic ballards so that the cars can't go into that area and it's going to provide ample room to protect the the car pedestrians and the cars that would be utilizing um that space. We also are providing short-term bike parking storage along the arcade on uh Fulton Street and I'll get more into into that as we talk about the act activation of Fulton Street in that area. Uh there was a comment in the staff review letter that these bike storage spaces might not meet the um requirements for secure bike parking. Um that's something that uh we disagree with. The parking garage is controlled with gates and access uh passcode access or key fob access. Uh so the only people able to get into the parking garage are the residents of the building. Nobody else will be able to get into the parking garage. Uh and therefore we believe it's secure. Similar if you had a bike room with a key fob access, every resident of the building would have a key fob that could get into that bike storage area. Um so

we feel that it is a secure area. There's a question that the board may need to wave uh the the storage bike storage requirement. Um, I don't think it's needed, but if the board is comfortable and staff's comfortable with granting that waiver, we would certainly welcome it. Build out of the frontage along Fourth Street. Uh, this is our primary uh commercial area, primary amenity space, uh interior amenity space for the building. Uh, you come off of Fourth Street for the residential portion. You come into a lobby, you have your mail room uh to the left, a reception area on the right, a uh small workstation on the right as well, and then you enter into elevators and alleyways. Uh we're also building up about a third of that frontage with what would be a potential uh coffee shop, something of that nature, a small commercial service. uh where we also have outdoor seating available uh glass street street again the street activation and commercial space um that the city's looking for along that frontage um at the intersection of fourth and Fulton we have the CD8 TA bus stop and as you can see on the uh north side slightly different from the last rendering this is the updated we have the larger bike storage area this is also going to be like a bike uh mechanic top area for people to wash their bikes, hang their bikes, um along with spaces along this side of the wall to provide additional bike storage. Entrance, as you can see, we pushed the entrance to the garage to the gated access, uh recessed it into the street to give everyone the ability to pull up, get off the sidewalk, allow pedestrians to continue walking, uh north and south on that street. the second floor uh amenity space. Uh

there was some comments that there's uh not a lot of detail on the second floor and then that is true at this point. There is not a lot of detail. Uh we talked about this last time. We want to make sure what we go what goes up there is what the residents are going to want to use. Um, looking at the rendering, it is the intent to have pickle ball courts or sports hard surface sports courts of some form and fashion, pergas, walking trails, outdoor sitting areas, uh outdoor kitchens, uh like the idea of having like a uh small area for a like a gas fire pit where people can sit in aderond chairs and uh have a gas fire pit to be able to turn on. So all things like that will be placed out in that area. The exact design uh will be evolving as uh we continue through the building process uh after approval. But again, it's an outdoor amenity space with plantings uh low planting, small shrubs, grasses. We're not going to be able to get full-size trees up on that area because of the shallow soils and the green roof um that will be existing there. Uh but there is about 30,000 square feet of amenity space on that area that's also used as a green roof and qualifying as the impervious area for the site. Sorry, pvious area. Right. Again, as I said, we want to continue to develop that area and evolve that area as we go. I mean, even what's what gets put in there in day one might be different on year five, year 10, year 20 as the use of outdoor spaces continues to evolve. So, we want to make sure that there's that flexibility um built into our design to be able to um amend this and not be locked into a a

detailed plan that can never change unless we come back here for some sort of site plan review. Okay, we get into the architectural elevations or the 3D perspectives. Um, and I think as part of our uh next submission, there was a comment that we only provided black and white elevations within our submission package. Um, we are going to include these renderings which I think uh these perspective renderings are much easier to look at and get an idea of what the building will look like from various vantage points. Um this is our fourth street side. Top right is the center primary entrance to the building. Uh located here over to the left is the coffee shop with the outdoor seating. Uh we are promoting the arcade look on this side where portion of that streetscape will be covered. Covered walkway covered area for sitting. Uh again on the north and you can see it also uh sorry on the north infancy continuing to the south. Uh and just a different perspective uh looking uh in a southerntherly direction uh along that fourth street frontage.

Where's the garage entrance?

Believe this is the entrance here. You're kind of seeing the side of the wall going back into the building. Uh this is the Fulton Street side of the building. The upper left is a perspective looking from uh beyond the intersection of Fourth, Third and Fulton. Missed an end there. Fulton Street. And the lower right is a perspective looking at from opposite the intersection on Fourth and Fulton. Uh this is an area where we've started focusing uh there's been the city has had some focus on the activation of this street. Uh knowing that the atrium's redeveloping there's some nice restaurants coming in over there. Uh and certainly we want to make sure that what we are doing uh is attractive and blends in with that area. Uh again what we are showing we are showing the arcade appearance where a portion of the sidewalk is covered. uh that area will have down lightings in the roof, so that area will be lit up at night. We are also providing uh landscaping. There's street trees along that side of the street, although not shown in the rendering. We're providing wall sconces for lighting. There is areas for um can't think of the word I'm looking for, hanging baskets, if you will, arms arms extended out. Just to just to confirm real quick, you know, we had talked about the initial plan went over the sidewalk, correct? And then we said, "No, we're going back to the edge of the sidewalk." So, the colony or this uh is not on city property. Correct.

Correct. None of this is on city property, just to clarify. But the but the sidewalks still are under the building in that area. There is still a colonyade or an arcade as we're referring to, right? But it's not going over city side. We're not encroaching into the city. Okay. Thank you.

Now, also identified along the Fulton Street frontage, uh, and this is something within the code, it's alluded to in the code that in the future, should the demand be there for commercial spaces, this area could be converted, those parking spaces could be removed, bump out the building, and create all of this frontage as shopfront as it goes along uh as as it's developed. That's something that's in the code and we made accommodations for that um within uh this building to create that street presence. So, we are going to have the lighting, we're going to have sitting areas, we're going to have bike storage racks over there, outdoor bike storage uh for temporary short-term parking of the bikes. Um it's going to be well lit. We will have areas for sitting. We will have that area also open for uh use by say food vendors or push cart vendors to be able to sell food from under that colonade. Uh could also be utilized by vendors of the farmers market when it is outside. There could get spaces and lease spaces over that area for the farmers market. Uh we'd be willing to work with them. Uh we've also talked with it that could also be used for um street art uh people having uh street art shows providing art spaces. So it is a a passive space but we believe with what we are doing and how it is designed it's going to be um accent well the redevelopment across the street. We do believe it will have street activation and it has the future ability to be utilized for commercial space uh in the event becomes prominent and needed in this area. Again just some additional elevations.

This is now the upper right is looking from uh fourth in museum place. Looking back at the building, you're starting to see the second story. Now, this is the second story where the um outdoor amenity space. That's third street, right? Sorry, I'm looking over here. Yeah, third. I'm backwards. Yes, Third Street is here. Museum Place here. Uh that's the amenity space up on the top. So, quick question. So, the new staircase can is there an elevation that shows where that new Well, it's probably right behind this tree. How do you secure that? Um, it'll be secured with a gate and key fob access.

Key fob. So, the fire department, for example, will be able to access it with their own fob system or whatever. Correct. However, we can certainly work with the uh fire department there. Okay. Um, another variance that was pointed out, and this is something we're going to have to talk with Eric on. Um, it says something about windows either need to come to the corner or be greater than 24 in from the corny. Um, I think every one of the corners of our building bring windows right together. So, I'm not sure exactly what in violation we are of that code. I think that's something we're going to have to walk.

Yeah, I would just need an updated elevation. The elevation shows that there's some gaps between the windows and the edge of the building. Again, there there's that design detail that I didn't make up. But yeah, not sure what that's about, but I was thinking about is probably to not have windows like just so close to the edge of the building. It would just look awkward. You know what I mean? Like windows terminating six inches away, right? But we can bring them right to the corner. Yeah, those are which again I think in every elevation we've shown, we are bringing them right to the corner. So that that was that was something you surprised the architect with. So we'll we can go over that in a little more detail and get you some additional information.

That that acts like almost like a curtain wall then is what is that what we're saying here? That the the glass is you know that is the wall and it's consistent with the brick. Is that what we're saying? It goes right even with the brick. Yeah. Within inches. I'm I'm assuming that's flush as flush can be for whatever detail that that would be. But yeah, that that you can see there's a little bit of reveal on this side here, but yeah, the windows are the wall in those in those are going to be nice bright living spaces. Yeah. With some uh with some great views. So, the red that you're showing on your buildings, is that brick? Yes, that is brick.

Okay. This is where we get into the amenity space, our second floor amenity space, the the artistic rendering of what we want that area to be. Um there was discussion of, you know, snow removal. Uh we don't anticipate clearing and plowing all 30,000 square feet uh in the winter. Uh we're going to maintain the trail system going around maybe a small portion of the sports courts and some small sitting areas. Uh but as you can see there is large areas of vegetation where the snow can be piled up in order to clear those um sidewalks and pathways. So that that there is really no storage snow storage plan. We have ample area on the p uh on that amenity space to be able to provide snow storage. So that's going to be thick enough if you get a couple of feet of snow when you're piling it on those, you're not going to have any problems underneath with where the water is going, it's going to be enough to

Yep. We we have drain systems in there because we are considering this a pvious feature of the site. So as the snow melts, it will go into those drain systems. Um you know, they are designed to handle the the wind load, the snow loads that that could exist in those areas. Okay. And you did mention when you were doing your u amenities up there on the you mentioned gas gas fireplaces or whatever. So that's allowed. Um I I I believe so. I mean certainly something we got to take up with the the fire department. I had asked that last week and you said you weren't sure about and then I heard you mention it this week so I didn't know.

We're not sure it's allowed. We'd certainly like to do it. We we think it's a great amenity. Um I know a lot of people have them very simply in their backyards and even in a lot of apartment communities we do uh we do have them but it's something we can work with the fire chief on which um brings us to another element in one of the comments within the staff review letter. Um it talks about the need for 24 EV charging stations. Um we have no exterior parking. It's all within the building. And I've definitely had conversations in past projects that they don't want EV charging within the building, right? Because it's a fire hazard. So, we really have no opportunity to provide EV charging.

Um, so that that that's something I just wanted to bring to this board's attention and into the staff's attention that it's not wanted by the fire district within the building. So, um I'm not sure if that's a waiver or how we would address that until the fire department gets that sorted out with the Department of State. It's still going to be a requirement. So, you'd still need a variance. That would be a variance. Yeah. But I mean, you're we were going off of your transportation demand management plan. So, I Right. Which which is a review of the city code. Okay. Yeah. Well, I thought it stated that you guys intended to put in 24. Um we we we were until we were realizing that the fire chief did not want them.

So we can we can talk about that at another review session, but we would still need a variance.

Okay. Um take a look at the staff led the staff letter. There is some, you know, revisions to the EAF, revisions to the complete streets, site plan checklists, uh some some very minor, uh clerical things that need to be updated. Um under the recommendations, uh yes, we are ready and willing to go to the review commission, the design review commission for the building architecture. Um there are no employees at the site. There will be a maintenance or a management company that operates this facility. So, there will be people on site, but there is no full-time employee that will be sitting in the building uh at a front desk, anything like that. It will be a management company. Call a management company and they will come address, deal with the garbage. There will be people on site sporadically throughout the day. Um

Joe, what are the different like ways into the building look like for, you know, residents? What do you mean? What do they look like? Like is there outside stairwells? Are they all through the parking garage and then you go inside up doors?

All of the entrances except for the third street entrance that goes up to the amenity space. Uh you'll be entering at street level through a commercial door into a lobby area. uh that will connect to stairs and or an elevator. That's on the north and south side, the Fulton and Museum Place. The entrance on Fourth Avenue, which would be the primary entrance would be a, you know, a little more grandiose, larger lobby. That's where the mail room is. Uh there would be a uh a lobbyish uh if you will in the lobby the uh forgot the term he used. um and some a meeting space and like workspace shared workspace type of a setting. That answer your question?

Yeah. Um easement agreement is a is a recommendation provide elevations and color. Are the perspective views adequate to meet that requirement? The the views? Yeah, I I didn't have a um we didn't look at the renderings and stuff. We're looking for uh elevations that detail the exterior material palette. Okay. Um so if you wouldn't mind just showing us sort of like the color coordination as it pertains to the materials that you intend to use with those areas, that would suffice.

Okay. Um keeping plan for the terrace. Again, we're going to be providing a little more detail on that where we don't anticipate doing a full landscaping plan of every plant, species, and grass on the amenity space of that second floor. Again, as we want that to be a a a living space and a evolving space for flexibility. Um, talked about the long-term biking enclosure. um eliminating one of the entrances and bringing it onto uh Museum Place, kind of the side street. That's one of the comments. Um again, that's an area um that originally was not dedicated to be an alley. However, through recommendations that work with the adjacent land owner, um it is becoming an area for an easement. Working with that land owner, we developed an agreement to provide a certain number of parking spaces. Again, this is recommendation of the city and the uh the council. Um so we are providing that parking on our land through an easement uh for that land owner. Going in there, bringing entrances over there is going to reduce that parking. That was a consideration and recommendation of the city. Um so we don't feel like that is an appropriate change and it could be put them into breach of that agreement with those land owners. I have two questions about that. One is uh with the parking that you're going to be placing on or near museum place, will that interfere with the fire truck access?

Um have you measured that? It it is set up per the city standards for drive aisle width for a one-way parallel parking street way parallel. So that there is there in in the city code there is requirements for a one-way parallel street shall have a 12 foot drive lane and an 8 foot parallel parking space. So that's what you have. That's what we have. Yes. Okay. That then the second question is whether or not museum place will have any type of barrier or control uh access. Um it will not.

Okay. And the same place will remain private. You're not turning that over to the city. That is a it is a private driveway park, but it will have access public. You know, you could drive down if you're just someone driving down Fourth Street. You could make a left. You you you could and go in through through that area. Put in a couple speed bumps. Would you be afraid of cutthroughs, especially right there? Because, you know, people who want to turn around instead of waiting at the light on Fton cut through. Again, if it was up to my applicant, it would be a dog park. Yeah.

And there would be no parking there, no no street access there. This was something the city um I don't want to say forced us, but said take a very hard look and talk with your neighbor and come do an ad. Chris, you were just mentioning. So if you're on for street, you're talking about going all the way around toward Dinosaur Barbecue and coming back to third. people you think people would be making the left on museum place to to cut off that extra little almost to the circle there that so speed bump speed bumps might inhibit that speed yeah I mean speed bumps or speed dips or uh I like speed tables for crosswalk spikes so this will be museum place is a two-way street it's a one-way street

it's a one-way street oneway alley it's it's it's a parking lot I don't even want to call it a street So you're going from third to fourth. You can't take a left-hand turn from fourth onto it. Then you're going which direction are you going? You're going west to east. From third to fourth from the river. That's wrong. I thought I thought it was fourth to third. No. So that's less likely is that somebody would make a left there. Right. There's no reason to. Okay. It's running the opposite way. So signage, you probably need some signage. So it's not a city street. You're going to have to provide your own one-way sign, right? They'll be, you know, your oneway coming off third, right,

fourth, and this actually becomes the primary circulation around the hotel. Gotcha. Not dissimilar to what it exists as today, that one, right? Other than that, there's 200 some odd new people. Yeah. Right there. So, definitely definitely more people can be signed. However, when it was a parking garage, there was How many cars could park in that? There were just cars. There weren't people. They're just cars. Oh, nobody drives them. Actually ended up zero. So, um, so back to the the EV thing, uh, there's code and complete streets, correct? So, are we having a conflict between the city, fire department, and New York State code?

Historically, the fire department does not advocate for EV stations to be in structured parking inside. The only thing is is that's not embedded. that that's that's based on their experience, you know, and potentially other case studies and stuff. But the problem is this New York State uh Department of State hasn't weighed in on this issue res like with with a resolution to it. So until they do, until that becomes building code, fire safety code essentially, it's it's still a zoning code requirement. So when you say they haven't weighed in as in blanket or in this project in particular? um blanket in your sense. Yeah. Yeah. Uh yeah,

it's a touch it's a touchy stuff. Yeah. We're not opposed to providing them. I just if you know when a fire safety issue is brought to our attention, we don't force fire, you know, negative, you know, go against what the fire department wants. Is it an option to include them on the museum place box? um or on the on the museum place side.

So those parking spaces are for the hotel and not for residents of this community. And we don't have 24 spaces over there to be able to accommodate it. And we would also end up having to bring the electrical controls across the sidewalk and it would impede people walking east west on that sidewalk. I don't think that's an appropriate spot for them. So, your museum place side elevation, do you have that? And can you

So, we'd be looking here and here. So, the first floor existing there is parking as provided. Correct. Actually, it's bike storage and then parking for this third. The problem you're having with the EV is that it's enclosed. It's inside. Correct. Correct. Why don't I get a detail from the fire department on what their concerns are like sort of uh like I said just in detail with those concerns. Maybe they could be mitigated with additional um opening moreision,

ventilation, more something. I don't know. Ventilation might be more. I don't know. Or, you know, if if if not then potentially a you know, a reference of approval by the fire department for a variance, you know. Um we can we can certainly keep that discussion open. So, we need more research is what we're saying on that or sounds like it. The problem is you can't put the fire out. Can't put the fire out. Yeah. Can't get Can't necessarily get fire. You're not going to bring a fire. I think if you have, you know, 200 cars that are gas burning, it's going to be a nice fire, too,

you know. So, um, you know, this is a concern. We, this is probably going to be a concern going forward as more EVs appear. Um, so don't have an answer. Yeah, I like say we will we will provide them. Um but I don't want to go against the recommendations of the city. So really it's it's whatever. Yeah, it's pretty easy to put them inside. Everything's right there to I've got one. I've got one. So and it hasn't burned up yet. Yeah. So if they don't

give it time. If they're not able to put the EVs in their parking garage, are they required to still have EVs someplace? Do they have to have EV someplace? Under the current code, uh the chargers are required. Um how many exactly I don't know. And but the uh that could be varied by the go to the zoning board. Correct. You don't Does anyone know what the code says is a level one charger, level two charger? There's a significant difference. Yeah, I don't. You know, 40 amps to 50 amps is level two. I don't Thank you. So, it's a much more

I have no idea. A lot more power like a gas or like a dryer, right? I think the requirement is like two per 20 spaces or something. And I don't think I don't think they specified level one or level two does not. There's a lot of power for 24 level two. That's a lot of power. Yeah. So, if they're all level one, that's a totally different analysis. I don't know what

there's a much longer charging time. You know, level two is overnight. I'm not sure. I understand they might be different power batteries or or whatever they are, but they might charge in different times that the the fundamental concern is I understand it from the fire department. We do have a representative here is that once if if one of those malfunctions, right, putting it out gets going, it's putting it out is extremely Yeah, it' be the car. The car. It would be the car. It would be the car, but maybe the interface with the charging. So, level one or two wouldn't matter. Be the car.

So, you mentioned use cases earlier. Are are there any use cases that you could refer to to see what what what the data says? Because I I don't I haven't heard any any situations where that where that's happened. I'd have to defer to the fire department. Okay. But I guess the at this point is this a planning board issue? If it if we're not putting them in, it's a zoning board issue. If we can put them in, they're part of the plan.

But if you can't put them in, then where are they? You get a variance to not have any. Yeah, correct. It's more of a zoning board issue, but I think I mean it would be attractable, right? To some of your perspective, I'm sure people are going to have electric cars. So, the the whole building is going to be is the building going to be serviced by gas and electric or is it just going to be like the individual HBAC units all electric? So, as you're probably all aware, the mandate on all electric has been stayed.

Yeah. In New York. So, if a building permit is pulled before uh 2020, the end of 2026, I'm sure there will be gas, right, in the building. And you know, just going on your comment before to have 24 level two chargers, that's a lot. have 290 2 and 36 bedrooms on electrics. A lot more than that, right?

Okay. Um so I know um last month Jim had mentioned about the nooks. Are you going to have planters something there where maybe the homeless is, you know, I mean, there was talk about maybe homeless people going into those nooks and spending the night or, you know, that you don't want. I I know you're going to have planters, something to keep them out of there, little gates. Um so it it is going to be open but we are going to light them. So there will be light there all night shining down in those aloves. Um it it's going to be a you know a a a I guess we'll say difficult area in any city to uh assuage them from going there. Um, but the lighting and this the way in which it's done and having a lively street across the across the way with the restaurants going to help uh deter them.

Yeah, we we we don't want to gate it off. It's not really good street activation to gate off areas at night. So, we do want to keep it as an active street. And we want those areas. We want people to walk under there when they're in the restaurant or can walk over there waiting for a table at the restaurant, sitting there and having a a great conversation um with with your spouse or your family, you know, prior to there. That that that is what we hope for that to be utilized. We don't want to gate it off and make it feel like a palace.

Okay. I mean there must be strategies of you know landscaping the design that exist you know whether it's you know sort of zigzagging or forcing people if they were going to like you know lay down there take a residency they'd be right in the direct walking path and not in some like al cove because maybe that's a bush or something. I don't know but I'm just

Yeah. And I understand what you're saying that, you know, we can do certain things, but we also want to keep those areas open uh again for short-term bike parking. We want to keep them open so we could have a push car vendor set up a shop on a Tuesday when it's busy or have the availability for that to be used as part of the farmers market. We start adding too much in there to deter people from walking and being in there. Now we're losing the activation of the street that we're trying to promote. No, it it did it is a it's a tough issue. Did you say you were going to have bike parking on the Fulton side?

There will be uh bike racks uh for short term and that's you know for residents and for anybody uh I guess anybody with a bike lock can pull their bike in there. Okay. Um do do we still need a lighting plan from for this project? Yes. Okay. So, we we need a light plan. Um, I also saw there was a planter on third in Fulton. Yeah, I wasn't sure what that see here. Third and Fton. I almost wonder if it was a reflection of existing conditions.

An existing center there that did not get demoed. Yeah, I don't know. Um, I guess this area here. Yeah, on the east side this here. Uh, nope. That's the utility strip just to the left of that at least. I don't know if this is an updated site plan. Uh, but the site plan that the staff received had a planter. Um, yeah, that could be it. That could be it. I mean, it might have been identified as an existing condition. Yeah, I think it's here and here is the only green space other than tree grates in that area. Um, I can show you on my computer if you want.

Same spot you just were near. So, is that an old planter in disrepair that's just been sitting there from the parking garage or what is it? Possibly. Yeah, I think it was in existing condition to be honest with you. Um, so he doesn't have to keep that, right? Oh, I think it's going away. That would be a bad Uh, no, actually, um, Joe, if you don't mind popping over here really quick. I'm talking about this guy here. I think that is an existing condition note. It's just not turned off. Where's my existing?

If it's If it's not going to be there, then the next sheet in the set or the previous sheet, sheet number two in the drawing set. No, you're not in that. I had to in order for them to turn I was able to get the files to work, but I had to kind of upload them individually. Yeah, I don't believe there there is a planter there. It's nothing we proposed. Okay. Okay. There there's one there that exists.

There was a McDonald's there, too. I don't think he's proposing that either. So, you know, might be a mixup on the overlay. So, you know, well, I guess our our ask of the of the tonight of the board is we do want to uh start the coordinated review process and come back start the coordinated review and come back in February uh to go through this and hopefully obtain approval at that point in time. Okay. Um I believe we have a generally a complete application. I think we need to get an updated EAF and an updated complete streets form um submitted

and a lighting plan if we survey as well. Surveys there. Well, I need a survey with with signatures to update your plat to incorporate the lot line adjustment that needs to happen before we can go for a coordinated review. You could you could do it at any given time because it's administratively done. But in order for that parcel or that parcel that was museum place to be incorporated into this project, that's going to require a survey with, you know, an updated plat essentially that's going to get signed by the director uh excuse me, the executive secretary and the

Yeah, which we I mean we we can certainly do. I guess I'm just asking is that does that is that needed before we go to the coordinated review? I don't know why that would be hold up the coordinated review. I'm sure it's needed before approval. It wouldn't be holding up the coordinator review, but as in as it's incorporated into this project, it would still need to be provided for.

Yep. Absolutely. I mean, we definitely will provide that. And it would be our goal to be on a the first Tuesday zoning board meeting in February and obtain the variances and then come back to this board in February and hopefully be able to obtain approval at that point in time. So, you indicated before that you would have an easement to provide to for corporation council's review. Yes. Sooner the better. Yep. We'll we'll get that as as soon as it's available. I know I uh just watched an application get approved and that was a condition of the approval. Um I don't want that to to happen, but um that that was a very minor. This is much bigger. So,

we we will work on getting that easement pulled together. Thank you. So you're anticipating by the January meeting you'll have a complete application that you could present to us and we could say hey all right and schedule hearing for February. That's your goal? Yeah, we would like to have the hearing in February. Um so we would like to start the coordinated review before the January meeting so that okay a public hearing can be held conclude seeker in February and hold the public meeting in February

to go over some of these outstanding issues before our next meeting. What do we need to agree on here? I think what the applicant is asking is if you would consider declaring the application complete and that that would be up to you guys provide you know the things that you need to see today versus at the next meeting and and I think we have a couple big issues narrow those down do coordinated review um that would mean have we already declared ourselves lead agency in here? No. that if they declare tonight then they're have to do that within 30 days they'll have to come back or if you guys are ready and we're told

for at least for a secret determination and then we can go to ZBA and then public hearing and you also go HRC January might fall after 30 days it's January 20th so if Erica could submit that tomorrow yeah I mean like you only have what like three other agencies you're working with involved. But yeah, we can send out notices before the 20th. Okay, that's not a problem. That would get us back for January to deem it complete, do seeker, and set a public hearing for February,

right? If all those be an optimist, Chris, come on. It's Christmas. So action for tonight would be to declare us lead agency. Yes. And then you'll take care of the letters that have to go out. Um and then January you come back with your complete application all these things resolved that we talked about and then February we do a hearing. Right. You'd have to make assuming he gets everything he needs right and then make the secret determination. So the first you know and assuming we're lead agency so

assuming you declare yourselves lead agency declar assuming nobody else assuming the application is complete and you're satisfied that you have enough sufficient information to make a declaration that's January and we could be lead agency tonight 30 days nobody else says anything then we're lead agency that's correct I should also make a note that you know provided that there is a pos you know positive outcome from the seeker review. Um they'll need that outcome before they go to request any variance from the ZBA. So it is kind of you know appropriate for them to come back in January so that they can hit the ZBA meeting in February problem.

So the only thing we can do tonight is you know make a motion to declare lead agency. Okay. Yeah. You done? You're done. I think we Yeah, I'm done. I'm I'm just trying to get get lead agency Yeah. declared at this point. Yeah. Do you want to entertain any public comments before you do that? Yes, you can. Okay. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak on this proposal?

Chair Baringer with City Troy Fire Department. Uh I just want some clarification from where we stand with uh part of the review of this project. Uh museum place is was a big ask from us uh just to have uh access to Best Western and to that side of the building. So what they've done on that side of that project, it it looks uh good on our end. So that was one big question there.

Um we're not too concerned about uh entrance ways into that side of the garage. everything else. You know, we knew that uh when they were developing that side, uh that we were not concerned with uh access into the building on that side going into the garage. Um as far as EV, uh we are not big proponents of uh having EV charging within the uh structure itself, especially one with such a large residential units above it. uh there it could creates significant concerns with EV uh fires within the structure. With other projects, we asked that that EV charging stations are outside away from the building. We understand that this building does not have outside parking. Uh so we would like to work with the applicant if we needed to uh obtain a variance to not have the EV charging within that structure at all. Uh if that variance doesn't pass, we understand that that uh will have to go inside the structure. So we understand that ideally we would like to not have it in the structure.

So a question about the the is residential above the parking that's the issue and plus access for fire department access to get in. Got um just it it it would be an absolute nightmare just because it's enclosed and and and just getting just everything that goes along with the standard fire suppression that could be put into the garage won't do it. It it won't put them out. It's not going to put them out. just because of you we have different techniques that are being used. It's just it's still it's still a learning process for us. The other thing would be fire separation possibly

and they're going to have the appropriate fire separation, but we're talking 24 36 48 hours of burn time for these for these uh uh battery units. So, it's it's not viable and it it would be extremely hard for us to put them out. That's why we're asking for the evening charging units to actually get the EV EV vehicles outside the building to give them a spot outside the building. That's what we're looking for. Like other projects, that's why we're asking that.

We understand that that might not be always possible and we would uh work with the applicant to go in front of the variance board if that's the case. If that's not granted and there's no way to go around it, then we're going to have to deal with it the best that we possibly can. Are there different levels of concern for I think no level one or level two?

No, it's the vehicle themselves. It all it's based on uh the battery packs and the battery lives and damage to the battery when something goes wrong with those comp components. We understand that when they're plugged in, it does uh there are safety features within the vehicles that helps to uh make it a little safer, but we're looking when we look to have those charging units outside the building is to to remove those uh vehicles completely out of the building if possible. So, even without the chargers underneath, there's still there still could be it could be in the middle of the parking garage, still could be an issue. So, but we'd work with the applicant and if it's not possible, then we'll we do what we do and deal with it on a you know,

is there heightened risk because of the char any charging because of the charging operation? I don't think it's so much that I think it's the vehicles themselves. It's interesting. Um, and as far as highly recommend not parking, we would like to not see them in the structures possible anywhere. Yeah, correct. So having them outside actually might attract EVs to be outside if residents have there have them. Correct. Okay.

Uh as far as the outside uh fire pits and and and fireplaces, we don't allow them in the city of Troy unless it's for cooking or religious reason reasons or um the correct uh disposal of the American flag. So within the city there is no burning. Right. So, does that include like a gas a propane gas grill? No, because that's that's cooking. So, they can put they can use cooking as long as it's used for cooking. Propane gas, that's that's perfectly fine. Okay. But for cooking in an appropriate container, but for uh fireplaces and open flames, we don't allow.

All right. Thank you. Thank you.

So, let's agency. Hi, Lisa Rodriguez from TAP, live in 1986 15th Street. Um, I uh the drawings weren't posted online uh this time, so I didn't get to get a close look at them. I was curious if there is any provision for transformers on the property. Uh my general comment is it's a lot of building and really maximizing the site and I'm expecting there's a transformer somewhere but I haven't seen it. Um and to the EV conversation I think that's um a state variance that's required and the state may even require that every parking space in the garage be EV ready like have the power available for it. So, I think that this isn't really realistic to not have the EV chargers in the garage. Then we just have to have plans for um how we deal with that issue. Overall, uh you know, I I like the idea of developing this, make it housing. It feels too big to me. Um a study shows that people have trouble forming community with over 150 people. There's going to be well over that in this building. And I anticipate that they're going to have trouble um with their um residents forming a bond with each other and having it be a um safe place to live. But um just overall it just seems like too much and this question of the transform where where is the transformer? Uh maybe I'm wrong, but I'm an architect and my projects with 10 units have to have a transformer. So with this many units, I'm sure there's one there somewhere. Uh the King's Landing 2 project uh they didn't have a transformer in their plan when they came

to you and oops a building came down. Ah that's a great place for our transformer. Um so that's my question. Thanks. Thank you.

Evening everybody. Stephen Maples South Troy. Um I'm just going to do a quick reiteration of a couple of points that haven't been addressed. um you know 28569G 1B um stating that all parking should be accessed from an alley where such exists. So if we're considering monument place an alley then that's where it shall go. Um if we're not considering it then we can look to our comprehensive plan that says access to underground and structured parking should generally occur on east west streets only. So there is that that aspect has not been addressed in this current plan. Um uh and um you know and again like we can sort of make headway with the EV issue and at the same time uh much better uh urban design issue by just going ahead and creating um some commercial or community spaces uh at uh ground level. Um that puts us puts puts us better in puts this plan better in compliance with the the comprehensive plan. uh reduces the number of spaces which consequently reduces the number of EV EV spaces that have to be provided and then that could also be um the exterior uh street side. Uh the the technology is rapidly evolving um a lot of the EV chargers that can be put on telephone poles and things of that nature um that are fairly unobtrusive relatively speaking to their previous counterparts. So the point is that there are more options on the table. Um and all of it gets better by uh removing more parking. Um that is definitely not needed um under any reasonable assessment uh for a place that is for a multif family building that is in the heart of downtown. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wish to be heard? Anybody on Zoom? No. No. Okay. So, I'd like to make a motion to uh woman. Oh, we have someone else. Oh, you're back. Just coming back up because I missed you guys. I make a motion to uh declare the Troy Planning Board lead agency of this project. A second uh the intent to act.

The intent to declare the Troy Planning Board lead agency on this project. I second. Anybody in favor? I. Anybody opposed? Motion is passed. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Just regarding that comment that Stephen just made, what's the reasoning to not for not having the entrance on the museum place? Is there a reason for that? Is it firet truck access or

Well, there there there's the firetruck access. It's the loss of parking spaces that have been agreed upon with the hotel. We we'd have to lose additional parking spaces over there. Um they're they're fighting for every possible space they can get because they have a significant parking issue. Um again, our original plan was to completely remove this and not even have this as part of the site. That would be our preference to just do it as green space. Also, um it's a one-way street. Uh turning maneuverability in that area also becomes a little tight. Larger vehicles going down that one-way street um is tight. And again, I'll point out that the entrances to the Uncle Sam's parking garage were on third and fourth streets. Um, that's what the existing condition was. And there was a lot more vehicles, a lot more parking spaces, uh, located in the parking garage than there are on the first floor of our building.

Go ahead. Your garage is at street level, correct? Yes. Street level. Joe, you had said on Museum Place that you wanted to have a dog park. that was your big thing. Um, so you are allowing small animals in your building? I'm I'm I'm sure there would be. I can talk with owner the owners on that. Um Oh, not that I want them, but I'm just asking if you're going to have them. Yeah, I I I would assume yes. I haven't seen an apartment project in the capital region go in without allowing animals in many years now.

Okay. So, is there any place along your properties that you could put like little containers for the baggies? Uh, we can provide pet pet wave stations. Yeah. Um, uh, on it's it's hard because essentially our building occupies the entire footprint of the property and that's the way the code is set up because they're telling you put your building within at least within 10 feet of the property. you're actually giving a variance to put a road in or a driveway in on the north side of the building. Um, and you start putting these things in there, then there's the maintenance because you put them in a public space, it's not just going to be our residents using them. It's going to be everybody, everybody.

Okay. So, it is a consideration and you know, there is the Riverview Park or Riverfront Park right across the road. So, there is ample space and open space available for dog walkers. Okay. Just a question and before you leave, did you want to respond to the comment regarding the transformer? Uh I I will ask the question. I don't have an answer to that at this point in time. It's okay.

If you are allowing pets, I would suspect that many of your residents will walk their dogs in Riverfront Park. You could provide um it's interior. It's beyond this board's review, but you could provide um pet waste bags dispensers inside the building or at the exits where people might go just to make sure that you're they're not creating nuisances in the park more than necessary. It's a great suggestion. You know, something in the lobby, a little you know, pull a bag, bring it back with you, dump it in the park. Okay.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Joe. All set. So, our next item on our agenda is PLPC 20240021, 1987 15th Street. Good evening. Uh Nick Casta again. I'm here uh representing the owners. They're also the applicant. They're also here with me tonight. Uh this is the uh proposed uh uh addition of uh 14 uh 14 bedroom uh to the existing 15 bedroom for a total of 29 bedrooms. Uh this is a site that's located at 1987 uh 15th Street. It's a zoned uh campus institutional and uh it's.19 acres of land. It uh has an existing home, an existing building that um was uh converted to 15 uh bedrooms and the applicant is proposing to put in a building addition uh to accommodate uh 14 additional bedrooms.

Uh there's uh let's see there's a sanitary along uh 15th Street. There's water along 15th Street. So the the site uh has the infrastructure to accommodate the uh the additional bedrooms that created that you know the wastewater and the domestic water needed for for those additional bedrooms. Uh there was a traffic uh management plan that was uh uh developed for the project and uh we we did receive the the I'm trying to find it here the the staff report. Yeah, here it is. The staff report. And there are uh comments that we will uh need to uh work with the uh with the departments to address those comments and there's there's quite a few of those uh comments and recommendations. Uh so uh we will have to again uh work with the departments to uh mitigate those uh address those comments. So uh again uh if there's any questions uh I'd be more than happy to uh try to address those. Uh and the applicants are here with me tonight too. So Okay. Yep.

I think uh a big thing is having the dumpster out in front of the house. Yeah, that's uh that's that's I don't think that's ever going to fly. Have a dumpster out front. No, we understand that. Y and it looks pretty uh looks pretty small. You know what I mean? So, um it's going to be what 20 29 bedrooms? Yeah, there's 29 in total. That's going to be it. Looks like a you have space for a small dumpster, which we can't have there anyway. But I think you're in need of a a bigger dumpster. I don't think you want the the neighbors. I don't think you want the the garbage truck coming at uh you know, the dumpster truck coming at 5:30 in the morning with their backup alarms going and waking up the neighbors. I don't think that would be good.

No. Um No. And that'll be they'll be uh coordinated accordingly that you know that uh waste you know there'll be signage that the waste won't be picked up you know between a certain hour hours. What could you do to get that dumpster out of the front of the building? Where could you put it? We we would have to look at and and I'm not saying that this is where it's going to end up, but um maybe put it on the side and and and you know, maybe roll it out into the you know uh paved area to to you know be able to pick it up. So you're going to be relying on city pickup? No, this will be private. I believe it's private.

And you're going to be rolling it out, don't they? Usually not not to the street. It'll be rolled out within the area that's uh that that center area that uh where we we showed the the truck maneuvering uh one of the plans was the truck maneuvering plan. Okay. So, there's been no changes to the drawing since the last presentation. No, there has been. There has, but we don't have Do we have those? They should be in there. Are you you referring to renderings or drawings? Yeah, renderings. Renderings. Yeah, he did submit some. Uh they didn't they didn't show the dumpster in the front yard, right? Um

the site plan shows the dumpster in the in the front yard. The rendering does not. Let's see if I can find I thought I put that in. So, in that neighborhood, the height um you need a variance. That's correct. For going that high. That's correct. Yes. Um, so we we'll have to work on that. Yes. Because that we definitely are not going to allow a dumpster in the front, right? Okay. Uh, so that's not going to require variance. That's that requires a waiver by this board. So if you're not going to approve a waiver, then you should probably motion that. Okay.

But with regard to the height of the building, that's three story. Three stories. Is that right? That's zoning. So that's zoning the the extra level. Yes. That's going to require also the density. Is there an issue? You said 29 bedrooms. That's both buildings combined. Is that what we're doing? Both. Yeah. This is a building addition. So it' be one build. It would be considered one building. Oh, so that is a new that's a new elevation there. Yeah, it is correct. Okay. And the buildings are connected. Yes, they are connected. You can see the connection on that particular

and they would be connected not like a bridge but you know it would be full connection. If that connection were not there would there be room to roll a dumpster to the back of the building? No. Not to the back to the to the side where that behind uh where the umbrella is. It's kind of still the front of the building now. Yeah. Still the front. So, are are you going right to the property line here? No, there's there's space. The site plan shows that there's there's space.

So, there's between the building and the fence, there's space. Yes. But how how much space is that? Uh I don't have the sight. It shows four to the fence. Four feet to the fence. That's how they have at least one plans dimension. Right. And and again, we would have to look to diminish the or increase that space, diminish the size of the building. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. There's a there's a landscape uh wall that's shown that goes right to the property. That would have to be reduced. It seems like there's So these are they're not shared kitchens, you know, to refresh my memory on this. That's correct. So they're shared kitchens like four bedrooms to a kitchen. I I don't kitchen the whole building. No, no, not not one. I don't remember the ratio, but there's share.

So how many kitchens are in on in the drawings? I thought what I'm looking at is you got 29 bedrooms. I'm assuming that that's correct. That could be at least 29 people. Yes, that's correct. So, it could be more than 29. Yeah, that's right. Seems like a lot.

I mean, if people start there's college students, correct? That's correct. It's dormatory and you know and there'll be a fee that paid by the students. Obviously, if you're a college student like I was, you're going to trying to minimize your housing expense. Yeah. And your food cost and all those things like, you know, all of a sudden there's 58 people living in a building with 29 bedrooms. I mean, so are these considerations? Yes, that's correct. This is 29 bedrooms and not necessarily 29 people, right? It's more 58. Could be 60. Depends. I mean, if everybody's got a girlfriend,

but whatever. Yeah, there could be at any one point in time there could be upwards of 50 or 60 people, you know, sleeping in this building. I I I right. How many bathrooms are being provided? Uh again, I don't have the uh the architectural drawing handy, but Eric, do you have the architectural drawing? Yes. Uh which uh drawing do you need, Nick? Well, it they want to know how many uh bathrooms and how many kitchens if uh we show one, you know, one.

This is the ground floor plan. Yeah, it should be in your Google Docs. I'm not sure if you got it in front of you. It seems like there's a density issue all the you know if you take all the systems right that we're talking about bathrooms dumpster right you know all of these things are relative to how many people you're going to be servicing in this building and the staff report mentions that that you know there's a have you done have you done anything to address it or No we just received the the staff Thank

you. Is there a rear egress off of the existing building? That's That's not going out into a porch. It's It's going outside. I I think the only one that we see is the one that goes to the enclosed porch. Got a fourth floor on there, too, which they don't really want. And there's no exit off that porch to the exterior. I don't believe so. I don't see any, you know, steps or anything to the existing building. Yeah. Is it is there a are there built of doors or anything like that or

is that there is something over this area but it's not labeled Eric over by the should come back after they've done some work. Okay. Um got a ways to go. Yes. Um When would you like to come back to discuss all the questions that the board has? Well, we're going to again work on uh with the departments to address the the staff comments uh and uh hopefully we can come back in uh in January. Okay.

So, do you think we I would like to make a motion that we disapprove the waiver to grant the dumpsters being placed in the front yard. I second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Okay. Motion is motion is carried.

Um you have to go to the ZBA I believe. Okay. Um, so can we can we make a motion to the ZBA that we do not wish to have the fourth floor as living room living space? They have an attic, I believe, with living space. You're allowed to provide recommendations to the ZBA just as they can do to you.

The plan is I don't know if they're Were you planning on going to the ZBA before coming back here? Uh we I we were going to work on maybe uh you know removing that uh you know that additional uh space that you know the leaving it as an attic space maybe as an architectural feature but not a just having a l living space.

So that would take away two bedrooms. How many bedrooms? I don't know that you can call it an attic space if the proposal is for a dorm. An attic space is typical of a one family, two family, even three family, right? But they had bedroom space up there. What was done with the previous attic space to the existing building? They're they're dorms. Yeah, they're I don't think you can call it an attic. So, it's a fourth floor. It would be a fourth floor which would be exceeding the three floor minimum or three floor maximum. Right. Which but I thought I saw on the plans on the you could remove it all together space. So it's right

two bedrooms right now. It is they already they already built the bedrooms I believe. No, I mean in the new in the new building, I would like to keep the shape of it to match the other side, but as using the attic spaces, well, I think we're getting I think we're getting too far because they need to sort of go back and kind of configure some of their designs. If they wanted to have a flat roof, that would require a variance as well because there's a need to have uh roof forms matching adjacent structures, right? So, you know, I don't I think that if you start kind of getting further into this, then you you're actually being, you know, designer. Yeah.

And you kind of want to review what their designs are. Yeah. I I think we don't have enough to go on here tonight. Um there's a lot of outstanding issues uh that need to be addressed with either zoning or with you guys. You could you could make motions to declare the project to be an unlisted under seeker. um if they if they do intend to want to come back on on this. So if there's going to be significant changes, which we are talking about changes to the project, I think it's best that we just kind of wait

if yes, you could declare still allow for uncoordinated review so ZBA could weigh in on variances that they seek. Correct, Rick? But I think we're we would be addressing a project that we don't know what they're presenting to the ZBA. So I you know Yeah. Yeah. Also, it's hard to make a motion to the ZBA until you know what the exactly what what you're moving about. Um I mean I mean I would recommend that the applicant not go to the ZBA until they

Right. I mean I'm just responding to Tony's comment that she was thinking of referring them. So if they they were to go, they would need uh the action to be declared unlisted in this forum so that the ZBA could coordinate their own review. I don't Yeah, I mean, but ZBA didn't make a mention that they were going to send them over to us, right? So I'm just responding to Tony. Yeah, I think I think we shortstopped that and just, you know, maybe just table this until the next meeting until they can come back with, right, you know, some of these issues in the staff recommendations, you know, addressed. Um, I don't think we have enough to go on. Okay. So, I'd like to make a motion to table this project until the January meeting.

Okay. Second. Yeah, there's public. You're done. Oh, yeah. Okay. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak on this project?

Jared Behringer of the city of Troy Fire Department. Um we have significant concerns with the project as we've seen in the staff notes and nothing's been addressed. We've seen multiple changes to this project. Um we can start from the beginning that uh I they're their num their bedroom numbers aren't clear. um they're saying 15 in the existing structure which was once a one one family unit. Um they were caught by code enforcement putting those extra units in and that's brought this truthfully that project in itself should have come in front of this planning board just based on this uh changes of that building. We it all happened after the fact and we you know we're caught them and uh make bring that building up the code to what they had and we actually had them reduce certain numbers in that building already. So uh that's one big concern is uh you know there's things happening that we're not seeing and and and things aren't up front. Um I believe there's only 11 units in that uh first building and they stated there were going to be 15. Uh, so that's the numbers aren't as long along with bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, what what the exact numbers are. Everything's changing. Originally, there was not a fourth floor. Technically, that's a fourth floor on that addition. Um, that fourth floor does not meet code because of the setback from uh the main uh 15th Street because there's no aerial access for our our ladders. It's greater than 30 ft. Um there's we wouldn't be able to even have a ground ladder that could reach that. Our aerial devices won't reach this building at all because of the uh wires and infrastructure in the front of the building. We talked about the garbage which is in the main right away. What if there was a dumpster fire? Those are main means of egress. There's no rear egress of this building. They sit right on top of the property lines. Uh overall, talk about overcrowding. Like you said, that was going to be one of my

comments. you if you counted two people in each number of whatever number we're talking about we're we're getting close to 50 people if not 60 I'd like to know if there's a fire how many people are in there

I I'd like to see this as a one at at one time in the city of Troy this was a one family building possibly two family we're not and we're talking maybe eight people at most that lived on that one parcel that they're putting on that addition we're now talking 30 units which in a congested dormatory area where there's no parking to begin with. I know that parking is not a purview that based on our zoning and and our code, but it it does what about the residents that live in that area? It's going to make it their lives a lot more difficult. Uh the other thing about a dormatory residence in that area, we're talking about RPI. RPI has life safety staff, public safety staff, maintenance staff, all these things that take if we have an issue or the police have an issue at those locations, everything's taken care of or we have direct lines of communication and we don't see that. Uh that's not going to happen at this property based on the previous history of the already of what's at that location and we're talking about maintenance. If you were to go buy that property right now, it's in shambles. It's not it's it it does nothing for that area and does not bring anything up for that area. And if we were to continue with this project, it is going to do nothing but cause more problems for us, police, fire, congestion, and for everything else that the city is there uh trying to do for the rest of the residents in that area. So, I would strongly uh I can speak on behalf of community policing as well. We've had multiple discussions about this. we are strongly against this project in its entirety much less adding any kind of addition to that building and uh you know and and that and and nothing against Mr. Kasa Mr. Kaso does great work with plans. I think he's uh in a rock and a hard place with this. Um but this this project really does not do anything for the city at all.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hello. Lisa Rodriguez again from 1987 1986 15th Street across the street from this project. Um, I appreciate that they've brought Nick on, a professional, and he just hasn't had a chance to catch up yet, um, with, uh, what's been drawn so far and shown to you. And I'm sure once he's involved that, um, he'll start addressing some of these comments if it should go forward. I totally agree with Jared. This um, when it went got converted, it was a two family before. Uh, when it got converted from a two family to a dorm, it should have come before you because that's when a major change happened to the property. And um and so now they're doing this peace meal um you know project and that's not how uh approvals you know get done. You you get to approve things as they uh change and uh this process has not been done properly. The what they're proposing is just way too much for the site. So much so that they have to put retaining walls to make it work to make bedrooms have windows and um Jared's points are all um well taken. I don't know if this building needs a transformer or not but if it has an 800 amp service or more it's will need a transformer and again where is it? I couldn't again see the plans because they weren't available online. So, I have no idea what they're showing you right now except the glimpses I got here. That uh courtyard area has been shown alternating as a garbage truck turnaround and a patio for the tenants. It can't be both. Um, so I guess the just the general point is it's just too much what they've done so far. Okay, you did it. It's there. It's working. They're parking on the site. officialize the parking that you're using, but this

is ridiculous to add that many units to a 0.19 acre site, 29 bedrooms to 0.19 acre site. Thank you, Lisa. Just as just as a comment in response to your statement and for the general public, if plans aren't provided for online, then the public is always welcome to come down in person and view them. uh we've had recent security breaches with some of our online, you know, uh security walls and and in order to minimize that, at least for the time being, we're still weighing how to go about uh making more transparency available to the public. But as a as a measure of security, you can always come down and look at plans in person.

Thank you. Hi, I'm Robert Miller. I'm here with my wife, Donna. Uh, we live at 199415th, two houses to the north and across the street from the proposed property. Uh, this is our third meeting, and this project just seems to be moving in reverse. every time we come, there's something new that just keeps pushing things back and that's incredible to me. But I'm here to say that I've got a couple points that I know have been brought up in the past, but I want to reiterate them because I've heard them in this meeting. I heard them from the board in the previous meeting and in the first meeting we attended, I heard it from the city engineer. This project is just too much for the neighborhood. The load on the neighborhood is incredible. I don't know of any other house or pair of houses on this block that has a density that this building has. Uh is it 15? Is it 29? Is it 38? 58? Who knows? Um so please, I know you're already thinking about that. Please keep continuing doing that. The other thing I have problem with is the future. Number one, if this project is imp approved, does that set a precedent that the two other lots on the street that could also have structures built will now have super highdensity um apartments in them? I certainly hope not. This uh lot the street itself is about 30% resident, 70% student as far as property counts go. And the 30% residents have been there a long time. Uh we're over 30 years. Um, so we want to stay there another how many ever years we have left. Uh, the other long-term issue is parking. It's already

been beat to death, but these owners may have absolute wonderful intents to be good neighbors to try to limit the number of cars. I don't think they can limit the number of cars, but this says nothing about who's going to purchase this property. Again, we have an issue in Troy with uh landlords who are not exactly exemplary citizens to the city of Troy. That could happen in this case. And I I beg you, please, this project does not deserve your approval. Thank you. Hi, I'm Donna Miller from 1994 15th Street and I basically agree with everything that's been said. I especially uh am concerned about the fire issues, especially after what happened down in Albany just recently with the death of two graduate students. Uh we do have absentee landlord problems in the city of Troy that need to be addressed before we have deaths of students from fires in our community. Um the parking issue is a big issue. The density is a big issue. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you. Thank you.

Evening everyone. Um I'll just be super quick. I don't really have a strong opinion on this um proposal, but just that um the the zoning is the zoning, you know, like the what is there by law is is what is there by law. And I'm also just going to reiterate one final point that uh our our code defines a dormatory as just a building utilized as a resident residence exclusively for students of a college, university or school. That's it. So like there's nothing else to it. Like it's not particularly unique. It's just that's it's just that simple. So just a a point to make. Thank you. I understand the application's not complete. So

I don't Is there anybody on Zoom? Eric took a little break. Can we just have a moment, please? Mhm.

Did you look I don't think there is anybody else. Are we doing a moment?

Are we back? I'd like to make a motion to table this project to the January meeting. We just don't have enough information. Could we have a Could we have a moment to comment? Those of us online, I didn't see your hand being raised. Terrible job. People got to raise their hand. Sorry. Go ahead, sir.

Sorry. Thank you very much. Uh Darren Scott, 1986 15th Street, across the street from this project. Sorry not to be able to be there in person. Uh I want to thank the board for its comments. I think you're seeing what we all see. Uh, and I want to thank the fire department for uh, really taking a deep dive into the safety concerns here. Um, I want to address first the uh, the zoning which I believe was a mistake in why we're having to fight this project off in the first place. Uh, it's just wrong. It's not in character with the neighborhood that is here. The rest of the block, you know, 95% of the block may be institutional. You know, RPI does own it. They have uh athletic fields and and actual dormitories. But this block face along 15th Street is I don't know R2, R3, maybe it is, you know, single and two family homes. And that is the nature that of the block that we, you know, we bought our house on. We expect it to stay that way. Um then I want to I just want to move to uh reiterate this is just too much. It'll be too many people. would be too much too much garbage, too many cars. I think the traffic uh management study is not realistic. Uh students have cars. Uh you know, I see bicycles in the in the in the renderings. That's just not reality. I think there will be some, but this that patio will be turned into a parking lot. And there are already cars parked on the grass. if you want to come up here tonight after the meeting, it's parked on the grass right now. Um, so it will not function like they say or they imagine it will. Uh, and they're not going to be around when things go wrong. Uh, there won't be anybody to contact uh when uh things are not working the way that they say. Um, and then I want to

mention a concern about uh the review process. Uh it's this is an incremental approach um which I believe is not permitted by seeker. Uh the the two family house was uh converted into uh 15 I guess uh unit dorm. Uh and now we're going to double it in size uh to add another 14 uh units. So 29 units total. Um that's just not right. That's like that feels like circumventing the process. So, um, thank you for the time and I appreciate your, uh, your comments. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Eric,

if there's anybody else on Zoom, can you please go ahead and raise your hand or speak?

Okay, we still have a motion pending. Where are we at? Table. Yeah. So, like to make a motion to table this project. Um and uh second. Everybody in favor? I I

opposed. Motion has been tabled. The next item on our agenda is PLPC 20240059. Is there anybody here to speak on that?

84th Street. All right. Hello, Kyle Instrom.

Kyle Instrom, Emmy Studio Architects. Uh, so this should be hopefully fairly quick. Um, we had originally applied and and and received uh approval for this project. And I am back here in front of you today because we have a a different strategy that we're considering for the rear carriage house that had been approved for a pretty substantial demolition. Um where we would be removing the the roof, the floor joist, um the concrete slab, the rear wall. Um, and the idea, I don't know if we have an image of it, but the idea would be the the rear, sorry, the alley facing carriage house wall would be essentially salvaged and reconstructed. Um, upon further investigation with the masons, uh, it's it's sort of seen as is almost kind of in disrepair. Um so the proposal would be to to still the final design would be exactly the same but uh the approach would be to to essentially salvage the brick and and reconstruct it. Um and so

so Kyle I guess I guess what you're presenting tonight Kyle is that you want to rebuild that wall with new materials that are stable and then veneer the old brick. So, from the exterior, it's going to look like the old thing, but it's going to be with new um construction materials on the inside holding up the wall. Yeah. Essentially, we would we would essentially take a a like a currently 12in brick wall. We would we would remove it, salvage the brick, rebuild it with concrete masonry, and then veneer it with one one layer of brick,

which would be the historic brick anyway. So, so the final result would would essentially be the same. Um, and again, this was slated for quite a bit of demolition anyway. Um, so that's where we're at. Which brick walls are these? They're they're going to be demolished. It's the alley. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's the wall right next to the city. That's why I'm asking currently looks like I could pull it up on Google Earth and use the mic.

So when you rebuild the wall, will you be using the brick that you're taking down um and replacing it or are you using just old brick? We're gonna we're gonna salvage the brick from the site and reuse that, clean it and reuse it. Good. Thank you. Yeah. Oh, wow. This is the good good Google Earth here. It's high def. The best. How much you have to pay for that? Look at that. Wow. Yeah, there it is. There it is. So,

so you believe that all that brick can be just about all that brick can be salvaged to to put a veneer on. We have also the the other wall of this carriage house which is coming down. It will also give us some brick. So with all the brick coming down, we feel pretty confident that we can we can get it. Um historic is okay with that. We've brought this to their attention. As long as we're we're reusing the brick um and it's it's essentially all the same. Yeah. So is it just that wall right there? Yes,

this is this is the one change and and to be honest right now we're still sort of in the process of investigating it but the masons felt pretty strongly that we once we get into the work it might just be coming down so so that's actually the brick that's there it's like structural now but you want to go with a veneer look so structurally sound and using that same exposure basically it's possible that when they get into the work they might find that it is salvageable to to just keep the wall up. I'm here today as just trying to get ahead of it to say we might end up needing to to go this route.

I don't know that we have to do what you're not really changing anything to the to the exterior facade of the building. Correct. The and the alley side anyway. I mean, they're they're going about new materials and you know, it's a it's a revision. They previously attempted to try to preserve the historical element of this. You know, I don't think do we we don't have to go and go through another meeting, right? You're not you're not you're not reviewing it for complete application. This is this is a revision to a previously approved site. So, we're good. We can just go ahead and you're authorizing to so demo demolish that wall as necessary and rebuild it with

constru regular construction materials but a veneer of the old of the brick. Is that your proposal here? Was that your revision? Yes, that's right. It's And it's the red brick building, right? Or is it the white brick? It's the white one. It's the white one. For what it's worth, the doing it this way would actually give us the opportunity to get some cleaner bricks on the outside instead of having to to kind of clean up this kind of mess of bricks here, the existing. So, yeah, I'd like to make a motion to uh approve the application. Okay. Second that. All those in favor?

I opposed. Motion's carried. Thanks so much. All right. The next item on our agenda is PLPC 2024003 613 Street. 113 113th Street. Sorry.

113th Street. Yes. Thank you. Good evening, chair, members of the board. Uh, my name is Brian Cyperly with Barity Engineering. Uh, we represent the applicant uh and the owner, Energy Catalyst Technologies. Um just a little bit about uh uh the applicant and the business of Energy Catalyst Technologies is a Troy New York-based uh designer, manufacturer and installer of proprietary geothermal heat pump systems. uh they purchased the building in 2023 uh received uh an area variance uh by from the zoning board of appeals due to the structure size uh in the MU1 zone in the neighborhood uh 2 overlay. Uh they subsequently received uh a special use permit and site plan review uh from the planning commission back in 2024 and that special use permit was valid uh starting in March of 2024 and it expires uh in March of 2026. Um so again uh tonight we are here uh to begin a process for site plan review uh special use permit uh renewal. uh that renewal is going to be requested to become permanent and uh more about that uh later. Uh so again the address is 6113th Street u the zoning is MU1 neighborhood 2 overlay intensity. Uh the use is light industrial. Again I just mentioned how that use um is allowed by right given the special use permit. It's a uh a 2.5 acre parcel generally irregular in shape. Um, we've got uh the parcel touches two two frontages. And this is kind of strange. Uh, the frontages that it touches is uh 9inth A and 113th Street. And it's just, uh, uh, when Eric gets a moment to bring the plan up, I can show you. But, uh, this parcel kind of fright fronts the short access of the rideway on both 9th and 113th. Uh, the rest of the parcel is

going to have frontage on uh, 8th Street alley as well. We'll kind of bring you to that in a second. I was going to bring up the site plan, but I think actually um I still have the site plan. I can bring that up, but I I think I could show them better through Google Earth. Sure. Um as as he's doing that, I'll just kind of keep narrating to the board here. We were just talking about frontages. Uh the lot is principally built Oh, thank you very much. The the parcel is principally built out today uh with two structures. One being the principal structure.

Thank you. where the mouse is indicating. Um, and there's a roughly that that right there is a uh roughly 11,500 foot principal structure. Okay. And the structure uh to the left there where Eric will hang the mouse over. That's about a 400 uh square foot accessory structure. So those two parcels exist. Again, the site's principally built. It's got apertenant um paving, loading, parking, and things like that as well. Um the the site was once home to um Uncle Sam Pipe Manufacturing for for a long long period of time until the uh the reoccupancy of of Energy Catalyst in in 2024. Um there are no uh environmental encumbrances on the property. We generally do not have any water bodies, water courses, any wetlands, things like that. Uh access u from the uh for the facility is off of 113th and uh and 9inth. Uh the site is served with all municipal utilities, sewer, water uh and also has all the private utilities, telecom, gas, things like that as well at the rightway. um generally around us. So, the abutters, this is a little bit of a strange area um in that what it was and what's surrounding it, but we're going to be generally surrounded by single family uh uses and um on pretty much all sides with the exception of the east side where we have the Uncle Sam uh trail up on the hill there with the with the grade break. Um topography of the site uh where his mouse is there, we've uh we've got a grade change. We've got a rock outcropping and some some grade change up to the Uncle Sam Trail. Uh it generally comes right on down to the developed area where we're just gently sloping in and around the developed areas. Um so no major crazy uh steep slopes or environmental things to worry about on this parcel. Uh the proposal in front of the board this evening again as I mentioned is the site plan review and

the renewal of the special use permit and the conversion from uh uh timebased uh to to permanent um is a 10,000 foot addition uh keyed on to the principal structure. So I'll just kind of point here. This again is the 11,000 and change principal structure mic. Uh thank you. This is the principal structure and this is where the 10,000 square foot addition is proposed. And uh you know with that there's going to be a new loading area proposed. So right now I didn't really talk about this but the way this building was designed the loading is off of the terminus of 113th Street which is is a strange existing condition that was clearly built under a different zoning code at the time. And we know right now that that's generally not a desired place to have loading uh where vehicles can conflict or trucks that are parked and trying to make maneuvers can conflict with the um uh with street traffic there as well. So we are going to uh move loading and unloading to the interior of the site. Uh as indicated as part of this plan we're uh relocating parking. So, uh, it's kind of hard to indicate. Uh, this plan is kind of drawn over u an image, but the existing parking for the facility is striped right here. It's no longer going to work in this configuration. So, those spaces are being relocated, uh, to the northeast corner of the site. And, thank you very much. Uh, with the, uh, addition of some other parking areas as well, um, Eric was just, uh, panning at the south of the site there. um we can get into what what that's going to be, but again it's uh revised parking, revised loading, and the the addition of uh the 10,000 foot um warehouse. Uh the site will have utility connections, drainage, lighting, uh minimal landscaping as well, although not shown. This is generally conceptual

for the board as we're discussing the uh the renewal with special use permit. Uh access to the site will will remain unchanged but alter slightly. So, uh, principal access to the site, the address is going to be 6113th Street. Principal access is going to be from 113th with access. Uh, we we will keep the 9inth Street access open. Um, uh, I'm I'm going to, uh, dovetail into something else and why we've got the parking arranged the way it it is. Um what we're gearing up to is for the applicant to support up to 50 employees at this facility with this addition and um our traffic demand management plan has a parking um demand section in there and that indicates that we're going to be planning for about 32 parking spaces and right now we're providing 43 to generally show mass and scope and what can be supported. Um, so you know, generally speaking, just because our TDMP indicates that 32 spaces will be sufficient, it doesn't mean that he might need more for 50 employees. It's just a the starting point. Okay. Now, why I'm coming back to that is because we believe that the parking that is uh uh going to be at the north part of the site will suffice the applicant for quite some period of time until he's at uh an employee count um that is not going to be able to be handled by that existing parking. and we're proposed to to uh grind and restripe this parking in the south and phase it or or quote unquote bank it to be to be used at some later date. And when we do that, uh the ninth street entrance would be open to only employees only. No truck traffic will go through 9th. And we believe that's uh desirable for the character of of the residential homes and settings on on Ninth Street as well. um

uh site act uh I'm sorry site disturbance is uh proposed to be under one acre uh we talked about right now uh the the the employee count is about 18 and the applicant is trying to plan for a potential 50 at full production. Um the the project will need some area variances to move forward. So, uh, I just wanted to point out that our expectation tonight is that this board isn't able to take any action. Uh, we're here to introduce the project to get your feedback and talk about it before the applicant um, uh, appears at the zoning board to seek additional entitlements. And I'll just spend a second describing what those are, although it is in the staff memo. Uh, the first is uh, building square footage. So in 2023, this existing facility uh when it comes to variances, we're talking about gross floor area, not the size that the building takes up. So this is two story in here. We've got about 18,000 total square feet of gross floor area. And so, uh, back in 2023, in order for the reoccupancy to occur, the applicant received an area variance which basically memorialized that the building existed the way it was, and the maximum allowed in the zone is 2500. Okay. So, we've got to seek another variance to expand that for another 10,000 square feet. So, that's that's the one variance there. One of the variants is for accessory parking being within 30 feet of a lot line and the uh other two are related to principal building setbacks. The first is a front yard setback. So I wanted to indicate to the board that uh 25.9 ft and 26 feet is an existing condition. The code right now um is 0 to 20, zero being min, 20 being the max. And so the existing building does not comply. We're putting an addition on on the back that also doesn't comply as well. So, we've been told we need to seek a variance for

a front yard setback. The addition is the sideyard setback. So, uh that's also uh max 15 ft. And so, the building does violate it at 8.4 ft today in this corner, but we are uh although not to mentioned the the the dimension from the back corner to the property land under the new zoning is a little over 51 ft. And so that violates it already today. We are picking up that face of wall and we are continuing it. And that 71.2 dimension uh violates the setback. So we will be um uh or at least we plan to apply to the zoning board for the January meeting for those variances and uh get a chance to hopefully come back and pick this project back up with you all. Uh generally speaking, that's all I have at the moment. I'll turn it back over to the board for any questions or comments. You said how many employees do they project?

50. Up to 50. Up to 50. Up to 50. Okay. And uh the firm um Energy Catalyst Technologies chose this location as opposed to building a new building elsewhere because they're already in it. They're they're already in the building. They're already in. Yeah. Yep. So they're doing production right now or they're doing R research or they're they're doing uh assembly production in the building. That's correct. Geothermal products. Yep. Heat pumps. Correct. Okay. So you So you basically you assemble get the part shipped then you and you assemble. That is correct. You put them together and they also do installation as well of these custom things as well. Yeah.

I want to make a clarification for the record. Uh this was noticed on our agenda as a type two project. Uh it's been found to be un unlisted. In that regard, you could declare the project to be unlisted. So um but so we're here you're here for to extend a special use permit. You know, you're good till March with that. Is that what we're saying? Correct. this special the current special use permit was valid for two years starting in March 2024 ending in March of 2026. So you you're going to need to go to zoning before you can come back here

as a so so if we didn't have an expansion plan we would be back in front of this board to simply request a renewal right of the special use permit but because the applicant's business model has changed and he's growing yeah he needs the 10,000 square foot. So, we're we're coming back for site plan review, special permit renewal, but it's all part of a revised site plan. That make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And but but in order to make this happen, we've got to go seek entitlements from the zoning board before we can come back and ask this board to continue its review.

Correct. So the only action would be to change the seeker was under the original meeting that these guys had here under the original application it was seeker was already declared

or no the seeker in this instance would be applicable to the uh the expansion. So the the addition so that that's what you would review the addition is sizable enough to to be an unlisted action. So, of the actions or motions you could consider taking tonight would be the identification of the project to be unlisted. Uh potentially a determination if you felt that that that was appropriate. You could weigh the determination of application completeness, you know, um and you might be able to give an indication as to whether or not you support area variances before referring them to the CBA. Um, and you don't have to cover it this time in this meeting, but at some point you should probably go down and re renew sort of the criteria for special use permit um, permitting. I think we talked about that, Tony, with the the chapter 28516E criteria.

What is the traffic pattern and what types of vehicles? So, uh it's a great question. Uh the traffic pattern is generally going to consist of employees, normal vehicles, um and uh delivery trucks. Okay. Uh what I did size trucks

get there in just a second. What what I do want to uh mention is I took a look at the TDMP that was on record for the uh reclassification of of the or the reoccupancy rather. um that TDMP uh indicated there was going to be uh owner box trucks that may be used for local uh deliveries. Uh we we don't see that presently on the site. The applicant and the owner is not with us this evening to talk about why that hasn't happened yet, but we don't have those box trucks that we're just looking back to. We're going to be very similar to what Kraton Manning described the operation at that time. So, passenger vehicles uh for employees and uh you know really everything up to a WB67 which is a 53 ft box. Those are rare uh very hard to get in and out uh on Troy. We don't have uh designated truck routes in Troy as you know but delivery vehicles certainly make their way to where they need to go uh in this city. uh the applicant, you know, will certainly try um to uh work with the the shippers and the deliveries around the truck sizing, but they've indicated that's very hard to control what size truck they sent. So, I'm just trying to give you a picture. You asked a question of what's the traffic pattern look like. You know, where these trucks come from. Uh we we don't know. I mean, we're we're generally assuming that they're coming from the 787 down um I believe is it Ontario uh into North Troy. um they're not taking other routes, but it's it's untrue. There is no designated truck route. So, how they get to the site, generally speaking, not really too aware of that. Um but as what we've tried to do here with this diagram is just give an indication of um of a certain truck type and how the sweat path would work and get in and out of the site. And this is what they do today. Um I may know what you're thinking, which is how do they get in and out? Um, and the reality is is these

trucks must be doing some type of maneuvering out here to back themselves in. Don't don't know, but I don't know how else they're doing it without preparing themselves, you know, further away from the site. Uh, we're going to try to alleviate that by bringing them into the site. Um, and how they would leave is generally out um to the north as well as we're showing. I'm sorry, where would they exit? Out to the north on 8th Street alley. Okay.

Okay. Uh they are welcome to try to chicane and come back. Um but we're just generally showing the the the patterns like that. Hope that answers your question. A lot of it we can't control as they get to the site, but we're trying to indicate what happens when they do get to the site. So, are they utilizing Ninth Street right now since it's open as like a a loop through? Is that is that pattern changing or you think they're already approaching from All of the site photos indicate that that gate has been locked and maintained to be locked. Um doesn't look like they're making any deliveries or parking through that area. Um

and what would you say like the increase in triacial, you know, large trucks is from current conditions? So, it's a great question. uh we believe that there's only going to be uh say three to five trucks a a week and the reality is is the the applicant is indicating that the amount of truck traffic that they see today versus this buildout won't change and and that's due to they don't fill a truck when it comes nor do they fill a truck when it goes out. So a lot of it would be just filling up the trucks getting uh full truck deliveries and things like that as well. So the applicant actually is not anticipating increased uh truck deliveries. It's the the ability to better utilize that cubic volume and every truck coming and going.

So, did you say that at 113th Street they have to maneuver to back in all the way into the parking?

Uh, that that's what I'm saying. I haven't visualized it, but when you're there at the site, there's really no possible way for a truck to uh uh find that truck here with the cab facing the building and do any type of turning to get the the dock door. These are there are dock doors right here right now. Okay. And we're proposing to close those dock doors off and get, you know, eliminate any loading and unloading that would be occurring in the terminus of the 113th Street right away. So, they can't pull in after you get rid of that docking area in the front. They can't just pull in and go to the other loading dock where you're going to put it.

Uh, so, uh, maybe I'll just clarify. Right now, the only loading docks are here. And so, the truck must stick out into 113th as they're loading and unloading. What they do before they back in, I'm speculating, right? But I think we're all assuming that that's what some some truck drivers actually making their maneuvers back here. They back in and so you know 60 70 feet of that truck could be protruding into the into the 113th rightway during loading and unloading. And that's the present situation and we're removing those loading docks. We're going to close those off so loading and unloading can no longer occur here. So they can pull in

and then they can pull in and then the the the new loading docks are going to be indicated at where those trucks are there. Okay. So, how long do you think that's going to take to remove the loading dock and put it in the in the on the side on the north? Oh, uh I I I think the answer to that would be the the completion of construction, right? So, so the only loading and unloading today is here. The the applicant needs to maintain production operations until such time. Um, but I I think I would say when when the contractor hands them the keys to turn the building on, this will be closed off. That would be turned on. Yep.

So, this was the Uncle Sam pipe previously before we're doing the geothermal. That's correct. Were there more trips then than there will be now? It's great. Another great question. So, the uh 2024 TDMP by Kraton Manning that was on file for the reoccupancy uh summarized just that. So they took land use code 140 which was manufacturing and they compared based upon the square footage versus employees and their conclusion at the time was uh no site improvements needed a lot less trip generation between the old use and the current use.

Now when it was I think when it was a pipe place there was also different ways into the property. It was kind of odd. I mean you know where they had pipe storage in the back depending on what type of pipe you wanted. It felt like he keyed in different ways. You're gonna control all that to one access point. That's correct. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

Any other questions from No. Yeah. Is there anyone here from the public that would like to speak about this project? Steve Maples

just uh if you could just a little bit more um explanation of the uh what's how the the floating dock will be filled in and removal of the confirming that there will be removal of that uh railing and so forth and just a little bit more detail on that. Sure. That question comment clear to the board. No,

I I I think the the question was or or the statement was there's not too much detail on what's happening there. Um it it uh there are some retaining walls to deal with some grade transitions around those docks. And so I think the question was is what's happening there? Uh and and the answer is we don't have that level of detail today. We'll provide what that is in a grading plan and how that's going to be worked out. But I guess the question would be is all that will be removed and we would want to uh I'm speaking to both parties. I guess I'll speak to the board and and the uh commenter can listen in here. Uh if if he can see there's a grade change there. We'll be we'll be filling in that area uh so that the trucks have the ability to to sweep through that area as well. Yep. Because right there that that is the biggest in impediment to any uh large sweep path of a vehicle is that grade transition. So that will be filled in. I'm assuming you can see from back there. Uh, and I believe that may answer gentlemen's question.

Okay. Is there fencing all around your property or No, currently there is. You can kind of see right here. Um, how how that's going to work is going to be a little bit different on the final site plan. Uh, I I just wanted to make sure this board understands that the concept plan that you're looking at is, you know, broad brush terms to discuss with this board. the massing, the scoping, the access, the traffic, uh things like the lighting plan, the landscaping, the grading, the fencing, all will come later through further discussion. But I just want to communicate to you that we we do intend to have a secure site. You know, where the fences are going to go, uh we'll we'll leave last in terms of where they should go.

Brian, is there there a fence on the eastern edge of the parcel? uh preventing anyone coming in from the uh bike trail?

That's a good question. Uh it's it's I'm just going to try to look at the existing condition survey that was provided to see if there was one up way up there. It looks like there's a portion of a chain link fence uh along one of the courses, if that makes sense, but it doesn't look like there's one plotted uh all along the back courses that would border that. I I'm not sure if um if the activity is still, you know, um Yeah, I see what you mean. Uh I'm not sure if the activity is still ongoing. It's probably ceased to a certain extent, but the police department had issued some concern when this was evaluated for the first round of special use permit review. Um and that cars from this parking lot previous to uh the occupancy currently were were getting their catalytic converters taken out. Um they they made a note of that and then nuisance reports. So they advised security cameras and fencing, perimeter fencing if uh if it's if it's feasible.

Yeah, we'll certainly discuss that with the applicant. I don't think that's going to be too big of a deal.

Any feedback from neighbors up there? Yeah, you can you can declare there's a lot of pools. Yeah, you know, um it's it's another great question because as these as this type of use cohabitates with single family all around. Uh Matthew, the the the owner operator of the company indicates, he does have generally good relations with all of his neighbors and I think he takes active pride in making sure that he um is a good stablemate to the neighborhood. But I I think at a public noticing process we you and we'd all hear otherwise if that's not the case. Your hours of operation are planned to be 9 to5, right? No heavy outdoor welding or No. No. I think that's it's going to be off gasing or any of that.

All of that. No outdoor storage of of material. So part of this is going to allow the All of it's going to be assembly inside. Inside. That is correct. Yep. So, you know what the residents of Uncle Sam used to have is the the reverse beacons of forklifts and pipes going into storage racks and that's that's the and welding and welding and those noises are none of that. None of that. So, the use would say the use is uh less invasive to the neighbors than uh the prior use.

Less intensive. Correct. which I which I believe is a welcome thing given that this is a built facility in and around the sensitive you know areas of single family residences and so um it's a it's a tough thing to blend together but we certainly would believe that it's a less impactful uh and I would hope that the residents now could could attest to that after the first two years of of being there to understand and also the work inside will be mainly assembly that's correct there's not going to be any foundry no thing nothing like that right as As far as I know, there's no stamping dyes. There's no hard-hitting things that would vibrate. Uh, no etching, no chemistry involved. Okay. Thank you. Light assembly. You're welcome.

So, any anybody else in the audience that would like to speak on this? Anybody on Zoom? There's anybody on Zoom that'd like to speak to this? Go ahead. Speak. No. Everybody's present. No. Okay. Thank you. Uh any other questions from the board? Uh comments about uh the the proposal before we uh go attempt to see the zoning board of appeals. Okay. So So this is unlisted. Yeah. I think we we have to

declare uh you know change the secret declaration unlisted. I'd like to make a motion to to declare this an unlisted action under secret declaration. All those in favor I I opposed motion is carried. Now the thing is special use permit extension. We're going to do that be later. Not tonight. Not tonight. So we're good until March with your special use permit and you'll be before us again. We hope to be back at the Jan 20 meeting if we have anything salient. So we don't need to extend you now tonight. That is correct. Okay. Thank you.

All set chair. Yes, we are all set. So we'll just have him uh back in January. Yeah. And you understand? So unless they do an application complete or secret deck or schedule, you know, you'll have to come back for two more meetings at that point. Public hearing, complete application, complete application, schedule the public hearing, then the public hearing.

What um what stands in the way of deeming a complete application? Uh we would have to go through all of the um outline 28516E. No, that's for special use per review. As I indicated earlier, you guys could determine uh application completeness this evening if you if you felt it appropriate. Well, we do have the variances outstanding that he's got to go to the ZBA for, right? But it's an area variance. I mean it's either a project killer right without it like I mean it's absolutely a project killer correct

if you don't get the variances

if we don't get the variances clearly there's no ability to come back and grow the site uh there'd be a challenge for energy catalyst to have to you know seek elsewhere uh he they would like to stay in Troy and be a Troy based manufacturer um and then the other thing we'd be interested in talking more about with this board at a later date later juncture when it makes sense is the conversion from uh a timebased uh to a permanent special use permit as this is uh quite an undertaking with financing and and uh improving the property and the very short horizons might make that very difficult for financing and the business itself. But we don't want to put that on the board. We just want to be transparent about what what some of the challenges are and um and we go from there. Yeah, the the question about the complete application. I was just a little unsure if if it's just ministerial in nature and we just need to determine do we have all of the files required great. If it's something that doesn't get deemed complete until the board uh determines that there's no more new information uh required by the applicant, then that's something we'll have to do at a later date. So, just to help me understand it.

Well, the the application completeness, you guys are all fairly familiar with that process, you know, and and the materials that they've submitted to date. the zoning variances that would be required for this would not be essentially part of your application for planning site plan review. So you could you can look at this and and you know it's it's up to you guys as to whether or not you feel like there's sufficient information before you to be able to determine the application is complete. And if there's not then this would be the time to notify the applicant as to what you would like to see specifically in order to get to that determination. So, you've seen the staff recommendations, correct?

And uh what where are you at with uh some of the minor issues on the staff recommendations? Do you feel that you'd be done with those by our next hearing or next meeting? CBA. Did I just misplace it? But, uh no, the short of it is we don't see uh the variant. The one thing on the staff notes that's outside of our sphere of influences, the separate body, the zoning board of appeals,

snow storage, lighting, uh filling in a lot of details we believe can be addressed through the the subsequent site plan review with you all. Um I did have a copy and now I'm missing it, but oh, here we go. Uh so if we want to just quickly run through uh uh and I'm just going to comment on things that aren't statements. Um, so you know, wayfinding signage, uh, striping, lighting details, uh, details about the loading dock and how it's going to be removed, snow, um, fire department connections, all of these things are are are able to be met through just advancing the plan further. Um, so there's nothing on uh, at least in the note section that we believe we would not be able to comply with. Um and and uh I believe staff recommendations are are more statements about other departments and and other things needed. So no, I think just looking down there, Eric and I had conversation this morning about this memo. Uh there really wasn't anything in there uh that we it solves a

you feel that those things could be done by the next meeting by a hearing by January.

We we we could uh I think there's a tight timeline. So if if we appear on the 7th um and we get the variance, we would need to basically have this plan already updated in advance to, you know, in hopes that we would have gotten the variance to make the deadline for the 20th. And so um I I think we're never want to tell the applicant we have time, but I I think we're we're here for the right time. And so if we have to come back in January and come back one time in February, I don't think that's going to be the biggest issue, especially if you board feel that we need the proper time to um to develop the plans and show those things. But no, just to answer your question, nothing in the staff notes where um where project killers are unable to be uh mitigated. Uh just a point, right? A couple things came up on other projects this evening. dumpster locations, transformers. We're we're we're showing 43 spaces when we generally need 32. We can horse trade out areas for snow storage and show those on further plan. So, there's nothing really contained in here that we don't have room to deal with or show. It's really just getting through the next hurdle with the that board

with zoning. The ZBA. Yeah, the ZBA. So, it has on here that they need a sign off by DPU. Yeah, we usually put that on most

I do think projects there could be reason for you know like a hydrodnamic separator given the indust there could be reason for some type of you know separator in the sewer system theirs which is typical for industrial parking lots. Um, it's not something to hold up application completeness or even probably even site plan approval on because it doesn't really change the layout, but it's something worth noting and um, you know, DPU should review that as part of their sore review. So, do we want to make them complete?

Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to declare this application complete. I'll second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion is carried. Thank you. See you next meeting. Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of your evening. It's been a long night for you all. Thank you as well. Okay. The next item on our agenda is PLPB20250063 120 Hz Street uh fitness gym. Anybody here to speak on that?

Good evening. Good evening. Hi Eric. I just requested to share on the Zoom. Sorry for that. Stop sharing my Thank you. Can we have your name, please?

Good evening. I'm Karen Majinowski from Bowler Engineering on behalf of James J. Welch and Company, the applicant who is attending on Zoom and here with Matt Smith from Crunch Fitness and the property owner is here as well. Let me just pull up our exhibit. All right. So, we're here for a fairly simple project hopefully this evening at 120 Hz Street, which is a approximately 12 acre uh commercially developed site. Uh existing condition shown here at 120 Hz Street and we're looking to simply propose a new tenant which would be a different use than what's there today. So, we've added this box on this side of the existing building. Uh, that was a retail space. It's about 37,000 square feet, and we're looking to propose a new use and tenant for that for Crunch Fitness. I believe we're into minor site review territory, uh, possibly because of the square footage of it, but everything already exists on site today. access, parking, utilities, all those types of things. Uh, so it's a simple uh plugand play in for this you new user for the gym and I'll open it up to the board for any comments or questions. Thank you.

Okay. Well, I'm sure you read the staff report. We received the staff report. Okay. And do you under their notes and recommendations, has anybody has anything been decided as to how you're going to proceed? I know they need it. Um, they do require bike parking. That's something we could provide. Yes. Okay. Uh they also suggested maybe additional landscaping, shade trees.

Yeah. Anything related to the overall property would have to be discussed and decided on with the land owner. Okay. I just want to make sure that the land owner is here because I received a message today that the the owner was here. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. Thanks. What was the the prior tenant? Big lots. Big lots. Oh, it's big lots. Okay. So, will be there less usage than there were at big lots. Less usage as far as how many people are been go going through the door? Yeah. Currently during peak times we see 40 to 60 check-ins an hour. Average stay is about an hour.

So, it's probably more than big lots then, right? or no most or less. I used to I used to go to Big Lots a lot actually. So it was never really not a lot of people there Christmas shopping and they were in bad shape so they should have stuck around and you know maybe they could have you know used the fitness. Yeah. What are your what are your hours of operation? typically 5:00 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m.

10 11 p.m. Um, so you're not going to do that, you don't do the Planet Fitness thing that 24-hour training during the week of 10 11:00. You're going to have uh saunas and steam. Uh, in this one, I have to check the latest plans, but not typically. So, okay. I was looking at one today. I saw sim hydrotherapy. No red light therapy. Uh I believe we may have the red bulbs being out.

I have a random question. Where where is the where's the closest Crunch Fitness currently from here? We just opened a few months ago at Crossgates Mall. Uh and then we have one inbody

are you competitors with Planet Fitness and place like that? I think our goal is to determine what we need to do for Seeker and and any other things that might have a lead time. Um unless the board could accept this and vote on this tonight. Yeah. So that's really all we have to do is declare it's an unlisted listed. So we could say their application's complete and they they need another hearing for this.

Yes. The application cannot be deemed complete the same night as a hearing. There has to be a notice. So you'll be back in January. So we could deem complete tonight and return in January. Okay. Seeker determination. Yeah. I think I'd like to make a me um a motion to determine seeker is unlisted. Okay. Second. What about that's a classification of uh what type of seeker action is. I mean, I guess you can also determine whether or not you if you have sufficient information, right,

to determine whether or not a negative or positive declaration should be forthcoming. Yeah. So, I guess we just went through. So, we're saying it's already an unlisted project and we could say it's got a negative declaration. I could make a motion to declare it. You can do Yes, the motion. Do the both of the same motion. Don't we have to declare ourselves legit? At least I'm done. I'm not unlisted. Okay. No. In order to not coordinate the review, you just declare it as unlisted. Issue the determination if you felt that. Okay.

So, redo the motion to uh declare this is a secret unlisted project and uh offer a negative declaration. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed. I'd like to make another motion to declare the application complete. Second.

Okay. Well, yeah. No, we do. Okay. All in favor? I opposed. Motion is carried. And I'd like to make a motion to schedule a hearing at uh the next meeting in January. What's the date? 20th. January. January the 20th. Um for a hearing. I'll second. All those in favor?

I oppose. Motion carried. Thank you. I guess you're coming back on January 20th. See you then. Thank you.

I got a bag. I have a motion. You got to make a motion. Make a motion. Still make a motion. Get out of here. Right. I'll second that. Okay. All those in favor? I I post. Okay, we're out of here.