We welcome ladies and gentlemen to the meeting of the planning board of the village of Rybrook. Let us all now stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Welcome and
thank you for coming. My name is Robert Goodman. I'm the chairman of the Rybrook Planning Board. Also, in attendance tonight is board members, Dominic Acurso,
John Gersanne, Sal Morelino, Jeffrey Richmond, Amy Shone, and Dan Tartagria.
Also in attendance tonight is our Village Attorney Jennifer Gray, our Village
Engineer Michael Noak, our Village Consultant from a Frederick P. Clarke, Maryland,
Muhammad, and a Planning Board Secretary Sherry Malio. Also in attendance is
our liaison from the Board of Trustees, David Heiser.
Please silence your cell phones for the duration of the meeting.
I also a reminder, all applicants and consultants,
please address the planning board from the podium,
adjust the microphones, sometimes it's work,
sometimes it doesn't, so you may have to jigger it a little bit.
But we need you to use it,
because we have a streaming video, so we catch everything on video, and we want to hear you.
I also want to remind you that our Village website contains our board's rule with procedures,
agendas, and documents relating to this and past meetings.
I also want to remind professionals to review our board rules as it may be helpful in your
are making a presentation before a board
and ministering your applications.
First item and our agenda is the minutes
of November 10th, 2016, and December 8th, 2016.
Are there any comments or revisions
that need to be made to these minutes?
Yes, I'd just like to note the November 10th minutes
At least the Board of Trustees is us, the last time I looked, it still was there.
Okay.
All right, thank you.
Any further comments?
Okay.
In that case, can I have a motion in a second to adopt the November minutes and the December minutes?
Moved.
Second.
Mr. Carstle?
Yes.
Mr. Carzane?
Yes.
Mr. Marlena?
Yes.
Mr. Richman?
Yes.
Michelle.
Yes.
Mr. Tartaglia.
Yes.
Chairman Goodman.
Yes.
Thank you.
Our first matter tonight is a 770 King Street.
Robbie, you may just want to mention that 259 North Ridge is adjourned.
Okay.
Is that?
Okay.
All right.
That's our second item.
Yes.
And as I recall, we have a public meeting scheduled on this matter.
So now I have a motion in the second to open up the public hearing.
Moved.
Second.
Mr. Kerrstone.
Yes.
Mr. Kuzan.
Yes.
Marlena.
Yes.
Mr. Richman.
Yes.
Michelle.
Yes.
Mr. Tartaglia.
Yes.
Chairman Goodman.
Yes.
I know you were before the ZBA and you got your variances approved.
That's correct.
Just for the self-edification, why don't you just briefly go to your application and
And then we'll proceed from there.
Absolutely, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
My name is Taylor Palmer, I'm with the law firm of Cuddy and Fader.
This evening, I'm joined by Jim Miller, architect.
And I will ask Jim to please review the Cypeland Avocation.
As the chairman mentioned, we were previously before this board on December 8th,
at which time we were referred to the zoning board of appeals.
The zoning board of appeals granted our variance relief for front and rear yard setbacks for the premises.
This involves minor alterations and additions to the existing residents and the existing garage.
And Mr. Miller will review the minor proposals that are for this application.
Yes?
Yes.
It's Millertown.
Thank you.
It's Millertown.
Good evening.
There are a number of different smaller projects and encapsulated within this overall.
The existing garage is a little bit too small and, I'm sorry, first of all, the existing garage
It's a little bit too small, it's a little bit deficient in terms of its width.
And so we've actually added some space on one side and enlarged the length in the front.
Between the existing garage and the existing house, there was an 11 foot deck of space, open space with the deck.
That's being closed in and built upon to expand the kitchen a new entry mudroom on the first floor.
also on the first floor we're putting on a small deck. On the first floor we're
expanding to the rear of an existing sun porch onto an open patio area to make
it was originally a sun porch actually. It became a family room and then we're
doubling the size of it by incorporating the patio that exists outside of it so
the whole square here will become one family room which is going to be
reasonable size as opposed to half reasonable size.
And on the second floor, we're keeping the existing garage and the height as one floor,
one story, and of course the document here just shows the enlarged space, but we're not
building on the second floor of the garage.
The second floor hatched in shows where the master bedroom, master bathroom project will be
created and that goes out over the kitchen as well. Additionally on the second floor we're
adding a small space on top of the roof of the new family room and that's going to
be a back-to-back bathroom for each of the two bedrooms that are in this location. There's
some interior work but it's not of much consequence. So as far as the site is concerned we're
actually only doing a small portion of the driveway as necessary to accommodate the
wider garage. Pretty much everything else that exists will be staring as is.
Is there anything else?
I believe that's it. The board certainly has any questions. We're certainly pleased to provide.
Just for the record, Mr. Chairman, there was a county referral provided to Wyshester County
and it was for notification purposes only and it was dated 1129-16 and we also provided
a proof of service package for this hearing on January 9th.
Maryland, do you have any comments? Any updates to your or you have a memo of November 28th, I think?
Yes, and yeah, there were really no planning issues that were identified in that memo.
Hi, Jen.
We have a resolution to read.
First I would recommend closing the public hearing there are no comments from the
flood.
All right.
Let me invite you.
If there's any member of the public that has any comments on this application, come forward
now.
In that case, let's have a motion to second to close the public hearing.
Moved.
Second.
Mr. Kerr some.
Yes.
Mr. Grzahn.
Yes.
Marlena.
Yes.
Mr. Richman.
Yes.
Michelle.
Yes.
Mr. Tartaglia.
Yes.
Chairman Goodman.
Yes.
Thank you.
Resolution approving a site plan application for property located at 770 King Street.
Whereas the property owner submitted an application for approval of a site plan to construct
to a two-story infill edition, one-story expansion,
second floor addition, garage addition, and a new deck and stairs.
Unproperty located at 770 King Street in the R15 and R25 zoning districts
as well as scenic road overlay districts.
Whereas the planning board is the approval authority for the application.
Whereas the planning board has reviewed a series of plans and application materials
that are listed in the resolution.
whereas on December 8th, the planning board pursuant to secret determined the proposed
action to be type 2 requiring no further environmental review, whereas the planning board reviewed
memorandum from the village planning consultant, F. P. Clark associate, dated November 28th, whereas
on December 8th, the planning board referred the application to the zoning board for consideration
of a front yard setback and rear yard setback variance, and whereas on January 3rd, 2017, the
zoning board granted the aforementioned variances, whereas the duly advertised public hearing
was held by the planning board on January 12th, 2017, at which time all those wishing to
be heard were given an opportunity and the public hearing was closed on January 12th, 2017,
whereas the village planning consultant, village staff and the planning board have reviewed
the information and submitted comments regarding the application, and whereas the planning board
is fully familiar with the application and the property.
Now, therefore, be it resolved that the village of Riberg planning board hereby
approves the site plan application referenced here in for 770 King Street and be for the
result that no permits shall be issued until the applicant has paid to the village
all applicable fees and professional review fees incurred in connection with the review
of the application.
Is there any discussion to be had on this resolution?
First, a motion in a second and then we'll have, we can have discussion.
I'm just asking whether there will be discussion, if there is any discussion.
If there is, then we'll do it.
Otherwise, we'll just make a motion in a second just to adopt the resolution.
Does that make sense?
Yes, just under Robert's rule, typically, we have a motion in a second in the discussion.
And then we'll call the roll.
If you want to any discussion?
I know.
No?
Okay, let's just have a motion in a second to adopt the resolution.
Moved.
Second.
Mr. Kerr, so?
Yes.
Mr. Grazan.
Yes.
Marlena.
Yes.
Mr. Richman.
Yes.
Michelle.
Yes.
Mr. Tarthaglia.
Yes.
Chairman Goodman.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Okay.
Our next item is a 90-southridge street.
Good
evening, Mr. Chairman.
Members of the board, David Steinmetz, from the law firm of Zaronon Steinmetz.
Very pleased to be here this evening representing RSP Group LLC and Yale New Haven and Greenwich
hospital health services.
We're here as the chair indicated with regard to 90 South Ridge and we're excited to be here
with a new project and some modifications to an office building that I'm sure you are
all quite familiar with.
The application is essentially to introduce Yale, New Haven, Greenwich Hospital with expanded
services to the community in this medical office building, proposing new additional medical
local office space, a new handy capped accessible entrance with screening and some signage in the front along South Ridge,
creation of 37 new parking spaces that we're going to talk to you a little bit about this evening, and some new
signage, replacement of some old signs and introducing some new more modern signs.
With me this evening, Frank John, Albany's from RSP Group, the landlord and owner of the building, his attorney, Rob Acko, both Rich Pearson and Kevin,
Matthew Vecchio from JMC, our project engineers and traffic and parking consultants, as well as my colleague, Michael Cunningham.
So, Gil Newhaven Greenwich Hospital is proposing additional medical office space as I indicated.
The concept is to have some walk-in medical space, additional pediatrics program introduced
into the building, as well as a general practitioner aspect, all in addition to a small blood center
that you may or may not realize actually is in 90 Southridge currently.
The property, as you may well know, 3.3 acres in the OBS office building and business district,
obviously at the intersection of Bowman and South Ridge.
It's an important location, it's an important building, and it is a great property that we think we can do some good things with.
Yale New Haven obviously brings a very high quality, wonderful brand and some excellent medical services.
And it was interesting when I was originally retained in connection with the project I was engaged by Yale New Haven to assist with a land use review and engage in some permitting and I immediately learned that JMC and my good friend Rich Pearson had already been engaged by the landlord to begin exploring some modifications to the parking lot and in fact as you probably know an application was filed by the landlord by the owner of the building amongst earlier to begin
looking at expanding that parking lot.
So what ended up happening is Yale, New Haven, and the landlord essentially
decided that we should all, both landlord and tenant as well as JMC and our firm
team up and handle this together, and that is why we resubmitted materials to you,
and we're now kind of in this all working in conjunction with one another.
Obviously it makes sense as well as hopefully most efficient.
So parking.
Rich is going to talk to you a little bit more this evening about the specifics of the changes in the parking, but I kind of want to remind the planning board that this building, which I got a little bit of the history when we met with staff.
As obviously this property has been developed for decades, this building has been there for quite some time, and the building has never had zoning compliant parking associated with it. Literally for decades, the building itself never met the mathematical parking requirements of your village code. So the concept is to improve its functionality, its safety. We'll describe how we're going to do that. But most importantly, the application yields a net benefit of 37 additional parking spaces to this.
to this property.
In terms of handicap accessibility,
ritual walk through precisely where,
but there is some additional entrance
that Yale New Haven Greenwich would like to have
along the Ridge Street side.
There'll be a modest and an attractive canopy associated with it
with a small sign inside it.
That is part of our exterior modification
as well as some of the changes that are associated with the parking,
including a retaining wall.
We met with your staff, as I assume you know, but you should know, prior to filing our materials,
our team met with your staff on December 21st, we thought it was a good idea to sit with
the building inspector, the village engineer, your planning consultant, your village attorney,
and walk through the components of this modified application. I know, though we had originally filed
some materials on signs, as you can imagine, signage on that building is important for the community,
signage on that building is important for the landlord and signage on that building is important for the tenants.
You may be aware, and maybe you haven't looked at it in some time, the sign along Bowman apparently has been in its current location and configuration for quite some time.
It is not the most attractive or functional sign and definitely is in need of attention.
There's a monument sign, I think that says Rhybrook Plaza out in front on South Ridge,
and our proposal is to relocate the entrance, consolidating two entry points that
Rich will explain graphically on the site plan, change the location of the monument
sign, and although you don't have all of the most recent signage materials, and if your
board doesn't want us to go into it, we fully understand we would like to just show
you the signs that we're now proposing, they've been cleaned up and in fact we got some wonderful
suggestions from staff about how best to do this. So we had originally put in our materials, we got
some great suggestions, went back to the landlord as well as the tenant group and came up with a new
concept for signing the site in an attractive and functional fashion and minimizing its impact.
We're
of that street, sight lines from Rye Ridge Plaza.
We're very well aware of the fact that you have students
and folks from the community walking along the sidewalk
in front of the building.
And we are hoping to introduce some things
that will make all of that cleaner, more attractive,
and more functional.
So I hope you'll allow us to show you a little bit
about the signs.
We have some great boards that I think
will illustrate that clearly.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna turn it over to Rich.
We're going to kind of tag team walking you through the application and we're happy to answer questions.
We brought our client with us.
We will bring more information as we go forward and Rich will explain the additional
information that we fully understand we still need to supplement in terms of traffic,
et cetera, in terms of other data.
Good evening, Richard Pearson with JMC.
I am a professional engineer and a professional traffic operations engineer.
I was trying to think when the last time I was before your board was about I guess a year
and a half ago or so for the Ry Ridge Shopping Center modifications. As you are aware, I'm
sure of where the site is, but just to refresh anybody who may not be sure. We are at the
corner of Bowman Avenue in South Ridge Street. The building is here and the Ry Ridge Shopping
Center is to the left on the screen, which is essentially south of the property. As David
We haven't mentioned before, we do have access on both Bowman Avenue and South Ridge Street.
On South Ridge Street, we actually have two curb cuts in this area.
And when we were first meeting with the new owners of the property,
they owned a property for less than a year now.
They had come to us and said that we're thinking about reoccupying the vacant square footage.
and then is there anything we can do to increase the parking supply just in
case we need it and so as we were looking around for various places that was
one area that I thought we could consolidate the two driveways into one
driveway so I'll put the aerial below and what we've done is in that area as
I mentioned we've consolidated we've essentially kept the northern driveway and
we're widening that slightly to be a two-way driveway currently the northern
The urban driveway is the entrance, and the urban driveway is the exit, but it's be sufficient for this property to combine them for one driveway and we're able to pick up several parking spaces in that area.
Many of the other parking spaces were picking up a few here, a few there where we could to provide a good access and circulation around the property and increase the overall count.
Relative to handicap access to the building, there's currently a ramp in this area into the existing upper level of the building.
I should mention it's a two level building where access to the upper level is provided via the South Ridge Street location and
then access to the lower level is provided primarily via Bowman Avenue in the parking in this area.
There is a proposed entrance for the Yale New Haven Greenwich Hospital use, which is up in that area, and it would be a minor bump out, essentially more than awning than a physical bump out of brick and mortar per se.
Excuse me, in the back, there is no handicap.
There is actually, yes, there's a ramp right in this area to get to White Plains Hospital for their component of it.
And that also provides an internal connection to the other uses and the lower levels for the other doctors' offices.
In the far back, there is a parking structure that as you're driving near the building, you don't necessarily realize
the first that it is a parking structure because this appears to be at grade and consistent with the grades of the of the Jason surface parking.
But there is a ramp that goes down to the parking below in the back so what we've shown in the sort of beige color is the parking structure.
So there is a net gain of 37 spaces as David mentioned and we do have signs that are proposed.
There's an existing monument sign in this location, which we are going to relocate, and I'll have some graphics to show you.
There's also the second existing monument sign over by the Lohman Avenue access, and that's getting a bit dated that existing sign.
And so we're looking to improve that.
We had proposed to have a monument sign on the corner, as well as a building sign up on the second level.
We've since removed those signs from the application based on our meeting with staff at the end of December as David mentioned.
If we do the signs which could keep talk a little bit about when we picked up the 37 spaces.
Sure, so the 37 spaces again are a combination of in this area basically whatever shown in light gray is existing.
parking or access and what's shown in the darker gray are areas where we're doing
widening to expand the parking or improve the access. So in this area we're
providing some parallel parking spaces along the building. On the north side we're
providing three additional spaces along the ramps to the lower level we're
providing some additional spaces and then we're providing a few spaces in this
area and then in this area we're not increasing the number of spaces but we're
increasing the aisle width. It's a little narrow back there and we're trying to
improve that and that's where we would be having a rotating wall along this
area that's about four or five foot high wall. I have a question about the spaces
because I know that it's pretty difficult parking there at certain times during the
day and I know that there are a number of spaces that are already designated for
specific offices, where you can't park.
That's correct.
Is that going to be the case with the 37 spaces or how many of the 37 spaces will be designated spaces?
It won't be assigned specifically to the 37 new spaces.
The intent is White Plains Hospital is the one they've got to believe 25 assigned spaces that are signed for the individual spaces.
And there's a doctor up on this, on the upper floor, who's got a few assigned spaces.
is the white, the Greenwich, Yale, New Haven,
they have 72 parking spaces per their lease
and those would be signed.
Those would be on the upper level here
and then along this ramp,
which employees would park along the ramp.
And so virtually all of these spaces in this area
are open to anybody to use.
And I forgot to mention also the lower level
of the parking structure is being utilized
by one of the owners of the property
who has an office insurance office and they're parking down below.
Part of the, where I see the handicap space on the corner, they're close to Bowman.
That doesn't help if you're handicapped and you can't park any place but in the back.
That's problem.
Okay.
There are additional handicap spaces above and we can work with your board on that to make
sure that there's handicap spaces accessible in other locations.
Yeah, how many additional handicapped spaces are you adding are part of the additional spaces?
I'll have to get back to you on that.
It's not just the spaces, it's access to the building also.
Good, and you can get in from the upper level you can get in and then there's elevators.
I know, but it's the back, I'm talking.
Rich, what is how many square feet after this space expansion is going to be medical office in this building?
that would be $18
,900.
But there's other doctors in there in dentist.
Right.
It's
an added, we can have Kevin added,
if I don't have the answer to that.
If you don't have it.
No, we can get it for you.
Yeah, and now as we're talking, we can add it up to the answer.
About 75% of the low, it's 18,000 square feet
of approximately a new space associated with that.
Yes, it's actually easier to tell you what's not medical.
It's there's 7,100 visiting nurse service and then there's the BNC which just moved in there one of the owners of the property set 16,000 square feet and then after the proposed use that we're here for tonight, there's about 4,800 square feet of additional vacant, which we're showing as office.
Yes, because I think what happened with this building is that it was built as a single
tenant building, and there was plenty of parking as a single tenant building.
Then it became multi-tenant, it started to exacerbate the parking, and then it slowly becoming
all medical, which you know and I know, is exacerbating the parking even more and increasing
the traffic even more.
So if you take the amount of medical square footage in here and you multiply it one space
times every 150 square feet, which is what I think is required here, you know, you're going to be way, way under.
We are way, way under, per your code.
Your code is excessive compared to most codes and on a practical basis, they have leases for almost all of these existing uses that specify how many parking spaces are allocated to those specific uses.
And we have those listed in our submission for the parking analysis.
It's table two.
There's a parking summary of leases.
And based on those, the ratios are much lower than what's required per code.
And we've also, as part of our analysis, we did a field study just prior to the insurance people moving in.
And the amount of occupied spaces was consistent with the leases.
So it's consistent with the leases yet lower than what your code required?
What it is under, it is going to be.
We are aware that we are well under.
Every time more medical gets out of this building, it creates a larger deficit and required
parking.
So, Mr. Tartaglia, I wanted to jump in because we were all concerned about the same issue
that you're identifying.
So you're certainly asking, as you know, an appropriate question, and you're asking
a question that both the landlord as well as Yale-New Haven asked.
Yale-New Haven has no desire to come to the property if it's not going to be functional and if it's patients and folks in the community get there and can't park.
So one of the first things we did as Rich just alluded to and I want to amplify is we drilled down with an empirical analysis of what's going on there on a typical day and we measured the number of parking spaces at different peak hours on different days.
We're aware of the various medical groups in there, and I'm sure some of you know, I know my wife frequents this building at least once a year.
And the fact of the matter is, these various medical groups do know their peaks.
There are certain folks that have certain days that have a larger turnover of patients.
I think Tuesday we learned was probably the most significant day, and we counted on Tuesday.
Tuesday. So we made sure to do that. In addition, we met with your parking and your traffic
consultant, and Mr. Galante, Maryland's colleague made it very clear to us that obviously Saturday
was a critical period of time as well, maybe not so much for the occupancy of the building,
but certainly for the Rye Ridge Center and the critical intersection of Bowman and Rich.
So we're analyzing that as well. The point being we have to make sure that this building works.
One of the reasons we talked about signage restrictions.
David I could tell you right now what does
It doesn't work, is the entrance and exit on the ballman. Well, ever, never, ever works, ever, because it's almost not even quite opposite, but it's almost opposite the entrance and exit to Rye Ridge, which Rich is very aware of. It's a bad, bad. I'd like to see an alternative where you close that awful together and have all of the entrance from Ridge Street perhaps. Well, we certainly could look at alternatives and possibly restrictions and one way restrictions, et cetera.
Let's take one giant step back because I think I knew we'd ultimately have this conversation
and I think this is a fairly significant point.
The only reason we're standing here tonight is because we want to add parking spaces and
we actually have a proposed tenant who wants to improve the outside and add a doorway and
then there's the signage piece.
Let's assume for the sake of the discussion right now that Yale New Haven wasn't here.
90 Southridge was in your community like it is every other day, and the landlord simply
wanted a least space inside the building in accordance with office, professional office
under your code.
There's no reason anybody needs to come to the board.
The tenants come in, the building gets utilized, and the community deals with what it has.
Instead we have a beneficial situation.
We're here processing.
We want to do it correctly with your board and your consultants.
We have a landlord who cares enough to have preemptively hired consultants to try to find more parking spaces in the building and in the parking lot.
And I think you now have a landlord and a tenant mix that will give you as good a situation as you can.
We started this tonight candidly and I think it's important we started it candidly, mathematically it's deficient.
I didn't make it deficient. You guys didn't make it deficient. It's deficient. I know it is deficient.
So much so that I was retained to analyze it that determined can it function before people spend a lot of time money and effort bringing this building to its full fruition so
Mr. Tartagli your point is well taken we are ready to share all of our empirical data
We sat with mr. Galant the preemptively because I know Mike
And I know what Mike's gonna ask me and he's gonna ask rich and we're gonna have to work through that
So if Mike Mike also seems to think that the intersection of rich and ballman functions
I don't think it ever functioned.
Well, you have to take that up with your own consultant.
I'll let my consultant take a look at it and we'll low-pine on it.
But...
Taking another look at it.
Yeah.
But more importantly, let's come back to the jumping off point.
If there's something we can do at the Bowman intersection,
I go to the Ryridge Shopping Center.
I'm familiar with Bowman as well.
If there's something we can do in terms of signage
or something that can be done at that intersection,
You now have the opportunity with this application to deal with it if we pack up and go home you don't have it
So the good news is we're here and hopefully we can work together
Well, one of the things about narrowing the entrance on Ridge what happens in this part of town is cars get gas on the corner
They come out onto Ridge and they want to go south right they can't because the queue is too long
So they make a right then they make a left they use this as a jug handle
they come around out and then they head south on Ridge. So narrowing this is
going to perhaps force those same people coming out of the gas station to just
interrupt the queue and get in. I mean it actually is helpful the way it is now
and if you narrow it I think you're going to make it more difficult there. The other
thing I noticed David is in the survey is there's an easement that runs along the
northern boundary. Did you take a look at that? And now you're proposing that
That has not been analyzed.
Certainly by the way.
There's a 10-foot easement in the survey.
It runs completely along the northern boundary.
And in fact, the survey makes reference to a librarian page.
And I pulled it out and sure enough, there's a 10-foot right-of-way.
And now you're proposing to put parking space
as another improvements in the right-of-way.
Who's the right-of-way in favor of, if you know?
It is in favor of school, right?
A lotty and surprises, ink, its successors and our signs.
Well, we will take a look at that, the good news is the landlord's transactional counsels here in the room, so we will together look at that and see if it's impacted in any way.
Okay. And the last thing I wanted to ask was there any consideration about extending the sidewalk along Ridge Street because the landscaping is in the right away, and there's room in the right away, and it'd be nice to be able to extend that sidewalk a little bit.
So, we heard a little bit about that from staff.
We obviously wanted to hear where your board shook out on that issue, and we will take
a look at that.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Yeah, go ahead.
The school, does the school still operate a path from the school out to Richie?
Currently, there's a right away, there's a path that runs up.
They own that.
Are they using that to school?
Yeah.
So, that would be ideal for that sidewalk to go all the way down to that path.
And I think there's a crosswalk at that path.
I don't know if it's that way anymore.
I don't think so.
There was one there.
Yeah, I don't.
I don't think there is.
Showing my age.
Pauline, let us go out and take a look and see if there is a crosswalk.
Yeah, but in any event, it would be nice to have that path to come all the way up to that path.
Kids can come in both directions and go.
Got it.
Also, there's an aesthetically lookedness.
Also have a question about the use of the property as far as the expansion,
in the medical facilities are concerned?
Is this just adding doctors and patients?
Is this an urgent care facility?
I mean, how are the medical facilities going to be used?
So as I alluded to earlier, it is divided
between a multitude of medical uses.
A pediatric group will come in, general practitioner,
And there will be a component of walk-in, no appointment required medical services.
It's not branded or billed or referred to as urgent care.
Yale, New Haven and Greenwich consider it to be medical office space that somebody can come in and use.
They do this in other locations.
And in fact, Marilyn did ask us for some data on that, which we are assembling and providing so
that we have a better sense of the impact in terms of utilization on the property.
You're talking about anybody walking in off the street or you're talking about whatever they choose to put in the medical offices.
I'm thinking in terms of what kind of medical supplies, what kind of, are there any hazardous materials or hazardous anything?
So I don't, I don't, I'm showing, I don't know if there'd be any more hazardous materials at that medical facility.
in those in that medical space, then there is elsewhere in the building.
I'm just so glad to know the uses of the walk-in, what specifically what.
There are no, it's not a surgical facility, it's not an ambulatory surgical facility,
but if you're, and I'm probably not qualified to really respond on the specifics of the medical,
but if you're asking me, will there be gauze with blood on it?
You know, it's somebody's, yes.
Who is going to be staffing that walk-in, and will it be treating patients?
Yes.
So it's not an open facility, it would be for patients of doctors out the facility would
have walking hours.
I believe there's the ability for somebody to walk in there who may not have a doctor
and that's what I'd like to know because that changes traffic altogether.
Once the word gets out, that changes a lot of things.
And where are you moving the garbage containers?
Right now I know they're in the front yard.
You look like you're putting a parking space there does the owner know where that aren't you showing parking there now, Rich?
Oh, I got you. Okay.
Let's just go back one step. I will we will come back and respond on the staffing because you did ask an important question.
So we'll give you as best we can the number of physicians, the number of nurses and the technical capability.
I can state as far as we know definitively, there is no surgical or ambulatory surgical procedures whatsoever.
So it's more first aid type, yeah, it's, you know, it's what you would walk into a to a doctor a GP when you didn't have an appointment. I need help quickly.
Um, the structure of the park construction of back is raised, correct? That's a raised.
It's essentially sunken. It's, um, as you have surface parking here, you can drive directly on to that.
So there's a ramping that goes down in this area and then cuts underneath.
Where? Because that goes downhill from Ridge Street. Correct. So that goes downhill, so you can actually...
Oh, I see, you can pull... You can get it from me the direction, huh? I...
The upper level, you can get...
Right there. And what's underneath that? Because that's a steel support structure, right?
Yeah, that's a parking that's essentially nearest what you see on the upper level.
Oh, there's parking below.
Correct. This is where you drive down.
Oh, okay. Oh, goes underneath.
Exactly, correct.
And that's the parking that Rich indicated, let's just reiterate.
That's going to be designated parking for the insurance company because that's a very
easy, that tenant knows where to go. They don't have a lot of people coming from the
outside where they need visitor parking that's outside near the front door. So it's easy
to restrict or designate that for the insurance company.
And that's a set of stores that goes down into that structure. How do you, is that it
right there to far left? So that goes down to the underneath.
If I may, I'm actually very intimately familiar with this site, obviously being a long
time resident in my book.
But I actually worked on that building way back when it was renovated.
Yeah, with William Barnum and Associates.
Yes, you probably have the drones that, yeah, okay.
So, yeah, and for those of you who don't know, the Village Office is used to be in that
building in the corner, and that's why that ramp was built for handicapped access.
it's into the village offices when it was first incorporated. So a few questions. How much
impervious areas being added to the site? I believe it's approximately 6,000 square feet
of impervious. No additional impervious? 6,000? Yeah, maybe seven. It's in that range.
Okay. So as a result of that, most of that impervious area takes away from green space, correct?
So in the back there, along perpendicular bobbin avenue entrance, where you say you're winding the entrance.
So you're not adding vehicles there, spaces, but you're taking away green space in that buffer between that property.
Right, we are going to be providing stormwater management, including stormwater quality and stormwater detention.
We've begun to coordinate with Mr. Noak and his consultants and we will address the requirements.
Well, in response to what, the increase in the pervids area?
That's correct.
So, what type of storm or water management facilities?
There's an existing facility and we will supplement the existing facility and that's
what we are working through the details of now.
We don't have the answer at this time.
And when you say I don't recall, what's the existing facility for stormers?
There's a, I think it's 83 by 10 by 4 sub surface structure and back in this area and there's
There's in let's drain in let's say that allow the water to go into that area and then it's connected to another structure over in this area
So you're increasing the that capacity
That's our intention. It's actually shown on this plan to
this area. So this is the area
that I mentioned. It's a 3
by 10 by 4. With the air drain and the air. And then it connects
to here. And there's a system of drainage here. There's other pipes and basins throughout
the site. So what we were having shown is a CDS unit of water quality structure here, which
which would also be an inlet and then a connection to this.
But when we go through our analysis,
we'll determine how much of a subsurface system
will need for detention as well.
As strong water management plan has been submitted
for reviewer, you still work?
We have not.
We are working on it now.
Okay, Marilyn, just before we have additional questions,
you had a memo on this and you also raised some concerns
and additional documentation that you would need.
Some of it, the applicant has already gone through.
They had an issue with the EAF that has to be corrected.
We don't have a topographic survey which will need because they're putting in that retaining water
and they're doing filling at that on the Bowman Avenue side of the property.
We also asked for some data from a comparable Yale, New Haven facility to get an idea of
the operations and in particular with concern about traffic as well as parking but traffic
as well at that intersection and peak periods.
The other issues that came up were of course Bowman Avenue was a scenic road there and
And the new signs and the retaining wall and some of the site modifications are going
to be visible from that.
So the review would be whether or not the signs, the materials, the color and the construction
are compatible with the existing quality of that road.
There will also be removing in taking away some of the green space.
That building has been around a long time.
There were mature trees that are scattered throughout that site in green areas that are
now going to be either filled or they are going to be put to use as parking areas.
From my count there are 16 regulated trees that would be removed from the site.
We are asking also for tree
protection and preservation measures during construction for
those trees that are going to remain and there's a requirement in the code for replacement
trees.
And those.
Those can be put into the area along Bowman Avenue, that's the buffer. They can also be augmented in areas of the property that don't have trees now. And in conjunction with that, we're asking for a landscape plan.
I have a question.
Now, is there a, no, there hasn't been a zoning analysis done on the application?
Is that, that's being worked on now?
Okay.
I have a question.
Sure, please.
You may not know the answer to this.
Is there reciprocity between New York and Connecticut with regard to Yale, New Haven?
In terms of insurance and coverage for patients.
I think that's pretty important that I'd like to know the answer to that.
Is
anybody looking, is Mr. Galante going to look at the traffic impact?
Yes, that's why we want the first step to that is asking for an understanding of the amount of staff that's going to be at that facility, the number of patients per hour, the type of peak hours that they have, you know, how their hours of operation.
and once we get that information and statistical evidence from a comparable facility of Yale, New Haven,
Granted Hospital, so that we can have an understanding of exactly how the traffic number of traffic
trips and what's going to happen at that intersection.
What we have created between the Westchester and Bournemont or on 8 o'clock in the morning to pick out is just
I mean, it's just, it's a danger, especially if you, I don't know whether or not the crossing
guards have the control of the signals they do.
I mean, I can't on the going down, you have about 14 seconds before the light changes and
then you have about three minutes or four minutes in queue, and then you lock if the couple
cars go through.
I think when we look at the traffic, we seriously need to consider whether or not we should
make only a right-hand turn onto the bridge street and eliminate the left-hand turn from the
side. See whether or not that would do anything for the congestion. It's too close to the traffic
lights, so that may not work, but I would like to see what Mr. Galanti thinks about that because
something has to be done between those two intersections. It's just impossible. So get him back to what I was
asking about. I can't tell you that you've been waiting. He's been here. How many
parking spaces they required to have at the right now? I think is there any
requirements on how much spark in there's both that? What uses you would put in
building? Okay. Based on that, based on the uses, based on our zoning rules,
what are you required to have? Yes. I mean, what do you just kick in?
We have a medical and office and your zoning 401 spaces are required.
And repeat that again, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
401.
Are required, how many do you have?
We have 246 proposed.
And you're saying our code is a little bit conservative?
401?
Let me just add that subject to review the building inspector hasn't weighed in on that number
yet.
So we don't know if the bill is protected, whether that's sore.
I'm going to use it again.
No, I think it's pretty clear in the code.
So if you can go back to the site plan, I just want to finish up on a few things.
So along Bowman Avenue, or I should say perpendicular to the Bowman Avenue entrance,
where you said you were winding the aisle.
So by virtue of doing that, you're eliminating that buffer.
There's a buffer between the adjacent property along.
I'm talking about the safety issue that Mr. Glanty asked us to address.
I'm talking about the vegetation that you're losing.
I understand.
Right.
It's related.
It's that the access drive through this area is relatively narrow.
So we were trying to improve the width of that two-way access.
What is it narrowed by code?
It's a one-way.
Is it a one-way?
No, it's not.
It's not signed as one-way.
So it's two-way.
I think it was probably designed to be one-way.
If it's 13 feet, it was probably designed to be one way.
I'm not sure.
We've tried to research record plans and different things and we haven't found any.
Well, how could it be two ways at 13 feet?
I understand.
That's why we're proposing a wide network.
Yes.
So you can accommodate two cars safely along the front of the building on the right-hand side,
I guess, the north side.
You're eliminating a whole bunch of foundation plantings to it.
We are taking out the foundation plantings or shrubs.
There is an area still between the building and the parking that we can landscape.
It seems like you're like every little area where you can grab a space.
You're trying to, you know, nick and tuck and let me ask you a question.
How many parking spots are in the garage itself?
Or one level of the garage?
That's pretty bad.
It's just two levels.
40, 24 per level.
24?
No, there's got to be more than 24.
There's more than 24 in that top level, right?
48.
Was there any thought given to adding an elevated parking deck?
There was consideration of that.
It's based on the configuration of the deck.
And then the ramping system is where you wouldn't be able to do that.
You can probably access it from from the left side
Over here. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going up. What?
John, you had a clear to question. I'm just throwing that open for you know discussion and consideration.
Okay, two cars trying to access that area right now is pretty hard.
Right. John, you had a question. Right now is one way.
Well, the obviously who would involve a reed site at a site plan?
I'm not saying to use the existing driveway.
I'm looking at the structural aspects of that as well, the structural aspects of the garage.
You have to look into it, yeah.
Michael, if I'm not mistaken, and I'm on this board, I didn't reach you ask me how many
years, and I said most, 15, if I'm not mistaken, this is the first time, that this is the first
time that I have seen this application before the planning board.
Right.
Now, my question is this, and Dominic said that this was almost designed at the beginning
for a single occupancy.
No, I didn't say that.
Whatever it was, it was the Donald R. Building.
But right now, I think there are 14 occupants and 11 are 14 are medical offices or some sort.
The question that I have is, when the occupancy changes from office to medical, something like
that, does the tenant or the owner of the building, would they have to come to the village
to get the approval for that or they have a free hand to do because how did we get ourselves
in this lack of parking situation right now? I can't answer why we're at the situation that we
are so that's that's a pre-existing because I'm sure it was with regards to the building. When this
was in the state taxation building and I'm sure there was enough parking. Well once again the parking
Everything is tied in to our code which is tied into the uses within the building which falls under the purview of the building inspector.
As the spaces change, people move in, people move out.
The building inspector does his review and acts accordingly as far as applications.
It is a site that it is, it's got the spots that it has.
Why was that much, I can't answer it.
I think every couple of times a year, there are before us, and we always grill them on a parking,
like a parking, like a parking, like a parking.
And I'm just wondering, how can we get ourselves in this situation that we have with this site?
I think what John is getting at is, this is not the first medical user of space in this building.
But now, this is the first time that that's coming before us, because I guess what happened, John,
It's the situation's got so aggravated, it came to a head.
So now they're coming before us because they need parking.
No, I think, as Mr. Simon's referred to before, the reason that there before you
was not because of the reteniting, it's because of the signage and because of the parking.
No, no, I'm not talking about the changes to the side.
I underprivileged Mr. Steinemann and said, how did we get ourselves into a situation
before Mr. Steinemann came before us?
And as Mike as as Mike Noah mentioned, you know, when there's building permits submitted for for new tenants for, you know, redesigning the spaces, that's something that's submitted to the building department, the building inspector reviews and determines whether it triggers site plan approval or not.
And I guess the determination has been made up until it doesn't need to determine also whether it requires variances for parking at the same time.
It's a permitted use in the building, and I apologize for interruption, but I want to try to answer Mr. Guzmán's question as directly as I can.
Your code allows medical space in a OBS professional bill office building.
And therefore, as a land use practitioner, I do not need to make an application to get inside that building any tenant can sign a lease with the landlord.
So go back to what I said, and I meant it positively and candidly, we wouldn't have to be here trying to help the situation clearly you've got.
I mean, in the first three minutes of this, I don't like standing up on an application saying mathematically, I'm not working on an application.
And I was asked the question mathematically, how deficient, boy, it's deficient mathematically.
Well, a traffic and parking expert at least quickly says it's a very conservative code, so that explains part of it.
Part of it is the way your code is written, and the building was allowed lawfully to evolve in this fashion.
The good news is we're standing here. The bad news is we have a little bit of an issue we've got to deal with.
The good news is we're prepared to try to make it better.
How much better it's going to be? I guess it's going to be a combination of your efforts, your staff's efforts, and our team.
But I can tell you you have a landlord sitting in the room tonight who's saying I want the building to be attractive, functional, safe, and make it better.
So I have one more question on traffic.
And then I'd just like briefly to go over the signage.
And then we'll adjourn this to our next meeting, Jen.
By that time we'll have the zoning analysis done.
Our consultant will get a number of more documentation.
and then we'll be able to take this forward and consider a public area.
I'd love to show you the signs, yes.
One last question on the parking because there are some groups of spaces that are dedicated parking spaces which I imagine is probably exacerbating the issue because you could actually have people looking around for parking spaces that are open.
Now, this, I know, could be subject to leases that you have with the tenets that
require desi.
So the quick answer is, good, I know where you're going, very few leases are restricted.
The landlord has a lot of flexibility.
Rich thought that restricting the parking with signage actually made sense to the extent
that we were restricting it only to a certain number.
I know Michael and Marilyn are looking at that to see if they agree or disagree with
And we won't, honestly, we want to do it.
We want to figure out what's best for that property.
So if you said no signage is going to work best,
we might have that, we might have some issues.
It was just a shared, you know, subject to lease issues,
which is, you know, beyond our confidence to deal with.
If there was a shared parking study could show
that in fact, as you go through the day,
that even though there are less parking spaces
is then required by code that if those were shared that you'd actually be able to accommodate
the volume of traffic that you would need. But if you have 70 parking spaces dedicated
to one tenant, that could leave other tenant customers and clients running around the facility
trying to look for spaces that are empty.
Yeah, but the way this is set up, though, I'm going to guess, and the property owner's
Sir, he probably has a better idea.
I'm going to guess most people do not pull underneath
and park underneath.
So if you're going to have designated spaces for tenants,
that's where I would put them and leave the spaces above
for, is that where they are now?
Right, that's the insurance company is under one of their spaces.
There's one of the owners of the property.
And those aren't signed, but on a practical basis,
that's where they are parking beneath there.
Overall, there's a hundred with the 72 spaces that would be signed for the proposed use for the Yale New Haven Greenwich use, which would be on the upper area.
Those are 72 spaces, adding those to the existing sign spaces is 118. On a practical basis, as we said, the insurance companies using the lower level, that would be a total of 166 between the signed medical and the insurance.
and that leaves 80 shared spaces.
And those 80 shared spaces are essentially
in this whole portion of the site.
So if anybody can come and park anywhere in here
and then go to the uses which are primarily
on the lower level with the Greenwich New Haven
taking up much of the upper level.
As far as us doing a study of the spaces,
we did look at the utilization from 7 a.m. to 5 o'clock p.m.
in half hour increments and with the capacity of 209 the existing supply the peak
utilization that we had was 96 spaces occupied at 1030 in the morning that was
before the insurance company had moved over but again they have their number of
spaces per their agreement with the building and just drifting back to the
the proposed use for Greenwich and New Haven is they're looking for 72 spaces
They came to the owner of the property and said we would like to have 72 spaces.
It wasn't a situation where they said, we want 100 spaces or 125 spaces or we want to make it where we match the village of
Robbrook's parking code.
And then the owner had to come back and said we cannot accommodate you.
They said we would
I'd like to turn our attention to the signs, because the issue with parking, that's being reviewed by our consultants, and I'm sure there'll be a lot more information next time to talk about. But let's take a look at the signs and where the signs now and what you plan to do.
Okay, so the two signs that I'll have first are the monument signs.
There's one that's currently between the two driveways on South Ridge Street and then the second one is over on this area in Bowman Avenue.
This is the proposed sign on South Ridge Street in this location.
This is the existing sign.
The existing sign in terms of sign area, the blue is actually part of this below the taxis,
the evergreen ash rub there, but the proposed sign is 19 and a half square feet when you look
at the blue area, which includes the sign text. The existing sign is 25 square feet, so the
proposed sign is smaller than the existing sign in terms of overall square footage. And we think
it's a much more attractive sign. It provides the, the ride road plaza entrance per se, but then it adds
to the other proposed uses of the yellow, New Haven, and Greenwich Hospital uses as well
as the BNZ insurance use.
And the address.
Yes.
Thank you.
Which is required by law.
Thank you.
Mr. Pearson.
Yes, sir.
If I'm not mistaken, 72 is going back to the number of spots.
72 spaces.
That, I think, corresponds to the requirements of the code OB-1, where you have 250, one space
is for every 250 feet and you have 18,000 that works out to 72.
It does for office, but not for medical office.
I know that I said for office, you know,
it's your old B1, yes, yes, yes, yes.
So the other peculiarity in the code
is that if this building had another 4,000 square feet,
there'd be a whole other number that applies.
If it's 75,000 square feet, it's only one space for 200.
Don't ask me why.
But those of us who read a lot of zoning codes,
you have an interesting name.
That was a head scratcher for me.
Yeah.
Different ways of characterizing it.
We're going to go with interesting.
Yeah.
Okay.
We'll leave it at the head scratcher.
I like that.
Okay.
So we're going to sign up a Bowman Avenue.
This is the existing sign here.
Right.
Which is just as you come in the Bowman Avenue entrance.
You have the address and then you have the various doctors,
offices listed there in the wayplanes hospital.
And this is proposed sign.
Again, the proposed sign in this case is also 19.5 square feet and it is less than the existing sign in terms of this area.
So we think it's more attractive, more functional, and actually smaller.
So what's listed on that sign? All in the names of the doctors?
Yes, the names of the doctors as well as, right?
Not every single doctor inside that building.
So you're supposed to like, while you drive and read that?
No, that would be as it is coming in for the approval.
That's going to have to go before the ARB anyway, for approval.
We don't approve sign.
The schooling design is actually still more functional than the old sign that's there on
Bowman right now.
There's no question you're right, but some of the smaller prints at the bottom are less functional
than the sign itself.
The top of it is definitely more functional.
What about the sign just so for the record, there was in the package there was a sign that was mounted on the top of the building?
Is that gone?
That's no longer proposed.
There was also a monument sign, a larger monument sign that was proposed on the corner of Bowman and Southridge and based on our meeting with SAF, we've removed that from the opposite side.
Now you have two signs.
We have those two and then the final one is at the building entrance.
The proposed building entrance for the Gail Greenwich entrance is just a kind of even difficult to see here because it's just as you walk into the sort of awning area.
It's just on the side of the left panel as you're walking in and we weren't even sure if that was going to be considered a sign and
Mr. Azo looked at me and said, yes, we've considered that as such, but that's already in the facility.
Right, it's not something that's holding the threshold.
You may see a little bit of it as you're driving down South Ridge, but it's really nice.
What is the reason for that?
I mean, I think it's kind of somewhat of a way-finding sign if you park your car.
Okay, it's for when you're in the park.
I don't remember the 72 spaces are designed to be a long route.
Okay, I got you.
You can get out of your car.
You see the pictures of the building, you can see this little awning, kind of being kind of picked out that name.
I'm supposed to go there, okay people, right?
The direction for the, when you're out of the car.
Right, that was for the street, okay.
Okay, well, thank you gentlemen for a comprehensive discussion on this.
Jen, there'll be, there'll be on for the, for the meeting in February, I think, fine, okay.
Okay,
thank you very much, thank
you, you're welcome, thank you very much.
Our next matter is 22, Helen Del.
I am Mark Musticato, the architect for a couple of creek builders for the proposed
addition and renovation at 22 Hillandale Road. The
existing house at
Hillandale, 22 Hillandale Road is an existing one-story ranch and we're
proposing to add a second floor over the footprint of the existing house.
A
two-story addition at the rear of the house, and this area, which two-story
addition and a roof porch at the rear of the house, which will be built on
appears to minimize the excavation and therefore minimize any disturbance of the wetland buffer area.
The property does have wetlands on it, it also has a time to stream.
It's sort of a drainage ditch that comes from a pipe in the right away and runs through the property to the property behind it that constitutes basically the wetland area.
and also is in that area, a part of it is a flood zone, part of it is actually a flood way.
None of this is impacting what we're doing, and we're proposing it's pretty far down from the house.
So, I'm just going to kind of, I don't know if I need to microphone or not, but here.
So, the area of the, I
think that would be better so I can kind of point out what's going on here.
So, the area that the area of the flood zone is this area back here, and that also, again,
and kind of is where the wetland area is.
This is the exterior outline where the wetland area is.
So we are within the wetland buffer.
Again, what we've done is the addition in the back
is proposed to be built on six piers.
Maryland had asked about the amount of excavation there.
So I had gotten back to her that it's approximately 75
square feet of excavation, which will be dug by hand.
And it comes out to essentially nine-and-a-half cubic yards of total excavation.
So it meets to ten cubic yard threshold for working in the wetland buffer.
Also, Maryland had asked for tree locations.
The original survey we had did not have the tree locations on it, the survey we did come
out and locate the trees.
So we've added that to the site and shown tree protection of the trees in the front area that are adjacent to the work area.
There's one willow here that's adjacent to the area we're proposing to provide the codex for the drainage system.
There's no tree removal proposed. There's really no regrading proposed.
So again, the idea is that this addition would be built where we're adding in the back.
On peers in the rest of the edition is just simply adding a second floor over the footprint of the existing house.
You can go through, if you want to see plans and elevations of the house over here, if you do, or you just want to really want to sit in the site plan questions.
Well, I have, Marilyn, do you have any comments concerning the site plan?
There were some comments about the short EAF that need clarifications and correction.
in terms of zoning the existing home as a non-compliant front yard according to the
building inspectors notice a disapproval.
So the site plan, approval of the site plan that's being proposed will require
a front yard variance from the zoning board of appeals.
I made a point of noting that the proposed additions to the home
would not increase the encroachment, the actual face of the building remains where it is.
This is one of those applications where an existing front yard that is non-conforming
requires a variance for the addition of the second story when there's no additional
movement of the home closer to the road or to the front yard.
In this case, this is literally the only variance that they're going to need.
And it seems to me that, and I think this is part of discussion that we're going to have
after.
This is an example of one of those that probably there should be some relief in the code,
not to send them to the zoning board when they're not actually going to come closer to the front.
Not increasing the degree of non-conformity.
That's an interpretation of the Boolean Inspector and there is a, you know,
an open argument among interpreters, a camp that says that doesn't increase the variance that's necessary.
Others say that it is, Billy Inspector says that it is and sends them back to the ZVA.
I think that can be fixed with a change to the code.
It's not going to help this gentleman, but it certainly might be a suggestion that the
planning board brings to the, you know, if there's nothing else there that they need
of variance for to send them just for this when in fact the the height setback ratio actually
helps deal with that because it provides that plane that if you're too close you can't put the
second floor close to it you've got to stay within that plane so there's already something in the code
that is there that is working it's not necessary to kind of double up on it and and send people
simply for that matter.
Isn't there in the, not in the compliance with the code because of the
average of the two adjacent homes?
That's right.
It was like for the other two homes, there would be okay.
But this would be an existing legal marathon formulae.
And once you put the story on it, then the building is about to
interprets that as increasing the not conformity. And again, that's where there's a
bait between interpreters.
So I'm just bringing that, that's where we've got nothing to do
with this particular application in terms of moving forward.
Yes, it's part of our agenda. Hopefully. Yeah, we have time to be able to talk about it.
But this application does illustrate
the Maryland's point.
And I think we've confronted this issue before.
Is this going to work?
Yes, we confronted and we confronted every once in a while.
And it's actually more than once in a while.
The other issues that there's floodplain
as the architects said, the engineers said
there's floodplain and a streaming channel here.
However, there's a very steep elevation change from the front of the property to the rear
of the property.
So the entire home and any of the construction that's being done is well above the elevation
of the flood plain.
So we don't have an eight-edged-wood situation here the way we did.
The reason why the house was set close to the street.
Right.
Well, if the house actually couldn't, the house really can't be set as before back as it
should be because that would put it in the wetland, so it's where it's got to be.
There's no doubt about that.
When the house was built, the setback was about 40 feet or the average of the two houses
on either side of you in the R-25 zone, I'm pretty sure that that's right, so it actually
conformed to the zoning.
Right.
Originally, legally.
Is there any stormwater issues?
I notice that there's an additional almost 1,000 square feet of impervious surface.
Where is that?
Fine. Yeah, we have, we have a first one word of system designed, and that is in the front area of the property. Okay, all right. In this, in this front area here, there was an area of context, retention system. Okay. Okay, well, what we'll do is we need to send this to the zoning board of appeals, the deal with the one variance that they have, and then we'll also set a public hearing. So, Jen, should we send this to the zoning board for
First.
That would be my recommendation.
Okay.
Let's do that then.
Resolution referring to site plan and wetland permit application to the zoning board of appeals
for consideration of a variance at 22 Hill and Dale Road, whereas Cobble Creek builders,
property owners submitted an application for approval of a site plan and wetland permit for a
rear two-story addition and second-story addition at 22 Hill and Dale Road, and whereas the proposed
closed action is a type 2 action pursuant to CECRA requiring no further environmental review.
And whereas the village code requires a certain front-and-yard setback based on the average
of existing front-and-yard setbacks of the flanking properties, and as a result of the proposed
second-story addition, the applicant proposes to expand the existing non-conforming front-and-yard
setback of 41.1 feet.
And whereas the applicant wishes to apply to the ZBA rather than modify the project to
conform to the village code, whereas the planning board reviewed and considered the application
as January 12th meeting, including a planning memorandum prepared by FB Clark Associates,
and whereas upon review of the subject application, the planning board had the following planning
considerations for the ZBA's deliberation with respect to the variance.
The existing home has a non-compliant front yard setback and approval of the site plan will require approval of a front yard setback variance.
The proposed addition to the home will not increase the encroachment of the building footprint into the existing non-conforming 41.1 foot front yard.
According to the property survey, the wetland delineation was performed on December 3, 2015.
While no site work or new impervious surfaces would be located in the wetland, they would
be located within the wetland buffer to determine the mitigation required for loss of the disturbance
of the buffer.
However, the applicants require to submit a calculation of the total area of new disturbance
within the buffer along with proposed mitigation measures, and these will be reviewed by the
planning board after the zoning board reviews the request for a front-yard setback variance.
The existing house is appropriately located toward the front of the lot in relation to the
wetland and the wetland buffer area at the rear.
And three, a portion of the lot is located within FEMA zone AE and zone X floodplains.
However, the existing home is located well above the elevation of the flood plain limits.
And none of the new, the proposed new construction would be located in the flood zone.
Now therefore, be it resolved that for the reason stated herein, the planning board refers
the application to the zoning board of appeals for determination on the above reference front
yard setback.
Variances, along with any additional variances deemed necessary by the building inspector.
Okay,
can I have motion in a second to adopt the resolution?
Second.
Mr. Curacao, yes, Mr. Griezan.
Yes.
Morelino.
Yes.
Thank you.
Mr. Richman.
Yes.
Mr. Tartagno.
Yes.
Chairman Goodman.
Yes.
Can we schedule the public hearing?
Yes.
We will.
Okay.
Who is the public hearing resolution?
Okay.
I want to make a note since the application was referred to the ZBA on when it changed
the hearing date to March 9th as opposed to February 9th, which is on the draft.
Why don't we do a February 9th subject to ZBA after that?
Because they won't be able to get on the agenda until the March agenda at the ZBA, so it's
in part.
I don't know whether there's a resolution
setting a public hearing regarding a
site plan and wetlands permit for 22 Hill and Dale Road whereas cobble keep creek builders
property owners submitted applications for approval of a site plan and a wetlands permit to
construct additions and interior alterations to an existing home on the property located at
22-hylondale road in the R-25 district as shown on the town of Wright app.
Now therefore be it resolved that the planning board of the village of Rivewood hold a public
hearing on March 9th at 7.30 p.m. in village hall to consider the above applications.
Be it further resolved that the planning board pursuant to the state environmental quality
review act determines the proposed action to be a type two action requiring no further review
pursuant to the requirements and be it further resolved that the applicant is hereby directed
to comply with section 250-40 of the village code regarding notification of the public hearing.
I have a motion to second to adopt the resolution scheduling of public hearing.
second.
Mr. Kersel. Yes.
Mr. Marlena. Yes. Mr. Richman. Yes. Mr. Tarfaglia. Yes. Chairman
Govman. Yes. Thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Oscar Ovalle. I'm here representing
in the architect David Muni, who is the architect on this project, and basically we come here to
request for a change of use from an existing insurance business to a densities office at 555,
which is terabony.
Currently the first and second floor of the house are occupied by the
insurance company, those two floors are going to be occupied by the dentist office. The
attic is an apartment, an existing apartment is going to stay as is, so basically the building
is going to stay as is, we are going to do some interior alterations and on the outside the only
addition is going to be one handicap ramp and probably a couple of its consists to eliminate that area.
So, basically that's the request.
Sure, granted.
Yes, Mr. Todd Haglia has recused himself, so we will proceed on that note.
Marilyn, do you have some comments relating to the application?
The
applicant is requesting a special permit and a site plan for that special permit to accommodate a dentist's office
which would include one dentist and one or two dental hygienists that would see two to three patients per hour according to the information
that was provided by the Architects Office based on the information from the dentist.
The additional, there would be additional office staff that includes an assistant and
a receptionist for a maximum of three professionals and two support staff.
Office hours would be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., the applicant should provide the days of operation
as well and daily schedules should be provided.
The information is unclear regarding the residential apartment, I didn't realize because we usually get floor plans to understand what office and what the separation of office and residential would be.
The gentleman just described a two-story, first and second floor dental office and a attic apartment.
So that answers one of my questions here.
I also was asking the size and the location of the apartment and that would try to make
sense out of whether or not the parking that was used for the office, which originally
was an insurance company, is adequate for the use of a dental office plus a residential
department, which is also one of the things that you would have to be looking at in terms
of the criteria for the special permit, as well as the criteria for the site plan.
Section, I've given you the Code Section, Section 250-68 of the Village Code of Set 4th General
criteria to be met for issuance of special permits and Section 250-25D sets forth specific
criteria that has to be met for a professional office in the R2F district and these are
related to the site, they are related to the ability to provide parking, to not encroach
upon neighboring residential areas with lighting or noise or that kind of thing.
So this is one of those applications that would have up until recently gone to the village
board for a review by an approval.
But the code was changed last year or the year before to allow the planning board to do special
permits within the R2F district, you know, on Westchester and on Bowman Avenue.
And I guess also a short stretch of Ridge Street as well, the stretch of Ridge Street
between the CC1 district.
As part of the improvements to the building for use of the dentist, a handicapped access
this ramp to the rear-first floor entrances proposed, but the site plan doesn't contain
enough information to determine whether or not it's ADA compliant.
That was a comment that the building inspector made and I'm reiterating it here.
We need additional information about the ramp and the ramp details to determine whether
it's compliant.
The applicant, I'm asking about if there's going to be additional sightlining for safety
in terms of the ramp and in the parking lot, that's not shown on the plan and if it's
being proposed.
It should be the parking spaces and the access driveways should be dimensioned because
it's unclear whether or not those spaces are compliant spaces in terms of size and configuration.
The site plan should be revised to demonstrate compliance with the new of the new sign, but the village code requirements for professional signs in the R2F district.
The applicant is moving the sign right now.
The professional sign that's outside is in the right of way and they're actually moving it back onto their property.
But it's unclear whether the size of the sign is compliant.
And the parking area may require screening in the form of landscape planning for fencing to limit visual impacts to the residential properties.
I understand that this is an existing setup but coming back to site plan and for a special permit for a new use,
things that these other issues would come into play because they would be part of what of the criteria that you would be using to consider the special permit.
As far as parking is concerned, how many parking spaces, we have 11 parking spaces.
By code, we are required to have two for the apartment, you say one bedroom apartment.
And four for each professional, it's going to be one dentist in the premises, so.
The off-street parking requirements for the professional offices, three cars for each office or suite of offices of a tenancy or one car for every 300 square feet of floor area used for office purposes, whichever of those is greater.
The building inspector has indicated that he needs floor plans in order to determine what the parking requirement is for the office space.
And he also needs some further information about the sign size in order to complete his zoning review.
So that's one of the things that's before you tonight.
You do have a zoning board referral resolution available for you tonight.
We obviously have not specifically identified what exact variances are needed.
The building inspector has indicated there will be at least one sign variance needed, but
But there may be part where there may be, is it possible they need a variance on the parking space?
It's possible, it's unlikely, but it is possible based on the number of spots that they have available.
And based on the size of the spaces, it's unlikely they'll need it.
But again, we don't know for sure, so that's something for the board to consider tonight.
Whether you want to refer it to the zoning board, just with a sort of general referral.
with
The variance is to be determined by the building inspector. Yes, one. One. What is the garage in the parking lot? What's that utilize? That's an historic. That's forced storage, basically. So, Jen, the insurance office, that was a special permit as well, was it's an R2F? If the insurance office was occupying the same floor area, as the dentist will be occupying.
that it's likely that the parking count is going to remain the same.
So as long as the parking is currently compliant, it should remain compliant.
That's why I'm thinking it's unlikely that they will need parking.
So in a situation like this, in a situation like this, it's not like one per 250 square feet.
It's one per 300 square feet, or
three cars for each office or suite of offices of a given tenancy.
Whichever of those two calculations ends up being the greater one and that would apply for an insurance firm or
Dances office. Yeah. It's any professional office. I see. So they creating the apartment was their apartment all along
excuse me when the
Building was used as an insurance office building was the apartment in existence. Yes, okay, so the apartment was all always there
Yeah, okay
So procedurally, I guess, the choice that we have as a board is whether or not to send
this to the ZBA, assuming that the issue is going to be assigned and not the parking.
And I guess that also schedule a public hearing.
And so that's what we have to decide whether or not we have sufficient information to send
this to the ZBA or not. If we don't, then we would adjourn this to next month. By that
time, you'd have the determination for those in the sector, what we're dealing with,
and then go on from there.
But the building inspector, he's saying that he cannot comment on the parking of that with
you without a plan. So you're chasing your tail.
And well, the way that the referral resolution is drafted is to say that where it's typically we would recite the village code section that requires a variance from.
It's drafted to say the proposed signage requires one or more variances and
a variance for the proposed number of parking spaces may be required as to be determined by the building inspector following
going to receive additional information from the applicant regarding the height of the sign and total office floor area.
So that would be sufficient.
If the building inspector ultimately determines that there is a variance that's needed for parking.
There would be the legal basis to go to the ZBA based on our referral resolution.
So that's sort of the covenants.
That covers all.
Okay,
then why don't you recite the resolution?
Referring a site plan and special, I'm sorry, referring a special permit and site plan application to the Ryberg Zoning Board of Appeals for consideration of a variance that 555 Westchester Avenue.
Whereas Dr. Angela Manning, prospective tenant submitted an application on behalf of property owner 555 Westchester F LLC.
the approval of a special permit and site plan for a professional office at property located at 555 Westchester Avenue.
Whereas the proposed action, it's a type two action pursuant to seek or requiring no further review.
No further environmental review, whereas the property, and this is a little bit of historic information I meant to mention before.
Whereas the property is a subject of an existing special use permit approved by the Board of Trustees on October 7th, 1987.
67 to permit use of the premises as professional office for insurance and real estate purposes subject to four conditions.
One, that the number of employees shall be limited to five, two normal business hours shall be nine to five Monday through Friday, three.
The screening as presently exists shall be adequately maintained and for the use for which this permit was granted shall continue as same.
So those are the conditions that were imposed by the Board of Trustees back in 87 when the insurance business was established.
Whereas the applicant proposes to replace the existing insurance business with the dentist office and make certain site improvements.
Whereas the proposed signage requires one or more variances and a variance for the proposed number of parking spaces may be required as determined by the building inspector.
Where is the applicant which is to apply to the ZBA for such variances rather than modify
the project to conform?
Where is the planning board reviewed and considered the application at its January 12th
meeting, including a planning memo from F.B. Clark, and whereas upon review of the subject
application, the planning board has the following considerations for the ZBA with respect to
the variances.
And what I did is I pulled from, rather than just read, verbatim from the resolution as it's
getting late.
I pulled the relevant planning considerations from Maryland's memo.
One with respect to the use, dealing with the number of professionals and support staff that will be on site to regarding site lighting for the parking area, as well as handicapped access and three, the comments regarding screening in the form of landscape plantings.
the potential for the need for that, and indicated that the planning board will review that after it comes back to it for consideration.
Now therefore be it resolved that for the reason stated herein, the planning board hereby refers the application to the zoning board of appeals for a determination on the variance is deemed necessary by the building inspector.
Can I have a motion a second to adopt the resolution referring this matter to the ZBA?
I'm making motion. Second.
Oh, Dan, everything falls apart.
Is there a curse? Oh, yes. Mr. Grazan. Yes.
Marlena. Yes. The Richmond. Yes. The show. Yes.
Tarthagda. Oh, we're accused. We're accused.
Chairman Goodman. Yes. Thank you. And we have a public hearing scheduling resolution.
A couple of changes from the draft, it's going to be March 9th for the hearing date,
and it's going to be a type 2 action requiring no further review, which was an error on the
resolution draft.
Resolution setting, a public hearing regarding a special permit and site plan for 555 West
Jester Avenue, whereas Angela Manning on behalf of Michael Burrelli, the property owner submitted
applications for approval of a special use permit and a site plan for dentist's professional
office and one residential apartment in the existing home located at 555 West Jester Avenue
in the town section 135.83, block 1, lot 14 on the town of Wright, tax map. Now therefore
So be it resolved that the planning board of the village of Rhybrook shall hold a public hearing on March 9th, 2017 at 7.30 p.m. in village hall to consider the above reference applications and be it further resolved that the planning board pursuant to the state quality and environmental review act determines proposed action to be a type two action requiring no further review and be it further resolved that the applicant is hereby directed to comply with section 250 dash 40 of the village code regarding.
Notification of the public hearing.
Can I have a motion to second to adopt the resolution, scheduling a public hearing motion.
Second.
Mr. Curacao.
Yes.
Mr. Grazan.
Yes.
Mr. Marlena.
Yes.
Mr. Richman.
Yes.
I'll see you in March.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
We
have some local laws to consider.
I've been told we have a five-minute intermission.
The tape ran out.
You'll have 20 minutes.
So, let's pretend it's the February meeting. Anybody see the awarding of the distinguished service thing to buy into? What's that? Unable to do?
After the, the plate has been reset, we are reconvening to proceed with our meeting and we do have some local laws to consider.
The first one relates to 250-35, where there are some modifications to the number of days within which I think the building inspector has to respond to certain applications.
Jen, do you want to give us a little background on this?
Yeah.
Or whoever knows something about it.
Mickey.
So this comes, the genesis of this local law is, it was a recommendation from the building department to the Board of Trustees.
Currently in the code, the provisions regarding signs and sign permits.
The building inspector has five business days after receiving an application for a sign permit to review it for completeness and and then notify the applicant if it is incomplete.
He has indicated that is an unreasonable and unrealistic time frame based on current and projected future demands and work load.
and has asked that it be changed to 10 business days instead.
Something to note, there is no real consequence for
not deeming an application, complete or incomplete within the five days or
10 days or however many days.
We don't have in this legislation currently or
proposed any default approval provisions.
So this just gives the building inspector comfort and
and allows the applicants a more reasonable expectation for when they should receive notice back from the building department as to their application.
So the building inspector proposed this time period?
Yes.
What happens when he's on vacation?
Does he take a stand?
It goes away apparently for 11 days.
No, it's 10 business days, so I think it's a rare occasion when the building inspectors are out for two consecutive weeks.
But, but I guess from the, even though there's no enforcement ramifications for violating
it, it still gives the applicant justification to contact the building inspector and find
out what the status of the application because now it's out of processing time.
So, I don't think anybody needs it in five days, I really, you know, well, they shall
So I agree with building inspector on this one.
Do we have a, is this a reported recommendation that we have or, I mean, we can do this next
time, but I don't know, does anyone else have any comments regarding this?
So when he gets a sign permit application, sorry, when we get, when the boom inspector gets
a sign permit application, this is for sign on a building that, that initially, this
this application would come to the plan board after he reviews it, or is this a general
change?
Because it, you know, I'm not using the mic.
No, it's not always something that would have to come to the planning board or to the Board of Trustees for review,
for review, unless it was enlarged or something to that nature.
Right, unless it's something that triggers planning board review, but there are administrative signs.
Sign from, oh, okay.
There is a letter by the building department alone.
I don't think anyone has any issue with it.
If you need more time, must they want to hire more staff?
No.
So, this is a report and recommendation.
What we can do is have a motion to authorize me as Village Attorney to draft a report and recommendation consistent with our discussions, giving a positive recommendation back to the Board of Trustees.
and authorize Chairman Goodman to finalize that report after it's drafted.
So it's fair, great, very good, Jan.
Yes, I'll be your head, too.
Okay.
Seven minutes, we're going to make it.
I have a, no, we end up with such pressure.
So, I have a motion, we'll have a motion, and a second to adopt the resolution to be drafted.
to authorize the village attorney to draft a resolution, you know, reflecting our approval of the proposed legislation.
Your positive recommendation.
Our positive recommendation.
Move.
Second.
Call the roll.
Mr. Carson.
Yes.
The Grizzan.
Yes.
Mr. Richman.
Yes.
Mr. Tartagna.
Yes.
Chairman Goodman.
Yes.
Okay.
The next local law is a-
I'm sorry, just to go back real quick, usually with our reports and recommendations.
Oh, we have to refer to the Board of Trustees.
Yeah.
He's admitting it, so I was asked for motion.
Need a motion in the second to transmit the approved report and recommendation to the Board of Trustees.
Motion.
Second.
Mr. Curzon.
Yes.
Mr. Grazan.
Yes.
Yes, the Marlena.
Yes, the Churchman.
Yes.
We shall.
Yes.
Mr. Cartaglia.
Yes.
Chairman Goodman.
Yes.
Now we get to the more interesting piece of legislation, which is a gun control provision.
No, it's not.
It's a site distance provision for.
It is.
What does it say?
It is.
Exactly what it says.
It is.
Mending chapter 250 of the Village Code of Rhybrook to amend, okay, concerning commercial
storage and display of firearms ammunition and explosives.
Kagan, if you want, I can give a brief summary of the local law.
So this is obviously a referred local law from the Board of Trustees and the Board of Trustees
recognized that under the current code gun shops could locate anywhere in the village's
commercial or retail area, they would be classified as a retail use and the Board of Trustees
introduced this local law as a proactive measure to regulate where that particular type of
retail use can locate. So what this proposed local law does is it it regulates the commercial
storage and display of firearms ammunition and explosives sort of in more colloquial
terms we can just call it a gun shop. It restricts those uses to being located in shopping
center and at least a certain distance from educational and religious uses and it's subject
to a special permit issued by the Board of Trustees.
So in that regard it amends section 250-6H which is the special permit section to provide
standards for the Board of Trustees to review and issuing the special permit and other requirements
And it also amends the OBS and the C1P district where shopping centers are currently located
to allow that particular use by special permit.
In general, municipalities are not allowed to ban the use altogether because it would
violate the Second Amendment.
But municipalities can regulate the location of this particular use.
It's sort of a similar regulatory scheme, you could say to like a liquor store or an adult book store or something like that.
The distance requirement is something that the Board of Trustees specifically asked the planning board to look at.
And there's really, there's a balance there because the distance from an educational or religious use and the proposed gun shop needs to be obviously a sufficient distance to provide that buffer that you're looking for.
How about 5,280 people?
But, and that's a great dovetail into my second comment,
but it can't effectively ban the use.
So, you know, if I can't burden the right,
I can't burden the right, the attorneys themselves.
I mean, put it to the chase, as I understand
the concept of this.
The place where a gun shop would probably be located, we would, based on the restriction would be somewhere in the shopping center.
It would be required, it would only be allowed in a shopping center.
It couldn't be located anywhere else.
Only in a shopping center.
And how far away is the, now, you say in the regulation it says, from the nearest
point of the portion of the building used for storage or display of the, of the,
of the, of the, of the, of the, of the fire arms ammunition explosive, to the nearest
point of the lot line of the property with a public or private school or a religious
institution.
really just institution.
And so this, the handouts that we have, this illustrates what the how that distance
is supposed to be calculated.
So there's a number of handouts that I gave you.
A couple of the handouts, the color copies are from the Wester's County GIS.
Yes.
You don't have enough?
No.
I need a car here.
I should have one more.
Yeah.
Okay.
Everyone have them now?
There's another one.
Sorry.
Yeah.
So there should be a stapled set of color copies and then two black and white.
It's not the same copy.
Right?
Okay.
One copy.
It's two pages.
Robert has a more.
I am sorry.
I got it.
We got it.
We did it.
We did our job.
It's not a distributor.
No, I don't know what this is.
I had no clue with that.
Jennifer, so you had said that with this boundary, just this 500 feet, for example.
So it can't be within the 500 feet of the school.
I can see it can be to the corner of the shop in center where a dagosteen was.
was so now and then I heard Robert say although it can be there but it can't be
it we can say it can only be in this shopping center we can actually say
that the way the law is drafted is it has to be in a shopping center there are
only two shopping centers right in Rhybrook there's the Rhyrid shopping center
and there's Washington Plaza they're both adjacent to they're both within 500 feet
of a school or a high school or a school.
Well, let's talk about Rye Ridge first, okay?
So, Rye Ridge, there are portions, and this is demonstrated.
If you look at the color map from the Westchester County GIS mapping data, the first
page shows a depiction of the boundary, 500 feet, from the boundaries of the Portchester
Union Free School District school, across the street from Rye Ridge.
plaza. So basically what it says is if you look at the aerial photo below, falling within
the 500 feet is the, that's our back building that's mostly medical offices. Most of the
portion of Ryward shopping center that has like the, the part with Starbucks and what else
it should put like that area, that leg of the shopping center falls within the 500 feet.
But the other part where, like, Dagsdenos is proposed, and then the upper plaza is it called the plaza?
That upper, yeah, where Lenny's house is in there.
That is also outside of the 500 feet.
So what this local law would do if the 500 feet was the chosen distance, it would limit gun shops to being
located in the portions of the Ryridge Shopping Center outside of that red bubble.
So, away from the school property.
No, could we just say we would love gun shops in a certain area as well without, say, in 500 feet?
Can we say we only want gun shops between the cleaners and the nails line?
Well, we can't guarantee that a year from now it's still going to be the cleaners and it's still going to be the nails line.
That section, I'm sorry, I don't mean that would be, that would be, I suppose that would be a
another way instead of instead of putting in any shopping center what I'm saying is and this is
probably a low risk if that portion of this site if the building was right in five years
changed demolished and something you would have to change the zone we'd have to change our
regulations yeah I mean I'm just thinking if you look at this if you look at this and you say
where would you want a gun shop well you want it on the main I think on the main drag will be a
us be better to have it there than in the shopping center where there's more
congested of people, more ideas, more suggestions, more kids, and the shopping
says whereas on the main drag I think it'd be a better place to have it. You know
on that main corridor rather than in the shopping center at all.
On the bank side? Yes. Yes. So in the seat of the bank.
We keep another bank. I'm just you know.
That's my thought. Well, I mean, I think the theory behind this is that you do not want to
necessarily promote, to promote it, to promote it. So you don't want it on the main
drag. You want it more in the interior where people are less likely to. Well, that
mean drag, I think, is less noticeable than in the jams. Do you think so? I mean, I've never
go into the shop. I'm always on, I'm always outside with the, you know, where the rest
are and things. I mean, the back where the medical facilities are, that's less traffic.
Yes, it's also close to the seals from the high school field, at the junior high field,
you couldn't do that. So if I could just quickly go through the rest of the handouts and then maybe
we can kind of open up the discussion a little more. So there's two other sheets that are color copy.
be the second one just provides the 400 foot diameter or radius I should say.
That was also thought about by the Board of Trustees.
And then the last sheet shows Washington Plaza property.
It's actually, yeah, the highlighted and yellow property is the, I should have, yeah, the
highlighted and yellow part is Garibaldi Park, Washington Park Plaza is the property immediately
to the north. So really no matter what distance is chosen, I mean I think it's going to block out
Washington Park Plaza. So one thing the board may want to consider recommending to the board of
trustees is just eliminating the gun shops as a special permit use in the OBS district altogether
if any distance at all is going to preclude it from being there. That's just my thought.
The other handouts you have, the black and white, these were generated, but Mike, you did these, right?
These are just, and Mike correct me if I'm wrong, but they're just illustrative of what the distance would be.
If you look at the 700 and the one shown 750 feet, it's from the poor Chester Middle School building,
the edge of their building extending 750 feet, so you see it doesn't even get into the boundaries of
Rybrook.
That's the building or the property.
This is measured from the building. I think at the time these were generated, we were kind of playing around with
should it be measured from the sensitive receptors?
Lotline should it be measured from the sensitive receptors building and the thought was to measure
from the lot line because the applicant coming forward it's going to be hard for them to have
the survey information to determine the distance from another property owner's building to their
proposed location. So also the lot line is a fixed point. The building may change you put
additions on the building. So that's a fluid thing the lot is not.
Right. So, I mean, are these lines connecting lot lines? Are they actually, because the law doesn't seem to
talk about nearest point of the portion of the building.
So, it talks about actual buildings and structures and figuring out what distances are.
I mean, is that, oh, so this is-
the religious institution, to the space of the given tenancy, so not just like the
Rye Ridge building in general, but the actual tenancy space within the building.
So the nearest point of that space to the nearest lot line of sensitive receptor.
But maybe even more restrictive if you go to the lot line of the school of yeah, yeah, well if you look I mean the three, four hundred and five hundred feet are theoretically from the lot line to a portion of the
Why don't we just say why don't we take the shopping center notion out of it and just say can't you can't have a gun shop within a thousand feet of the receptor period?
I think the concern there is you would effectively ban gun shops because I think almost all right.
I mean, just a thousand feet almost extends in some instances outside of, of, of Rybrook.
It would encompass probably all of Rybrook shopping center.
And if you think about where the other commercial areas, you've got the main drag up and down southward street,
which, you know, there's very views on the board as to whether they should be allowed there.
You have a number of schools, you've got the Portchester middle school, and then the other school across Corpus Christi.
So there's so many sensitive receptors that maybe, well, maybe, maybe we're throwing about it.
Maybe we should think about it the opposite way.
We're trying to figure out places to exclude the potential gun shop.
Maybe the way we should do it is if we're going to put them somewhere where we want them.
And then at least the criteria is fairly straightforward.
Otherwise, I mean, look, if you're framing one of these laws in order to insulate it
from potential legal action, the more complicated it is, the more you're going to be vulnerable.
And you might as well just say ban it completely and then take the chance if someone's
going to sue, and then back up when you get the court decision defining what can be done.
But if you're going to, the simplest thing would be to figure out what area you would put
them in, and then restrict them to that area.
Is the commercial property from Washington Park Plaza all the way to the bank?
TD?
Is it TD bank?
Yeah, it's Wells Fargo.
the corner on Ridge Street and Bowman.
Oh, on Ridge Street and Bowman.
What is that?
TD.
Is that all commercial property right there,
even those residential homes?
It's pretty much now.
This is maybe one house.
There's only maybe one house right there, right?
I mean, that one strip, that's it.
I mean, you know, I'm out of where you got to go, but-
Need for a Bowman to Westchester out there?
Yeah.
No.
From Bowman to Washington Park Plaza.
Washington Park Plaza.
You know, up to the Plaza Shopping Center.
So the shopping centers are off-limits, just that strip,
just if that can be if it's relatively legal and doesn't, you know.
Or on Bowman Avenue.
Or while there's a couple, there's like about three stores that are in Rybrook, I think they're right.
From Westchester Avenue, the Bowman strip before you get to Portchester.
There's like two store, I think there's like two businesses that are in.
I hate to impress upon your input on this, but I mean, I'd be interested in knowing
because this sounds like it was this hotly debated, you know, among the trustees,
whether or not we're going talking about the same things you're talking about.
I don't want to completely reinvent the wheel if there are reasons I watched it.
You watched it.
It wasn't hotly debate.
We were, what they did say is that they wanted us to deal only, only with the distance
issues and nothing else.
Well, no, they said that was one of the things they wanted you to deal with, but they didn't want
to get into the ethics of it or the, you know, the gun control aspect, the second amendment,
that if this is a planning and zoning issue, it's not a, how do you feel about that?
But I mean, but, but there are, you know, we have certain areas of the village that are zoned for particular purposes, and one way of looking at it is that you try to use the liquor store adult bookstore paradigm and say, okay, within a certain radius of certain sensitive areas, you can't have this.
But the other way is is demarcating a particular area and zoning
for a particular purpose.
That's the other way of looking at it.
So you an expert on the map.
You can bring that out because we're talking about
like different commercial areas.
So where's that was just?
Oh, is that.
And where's the rich team?
I should have my pointer.
Jesus.
So here's Rhybrid Shopping.
Oh, OK.
OK.
C1P District, that's the only, I think that's the only, right?
That's the only C1P District.
Yes.
The Rhybrid Shopping.
Right.
The OBS.
OBS down here is Washington Plaza.
Right.
The only other OBS is what we had before us, night, night,
night, night, night, night, night, night.
Yeah, so it's really nice to but I think Sally we're talking about yeah, what's that strip there this is the C1 district right here
Only half the street only on one side one side of the street, right
I'm sure it is, are there any other, you know, go into municipalities in the West Chester that have any sort of legislation?
Arison.
Sorry.
Are there any other areas in West Chester County that actually have sort of a developed legislation in this area or is this completely novel?
I don't know if there's any zoning restrictions related to gun shops.
There are certainly restrictions related to adult bookstores, to massage parlors, to
you know, stores, that's standard zoning practice, that's all over the state.
How about New York City, I mean, can New York City have a gun shop in New York City?
I never I never researched the city has its own set of rules. I don't know what the rules for gun shops are.
So when my office was drafting this local law, we did research into whether there are other examples that we can use.
And we came up with the village of Fiskel, limits the location of gun shops to the planning industry district,
subject to the issuance of approval of a special permit.
Certain location.
So they use certain locations?
Yes, district, okay.
The town of Pittsburgh, which I don't actually know where it is, but the town of Pittsburgh.
Okay.
Allows ammunition and firearm sales as a permitted use without any type of review in a light industrial
district.
Ridgefield, New Jersey, allows gun shops as special.
Why don't we think that prohibiting them all together is unconstitution?
Who came up with, well, they're a law that says the Supreme Court has said that.
Second.
The Ninth Circuit is the only certain point that's ruled on whether the Second Amendment
Right.
Now, now, now, now you start to say your keys.
Introduce yourself.
Yes, sir.
Highs are retired.
Harrison has a gun shop.
That's why it will.
Only the ninth circuit, to the best of my knowledge, has ruled on whether the Second Amendment
right to bear arms includes the right to buy and sell arms.
The Supreme Court has not ruled on that yet.
The second circuit hasn't ruled upon it yet.
I voted against referring it to the planning board because I thought that these
this attempt is sort of like jumping through hoops trying to find the one
square inch we can open up a gun shop with ridiculous. I felt as if basically
we should have a little bit of courage and say no gun shops in the village of
Right. I'm I'm all agreement with this all came about because Harrison has a gun
chap. Exactly. That's why it came up that.
All right. You want to go on? Well, Jennifer,
we say we say okay, no gun shops in
Ribera, but ultimately with the village
you get sued or we would just sue financial or just I mean it could be it could be it
could be both. And if you lose, which we remember guys were going into an arrow where the
power is that you're looking at these things are not saying we should prohibit it.
No, it's just saying it should not be permitted.
This isn't right.
It's a big difference.
Right.
Well, just so you understand the reason it came up and down in circuit, the name is because
people wanted to open up a gun shop and they were banned. And so I think it was the NRA
I don't want to say it definitely was, but it was probably the NRA finance lawsuit, okay?
If we were to prohibit it universally, there's a good chance we may face a similar lawsuit
if somebody wants to open up a gun shop.
But more than that, if we don't have a regulation in place to at least come to some sort of
So you can go for a resolution then and and let's say there is you have a complete ban
Let's say you have someone that the sides there either set up to challenge the law, which could very well be the case or
An actual gun shop comes into the village and is
Now, if the ban is overturned, then they get to put it wherever they want. Now, at least if we try to be a maybe proactive, that we can't, now it doesn't guarantee that we may not be challenged, because we could be challenged. But it just seems to me that we have a better chance of arguing that there's a rational basis for the regulation and be able to control what otherwise
I mean, we could take a principal view and say we don't want guns anywhere, but I think that that's unrealistic because what is going to happen, I think, over the next number of years is that villages like us are going to be at the other end of lawsuits with test cases on these local bands.
and not only is it a huge waste of resources to be battling these things, but the chances
are they'll probably loosen the band or abrogate the band and let the plaintiff go wherever
they want to go.
And I just think that we can at least try to restrict that to an extent.
So I think there's some rationality in it.
But I mean, the mayor, I think, made it, you know, as indicated that the problem with
the Harrison situation is that the administration was really caught with this.
They had no restrictions whatsoever.
They could not tell this person that they couldn't put the gun shop next to a synagogue
or a church or right across the way from grade school kids.
So the idea is to head off with some sort of regulation, some sort of restrictions.
But I do agree that I think that we are in a way really jumping through hoops trying
to figure out a mathematical way of doing this.
I'm more inclined to find a region which can be zoned for these entities and simply make
make sure that that's where they are.
What about the area behind Chase, go that strip where you come down from the upper, the
upper, where Lenny's is and you come down to, to Riharich and you, you come left instead
of going straight like you were going to go to the bank or go to the main shopping center.
You go left and there's this strip where the Tuxedo place was where the, the, the, the
That's a nice, little way place. I must tell you that 4 out of 5 trustees would
agree with your efforts to try to find some place to put a gun shop. I just don't approve
of that. You will never sell me on the idea that there should be a gun shop in the village
of Rape. I don't disagree with that, but we were charged with, we were specifically charged
with not getting into that. I understand that, and that's why I voted against this.
No, no, I don't think we have, I mean, if it's my, if it's, no, what I'm interested
David in finding out is that in the discussions that in the discussions that the trustees
had, there are two ways of approaching this.
One way is presented in the draft law, which is to find a radius that will restrict, use mathematics
to try to restrict these entities.
The other way of doing it is by identifying a particular region and restricting them to
that region.
Did the Board of Trustees consider where these entities should be as opposed to trying
to figure out?
No.
It was purely a mathematical attempt.
Well, what's the magical four, five, or six hundred feet?
What's so arbitrary?
That's it.
You put it in the shopping center and work away from it.
Well, John, instead of what Dan was saying, if you're making a thousand feet, you've pretty
much done what I would like to do, which is you've eliminated the possibility of
being a gunstorm riper, although you're not saying that they're banned, you're
merely saying it can't be worth it, but you see that's the sort, but you see
that's the sort of thinking that ends up in lawsuits, because when you try to use
the mathematics to basically eliminate the right, then you're going to be
challenged on that. It's going to be considered a pretextual. So just go with
shopping just find a place I think we should just find a place that is that is
not completely inaccessible but inaccessible enough or maybe a couple of
regions and say these are areas where if you're going to put in such entities
that's where they should go and and at least be transparent about it as opposed
to doing all this I mean I don't know it's like it's arbitrary it's arbitrary I
I think it was structured based on, and I was getting to some of the examples.
It was structured based on other examples of the way other municipalities have regulated gun shops.
And one of them is Ridgefield, New Jersey, has a law that says it's by special permit.
And it says the businesses can't be located within 100 feet of any public or
private school, or within 100 feet of any religious institution.
And if the business is located within a thousand feet of those sensitive receptors,
then there's certain restrictions that are placed on them regarding display,
and basically display of the guns visible to people passing by.
There's also the city of Albany and
the city of Rochester also have regulations regulating gun shops.
these are in addition to zoning, they're more regulating other aspects of gun shops.
What about signs?
Can we regulate no signs?
I think that would be a big content base, so when you're, that's a free speech issue.
Yeah.
And when you're targeting a specific content.
But for instance, the second to the first.
The displays could probably be regulated.
I agree.
Signage may be much more problematic, but displays how, how does the
So what happens when the ride town Hilton wants to have a gun show and this nice big 10, 8,000 square foot tent?
They can't. They can't.
What do you mean they can't?
So the current zoning code which dates back to the town of Rye, right?
Basically, it's real dated, okay?
We know that for a fact.
There's no table of uses and permitted zones and one of the uses, there's no gun shop in the code.
It's a retail case.
Some zone encodes specifically, say, laundromat, beauty salon, and gun shop isn't
one of the uses.
I think it should be located like Southside and in a specific zone.
For example, C1 zone.
If you think about it, what's in the C1 zone?
Most of it is residential.
You see, you don't want it, I mean, you don't want it, but they would have to make a conversion.
They would have to convert the building.
and it's almost an obstacle in itself.
What about firing ranges?
Are they permitted in the village?
We are.
On this charge, I'm sure there are.
Only after you buy guns at the gun shop.
Well, a lot of times.
We want them to be serious.
You can add in to the local war.
Probably more than that.
Hey, walk in.
All right.
Oh, man, we must do that.
But actually, the code currently
has provisions about that. Chapter 126 of the Village Code prohibits the discharge of any firearm
or explosive in Rhybrook except at lawful shooting ranges. It also prohibits hunting and limits
trapping and animal capture, but we won't get into that. And we've all been to the lawful
shooting ranges in Rhybrook. I don't think there are any, I don't know whether they would fall into any
if we use classifications, my guess is probably not, but there is an existing chapter in the
code dealing with a discharge of fire.
When they disperse the birds at the airport, do they discharge fire arms?
When they shoot at birds at the airport, even the air go in or something, I don't know
it.
What?
Well, no.
You couldn't put it near an airport.
So I'm just, yeah.
It's a different load.
I guess I'm trying to think of some research points on this.
Well, one other thing I'm sorry to interrupt, but one other thing I should mention that we didn't touch on that is also in the local law, is the definition of home occupation is amended to exclude basically the sale of guns from your home.
right? That makes sense. Right. Well, what does that make sense? Why? Why? I don't, this
is to me, you know what this says? This is you're going to have a gun shop. You're going
to put it in the south part of the village. You're going to have affordable housing. You're
going to put it in the south part of the village. No, I just asked about the airport and how
the, the, the, the part of the, the, the part of the, the, where the airport is.
You know,
We're discriminating.
But in your Kingsfield, liquor store, it's not a part of the village.
Yeah, crazy.
You don't have to.
I have that business.
This is dangerous.
It is.
Unfortunately.
Well, I mean, I mean, I, I mean, that's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I guess the
one is all this portable housing problem, the problem that this segues into, which Dan
is alluding to, he's taking off his glasses and a half about this, is, okay, if you decide
that you are going to designate these entities to be allowed in certain areas.
Who is the beneficiary of this enterprise?
Where is it going to be?
I can venture the say from the standpoint of public relations,
that it probably wouldn't, we would create our own problem
in that people that are living near the gun shop,
the proposed gun shop that doesn't even exist,
is going to be really upset at the idea
of having a gun shop nearby,
which means that maybe there are places like in Harrison,
I heard, I heard, I don't know this for sure,
but that gun shop is really in and out of the way place.
I mean, you have, I think you're the one that said this,
That it is, where is off Hallstead Avenue, is it?
The physical address is Hallstead Avenue
and there's a whole bunch of stores,
but there's an alleyway on the side in between
where you have a bunch of offices
and other retail locations.
It's the last retail spot, probably 200 feet off of the roadway.
And there's just a sign, maybe the size of this,
that's all right.
We're in Harrison.
All set haven't you. Yeah, but all set haven't you is a huge place where you have the chase bank on the corner there
I'm as soon as you go over the bridge over 95. There's the chase bank on the right hand side right there
But I mean all you have is just a sign that says the name of the association and the store is down
The alleyway
61 also, you know, I think if you try to designate an area where these places can be
You know, it's possible that a place of worship
Goes in or school goes in so I don't think you can do that. I think the most
Logical way is the way that that it started here with find a distance
Consent of points and limit it and you know, we're not having an invitation for somebody to come
But if they come they're gonna have to find a spot within those limits
Say 500 feet I'm 500 feet. I mean five same thing. Let's put it this way 500 key
And the 500 feet is does appear in lots of different legislations.
I think it's in liquor stores.
I think it, I mean, 500 feet for whatever reason, I don't know legislative way.
Where they regulate that, where they regulate that, there's my authority.
I mean, if we use 500 feet, we certainly couldn't be accused of being arbitrary and
capricious about it because that is a standard legislatively accepted.
radius. So maybe, I mean, I think we're trying to come up with 750, 450, you know,
899 is going to work.
Or you can say it's, it's in this, it has to be in a C1 district, this, what is it?
It's a C1 district, and it has to be 500 feet from a public school or a religious
institution. You can combine them both.
And a special permit is required with whatever.
C1, C1 or C.
Well, the district that's a long-ridged street there, what is it, C-1?
That's a long-ridged street.
Excuse me?
The shopping center, C-1-P, a long, a cross-street.
The shopping center, C-1-P, a long-ridged street on the other side is C-1.
The place that's south, that's C-1.
C-1, C-1.
So what I can do for the next meeting is draft a report and recommendation with, you know,
with these discussions.
But is it the consensus of the board right now that it would rather see it in the city's zone area?
Whatever.
In C1 or in a shopping center or both?
No, not in a shopping center.
I still think you have a restriction here of 500 feet just for example.
And still half of the shopping center is half of the shopping center.
You could have a gun shop.
And that's frequented by a lot of kids, all the families, that's exactly what you
already eat.
Now, I think the intention is not to have the gun shop out there on the main drag.
It's internal to just to restrict it internally to the shopping center.
But still it's out there.
Further limiting the display restrictions that are already in here.
But making more heightened restrictions on the display in the
What it looks like from the outside, is that? I don't know. There's something that tells me that we have, we are a very unique village because of the smallness and because of the way we are set up, and we are really limited to where it would be reasonable to expect to put it. We've got a church there. I mean, why should we have to? I agree with you, David.
So because we can't really get into that debate, what I can do is draft the report so
that it's, we're assuming here that we have to put it somewhere.
Based on that assumption, this is where we, what we think would be the best legislation.
I can put in there that the planning board is specifically taking no position one way or
another as to whether or not.
I just think we should hide it the best way we can without without being purposeful.
My, my, if we have to do what Board asked us to do, I, personally, I would like to go
the way David went, but let's say we, I cannot do that, then I prefer to do what Rich said.
Go 500 feet from the school or the religious institution and leave it like that.
That would be my preference.
But we would add, but if we actually, I mean, I think the suggestion here is restricted
to one of the zones and have a 500-foot respect.
I would be, that's my preference, to have both restrictions.
That would be a constraint.
Did the C1 zone and have 500 restrictions?
There's an error in the local law.
Section 5 talks about amending the C1 zone.
It's the C1P zone, that's the shopping center.
C1P, so that's the zone that would be.
And that should be in your recommendation
that this law be corrected to include the proper zone.
But I think what the board is actually saying is they would prefer it not be in the C1P and actually in the C1 along South
Ridge.
The bill which is on the opposite side would error in the local law is actually correct.
Based on the planning board's view.
And also have a restriction of 500 foot restriction consistent with, you know, what they would have in liquor
I just think putting it on a main drag is also not so terrific, except that parking becomes difficult there too, so that might help to curb traffic.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I mean, we were just talking about the set up at the Harrison Mall where the gun shop
is.
I go to that moral façouche, at least once a week.
I had no idea there was a gun shop in there, and I literally have walked past it every single
time I've gone there.
And he just pointed out to me.
It's, it's, it's be a, with it, it's a couple blocks down from the station.
There's a bigger place there.
Right.
And we're the supermarkets.
And there's that alleyway.
You go through this parking behind, there, there are two sushi places there.
There's a Japanese grocery store.
There's an Italian deli there as well.
There's a French restaurant, I think, in that same area.
and there's an alleyway with stores down the alley and this is at the back,
similar to where it would be in the Library Shopping Center, if it was at that backstrip that you mentioned.
Well, early, they have a tiny stop sign and it just says L&L sports.
I had no idea and I could pass there on the week.
I mean, there was another suggestion that even if you looked at the shopping center that you would designate certain units that would be allowed to carry that sort of enterprise and sort of an internal zoning
which in a way, the problem that I see with the mathematics is that if you get a bunch of
really good mathematically inclined people together, they're going to figure out how to gain this.
So if you want to put like a gun shop in the back of the shopping center comparable to your
or experience in Harrison, then why beat around the bush?
Just identify objectively what those unions are.
You know, it's within, yeah, 500 feet.
Can you do that to a landowner?
Yeah.
Oh, one of the shopping centers, huh?
I don't think the owner of the shopping center
would have a problem with having a, right?
Yeah.
I mean, you could say that they've
has to be 500 feet from the school and at least 200 feet
from any frontage of the shopping center
with the building in which is exactly the set up
that's in Harrison.
So it's school, in church, and what else in park?
Daycare, daycare, playgrounds, yeah.
Sometimes they also, they'll see municipal buildings,
public buildings.
Because what about that strip in back of our ridge
that was supposed to be a park?
Is that what ever happened with that?
Oh, that's the medical.
Yeah, but the fields are across the way from that.
The purchase of the middle school.
No school.
That's the 500 feet of the school.
Park is not one of the factors.
No playgrounds.
You know, there was a case of a swing set or something there than maybe that.
About the someone won.
I remember reading.
It was the they used the entrance of the facility as the footage.
And that's how they got away to put that store in.
They said okay, whatever your door entrance is so they put the door to the left side of the building and then they got
They put there whatever they were zone not to put there. So there's that's again the mathematical thing like Robert said can get wrapped up
And you and Jennifer you at all your three your three
Different
Minstralities at least three at least three two of them show that they did zoning
Yeah, okay
I think it's been a good discussion, I mean, on this, I think lots of different views.
Jen, you and I can work together in putting together something for the board's consideration next time.
Marilyn, I know we had this discussion point with the variances.
Does anyone have any opinion on that?
But that application came up with the second story.
Yeah, if you are not increasing the degree of non-conformity, I don't think you should have to get a variance.
I mean, maybe the thing to do, Jen, because I, is the frame maybe a, how do we get this ball rolling, I guess.
Do you want me to work with Maryland and prepare a draft local law that you may want
to consider recommending that the Board of Trustees consider?
But I think this why you have a setback is it because of the appearance?
Now if you have a single family house and all of a sudden somebody comes in and wants to put
a second story in that. And it's not compliance now. Second story is going to, it's not going
to change the distance, but it's going to change the appearance. Yeah. Yeah. That's true.
There is a mechanism for having that dealt with. And that's the height setback ratio. If, so
if the law could say something like, you know, if it's, right, if it's, if there are no
variances requested and all that's happening is that the face of the building is rising
another story that should not necessarily because, again, the requirements of the height
setback which is supposed to deal with visual issues from the street and from the sides of
building as well. That is in play with the height set by
Gratio apply to an existing condition. Yes, of course it would.
Of course it would. Yes, it would catch the problem. So there's no
necessity to happen to go to the zoning board and look and
see because the building inspector and that part of the code is
taking care of that. It seems to be built and suspended.
But there is a fundamentally an increase in bulk.
Yes, but that's what John is getting at.
It's a visual.
But that's what the height setback ratio is supposed to be.
But if you break that plane, you either have to move the building back
or you have to move the second story back or lower it,
that all affects the bulk, the visual impact of the bulk.
Even if you're in conformance with the height setback ratio it's the the second floor addition in this case
Let's say is going to increase the bulk. It's it's a visual thing
It's so the bulk of the building is not the same as the setback and that's
Side yards are rear yards as well. The height setback. Yes. All right. Not near yards side only side yards side and front
All right, because if you're because the issue is from the street and from the building
looming over a shorter building next door, but the board didn't require that to the
right?
Yeah.
That's why we sent it to the zoning board.
The building inspector in my book determines, you know, the second story addition to be an
increase in the non-conformity and the non-conformity.
There's other building inspectors and other municipalities that take the opposite position.
and it's really, it's like this debate amongst building
and stuff like that, you know.
Yeah, I always felt it was, you'd have to get a variance.
I felt that that same thing, too, but it's telling you.
Why did you change these things?
Well, you had that experience.
I had this exact experience and it was, you know,
quite costly, you know, I had to go and pay the cost.
I had to go before the board.
I wasn't able to argue because I was on the zoning board
at the time.
So then my professional wanted to begin to get paid
for his services to make an application
that a four-year-old can make because it's a pre-existing
non-conformity, and I was not happy about it, and there's really no reason for it.
Okay, well, Jen, Marilyn, yeah, collaborate on coming up with a proposed local law.
How has it done procedurally?
How do we get it to the Board of Trustees procedurally?
You can just send a recommendation to the Board of Trustees that they consider the local law.
Yeah, and then when you come back to us for report from recommendation, probably what he had to prepare to yeah
All right motion motion second to adjourn all in favor
Hi, hi