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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZBA-03/15/2018 Hearing TOWN OF SOUTHOLD ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS COUNTY OF SUFFOLK: STATE OF NEW YORK --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TOWN OF SOUTHOLD ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Southold Town Hall Southold, New York March 15, 2018 5:31 P.M. Board Members Present: LESLIE KANES WEISMAN -Chairperson/Member PATRICIA ACAMPORA— Member ERIC DANTES— Member GERARD GOEHRINGER— Member NICHOLAS PLANAMENTO— Member KIM FUENTES— Board Assistant WILLIAM DUFFY—Town Attorney March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting INDEX OF HEARINGS Hearing Page Scoping Hearing Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) Special Exception The Enclaves Hotel and Restaurant# 7046 3 - 12 March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting THE ENCLAVES HOTEL and RESTAURANT # 7046 (DEIS) SCOPE HEARING DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN : Scoping hearing for the Enclaves Hotel and Restaurant. Let me give you a little bit of background on this and what the purpose of this particular hearing is. It's quite limited. This is just the beginning; there will be many more hearings in this process. We are here today to accept public comments on what is called the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. We want to look at what's in that statement. The statement does not answer questions about potential impacts. It defines what answers we need to get in order to determine potential impacts and the applicant will be addressing all of those in time. So right now what you have in front of you or what you have available is the draft outline of all of the issues that we want the applicant to address and we want to hear from you on what you think about the topics that we are going to be evaluating and any mitigation measures that you think needs to be taken. Let me give you a brief overview very brief overview of what the project entails. The applicant is proposing to expand and renovate the existing dwelling that fronts on Route 25 many of you may know the particular structure, it's an old historic house and to attach the shed that's behind it and in doing that to create a 74 seat sit down restaurant that will front on Main Rd. They're proposing to construct a 44 room two story hotel. This is a 6.75 acre property I believe that backs up to the railroad and they're proposing to put a flat roof there's a model here for you to look at of the proposal, 44 room hotel which includes two story hotel building with 40 rooms and 4 small detached cottages which are easy to see on that model. They're also proposing an in-ground outdoor swimming pool and a pool cabana on the west side of the hotel building, a little fish pond of some sort. Drainage will be addressed to take care of storm water runoff advanced on-site sewage treatment facility on the northeast corner of the property will be connected to the utilities. They're also constructing an access driveway and two parking lots totaling 25 spaces for the restaurant with an additional parking lot for 88 cars for the hotel use and removal of one of the existing sheds. In addition to doing what we're doing here which is to make a determination about the SEQRA, State Environmental Quality Review Act requires us to make a determination of positive declaration, negative declaration, what the significance is in terms of impacts and if there are significant impacts how they can be mitigated. They will have to be back before the Zoning Board for a Special Exception Use Permit. They are proposing a permitted use in the HB zoned district where this property is situated but it's got to have the approval of the Zoning Board which has a long list of standards that they will have to address for that permit. In order for us to do that we have to have a SEQRA determination which is why we're doing that first and what we're doing here is not determining anything but just simply getting input in to what has been prepared so far about the scope the range, the table of contents if you will of the issues that the applicant needs to tell us more about. That's scope was prepared by the applicant's environmental March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting consultant and it was reviewed and commented upon and amended based on the comments from the Zoning Board of Appeals Planning consultant which is Carrie O'Farrell which is here tonight. She's with Nelson, Pope, Voorhies a well-known planning firm in this town. They're not located in this town but they are well-known in this town and we also have all this information on the website our website. I think Kim has actually prepared some instructions on how to find it, if you have any trouble doing that. That would include all the architectural plans that you see up here and the draft scope and so on so if there's somebody you know that's not here this evening who you think might want to take a look at it by all means you can refer them to that as well. We will be taking written comments; this is not the end this evening up until March 26th so again this is a lot to take in. If you're just looking at this handout for the first time there's a whole lot to read. So you may want to take it home, you might want to send us written comments. Just submit them to Kim and our office and we will consider them. Your comments will be taken in as part of the scope. So, this is not this evening a referendum on the merits of the project. That will come later. We're going to get to do that later on but the things that you might be concerned about, the things that you want the applicant to address as residents of the Town of Southold cause it is a pretty big project for this town. We're not going to be engaging in questions and answers this evening that's not the purpose here. It's not a back and forth between speakers and so on. It's again to indicate it's not about saying yes I support the project or no I don't support the project or I don't like what it looks like or I love what it looks like but rather again the things that are in the draft scope if you want to add things to that scope that you don't see there or if you want something in that scope that is listed expanded in some way or another this is your opportunity to tell us that so we don't miss anything in our evaluating the ultimate SEQRA determination. We will invite all of you to come forward and speak. Sometimes the Planning Board usually has you sign in but we have this is being recorded so all you really need to do is just walk up to the microphone and state your name and spell it and then you're good to go. We will issue the final scope after the close of the written period so March 26th after that our consultant will look at everything and prepare with the applicant a final scope and then the applicant will need to address the issues in that scope. Let me just ask before we get stared if there's any questions you might have relating to the process. Good okay so let's see is there anyone who would like to come before the Board and make some comments on what you see as a draft scope? MR. CUDDY : I'm Charles Cuddy I represent the applicant. I just wanted the Board to know and the public to know that tonight the entire group of people who are working on this application are here. Andrew Giambertone who was the architect, the engineer Kim Gennaro who's working on the environmental, the owner is here Mr. Tivets and we're happy if you would like to have some questions at a point in time we're prepared to answer them. We understand the nature of this meeting and we look forward to hearing from the public. March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN :Thank you for your introduction. Anybody have anything to say? ANN MURRAY : Hi I'm Ann Murray I live in East Marion. I actually stayed at this historic old house when it was a B&B about 2000 1 think before it closed. Anyway I have concerns that go to page seven under transportation and I see that you know you have a lot in here about traffic counts and studies and site generated traffic, a counting for access locations, peak seasonal adjustments etc. but I want to stress the peak seasonal adjustment aspect here and hope the Zoning Board can maybe expand that a little bit and make sure that you have traffic counts done during the peak summer season specifically in July and August. As you probably know the traffic can back up from East Marion west because of lavender farm and ferry traffic and all that and it really is in my opinion not the greatest location for entrance and egress. There is a lot of traffic from the 7-Eleven, the florist, and the hairdresser. Just coming here now there were people trying to make left turns, right turns when I was coming to Town Hall and it was a little hairy and its only March. So I think that this project could bring a huge amount of traffic to the hamlet and I wonder if that's really the best thing considering our growth of tourism etc. so I just hope that the applicant can expand the traffic studies a bit and maybe let's see volume data available from the NYS D.O.T. I think I checked on another project not too long ago and I don't know how recent their recent traffic study is. It may be three or four years old so I would maybe not go on that so much and do the one that will be done for this project give that more weight because I think the state may be behind in studying the traffic out here. I think that's my only comment so far thank you. CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN :Thank you Ann. Someone else? ANTHONY FORGONE : Hi I'm Anthony Forgione and my property is adjacent to this in the far corner of this and I do have a couple of concerns about this. MEMBER DANTES : Can you point to where it would be on the model like where your property is. ANTHONY FORGONE : My property is if you look on it is this the front is this the Main Rd? This is the Main Rd. my property is right here in this corner. MEMBER DANTES : Isn't that house on the model there? ANTHONY FORGONE : That would be my house okay and a couple of concerns is going to be first of all (inaudible) traffic and what's going to be. I'm going to lose my privacy but you know and all the taxpayers here they get a decent amount of money for a house and I'm going to tell you now that is gonna decrease the value of my house. I wonder what kind of buffer zone between my property and what's going to be over there. It looks like the parking lot what's going to be cause negative traffic for those who do illegal things, what kind of hotel it's going to March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting be. It's going to be an hourly thing cause that could draw negative you know traffic as well and the way it looks on that thing, it looks like it's going to be a five to ten foot buffer and that's gonna do nothing but draw people to look in my yard and invade my privacy which is the number one reason I had enjoy living out in Southold and (inaudible) property and I don't want to lose that. It's bad enough we have the railroad but I chose to live there because of the railroad and I already made due with that noise so my biggest issue is the noise and my privacy barrier. My wife is not here tonight so there's a couple of things we wanted to discuss together and raise but that's going to be one of our main things and I guess we're going to address as we go along. I appreciate it. CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN : Thank you for your comments, anyone else? Alright it might be appropriate for me to let you know that we just recently received some comments from the Planning Board which our consultant now has. Did they send them to you Mr. Cuddy? Just so you're aware of their comments they are also suggesting that we look at page seven traffic impacts not surprisingly and I'm just going to read to you what they said so you're aware of it and again you can go back home and think about it and write in your written comments after you've had a chance to read through this and digest it more. Include an assessment on truck management and routing including awareness of area speed limits, school zones, vehicle noise and Jake braking and movements through the Southold hamlet and area neighborhoods. Trucks involved in construction, maintenance and operations (deliveries) to the site should be included. Discuss if large vehicles (limousines and buses) would access and park on-site and how the action accommodates for interior circulation and parking of such vehicles. Include an assessment of on-street parking on the north and south side of Route 25 in the parking analysis and the potential impacts to the adjacent properties. Include an assessment if the 74 seat restaurant, the proposed 25 and 2 handicapped parking spaces are sufficient for employee and customer parking. Consider safety of pedestrians crossing Route 25 if patrons of the restaurant are expected to park on the south side. All good comments I think. So this is the time to you know these are all things that can be addressed and will be addressed but this is the time to voice those kinds of comments so that we make sure that applicant is aware of them and can successfully address them before this Board. LAUREN BARRY : I'm Lauren, I live next door to the house to the east. My comment with the parking is it's for a 125 spaces which is about a half an acre if you don't include the access ways and I don't think a lot of people understand the scale of that and if you look at how many parking spaces think about other buildings in the town with that many parking spaces you're looking at the school. The fire department has less spaces than 125 spaces. I can't think of another building that would have that many spaces. I don't know if anyone's thought of that but a half an acre on that piece of property is quite substantial. March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting MEMBER DANTES : So do you live in that house there on the model the one on the road? LAUREN BARRY : Yes this one. MEMBER PLANAMENTO : It would be helpful maybe just to share your last name. LAUREN BARRY : My last name is Barry. CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN : I think they're proposing 113 spaces total. So you know 25 for the and the Planning Board will have to do a parking yield on this. The Zoning Board doesn't do that so much but it is part of our Special Exception Permit application and those standards are very clear in the code. Again let me reiterate that, the Special Exception Permit is a review of a use in a specific zoned district that is permitted upon approval of the Zoning Board so a hotel, restaurant these are all things that in the HB zoned district are permitted legally permitted but again they have to address standards about you know character of the community, noise impacts and disturbances of those kind there's a whole range of things that are in the code that they've started to address but they can't really address them fully until we get a little farther into the process. So those are the kinds of issues we want to make sure we look at carefully. Anything else from anyone don't be shy. ANN MURRAY : If I may comment again may I? It's hard to define but I think community character should be a big part of this and it seems to me that this project seems very, very huge for a small hamlet like Southold and the impact on community character is everything from the size of the building to the traffic coming in and out to the people that are going to be coming and being in the hamlet going in and out it's hard to define but you'll know it when it's gone let me put it that way. So I think a lot of care has to be taken in that part of it. Thank you. LAUREN BARRY : I noticed the name of the hotel it's the Enclaves. An enclave by definition is a smaller group of people within a larger group of people or smaller territory within a larger territory that distinguishes themselves by being either ethnically or culturally diverse. So I want to know where they came up with that name and why the applicant thinks that they're so special or different cause I think it's purposeful. You can see it in the architecture and you can see it just by that name. I haven't had a chance to look at the plans closely or the model but it's obtrusive. CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN : Well this is the time for you to take a look, anyone can take a look. That's why they're here. I can't answer that question but perhaps someone who's here can, Mr. Cuddy or the owner perhaps if you'd like to address the name perfectly appropriate. You can use the model but you know what let me see if I can get a I just want to make sure we get it on the record that's all. March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting ANDREW GIAMBERTONE : My name is Andrew Giambertone I'm the architect for the project. What we sought to do with this project is we looked at the surrounding uses one being the boatyard to the west the Long Island Railroad to the north and the existing commercial district along Main Rd. and there were three residences to the east. We focused we purposely placed the building in such a way where the building creates a natural buffer for the activity both the parking and the activity around the pool area from the surrounding neighbors. Although there are balconies on the interior courtyard side you'll find that on the east side of the building adjacent to the neighbors there in fact are no balconies permitted. It's simply a mirrored glass wall with dense screen planting and the purpose is to try and shield the building from the neighbors as much as possible and also if you look at the placement of the rooms relative to the citing of the two existing houses directly to the east you'll find that it's the stair tower that's directly that's closest to the house to the northeast and it's the other stair tower that's adjacent to the other home. So the rooms are kind of centrally located. The premise of the name of the Enclaves was not to distinguish us as far as being different but the idea was that the bed and breakfast was originally called the Hedges and in fact there is a dense hedge behind the building currently. Our concept with this was that from Main Rd. you would continue to see what you see now which is the beautiful little Victorian house that would be renovated into a restaurant with the parking for the restaurant directly adjacent to the building and then beyond that would be a dense hedgerow and the purpose of the hedgerow is to actually screen your view of the restaurant from either walking or driving by on Main Rd. and based on our studies we find it would be a very effective screen. So the concept is that this building is somewhat secretive. It's hidden from your main view and it's its own little enclave so it's not interrupting what happens on the Main Rd. and that was the purpose for it. It wasn't meant to be exclusionary or to you know to make us special so to speak. It was really intended to be respectful of the neighbors as much as possible. Just relative to parking very quickly, although we're required to have 80 rooms for the hotel that's just that's standards. The reality is with a 44 room hotel they'll be very few times you're going to see more than 44 cars there because generally you're going to a hotel, if you're coming as a couple you're using one car. So the idea is that the main parking area would be that directly adjacent directly to the west of the pool area and the parking area to the north by the railroad would seldomly be used and it's really just there for overflow parking. If there's any other questions I'd be happy to answer them. CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN :Thank you, anyone else want to address the scope? DAVE WITSKI : Hi Dave Witzke and I'm here with my dad. We run Albertson Marine and we have the property to the west and as you all know Southold Town has been changing drastically and the tourism here, the people are here and there is a need from what we see for something like this. As far as traffic, we store 140ish boats there and I run all those boats down the road and I bet you if you ask most people in this room they don't even know that I'm running those March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting boats down the road. So it's going to create some of an issue and but from the long run in the scope of the town there is a need for this. The tourism is here, the people are here and where they're staying probably Riverhead so just you know we're kind of for it and in the long run I think it could be a real positive project for Southold. CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN : I appreciate your comments however again let me remind you that we have plenty of hearings coming up where we will address the details of the project, the architecture, the traffic patterns and so on. What we're trying to do here is make sure that any of your concerns about the project are going to adequately addressed by the applicant. Again the support or concerns about the actual project, its design and so on is going to come in a little while. Did you have another comment cause you look like you're going to jump out of your chair. ANTHONY FORGONE : No I was just listening to everybody but I do understand what everybody is saying but if you go about all the statistics between the hotels and motels and the B&B's out here, they're not filled all the time. They're still looking for people so to bring this it's going to take away the character and the charm of Southold which is another reason why a lot of people have moved to Southold or visits Southold and to what you're saying the way the building is in the back and the mirror effect and stuff like that it's still going to be invasion of privacy and I would ask anybody if you'd like to trace places with me and buy my house and agree to something like that and see if you wanted that in your back yard and I think that's the biggest concern that anybody would have with any project in any area in any town if it's in their back yard. So that's the biggest thing that you know is going to be an issue and gonna stand definitely to fight against it. CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN : Well I think there'll be time for you to voice your concerns about the specifics of the project but that's coming in a little while not that we're ignoring what you're saying now but I think the goal here is to listen to your concern which you have already expressed relative to noise, to privacy, to buffers, to traffic impacts and so on. You've expressed those and now we're going to give the applicant an opportunity to come up with some answers and see what you think about them. That'll be the next step okay so we're certainly taking all of this into consideration but again the purpose here is sort of limited for today. We just want to make sure that they have the whole range of things that they have to look at carefully and address so that the community is fully appraised of what it's potential impacts might be and if there are potential problematic impacts how they plan to mitigate them, how they plan to make sure that they are lessened significantly and that's also part of our Special Exception Permit application process too. It's just the beginning tonight and I do appreciate the preparation because I think it's much easier for most people to look at a model than to look at elevations and sections and plans and so on and how it relates to a site plan. You'd have to March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting have a bit of training to kind of put all of those together and really get a visual sense of what's being proposed whereas a model pretty much can simulate although you're flying over it like a bird but it pretty much gives you an idea of how to orient yourself with the scale of it is you know relative to like the height of your house relative to the size of that building and so on you get a pretty much better idea of actually what's being proposed. Anyone else who would like to make some comments tonight? LAUREN BARRY : I have another question, that's a heavily vegetated site, how much vegetation is planned on being removed? CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN : They have a tree survey that they've prepared, if you'd like to answer that question that's fine. LAUREN BARRY : Just looking at the model it looks like they've only kept the actually they haven't kept anything but proposed a hedgerow around the surrounding property. Another comment I have before you answer is just that that parcel is so heavily wooded and it's only it's one of the if you zoom out on the map I mean you see the connective tree canopy to the other parcels beyond the train station and also going above the north road all the way down to the bay so it is it's so valuable and so important I just want to make sure that that's not what's being proposed or that's not what's going to be built. CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN : Well let's find out what percentage of the 6.75 acres that represents. ANDREW GIAMBERTONE : That is the entire site as you see there and if you look on the site plan here CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN :Just talk really loud so we can get you. ANDREW GIAMBERTONE : What you see on the model is outlined here in red so you can see the area to the northern site where the Long Island Railroad is you can see the extent of the vegetation there, you can see the extent of the vegetation on the farmland behind the two existing houses to the east and actually the limited vegetation that the boatyard. We had a tree survey done every single tree is tagged and located on the survey. As much as it appears to be fairly densely wooded most of it is scrub oak and scrub pine but we have gone back and identified any significant trees and we've actually revised our site plan to accommodate maintaining those trees in their existing location. We've modified the driveway entrance coming in so we've taken that into consideration. On the model any of the deciduous trees that you see as opposed to the evergreens are actually existing specimen trees. There's a walnut tree, there's a couple of nice oaks, a couple of nice maples so anything that was significant on our tree survey we have in fact maintained. A lot of it is not necessarily quality vegetation and March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting naturally we'll be adding a significant amount of vegetation and screened plantings as part of our project. LAUREN BARRY : I want to elaborate on that just to be clear and avoid CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN : Please speak in to the microphone please and excuse me you need to address the Board not the applicant. LAUREN BARRY : I'm sorry, just to be clear if you were to go in to maps on your own and zoom out from that picture you would see a connective tree canopy. (inaudible) maybe a few meters behind that and there's farmland behind it but once you zoom out a little or more you can see dense canopy it is there. BILL WITZKE : Hi, Bill Witzke just to clarify on the vegetation and the trees that are there I grew up next to that and up until and I'm going by memory the early nineties that was a horse field and there was zero vegetation so most of that growth that you see there is probably is less than thirty years old. I don't know if that accounts to anything but just so you know it's not old growth per say and I can I remember watching the horses back there. There was zero vegetation outside of the grass. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN : Anyone else? Again if you look on page four of this scope you will see that item number two is natural environmental resources which include soils and topography, existing conditions, potential impacts, mitigation there's a whole bunch of things that we'll look at the actual condition of the existing undisturbed site and certainly I would say that we will also make sure that they address the conditions that you're concerned about, anything else? I guess there's nothing from the Board, we're just here to listen tonight. Alright hearing no further questions or comments here on page two of this handout on the bottom is the contact information for Kim so that if you want to submit written comments or you want to contact someone you know who would think might be interested in doing that. We have an open period of time when we're accepting those comments, that's March 26th when we will close this particular phase of the draft scope and it looks just like this on that page. Kim's email is there, is a phone number in there too no just the email. Well the phone number is 631-765- 1809 and so you can call also and again where's the handout on how to get? BOARD SECRETARY : I put it out on the table but also on here the draft scope can be viewed down CHAIRPERSON WEISMAN : Ok fine, also on that page is some information on where you can find this on our website and there are handouts outside instructions that Kim's prepared on how to go to find this on Laserfiche so that you can have a closer look at the surveys, the architectural plans and so on and of course a copy of this. Well we thank you all for your time and your March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting concerns. We'll make sure this incorporate them into this document and to be continued. Thank you very much and if you want to stick around just have a quick look at those drawings by all means that's what they're here for. 1` 1 March 15, 2018 Regular Meeting CERTIFICATION I Elizabeth Sakarellos, certify that the foregoing transcript of tape recorded Public Hearings was prepared using required electronic transcription equipment and is a true and accurate record of Hearings. Signature : Elizabeth Sakarellos DATE : March 16, 2018 13