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1 TOWN OF BRUNSWICK TOWN BOARD
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3 HIGHLAND CREEK PLANNED DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT (PDD)
4 APPLICATION
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6 STENOGRAPHIC MINUTES OF PUBLIC HEARING
7 conducted in the above-entitled matter on the 29th
8 day of December, 2005, at the Brunswick Central
9 School District Auditorium, 3992 NY2, Troy, New
10 York, commencing at 6:47 p.m.
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12 TOWN OF BRUNSWICK BOARD MEMBERS:
13 Councilwoman CAROLYN ABRAMS
14 Councilmen CARL CLEMENTE
15 PATRICK POLETO
16 SAM SALVI
17 Clerk SUSAN QUEST-SHERMAN
18 PLANNING BOARD MEMBERS:
19 Chair SHAWN MALONE
20 Members MICHAEL CZORNYJ
21 KEVIN MAINELLO
22 RUSSELL OSTER
23 DAVID TARBOX
24 JOSEPH WETMILLER
AMF REPORTING - PO Box 310, Guilderland, NY 12064
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1 APPEARANCES:
2 ANDREW W. GILCHRIST, ESQ. - Town Board Legal Advisor
3 BOB MARINI, JR. - CEO of Marini Builders
4 LEE ROSEN - Marini Builders
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1
2 P R O C E E D I N G S
3 MR. POLETO: All right. We are readied to
4 proceed. All raise for the Pledge.
5 (Pledge of allegiance.)
6 MR. POLETO: I want to welcome everybody to
7 the meeting. We got more room here. It is not a
8 bad facility.
9 At this point, I would like to call upon
10 our Town Clerk to read the notice for this meeting.
11 MS. QUEST-SHERMAN: Public notice. Notice
12 is hereby given that a public hearing will be held
13 by the Town Board of the Town of Brunswick on
14 Thursday December 29, 2005, at 6:30 p.m. at
15 Brunswick Center School District auditorium, 3992
16 NY2, Troy, New York 12180, pursuant to Section 10
17 of the Zoning Code of Town of Brunswick, and also
18 pursuant to the State Environmental Quality Review
19 Act(SEQRA), and it's implementing regulations at 6
20 NYCRR Part 617, to allow public review -- excuse me,
21 to allow public comment on the application submitted
22 by Landmark Developing Group, L.L.C., for the
23 proposed Highland Creek Planned Development District
24 (PDD), which is a proposed 190 lot residential
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1 subdivision, consisting of 39 traditional
2 single-family homes, 21 manor homes and 130 carriage
3 homes, and located on 210.13 acres of land situated
4 on the northeast side of McChesney Avenue Extension,
5 south of its intersection with McChesney Avenue.
6 The property is currently zoned agricultural (A-40).
7 The application has been submitted pursuant
8 to Section 10 of the Zoning Code of the Town of
9 Brunswick for a Planned Development District (PDD.)
10 A Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) has
11 been prepared by the Landmark Development Group,
12 L.L.C. for this action, pursuant to SEQRA. The Town
13 Board of the Town of Brunswick, as SEQRA Lead
14 Agency, has accepted the DEIS as adequate for public
15 review, and a notice of completion has been filed.
16 The public hearing will allow comments on the PDD
17 application and DEIS. Copies of the application
18 materials and DEIS are available for public
19 inspection during regular business hours at the
20 following location: Town of Brunswick Town Office,
21 339 Town Office Road, Troy, New York 12180.
22 In addition, a copy of the DEIS is also
23 available for public inspection during regular
24 business hours at the Brunswick Community Library,
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1 605 Brunswick Road, Eagle Mills, New York 12180.
2 All interested persons will be heard at the public
3 hearing dated December 1, 2005, Brunswick, New York,
4 the Town of Brunswick Town Board, by Patrick Poleto,
5 Town Board member. And that was placed in the Troy
6 record on December 8, 2005.
7 MR. POLETO: Thank you. This is a
8 continuation of the November 28 original public
9 hearing. So if you got up at that public hearing
10 and spoke, we do have a copy or we will have a copy
11 of what was said, so we don't need to rehash
12 everything that was said tonight.
13 At this point, I would like to call on Andy
14 Gilchrist to let you know where we stand on the
15 projects.
16 MR. GILCHRIST: Very briefly, just to
17 reiterate where the project stands, this was
18 reviewed at the November 28 meeting as well. This
19 application was submitted by Landmark Development
20 Group for the Planned Development District. As you
21 just heard in the notice, this action is being
22 reviewed pursuant to SEQRA, and the draft of our
23 Environmental Impact Statement was accepted as
24 complete. And again, what that means under the
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1 regulations, is that the document addresses the
2 issues that were identified in the scoping document,
3 identified all the issues that need to be addressed
4 in the impact statement, and that it was active for
5 public review, inspection and comments.
6 The public hearing tonight is both on the
7 plan development district application itself, as
8 well as the content of the draft Environmental
9 Impact Statement. Comments were received when this
10 public hearing was opened on November 28. I'll
11 reiterate what Mr. Poleto said, in that, a
12 transcript was made of the comments of the November
13 28 public hearing. Tonight is a continuation of
14 that hearing. You will hear a brief presentation by
15 the applicant, over-viewing what the project was all
16 about.
17 If you had the opportunity to be present at
18 the November 28 meeting and heard the presentation
19 and offered comment, those comments are already on
20 the record, will be fully address by the applicant,
21 and considered by the Board in reviewing the
22 application.
23 The purpose for the continuation of the
24 hearing was not to repeat those. If you did not
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1 have the opportunity to be at the November 28
2 meeting, of course all comments are received.
3 In addition, if there are any new or
4 additional comments that you wish to place on the
5 record that may have arisen between the 28th and
6 this evening, by all means, those comments are to be
7 received as well.
8 Ones those comments are received, the next
9 step in the process will require the applicant to
10 consider all the comments received and respond to
11 them, address all of them. If there were questions,
12 they will be answering the questions. If comments
13 were placed on the record, addressing the comments
14 and explaining more about the project. That's a
15 document we call a final Environmental Impact
16 Statement. That likewise will either come into the
17 Town Board for approval and completeness, and that
18 determination will be whether this applicant has
19 fully addressed all of the comments received by the
20 public on their initial document.
21 So, you must keep in mind this record is
22 not complete on this application yet. This Town
23 Board, as I've advised the Town Board, makes sure
24 this record is complete in terms of adequacy of the
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1 draft EIS, addressing the comments identified in the
2 scope, listening to all public comments received,
3 both at the public hearing and as I'll mention in a
4 moment, any written comments that have been
5 received, ensuring that the applicant has fully
6 addressed them before any determination is made on
7 the application. It's not in compliance with the
8 SEQRA regulations to make a determination until that
9 record is complete.
10 Written comments. Written comments have
11 always be allowed in the application. Once a public
12 hearing is closed, the SEQRA regulations also
13 require a written comment period following the close
14 of the public hearing. So, once this public hearing
15 is closed, there's still an opportunity to submit
16 written comments, if you have not been able to
17 attend the public hearing or for whatever reasons
18 have not gotten up to speak at the public hearing
19 and put your comments on the record. So, please
20 keep in mind that there is the ability to submit
21 written comments through a date established by the
22 Town Board once the public hearing has been closed.
23 And with that, again, a stenographic
24 transcript is being made of tonight's meeting to
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1 make sure that the record is complete. So, when you
2 do come up to give comments, again for the record,
3 place your name and address. Thank you.
4 MR. POLETO: As Andy said, if you come up,
5 we need to have your name and address and clearly
6 stated so the stenographer can get the spelling
7 right, because we've had questions in the past about
8 spelling of some names.
9 At this point I would like to call upon
10 Landmark Development to give a brief recap of what's
11 going on.
12 MR. ROSEN: Thank you very much. My name
13 is Lee Rosen, and with me tonight is Bob Marini of
14 Marini Builders and Ivan Strahall, who is our
15 project engineer. We are going to just give a quick
16 overview of the project. Bob is going to then
17 explain the types of homes that we will be building
18 and then we'll move onto the public comment period.
19 The Highland Creek Planned Development
20 District would feature a variety of single-family
21 homes designed around an integrated open space
22 system that would include land for active and
23 passive recreational use, as well as land to remain
24 undeveloped.
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1 Just briefly, as was mentioned, the site
2 for Highland Creek is 210 acre parcel of land
3 located on McChesney Avenue Extension, at its
4 intersection with Bonesteel Lane, which is about
5 three quarters of a mile south of the intersection
6 with McChesney Avenue. The homes planned for
7 Highland Creek will include 130 carriage homes,
8 which are single-family detached homes, ranging in
9 size between 1400 and 2200 square feet, specifically
10 designed for the empty-nest owner; that is, the
11 owner who desires single-family home ownership, but
12 less in the way of exterior ground maintenance, with
13 lawn mowing, snow removal and other services
14 provided through the community.
15 The community will also include 39
16 traditional single-family homes, designed to appeal
17 to the first time and move-up home buyer, ranging in
18 size from 1800 to 3200 square feet. As well as 21
19 manor homes, which are a collection of premium value
20 homes ranging in size from approximately 2000 to
21 3500 square feet, designed to appeal to the luxury
22 high-end home buyer.
23 Highland Creek's open spaces will be owned
24 by a homeowners association to be created for the
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1 community and include approximately 135 acres of
2 land, or approximately 65 percent of the site, with
3 walking trails, active and passive recreation areas,
4 as well as other lands to remain undeveloped. The
5 master landscape plan will be implemented for the
6 community, and these sections will also be placed on
7 the lands owned by the Highland Creek homeowners
8 association, for their long-term maintenance and
9 protection, as well as upon individual homes to
10 provide architectural control.
11 Just turning to the site plan, which was
12 displayed on the screen, the entrance, the main
13 entrance will be from McChesney Avenue Extension,
14 which you see on the far extreme left of the site.
15 There will be an entrance road coming into the site
16 that will have a master landscape plan designed for
17 it. That road will break off into two roads; one,
18 to serve the carriage home section of the community,
19 and another will bring the residents back to the
20 traditional single-family homes and the manor homes.
21 Again, a master landscape plan will be
22 implemented for all of the common areas, as well as
23 for individual homes. We have a blow up, for
24 example, of one section. This is a section of the
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1 carriage homes. You are looking at a bird's-eye
2 view. It will be community features. As you are
3 looking down at a rotary, which will have a gazebo
4 which will be a community gathering area, as well as
5 other areas for community gathering within the site.
6 At this time, I'll turn the presentation
7 over to Bob, who will describe the homes.
8 Thank you.
9 MR. MARINI: My name is Bob Marini, and I
10 am the CEO of Bob Marini Builders. My family has
11 been building new homes in the area since 1947. I
12 am the third generation home builder. We have
13 experience in building over 2000 homes in over 30
14 counties throughout the region, and I would like to
15 think that we have the experience and the knowhow to
16 build a project of this magnitude, to build a
17 project like this in the town of Brunswick, which we
18 feel is a very desirable place to live.
19 I would like to talk a little bit about the
20 homes that we are going to build here and show you
21 some photographs of actual homes that we're building
22 in other communities, which will actually be the
23 types of homes that we'll build in Highland Creek.
24 Starting off with the manor homes, which
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1 would be the highest price-range homes within the
2 community. There will be 21 of these, and they are
3 designed to appeal towards the luxury home market,
4 those buyers who are looking for their second and
5 third home. They will range between 2000 and 3500
6 square feet, and these homes are situated towards
7 the rear of the property, which boarders up to the
8 golf course on the northerly side of the project.
9 The home sites here are the largest of the home
10 sites that are within the community, and they
11 average two-thirds of an acre, and the lots are
12 typically no less than 100 feet.
13 This is an example of a manor home. This
14 house is about 3,000 square feet. And what we do
15 with the homes, is we mix the textures. So, we
16 provide appealing streetscapes, so that we avoid
17 that, quote unquote, that cookie cutter look.
18 Moving onto the traditional homes. The
19 traditional homes are geared towards the first-time
20 home buyer and the first move-up buyer. These homes
21 are 1800 to 3100 square feet. You are looking at
22 photos of actual traditional homes that we're
23 currently building in another community in the area.
24 The minimum lot size here is 90 feet wide by 130
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1 feet. And within the PDD, we are able to maximize
2 our use of the lots and allow for side yard setbacks
3 as small as five feet, which allows us to put side
4 entry garages. And we end up with averages of 35 to
5 40-foot spacing between homes. These homes will be
6 built on an average of about .4 acres or around
7 17,000 square feet.
8 This is an example of a traditional home.
9 Again, we use different texture on the outside. We
10 combine shapes and stone and we use different color
11 schemes so that when you do drive down the street,
12 that streetscape has the appearance of more of a
13 custom look than a cookie cutter look.
14 The carriage homes, finally the carriage
15 homes, are designed for the empty nester market.
16 And by design, these homes are designed for those
17 folks who are empty nester, whether they be single
18 individuals, they be couples who are empty nester,
19 their kids are gone. And the homes are primarily
20 designed with, they are all designed with master
21 bedrooms on the first floor. We have three ranch
22 plans within the -- four ranch plans between 1400
23 and 2200 square feet, and one plan that has the
24 master bedroom down and two bedrooms upstairs.
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1 These homes are built on lots that are 55
2 feet wide by 130 feet deep. Our homes are 40 feet
3 wide, so that will allow for an average of 15-foot
4 spacing between the homes.
5 Here is another example offer a carriage
6 home. This one has a master bedroom on the first
7 floor. And again, you could see the use of the
8 colors and the textures on the outside. So when we
9 are done, not everything is done with just vinyl
10 siding. We've introduced brick and stone and all
11 kinds of things that you would want to see on a home
12 that would have a custom appearance to it. We have
13 architectural diversity built into your products so
14 that when we offer four plans, we have three or four
15 elevations that go with those homes. So that we
16 could build the same plan or put a different
17 elevation to it and have it look entirely different,
18 and what you are looking at screen here is example
19 of two homes that are identical in floor plan, but
20 yet we could achieve two totally different looks for
21 that home.
22 And then an example of a carriage home,
23 because it is an increasing growing market for the
24 empty nesters, the demographics just dictate that
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1 this is the market segment that is vastly
2 under-served within the Capital Region. And in
3 many, many towns, and this gives you an example of
4 the first floor plan of what this market is looking
5 for, generally one floor living, smaller homes,
6 maintenance-free exteriors, and having all the
7 landscaping, all the amenities, all the landscaping
8 the snow plowing and all of those things rolled into
9 a homeowner's association that takes care of it for
10 them.
11 This is just a slide of the example of what
12 a typical streetscape in some of our communities
13 might look like. We use things such as corral
14 fencing and stone pillars, and we do give back to
15 the land in terms of adding a lot of landscaping.
16 We go above and beyond to make sure that the
17 streetscape is really pleasing, and is something
18 that we're proud of and the people who live in the
19 community are proud of, and the people who make
20 decisions to have communities like this are proud of
21 it as well.
22 And with that, I would like to say thank
23 you very much for the opportunity to speak.
24 MR. POLETO: Thank you. All right. Now,
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1 we are open for the public comment period. Again,
2 we have a transcript from the first meeting with
3 everybody's comments, so if you have new comments,
4 come on up to the microphone. We need your name and
5 address, and speak into the microphone, because we
6 are also taping the meeting up here and we got to
7 pick it up on the PA system in order to get a clear
8 copy on our tape.
9 So, first one up?
10 TOM WAGNER: Good evening. My name is Tom
11 Wagner, I live at 66 Weyrick Road, in Troy, New
12 York, in the Town of Brunswick, and I just had three
13 thoughts that I wanted to share.
14 The first is, there probably has been a
15 demographic study of what this will do to the school
16 district and the school operating budget, and I
17 would like to make sure that that's considered.
18 I've lived here for 30 years and I've noticed that
19 the taxes have never gone backwards, they've always
20 increased somewhat monotonically. So, will this
21 have the same effect? And how could that be
22 contained? Because I think this sounds like a very
23 nice project, but I think the community should be
24 shielded from tax increase due to a project like
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1 this.
2 The second concern is, what will happen to
3 the traffic light infrastructure? The roads that
4 lead to and from this region, I don't believe were
5 designed with heavy construction vehicles in mind.
6 And how will that be accommodated? And then, after
7 the construction period, how will the additional
8 traffic patterns effect the area? I don't know if
9 this is really true, but the AAA says the average
10 household has 3.4 cars. So 190, 3.4; that is 600
11 plus cars to the area, which is a fairly significant
12 figure.
13 Also, related to that, it's not in the Town
14 of Brunswick, but the Hoosick Street traffic is
15 pretty significant. It's a main thoroughfare
16 between the south and Vermont. There will be 600
17 more cars in that mix. How will that work? What
18 will it mean to Route 2 as well? So, I don't know
19 if those have already been addressed, and forgive me
20 if this is redundant, but that's something that I
21 would like to learn.
22 The other part, and maybe you got this now
23 already, but it seems like this will be a
24 self-contained community, so there will be water and
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1 sewer service. Will that be a sustained district
2 that will be managed as a district and, therefore,
3 not involved with the tax base or the rest of
4 Brunswick funding water and sewer? So, those are
5 some concerns.
6 One suggestion I have, is to consider the
7 posting of a performance bond. As a study, you
8 should have a prediction, and a performance bond
9 could be put in place as an insurance policy to
10 accommodate any unforeseen expenses to the Town of
11 Brunswick in the future. It could be posted for a
12 five-year period, and if the study is rock solid,
13 there will be no additional expense, the performance
14 bond would not be exercised. If there were
15 additional expenses, the cost would be exercised. I
16 think that would be a nice way to contain the impact
17 of this.
18 And one final suggestion is, I understand
19 the study is available at the location and you could
20 go there during business hours. It might be very
21 useful to post that on the internet, at a site that
22 would allow the community a lot more access to it.
23 And I think it's very doable in a PDF file or some
24 form of that nature.
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1 So, thank you.
2 MR. POLETO: Thank you. Next? Anybody?
3 LOUIS HUTTER: I'm Louis Hutter,
4 H-U-T-T-E-R, and I am at the 228 White Church Road.
5 I have not read the DEIS, I just don't have the
6 time. It's a thick volume and there are several
7 other applications. But, what I would like to get
8 clear, basically, and hopefully somebody from the
9 town has got the entire DEIS, and hopefully these
10 items are admitted.
11 One item, is that there's a number of
12 applications that are in now, plus the Wal-Mart.
13 It's a significant amount of development, and I
14 believe it's safe to assume that each of the
15 applications does not consider the growth of the
16 other applications, and also, the existing growth
17 from the existing zoning. And quite a few houses
18 will still be built in Brunswick.
19 As submitted, any one development might not
20 seem like a significant growth, but when you combine
21 them, I have been told that there's 1500 houses or
22 something supposedly to be built in the next two
23 years and are on the wall of proposals. And based
24 upon 5,000 district houses in Brunswick, that's
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1 roughly 20 percent growth in two years, which is
2 very significant.
3 What I would like to have, is that all of
4 the DEISs should be combined into one, so that the
5 growth of each one, which is by the time one will be
6 built out, the other will be built out too, so there
7 should be really one DEIS for all of the
8 applications. And also the DEIS should consider
9 that the Town will eventually be built out. Our
10 zoning is based upon a certain final number of
11 houses in Brunswick, and the density of that will be
12 agreed upon by everybody. So, that should be the
13 baseline, and then the development district are
14 additional to that, and to come up with additional
15 development.
16 But the one thing I had done also is
17 started reading the Master Plans that had been
18 referenced by the applications, and I found one
19 error in it. There was a statement in the future
20 development of the taxes for both town and county,
21 helping to offset the increase of any taxes.
22 When we had the public hearing for the
23 Master Plan, the comment was made that that was
24 inaccurate. It was explained that, okay, there's
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1 more taxes, but there's more services. Once we get
2 to a certain size, we have the police force, so on
3 and so forth. And if you look at all the other
4 towns around us, their taxes are similar, but they
5 have a lot more growth and a lot more density, and
6 it had been agreed by everybody that, basically, you
7 have more development, you still have the same
8 taxes, because there's more government services that
9 have to serve the people. And hopefully, that
10 statement and any of the other statements that were
11 in the public hearing, were addressed in the Master
12 Plan. Again, I couldn't finish reading the whole
13 Master Plan.
14 Another comment I have is our zoning and
15 our land use regulations, which is the Planning
16 Board. They date from the 1950s, and right now they
17 are under a total review, and I assume they will be
18 done shortly. But to, basically, consume an amount
19 of growth under the existing regulations is
20 unreasonable, because we are concurrently developing
21 the regulations. Any significant developments, I
22 feel, should be put on hold until our final zoning
23 and our final planning regulations are enacted,
24 because anything that we put in place now will be
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1 with us for the next hundred years, and they should
2 be reflective of what I consider to be our present
3 requirements, which is what should be issued
4 shortly.
5 All the developments that we have,
6 including this one, I assume it's lit by street
7 lights, and people are supposed to be walking around
8 and so forth. That will cause light pollution and
9 DEIS should consider that. People in Brunswick
10 drive around at night, we are starting to have a
11 light pollution problem. We have the nighttime
12 glare problem from Albany and Troy. We have a whole
13 lot of speed lights coming in, we have Action
14 Chevrolet, we have the other developments coming
15 onto Route 7. I have next to me the lights, they
16 are so lit up at night on the side of the hill, it
17 looks like a ski resort that has night skiing,
18 that's how bright it is.
19 I found that, my experience, everybody
20 says, "We'll put vegetation in and the lights will
21 shine down to the ground only." But in the
22 wintertime with snow cover, there's no vegetation,
23 the light just bounces off the snow and goes back
24 into the area, and a it's ruining our nighttime
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1 vista. And any developments should, with the
2 lighting and, basically, the reflective lighting off
3 the ground especially should be considered, and
4 somehow take care of.
5 And I feel the DEIS should also, basically,
6 consider the requirements on the town services that
7 will be needed; as, for example, I think there's 100
8 empty nesting housing here. We already have Grouse,
9 which was supposed to be built for the elderly
10 people in Brunswick. I don't know how many
11 Brunswick residents moved into Grouse. If these are
12 empty nesters here, ten years they are going to be
13 elderly. If we start having an older population, a
14 lot of services are needed, and I don't know how
15 they would continue to live here, because there is
16 really nothing for an elderly person to get by. We
17 would have to have more elderly services, and have
18 transportation. We have to have better ambulance
19 service and so forth, and all of that should be
20 considered in the Environmental Impact Statement.
21 And, basically, like the elderly, all of the
22 applications should be considered together.
23 Right now, it's my personal opinion that
24 our whole infrastructure and the way that we
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1 operate, we really can't handle a lot of
2 development.
3 At the first public hearing there was a big
4 sign on the wall, "99 people legal limit." We had a
5 couple hundred people in the room. So, if we do
6 develop too large, we are going to become like
7 Clifton Park. We are going to have to have vigorous
8 requirements, and I frankly like it the way it is.
9 It works well for the town that we have. I really
10 would not like to have to change the government and
11 have to get permits to do everything and so forth.
12 One thing about this development district
13 is, essentially this is the third largest
14 development in that immediate area. Each one was
15 considered by itself, but at one point I feel these
16 developments should be considered, when you have
17 several in an area, it should be considered as one
18 super development, and it really shouldn't be an
19 individual application. It should be a zoning. And
20 the area should be zoned for Planned Development
21 District. Not a single one has a variance for
22 zoning.
23 And from what I heard at the last meeting,
24 I have one comment regarding this particular
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1 application. I think, to me, it looks like it
2 depends around the intent and desires of Brunswick.
3 I heard that there was comparison of the houses that
4 were proposed, versus the existing housing that we
5 built out. However, most of the site, I believe, is
6 unusable, it's wetland, stream or too hilly to build
7 houses on. And, basically, it looks like we are
8 going to get higher density housing in Brunswick
9 than the Zoning Board and the Planning Board has so
10 stated in the past.
11 A Planned Development District like this, I
12 believe the intent of the Master Plan was to put a
13 new commercial center, basically, confiscate areas
14 in downtown. We won't have a downtown. We have
15 maybe commercial residents, we have car dealers and
16 Price Chopper and Wal-Mart, but there's no offices,
17 there's really no restaurants and so forth that
18 downtown Troy has. And we have estimated that the
19 development district, we are supposed to be able to
20 walk to work. Everybody has to get into a car and
21 drive. It's just more houses. And I believe it's
22 not even access around 7, you have to go onto County
23 Road and drive around Route 7. And I just don't see
24 the access to the center of Brunswick that the
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1 planning development district should have.
2 And my final comment is that, I don't know
3 what need does Brunswick have of a development like
4 this one. And the other one is, if we are
5 requesting a zoning variance, well, it should be for
6 Brunswick then. And if there is nothing in here
7 that can't be satisfied by our existing zoning,
8 there's no need for a new district. To me, it seems
9 like the development is intended for people on the
10 other side of the river, and I don't think we have
11 one to 2000 people that need houses in Brunswick,
12 and it looks like this development is spillover from
13 Clifton Park and so forth. I lived there, I moved
14 here because I like Brunswick. If I wanted
15 developments, large scale developments, I would live
16 over there, but thank you.
17 MR. POLETO: Thank you. Next?
18 DON LUND: Good evening. My name is Don
19 Lund. I lived on 26 Old Sea Road here in Brunswick.
20 I'll start straight out by thanking the Planning
21 Board. I have been in the industry for 25 years and
22 our last name is synonymous in construction for over
23 a hundred now. I too am a third generation, and if
24 I figure it out, that's a lot of years for one
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1 person to be in their career.
2 As a third generation, we have held all
3 kinds of different titles in the construction
4 industry. We have been involved in planning boards,
5 zoning boards, consultants, advisors,
6 superintendents, foreman, and guys who just work in
7 the gang. We've worked on all kind of structures.
8 We've seen all kinds of developments, both in
9 housing and commercial. And one of the things that
10 drew me from the other side of the river to here, as
11 well as family, and I have immediate family, into
12 this town, is that this town is planned, they learn.
13 They look at mistakes, they analyze them and they
14 try to implement ways to make sure that they don't
15 make the same mistakes. I see that here. I've seen
16 that in other projects in this town. I've watched
17 it. I have some criticisms, but by and large,
18 everything I have seen with this particular project
19 is, by and large, one of the best proposed projects
20 I have seen to date. People will scowl, they will
21 have negative comments, but before I make comments
22 such as that with an attachment to my name, I have a
23 responsibility to that name, and that is not to
24 speak until I know what I'm talking about.
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1 I've heard that it will impact the school
2 district. I am in the Brittonkill School District.
3 Automatically I think about, oh my God. But the
4 facts are, is that this impacts three different
5 school districts, not just one, three. The impact
6 to each school district, as from my experience, is
7 the lowest I've seen in a development structure.
8 Infrastructure, that's been addressed. As
9 taxpayers of New York State, we don't have much to
10 say about the infrastructure until we get an
11 infrastructure built in force and whether we want to
12 vote on it or not. Route 7 has been planned and
13 developed for many, many years. They just recreated
14 a new infrastructure on Route 7 with just these
15 kinds of developments and just this kind of
16 commercial growth in mind. These are people who are
17 experts in the field. If we don't have faith in our
18 experts, then what do we have faith in?
19 I have an engineering degree. It doesn't
20 make me an expert engineer. I have a construction
21 management degree. It doesn't make me an expert in
22 construction management. But what it does give me,
23 is a basis to make an opinion based on the
24 information given to me. Now, based upon the
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1 information given to me on all the comments I've
2 heard, I've researched those comments and looked
3 towards them and brought out facts. And the facts
4 are, is that I heard comments that it's going to
5 impact the school district. The impact is far
6 minimal. In fact, the school district, this
7 particular one, Brittonkill, and I've reviewed this
8 one for quite some time, it's in a deficit. It's
9 running out of space.
10 The services, you get into the services.
11 We have the State Police, we have the State Police
12 barracks. The county, the Rensselaer County
13 Sheriffs, they are in a deficit for revenue. We are
14 not going to get it through revenues. We are not
15 going to get it through commercial properties. We
16 are going to get it through growth of residential
17 properties.
18 This particular type of residential growth
19 is one of the best kind of residential growths you
20 could have in a community. These are people who are
21 responsible that are going to be buying these homes.
22 They are not foreclosures. I came here 15 years ago
23 and there was not one single soul in this town who
24 was negative towards me building on farmland. The
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1 farmland was sold, it was divided up into two acre
2 lots, and I built a quality home, and I'm very proud
3 of it. I'm in my second home now. I'm in the
4 middle of my second home within this town, with a
5 seven-year-old boy. I would like to make it a
6 second generation, a third generation, a fourth
7 generation of the Lunds here in this community.
8 I hope that I chose the right community.
9 It's a terrific community with terrific people.
10 Everyone here has been very, very welcoming and
11 outgoing. It's the kind of community I want to
12 raise my son in, and I hope he raises his family in
13 and we continue on for many hundreds of years here.
14 I've seen the other sides of communities, where we
15 take so many negative attitudes and we take so many
16 uninformed comments and we go from a zero to broke
17 attitude. And the truth is, it impacts the very
18 same people today, 30 years from now. The same
19 people who are diligent in paying their taxes, they
20 never have any resolve on the issues that are on
21 their table. This town has issues. Every single
22 town you're going to live in has issues. How we
23 handle them is what makes the town good or bad.
24 Look around you. I often hear this and I
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1 see it, and this is true, "We don't want to be
2 Clifton Park." Certainly not. But these are the
3 things that I've seen in this town that assures us
4 that we are not going to be Clifton Park. I hear
5 comments about how we are going to impact the
6 quality of life of Brunswick. That would be saying
7 that when I came to Brunswick, I impacted the
8 quality of life. Is that a negative way?
9 I'm active in this community. I've
10 contributed back, and I will continue to do so. And
11 like I said, I can't see a better community that I
12 would want to be in in the Capital Region. I have
13 been all over this state. I've built all over this
14 state and the surrounding states. I could tell you,
15 we sit on a real gem here. This is a great town.
16 Be thankful. And quite frankly, I know it sounds as
17 though I'm all pro. There's always negatives to
18 everything, and don't think that I don't have my
19 negative thoughts about certain aspects of all of
20 these projects, one of them being traffic on Route
21 7. But the facts are, is that whether this project
22 goes through or not, traffic could increase on Route
23 7 by virtue of Vermont building larger and larger
24 communities. That traffic is still going to flow
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1 through Route 7. That traffic is going to come up
2 from New York City. So to use the statistical
3 analysis --
4 AUDIENCE MEMBER: It is being diverted to
5 Route 2 right now.
6 MR. POLETO: Just keep going.
7 DON LUND: -- to use the statistical
8 analysis, let's make sure that as we make these
9 comments, we get all the facts straight, and that we
10 take everything in the environment into account.
11 I can only say this, I wouldn't be in favor
12 of the project if I thought the negatives outweighed
13 the positives. And having been a part of planning
14 boards and zoning boards, having been a consultant
15 of a number of communities, a free consultant, I
16 would never attach my name to something that would
17 disgrace my name, my heritage or my community. I
18 live in this community. I'm residing in this
19 community. I'm on my second home now, and I hope
20 that I'm in my third home, and I hope that someday
21 my kids and their kids are in their homes here in
22 Brunswick.
23 And I could only say one more thing, is
24 once again, thank you very much for the open public
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1 hearings. Many communities do not have these.
2 And one other comment, and that is
3 regarding the builder. For those of you who don't
4 have any kind education or extensive information
5 about builders, I've seen developers, I've seen them
6 come and go. Mr. Marini stated he too is third
7 generation. That means his name is on this. He is
8 not looking to go anywhere, and he hasn't gone
9 anywhere. I've seen their homes. By and large,
10 you're not going to find a more responsible builder
11 in your home town. I've seen irresponsible ones.
12 I've looked at their infrastructure in the roads,
13 how they impact the environment, the surrounding
14 areas, what they take into account and into
15 consideration, the style of homes. You can look at
16 the architecture. These are all things that I was
17 trained and skilled in. These are things I see on a
18 daily basis. I know for a fact that they are one of
19 the high-end of what the Capital Region has to offer
20 in terms of builders.
21 So, we are very lucky that, in respect to
22 having someone come here to apply to build in our
23 town, that we have attracted someone on the upper
24 end, someone who cares about whether the nail is put
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1 in straight or crooked. It makes a big difference.
2 Thank you.
3 MR. POLETO: Next?
4 BERNARD FLEISHMAN: My name is Bernard
5 Fleishman, I live on Colehamer Avenue, Troy, New
6 York 12180. I hadn't planned to speak up so soon,
7 because you people know me too well already, as the
8 Town Board. But, there are a couple of aspects of
9 the previous speaker's comments that I think require
10 some response.
11 First of all, the principal group in this
12 Town that has been urging a slowdown, in effect a
13 shelving of the current projects, until an overall
14 Master Plan is developed, that group, Brunswick
15 Smart Growth, is not Brunswick no Growth, it's
16 Brunswick Smart Growth. So the claim that the
17 opponents of this project or others are interested
18 in no growth at all, is not justified, all right?
19 The question is, how will we develop it?
20 An individual project may be very good. And
21 frankly, I have no great objections to this project,
22 except for the traffic that will be spilling into
23 the roads that lead across to the capital district,
24 to Route 7 and to Route 2 and to Pinewoods Avenue.
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1 And that's a major concern of mine.
2 Incidently, if we are talking about
3 expertise, some of us have some experience, a lot of
4 experience, in relevant aspects of these projects.
5 From 1976 to 1995, I was one of the directors of the
6 Capital District Transportation Authority. All
7 right, we ran a bus company, but we learned things
8 in the process. We learned that when a community
9 asks for some transportation, some public
10 transportation like busses to come in, we would go
11 there and find that the builders were all over the
12 place. And in effect, it was often impossible to
13 design a decent transportation plan, because there
14 had been no overall prior planning for that area.
15 And it's this kind of thing that Brunswick Smart
16 Growth is asking.
17 We need a Master Plan, updated Master Plan,
18 for this Town. We have to know where growth will
19 take place and should take place, where open space
20 should be preserved, and we also have to know how
21 will transportation be handled, how will the traffic
22 will be handled. What has happened with us now, is
23 that the, as the previous speaker has said, the
24 traffic on Route 7 grows and grows and grows. And
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1 not only does it grow, but as one gentleman tried to
2 called out before, it spills over into other roads,
3 into Route 2. Not only into Route 2, into
4 residential neighborhoods along Route 7. There is a
5 severe traffic problem in this town. And to
6 consider planning, consider residential development
7 planning without giving attention to the aspects of
8 how people are going to get to where they need to go
9 and how they are going to do it without excessive
10 pain and waking and aggravation, that is an
11 essential part of the planning process.
12 But, our proposal, the Brunswick Smart
13 Growth, and again it's been said before and I
14 apologize for repeating myself, but we don't know
15 whether our proposals are being seriously considered
16 by the Town Board; that is, a proposal of the sort
17 that says it is too early to look at the individual
18 projects here. What we have to look at, what we
19 have to revise, is the process which you are
20 engaging in here; that is, looking at one project at
21 a time and not anticipating how these projects will
22 interact, how they will effect the traffic pattern
23 of the whole town, and then there is the existing
24 traffic problems that have dogged us for years and
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1 years and years.
2 So, we urge again, respectfully, that the
3 process be reconsidered. That there be a shelving,
4 a delaying in approving any of the five proposals
5 that have been brought fourth, so that a serious
6 development of the Master Plan could be done in
7 which all residents of the Town could participate,
8 and to move forward so that we don't move into a
9 future of sprawl. That is the reference of Clifton
10 Park over and over. Well, it's not Clifton Park.
11 Most of the communities, most of the suburban
12 communities in the United States suffer from sprawl,
13 and they suffer from that because of unplanned
14 growth, haphazard development. The developer says,
15 "I want to build here." Okay, build there. "I want
16 to build there." Okay, build there.
17 The town should be able to say where things
18 will be built, so that we all can prosper and live
19 in a more beautiful and satisfying environment.
20 Thank you.
21 MR. POLETO: Thank you. Next?
22 KATHY BETZINGER: Hi. I'm Kathy Betzinger,
23 B-E-T-Z-I-N-G-E-R, from 1 Valley View Avenue -- 1
24 Valley View Drive, sorry, Troy, New York 12180,
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1 Town of Brunswick.
2 I am not opposed to development either.
3 Actually, this plan does look very nice. I know of
4 the builder, I've seen his homes, and it's done very
5 well. My concern is the same as we have been
6 hearing, you know, consistently, of the cumulative
7 impact of five plans, all which will require zoning
8 changes. And having one go through, having the
9 zoning changes on that, how is it going to effect
10 the others? Is it going to set a precedent? Is
11 this going to mean that once you approve one, it
12 automatically means the next is going to be
13 approved, because so many things are similar to the
14 other plan and so on? It could get out of hand.
15 And the plans, all of the plans need to be looked at
16 collectively.
17 The town has to be smart about the
18 development of this very desirable area. We
19 obviously have an area where people are driving from
20 and to and going right through us. So, we could
21 make it so much more desirable. We could make it so
22 much more attractive, instead of doing it
23 haphazardly and then all of a sudden, you know,
24 oops, our property value is going down, and then
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1 oops, look at that, it's really, there's so much
2 traffic over here. And all of those homes now,
3 which used to be worth a lot more, now all of a
4 sudden aren't going to be worth that much anymore.
5 And as they are talking about tax
6 increases, I am sure the town taxes won't be
7 increased, but the county, because of the
8 infrastructure, the water, the sewer, all of these
9 things, those taxes, once you look at the Rensselaer
10 County impact with the water and sewerage, that is
11 probably going to go up, as well as school taxes.
12 So, there is a huge impact to the residents
13 altogether.
14 The one gentleman that referred to
15 performance bond and requested that, that sounded
16 like a very good idea. I also would be in favor of
17 something like that. So, basically, there has to be
18 a plan. A plan, a plan, a plan. Everything should
19 be put on hold, everything should be looked at,
20 because it's obvious everybody wants to come here.
21 So, once we know that and everybody is, you know,
22 anxious to come here, that's when we need to be
23 smart and make a good plan and to step back.
24 As the Iroquois say, seven generations; we
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1 should be looking seven generations ahead, not just
2 for the here and now, not just for people like we
3 see what's going on with our administration;
4 planning things and doing things for just their term
5 or to get reelected. We should be looking at our
6 children and our children's children and so on.
7 And so, I really do think that the town has
8 to be very careful and look at this very carefully,
9 and either hire somebody or look at the whole plan
10 altogether. So please do a good job. That's what
11 we wanted you there for. Thank you.
12 MR. POLETO: Next, anybody? The mic is
13 open.
14 JAMES J. BREARTON: My name is James J.
15 Brearton, B-R-E-A-R-T-O-N. I live on Four North
16 Star Drive, Brunswick.
17 I am here to voice my opposition to this
18 project and the other pending projects. It's
19 similar to betting against the Giants, I win even if
20 I lose. If this project with the multi-family homes
21 is approved, like the other apartment projects and
22 housing projects, if they are approved, I am sure a
23 lot of democrats will move to Brunswick, and that
24 will make me very happy. But, I am opposed to this
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1 project, as well as the others, because I want to
2 support my neighbors. They, most of them living in
3 single-family homes, are quite surprised when they
4 learn that people are proposing to build
5 multi-family homes on farmland. And when they move
6 there, I am sure they didn't think that they would
7 have apartment buildings and multi-family homes and
8 a Super Wal-Mart right next to them. I certainly
9 don't think people who built brand new single-family
10 homes on Betts Road would think that a Super
11 Wal-Mart would go there, and I'm sure they are very
12 upset.
13 And I don't think anybody here wants to get
14 up a half an hour early to go to work. And we know
15 how crowded Hoosick Road already is. And when these
16 projects are approved, you could bet it is going to
17 take a lot longer to get to work. East Greenbush is
18 fine, North Greenbush is fine, very lovely
19 communities, but they have I-90. Brunswick doesn't
20 have I-90. I mean, Clifton Park is fine, lovely
21 community, but Clifton Park has got the Northway.
22 Brunswick doesn't have the Northway. All Brunswick
23 has is Hoosick Road, which even though they caused
24 businesses up and down Hoosick Road great
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1 inconvenience when they put a center turning lane
2 in, that's not going to alleviate the traffic that
3 is going to be caused by these projects. And I
4 don't think anybody driving down Hoosick Road wants
5 to face another street light. So I would certainly
6 urge you to encourage Phil and Kevin Herrington to
7 modify this proposal.
8 The multi-family homes, I believe, will
9 cause an increase in school taxes, and that is an
10 additional factor. Of course, we like Phil and Kev,
11 but I believe that this proposal could be modified
12 and have a much lesser impact on the beauty of the
13 community.
14 So I urge you, encourage them to modify or
15 withdraw this proposal. Thank you.
16 MR. POLETO: My name is Jude Tyrrell, last
17 name spelled T-Y-R-R-E-L-L, and I live at 441
18 Moonlawn Road, in the Town of Brunswick. I have
19 lived in this location for 46 years. We brought up
20 our children here and they have attended Tamarac
21 School. We have always loved this town and the
22 surrounding countryside. I am a senior citizen over
23 80, living in the town and maintaining a home on a
24 few acres of land. I would not be able to do this
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1 without the support and help of my family, who also
2 lives in the town.
3 Many seniors do not have this kind of help.
4 I would like to speak to the needs of seniors from
5 the age 70 and up, and in particular, their housing
6 needs. I belong to a senior group whose membership
7 is composed of about 75 percent women over the age
8 of 70, who are living alone and still trying to
9 maintain a home. Some of the men in this group are
10 also doing the same thing on modest incomes. It
11 appears to me that the cost of living in this
12 development for most seniors would be prohibitive.
13 However, we don't really know all about what that
14 cost will be as yet. So, how can anyone make
15 informed decisions at this time? We need more
16 specific information from the developer and
17 especially the Town Board, concerning all aspects of
18 the development. Will there be hidden costs that
19 are not now mentioned in the plans or have not been
20 mentioned at any of the public hearings?
21 The seniors in this town need safe,
22 affordable housing to live out their later years in
23 comfort and without the worry and cost of
24 maintaining a home. We don't know if this is it or
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1 not. We need to make informed, rational decisions
2 about the future of development in Brunswick. This
3 cannot be done overnight. I urge you all to take a
4 good hard look at who is making decisions for this
5 town; the developers or our own Town Board? Thank
6 you.
7 MR. POLETO: Next?
8 TOM MENDRO: My name is Tom Mendro. I live
9 at 467 McChesney Avenue Extension, Troy, New York
10 12180. I live not too far from this development,
11 proposed development. And I am going to speak
12 directly about this development. I live up the hill
13 from this. You can't go much higher on the
14 McChesney Avenue Extension where I live. And come
15 around, I say maybe the 1st of September or
16 thereabouts, I can't even cut the grass down to
17 McChesney Avenue, because of the water. This
18 rainstorm, maybe a hurricane goes through or
19 something like that, we get some of the rain from
20 that, and if I dare to go down, I will stick that
21 lawn mower of mine that has rear tires at least that
22 wide, I just can't do it.
23 Down where this is, we see water. I have
24 been out here 28 years, from the days when we used
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1 to stop in the road and let the cows go across on
2 your way home from church. Down where this is, we
3 watch the water after the storms, and it seems to me
4 it's just too wet down there. Because when they dig
5 all of these foundations, imagine whether they are
6 going to have crawl spaces or full basements, they
7 are going to have water damage down there that is
8 going to be unbelievable. And as I understand it,
9 you can't run surface water, rainwater, that type of
10 thing into the sewers. Where are you going to run
11 this off? The only other place that you could go is
12 into the Milky White Creek, and then into the
13 Poesten Kill, which is not a good thing.
14 My father-in-law lived out in Lions Kill,
15 and he was very heartbroken when he found out that I
16 wasn't going to take his house when he no longer
17 wanted it. But the problem at his house, was that
18 he had a crawl space and it had three or four foot
19 of water in it eight months of the year. And that's
20 all I could see for this project. I think it's a
21 very, very bad thing. We've seen that water out
22 near McChesney Avenue probably maybe a foot, foot
23 and a half deep out in there, maybe even more than
24 that, a big stretch of it. I don't see how you
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1 could possibly dig all of these foundations. You've
2 got a pond back there to start with.
3 As I say, I live up on more or less of a
4 knob, but I've had to go back, and I've got 12 acres
5 up in there. I've had to go back off that knob
6 before a good time into the spring with my tractor
7 and I am telling you, I am not going to get it out
8 of there until it does dry up. So, that's the only
9 thing I could see.
10 I realize I could hear all of these other
11 comments about traffic. The other day coming home
12 on Route 7, we kind of wondered why they spent three
13 years rebuilding that road, because it took us just
14 as long as it did four, five years ago to get from
15 North Lake Avenue out to McChesney Avenue Extension.
16 So that's my comment on this. I just think
17 the water is a real big problem there. It ought to
18 be really looked at. I don't know how deep the
19 water table is, but you could bet your sweet life
20 there is a big difference from that water table when
21 it's, say, the height of the summer, compared to the
22 height of the winter. You're going to see a
23 tremendous difference, and I know. I could see it
24 all around me, because I am up on the knob, and
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1 there's other places that I don't own that are
2 around me, and I could see the water, the way it
3 drains down, and that water lays there. I've seen
4 people put in drainage ditches to try to get rid of
5 it. If I hadn't foreseen the problem like this from
6 living in another place, and had my contractor dig a
7 trench so that all of my drains, foundation drains,
8 could go out and down to the very, the lower parts
9 of my property, I would be in real trouble, real bad
10 trouble.
11 So, I don't know. This looks like a fish
12 bowl to me, and I really, you know, I hesitate.
13 I've been to both, two meetings so far, and I've
14 listened, and I haven't really heard anybody address
15 that water problem. And all you have to do is just
16 go there right now and dig a hole down a foot and
17 you'll see, you will have a well there. And I know
18 you are bringing water in from the city. I know it
19 sounds good, because my wife and I have talked about
20 it, you are bringing city water in, you have a
21 sewerage going out, but you also have to contend
22 with just natural rain. God knows we've had plenty
23 of that this year.
24 Thank you very much.
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1 MR. POLETO: Next? Anybody?
2 RICK GUIRE: Hello. My name is Rick Guire.
3 I live in Graphton, and I pay Brunswick school
4 taxes. I realize these meetings are for the
5 residents to voice their concerns so the Board can
6 address them, most of the concerns being taxes,
7 water, traffic, which can be addressed through
8 statistics and studies and calculations.
9 What I would like to know is, how does the
10 Board address the concerns of the feelings of the
11 people who simply do not want to live in a community
12 that's growing like this? How do you address that?
13 That's subjective. That's the thousands of
14 residents who say, "I've come to this area because
15 of what it is; the rolling hills, the farmlands, the
16 sparse density." And now all of a sudden we have,
17 and it's not just this one project, and I think that
18 Bob Marini, unfortunately, is being lumped in here,
19 because everybody who knows Bob Marini knows he has
20 got a fine name. The project looks great, the
21 houses are beautiful, and it's not about that. It's
22 about the people who are saying, okay, we're seeing
23 what's happening; now it's one project, it's two,
24 it's three, it's four, it's five. And people are
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1 saying, "What's next?"
2 We set aside a hundred acres of unused
3 land, which five years from now a Board says, "Okay
4 we'll let you build on that, because, yeah, that
5 looks good now." But my concern is, how does the
6 Board address simply the subjective feelings of the
7 people who say, "Well, we don't want to see this
8 kind of growth"? That's not statistics, that is not
9 a study. That's not something that could be
10 resolved. Or do you simply say, "Well, this is
11 what's going forward, and if you don't like it, move
12 out to Burlin or Petersburg or somewhere where it's
13 not happening just yet? So that's my concern, is
14 simply how the Board addresses those subjective
15 feelings of the people.
16 MR. POLETO: Next?
17 JIM CARR: My name is Jim Carr, I am at 619
18 Pinewood Avenue, that's C-A-R-R. My question is
19 why, why is this necessary? We are not asking -- we
20 seem to be saying, okay, the impact will be
21 addressed this way or that way. Why is this
22 necessary? The third generation of builder, I'm
23 sorry, I didn't catch your name, who mentioned that
24 when he came to Brunswick years and years and years
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1 ago, he developed some farmland with two acre lots.
2 Well, I congratulate you for that. If I heard
3 Mr. Marini correctly, there is going to be 15 feet
4 between houses, some of the houses in this project,
5 and I hope I heard that correctly, Bob. (Speaker
6 indicates.) That's 15 feet.
7 I am a relative new-be to the area. I
8 moved in and bought a house that was for sale in
9 1987, so take that for what it's worth. I didn't
10 build a house, I bought a house that came up for
11 sale.
12 As Mr. Marini correctly points out,
13 Brunswick is a desirable place to live. That's why
14 we're here. That's why some of us built here,
15 that's why some of us stay here, and that's why some
16 of us move here. It will not be the same place with
17 not only this particular project, but as I echo off
18 of others' comments, the other projects that are on
19 the drawing board and are up for review. I'll leave
20 it at that.
21 I love living here. I love my neighbors,
22 and I love -- once again, let me back up.
23 Mr. Fleishman correctly brought out the
24 Brunswick Smart Growth. This is not a community
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1 that wants no growth. This is not a stop. This is
2 smart growth, and we are going to turn around in
3 five to ten or fifteen years and say, "How in the
4 world did this place get to look like this," if we
5 don't do something about it now. Thank you.
6 DYLAN KEENAN: Hi, I am Dylan Keenan,
7 D-Y-L-A-N, I live on 62 Moonlawn Road, and I have
8 two main questions. The first question is, in what
9 other rural areas have such a dense community been
10 developed?
11 And the second question is, the DEIS states
12 that the installation of these infrastructures, the
13 sanitary sewer, the water distribution, wouldn't
14 increase in the growth potential on adjoining
15 properties or in the project vicinity. The question
16 for the developer is, what does he anticipate the
17 additional impact of the sprawl? Well, this brings
18 up, of course, to reiterate, that the scope and
19 scale of this development, combined with the other
20 PDDs, demonstrates the needs to deny the pending
21 applications, and for the Town to conduct extensive
22 public hearings to revise and improve Brunswick's
23 comprehensive plans, that will preserve the Town's
24 rural character.
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1 MR. POLETO: Thank you.
2 DONNA FORESTER: I have two questions for
3 the developer, and then a couple comments for the
4 town. Sorry, Donna Forester. I live on McChesney
5 Avenue Extension.
6 I have two questions for the developer, and
7 if there's somebody from the fire department, I hope
8 they will take this up. But, there are two concerns
9 in the DEIS that don't look to be answered. One was
10 for a second road, which was said to be impossible,
11 to come up off of Brunswick Road.
12 The second was for a second water hydrant,
13 so you don't have dead hydrants. Right now the
14 fire, according to the DEIS, water comes in from one
15 direction in the hydrant, and the fire company
16 stated that they are very concerned about this.
17 Thirdly, the size, the width of the access
18 roads. Marini, Bob Marini, excuse me, described in
19 the first meeting that the road would be narrower,
20 especially in the carriage homes and with the
21 sidewalk. When you have narrow roads, are these
22 streets going to be adequate for fire and emergency
23 services? It didn't sound promising, as I heard.
24 A comment about the school. I had met with
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1 Theresa Snyder, for those of you who listen to the
2 one speaker, she is concerned, especially as a
3 cumulative effect of the two projects, Hudson Hills
4 and this, plus other developments. So Brittonkill
5 is not looking at a utilization. They are quite
6 concerned.
7 To the Town, I want to ask one question.
8 First of all, my own worry about this project partly
9 is from the density of the very small lots, and with
10 so many carriage homes. To me, it is not synonymous
11 with Brunswick, and I'm really worried about the
12 precedence that it will set. But what I wanted to
13 ask this Town is, in the Master Plan it talks about
14 clustering. It talks about clustering of homes as
15 being useful for reducing the cost of putting in the
16 infrastructure and reducing the cost for the homes.
17 Now, I think nobody here had any bad
18 feelings about Grouse. In fact, quite the opposite.
19 But having the DEIS at my house in storage, I got to
20 read it a little bit more. The cost of these homes
21 are going to be 290,000 for a carriage home, going
22 all the way up to 400,000. Where is the savings?
23 Are these homes that are really aimed at Brunswick
24 people? The average tax is estimated in the report
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1 to be $9,603, plus association fees. Who are these
2 houses being built for? It doesn't sound to me like
3 people within Brunswick are going to sell a house
4 for much less, mortgage up and double their tax
5 bill. So, thank you.
6 MR. POLETO: Anybody?
7 JULIA MACDONALD: Hi, I am Julia MacDonald,
8 M-A-C-D-O-N-A-L-D, at 192 North Lake, in Troy.
9 I have a couple of things. First of all, I
10 will fess up and tell you, I have not read the
11 Environmental Impact Statement. I trust that
12 Mr. Marini does a fine job. I actually have more
13 questions for the Town Board and how they are going
14 to handle this, and some of the other things. One
15 of my comments has to do with this coming out of
16 McChesney Avenue Extension.
17 When I was a little bit younger, and I
18 liked to drive fast, McChesney Avenue Extension was
19 one of the roads I considered fun. Oh boy, get out
20 there and zoom around the little hills and around
21 the little curves. Now I am a little older and I
22 don't see so well. I have friends from Clifton
23 Park. I get on a road like that, and I'm down
24 looking for the turn into the development where my
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1 friends live. Scares the living daylights out of
2 me.
3 If you are going to put developments on
4 roads like this, what's the town going to do to make
5 those roads safe for people? All of those
6 empty-nesters, like myself, who don't see so well
7 anymore in the dark. Think about it, take yourself
8 out and drive around there, see where you get to.
9 So, that's one comment.
10 My second comment had to do with the
11 15-foot space between houses. I've seen those in
12 Florida. I trust the windows are appropriately
13 placed. I've got some fairly close neighbors two
14 doors over, and they haven't gotten around to
15 putting the curtains up in their bedroom yet. Just
16 think about that.
17 My third question has to do with how the
18 houses are built. We have houses built on
19 speculation, the house goes up, it looks lovely, it
20 may attract the right buyer, and we have houses
21 built to order, using existing plans, using standard
22 protocols that a developer has and so on. And I am
23 interested in which way this development, not just
24 this one, all of them, are going to go, because this
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1 is a question in my mind of how many empty houses
2 are going to sit in this town waiting for somebody
3 who's got a couple hundred thousand dollars to spend
4 to show up and buy it.
5 So, again when you are looking at these
6 developments, I expect you to take a look at what's
7 happening with housing starts in the capital
8 district, in the county and in this area. I further
9 expect that the Town will take a look at the zoning
10 situation.
11 All of these developments that we have
12 considered here are plan development districts that
13 take them out of the zoning process, as probably a
14 lot of the people here know. But at the same time,
15 zoning process is going on, and people are
16 requesting and getting approval for small
17 developments, six houses, ten houses, twelve houses,
18 putting those in place, and starting to build on
19 those.
20 What's the total development picture? How
21 many houses have started in Brunswick? How many
22 houses have been approved to build in the last year?
23 How many more are being approved outside of the
24 Planned Development District? I think we need to
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1 have an understanding above and beyond what is going
2 on in the development district.
3 That's my biggest issues, I mean, it's
4 really what we are doing here, where we are getting
5 the people? How many houses are being built and how
6 many houses are going to sit empty? How many lots
7 are going to sit empty with the infrastructure put
8 in place, with the water in place, the sewer in
9 place, the roads in place, and nobody interested in
10 building?
11 I'm assuming every builder comes in here
12 optimistic and does his homework, in terms of what
13 he wants and what he thinks is going to happen, but
14 you get too many people coming in at once, and
15 you're going to be fighting over the same people.
16 The capital district does not support
17 high-end stores. When you talk to Filene's about
18 the clothing that you see they are carrying, the
19 clothing they are not carrying anymore; we don't
20 spend a lot of money. And I don't think we are
21 going to see it in housing either.
22 Finally, I am going to ask some
23 consideration, and I ask the audience this as well,
24 in terms of what we want in the community and the
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1 development. You take a development like this, and
2 I like this one because it's not all the little
3 loopy things, the little curved streets where you
4 get lost, at least this piece isn't. Are there
5 sidewalks? If I am an empty-nester and I don't have
6 anything to do at 10 o'clock on a Saturday, could I
7 take a little walk in my community on the sidewalk?
8 Have I got someplace to go when I take a walk? I
9 could go to the gazebo, which is in the middle of a
10 traffic circle. I could walk to some of the land
11 that has been set aside and walk back. I can't walk
12 to the store to get groceries. I can't take
13 grandchildren, should I have any, to a playground
14 that's nearby. I can't get on a bus. I can't walk
15 to the bus stop, because the bus isn't going to come
16 in here. There is not going to be enough people to
17 bring the bus in, and I've heard that gentleman say
18 that, and he is right.
19 When you develop the city, when you develop
20 urban areas, you develop it differently. When you
21 develop a community like this, you put a bunch of
22 houses together and you hope that everybody makes
23 friends and makes nice, because they are all going
24 to deal with the homeowner's association. So, I ask
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1 you, do you know enough about your planning? Do you
2 understand what's happening in the community? Do
3 you understand what's happening with gasoline prices
4 and fossil fuel, that you isolate people out in
5 these developments where they can't get anywhere
6 without their car? Do you isolate empty-nesters out
7 there, who may suddenly develop maybe a short-term
8 medical problem and they can't drive? Well, how do
9 they get in and out of this place when they are out
10 there? What do you do?
11 You know, supposing I have some surgery and
12 I am in a cast and I can't drive, am I trapped in my
13 house for six weeks because there's no way to get in
14 and out? Think about it. I mean, if we are going
15 to be a rural community, we are a rural community.
16 If we are going to be a semi-urban community or a
17 suburban community, then we need to think about
18 these other kinds of issues.
19 And finally, my last comment is, what does
20 it take to get a referendum on the ballots, to talk
21 about this development? I am not opposed to any of
22 these residential developments as a single entity.
23 I am opposed to the idea that we've got a whole
24 bunch going in at once. We have got zoning
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1 proposals going at the same time, and we've
2 obviously got a lot of opposition, and I would like
3 to be able to write in officially on my position on
4 the fact referendum. So if somebody would tell me
5 how to do that, I would appreciate it. Thank you.
6 RAYMOND SCHMIDT: Thank you, my name is
7 Raymond Schmidt, 81 Liberty Road in Brunswick.
8 I would just like to amplify on some of the
9 comments. My primary concern is that there are
10 numerous developments being proposed, not just this
11 particular one, and I'm very concerned about the
12 cumulative effect. I think what this Board decides
13 over the next year or two will have profound
14 significance to Brunswick and its direction over the
15 next few years, and I should say the next couple
16 decades, over the next century, actually. So, I
17 would urge the Board to look at the totality of
18 these projects.
19 Having moved up from Rockland County, right
20 above New York City, I moved there in 1970. It was
21 very rural. Within 30 years it turned into a
22 Westchester County, since there's hardly any space
23 down there which hasn't been developed. I think we
24 have to take a good look at Brunswick and see what
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1 we want from Brunswick over the next 30 years, and I
2 think this is the opportunity to do it. And
3 whatever is decided now, will have a profound effect
4 for the future. Thank you.
5 PETE MESKOSKEY: Pete Meskoskey, 168 Town
6 Office Road, M-E-S-K-O-S-K-E-Y. Thank you.
7 In the realm of public safety, I would
8 request that we do a study on power lines. I think
9 the short-term and long-term study on the high power
10 lines running adjacent to the that project should be
11 studied.
12 The other thing, I have a question for Pat.
13 We are doing some re-zoning, there's a study. What
14 is the estimated date of that, just a ballpark date?
15 MR. POLETO: Once we get the developer, the
16 engineering firm in place, they're figuring it is
17 going to be about ten months to a year.
18 PETE MESKOSKEY: Ten months to a year.
19 Okay, that is longer than I thought. What I am
20 going to request, is that we do some type of -- and
21 Andy will talk to you, I did talk to Andy about all
22 that -- but some type of DEIS, cumulative DEIS. I
23 requested this public hearing be held open. I
24 request that all public hearings be held open until
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1 the Board could make an informed decision. I don't
2 know about you, but I'm overwhelmed, and I think you
3 guys need some help. I think you need to hire a
4 planner to help you to help us. You have an
5 opportunity to grow this town to greatness, and I
6 think that you can do it. And if you need my help,
7 you have it. And you have a lot of great people
8 here with a lot of great ideas, all of them, all
9 sides have great ideas. We could make this town
10 grow to greatness, it's up to you. Thank you.
11 VALERIE SCANLON: My name is Valerie
12 Scanlon. I live at 12 Maple Avenue, Eagle Mills.
13 I've lived here for 28 years, and I'm very
14 unhappy about this proposed Highland Creek
15 development. I share the concerns already expressed
16 by many of my fellow citizens, namely increased
17 traffic, increased number of students in the school,
18 inadequate fire and police protection, pressure on
19 wildlife and wetlands and noise and light pollution.
20 I want to say I love the rural character in
21 Brunswick, and I want it to be preserved. I feel as
22 if the Town Board is not listening well enough to
23 those of us that hold this view, and at the time
24 there are five big proposals going on within the
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1 town; three housing developments, an apartment
2 complex and a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Considering the
3 impact of only one of these at a time is completely
4 unrealistic and does not present an accurate picture
5 of the consequences that will follow. The Town
6 Board needs to take a hard look at the cumulative
7 impact of these proposals.
8 We, as a Town, need to find alternative
9 ways to use the existing farmlands, such as farm
10 stores, to promote tourism, educational programs
11 about agriculture, equestrian centers and wildlife
12 refuges. The comprehensive plan encourages the
13 farming community to work with local historic and
14 cultural organizations to develop a strategy to
15 capture economic benefits from tourism.
16 And, I would just like for a minute to
17 quote from the comprehensive plan for the town on
18 page 20. It says, "The Town of Brunswick should
19 embrace the preservation of farm operation in their
20 influence on open space, rural scenic quality and
21 environmental value. Available preservation methods
22 include land use regulation, transfer of development
23 rights, tax incentives, conservation easements and
24 right-to-farm laws. Organizations such as the
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1 American Farmland Trust and the Rensselaer Taconic
2 Land Conservancy should be encouraged to participate
3 with landowners in informing them of options and
4 opportunities.
5 The Town of Brunswick should support
6 Rensselaer County in its attempts to secure an
7 agriculture and farmland protection plan.
8 Agricultural practices require open space for
9 pasture and crop production. These fields are a
10 major contributor to the sense of place in
11 Brunswick. They form a patchwork of open space and
12 span vistas along many roads within the Town.
13 Agricultural operations provide wildlife refuge, as
14 well.
15 And, I want to live in a rural community,
16 not in a community similar to Wolf Road in Clifton
17 Park or Colonie. And I think that, you know, if we
18 ever can talk together as a Town, that we need to
19 consider preserving some of the agricultural land,
20 amid the planned development. Thank you.
21 REBECCA KIESER: My name is Rebecca Kieser
22 I live at 398 Moonlawn Road in the Town of
23 Brunswick, and I have three things I would like to
24 talk about tonight; and they are growth, process and
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1 vision.
2 I am also a teacher at Troy High School,
3 and I teach biology, and when we get to ecology in
4 the springtime, there is a term we talk about a lot,
5 it's called carrying capacity. What this means, is
6 that in nature, the size of a population is set by a
7 variety of limiting factors, things such as food,
8 water, space, et cetera. Only so many field mice,
9 for example, could live on an acre of land happily.
10 When the population gets so big that say the food
11 runs out, of the individual members will do one or
12 both of two things, they will die, or if they can,
13 they will migrate.
14 We have moving factors in Brunswick. The
15 things that limit the size of our human population
16 are mostly infrastructure items, including roadways,
17 fire and police protection, sanitary services, et
18 cetera. But, one of the most influential limiting
19 factors for us, is the size of our school. We know
20 that with another 200 students, Brittonkill will
21 need a new school building. To think that the new
22 residents will pay for this construction through
23 their property taxes, is ludicrous.
24 A study by the American Farmland Trust,
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1 specifically states that every dollar gained in
2 property taxes from new residential development,
3 costs the community $1.23 in services.
4 So, what are we going to do? Are we going
5 to allow this unprecedented growth to take place and
6 worry about how to cope with it after it's happened?
7 The smart thing to do is to establish a rate of
8 growth that keeps us within our current carrying
9 capacity. This rate might be as low as 1 to 2
10 percent per year. Many forward-thinking
11 municipalities across the country are doing this.
12 This is called sustainable growth, and it's not a
13 new idea.
14 A word or two about this process we're
15 involved in. This is our fourth public hearing
16 since August. At each of these meetings, at least
17 one speaker mentioned the need to assess the five
18 PDD projects individually, and in terms of their
19 combined impact. My question is, who is going to
20 assess the cumulative impact of these proposals, and
21 how will those assessors perform the assessment?
22 My opinion is, that no voting can occur in
23 regard to any of these projects until a final DEIS
24 for each project is accepted, and a report, an
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1 overall report assessing their combined impacts is
2 issued. If you don't have the final DEISs, how
3 could you possibly assess cumulative effects?
4 A word about vision. The people of
5 Brunswick and the government of Brunswick need to
6 get together. This letter of the law typed forum
7 doesn't cut it. We need more opportunities for
8 input. We need dialogue. We need total and
9 absolute transparency in regard to the
10 decision-making process. We need town meetings. We
11 need brainstorming sessions. We need to tap into
12 the resources available to us so close by at SUNY
13 Albany. I could go on and on.
14 And what I would like to do right now is
15 welcome the group, the Brunswick Smart Growth, in
16 order to accomplish some of this. We are pretty
17 good organizers, we are also pretty good
18 researchers, and we know how to get the word out.
19 Another thing we are becoming is a repository, if
20 you will, for ideas, all of which have at the
21 center, a vision for Brunswick that would enable us
22 to expand our economic base, while preserving the
23 rural character of the town.
24 I would like to give you a couple of
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1 examples, some of them you heard about before,
2 things we are thinking about. At the Hudson Hills
3 hearing on August 3, for instance, it proposed the
4 idea of an equestrian center somewhere in Rensselaer
5 County. What if we could actually do something like
6 that? And what if it operated as a cooperative,
7 where a percentage of the profits going toward the
8 purchase of development rights?
9 Along the same lines, I went to a great
10 meeting of the Rensselaer Taconic Land Conservancy
11 meeting a couple of weeks ago, where a speaker from
12 the Army Corps of Engineers indicated that when
13 developers destroy the wetlands, rather than
14 requiring him to mitigate the damage by creating
15 another wetland, which hardly ever works, right? He
16 could be required to pay fees, which if positions
17 are appropriate, could be used to purchase
18 development rights for land, especially susceptible
19 to straw.
20 There are many other ideas that I don't
21 have time to mention here tonight. People have
22 ideas about developing alternative energy sources,
23 about attracting it to international agriculture
24 projects, about setting up farm demonstration areas,
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1 et cetera. For every 20 ideas that people have,
2 maybe only one would be feasible, but let's get
3 together and figure that out.
4 These are the kinds of things the larger
5 Brunswick community wants to talk to you about. The
6 Brunswick Smart Growth could help facilitate that
7 particular dialogue. I would like you to know that
8 our next meeting will be on Monday, January 9, and I
9 am very, very pleased to say that we now have a
10 place to meet in the Town of Brunswick. We will be
11 meeting at the Church of Christ Disciples on the
12 corner of Route 2 and Maple Avenue in Eagle Mills.
13 The meeting will start at 7 p.m. Everyone is
14 invited, including Town Board members and other
15 members of Town government.
16 FRANK BRENENSTUHL: I am Frank Brenenstuhl
17 B-R-E-N-E-N-S-T-U-H-L, 27 Gooseberry Lane. And just
18 to make a comment for all of the other developments
19 that are out there, Gooseberry Lane is also
20 proposing Brooks Development, anywhere between 25
21 and 47 houses. And I know we are not the only ones.
22 I know on (inaudible) at one time it was talked
23 about a major development there, and I don't know if
24 that's dead yet or what's happening. I know they
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1 put up three new houses there, they got approved,
2 and if you add up all of them, and I am sure the
3 planning Board and members here probably know better
4 than anybody else, all of the ones that came in in
5 the last few years, and like the one on our street,
6 it is probably going to go. Something is going to
7 happen there, I don't know exactly what it is going
8 to be. But there has got to be a lot other ones out
9 there, too.
10 I have been going to the planning boards
11 for only the last year, because I got kind of
12 personally involved. And I noticed, unless you are
13 involved, you don't go to the Planning Board
14 meetings. Basically, you see the same faces there
15 most of the time or you see new faces coming in
16 looking for approval; they are cutting off a lot
17 here, cutting off a lot there.
18 I assume that information is pretty well
19 tallied with the Planning Board, and I would be kind
20 of interested in knowing and maybe somebody already
21 does know, how many have been put on the books and
22 built in the last four to five years, or how many
23 more are proposed, or did some of them come before
24 the planning Board and they got retracted, and which
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1 probably means they are going to come back again in
2 a few more years.
3 I am not against development. I am not a
4 member of Smart Growth, but the idea behind Smart
5 Growth, exactly what the words say, makes sense to
6 me. And I am not saying to stop any of the
7 projects, but I am saying that we take a good hard
8 look at it. And I don't envy anybody on the
9 Planning Board or anybody up there in the Town
10 Board. It is not an easy decision to be made, but
11 let's hope we do the best we can. Thank you.
12 JAMES MEEHAN: My name is James Meehan,
13 M-E-E-H-A-N. I live on Carrolls Grove Road, and I
14 have a few additional comments from the last time.
15 One thing I wanted, just wanted to say, is like at
16 the last meeting, we really never took a poll of
17 people that were in favor, and the people that
18 weren't in favor of this project, so tonight --
19 MR. POLETO: James, we are here to take
20 comments, not polls.
21 JAMES MEEHAN: Maybe just by a show of
22 hands we could show how many people are in favor of
23 this project?
24 (Audience indicates.)
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1 JAMES MEEHAN: How many are not in favor of
2 this project?
3 (Audience indicates.)
4 JAMES MEEHAN: