ZBA Hearing 11/10/16 Mark Johnson: Vestal is on a Board of Appeals meeting. If anyone has any cell phones, you can put them on vibrate or turn them off so they don't disrupt the meeting Momentarily I'll make some introductions, but | thought that probably several people in the audience have never been to one of these hearings, | know that prior to be on the Board | had very little experience, so | just wanted to let everyone know what our meeting is going to be comprised of this evening. First, it will be an introduction of the Board, how the administrative people work, I'll explain each section of the code that the applicant is asking the variance for, we will have a presentation by the applicant, then the Board members may ask some questions and then they'll be the public hearing portion, And, when we get there, I'll explain some of the rules that | want to have applied to the public hearing. After the public hearing there may be time for a few more questions between the Board and the applicant and we will not be making any decision tonight. There's going to be an awful lot of information, new information, comments from the public that we will want to review, listen to, take into consideration. So, our next scheduled meeting, tentatively, right now is December 15". It will be in the Vestal Town board room at 6:00PM and there will be limited seating at that time. So far we have not been able to find another auditorium to have the meeting at. We will continue to search for that. So, that being said, again, thank you for coming. This meeting is being recorded just for clarification if there are any issues in the future and just in case we need to have it transcribed. | would like to enter into the record proof of publication through the Vestal Town Clerk that this public hearing was advertised in the Vestal Town Crier. This public notification will be filed with all of the paperwork in this case. We are ready to hear the 6:00 case and that is from Feinberg- Smith Associates Incorporated. Just to make sure, can everybody hear me ok? (Some yes, some no). Thank you First on the Board, excuse me, first on the Board, all the way to the left, is Matt Butler, who is the attorney for the Zoning Board of Appeals, Board member tom Smalicomb, Board member, Mark Tompko, myself, Mark Johnson, I'm the Chairman, Eugene Burns and to the right is Carolyn Almy, Secretary and Mark Dedrick, Code Enforcement officer. So, what I'd like to do is, a letter that was sent, Ill paraphrase it, to Mr. Feinberg, to Feinberg-Smith Associates dated October 17, 2016 and it is addressed to Feinberg- Smith Associates, Mr. Alan Pope, Mr. Matt Napierala. It basically indicates that theZz Zoning Board of Appeals is scheduled to hear your case at 6:00PM Thursday, November 10" at the Clayton Avenue Elementary School auditorium located at 209 Clayton Avenue, Vestal regarding tax map number 159.19-1-2, 159.19-2-1 known as known as Feinberg-Smith Associates. This is pertaining to code sections, and I'l explain those sections in a few minutes, and they are requesting a series of variances in a RC which is a multiple residence zoning district. They have decided to apply to the Zoning Board of Appeals for review and they are requested to be present or represented by an agent or attorney on their behalf and they are seated down here to my right. They will be introduced in a few minutes. For the record, we have all received a package of information from Feinberg-Smith Associates detailing their requested variances, the expansion of the buildings that they are asking for, it includes their application and a letter of intent. We have received numerous letters and emails from the public. Those will also be included in the case and | will later on discuss that some more because it will take, to a certain point, public comment. 'will'ask the Board members if you visited the property and have had:an opportunity to drive around the area and observed what the applicants are applying for: indivic Jo and d li as far as. ol r . but we do thank you for the opportunity. At this time I'd like to introduce Mr. Matt Napierala and they're going to give us a presentation of what they are proposing and, if you will give us just a few minutes, the Board members are going to come down to the front row and we're going to drop a screen down so they can do the presentation. After that we'll come back up here and we'll proceed with the rest of the meeting. So, give us just a moment. As everyone is moving, getting set up to do this, | will read the sections of the code that are being asked for variances for so that everyone has an understanding of exactly how this presentation is going to apply First of all, this is in an RC District, . Section 24-182B1A has to do with minimum lot size and the minimum lot area for a one-story family dwelling structure is 3,500’, square feet per family. The minimum lot area is 3,000SF per family for two and three story multifamily dwellings. The next section 24- 22C1A, in a case of multifamily dwelling, three stories, these are the building limitations, three stories, the minimum front, rear and side yard widths shall be increased one foot for each, one foot above the maximum 36’. The actual maximum height of the building can be 40’, but the outside property area has to be increased, I'm sorty, between the buildings and the property line has to be increased one foot for eachfoot above 35’. The minimum living area, the minimum living area per family is, in a multi-family dwelling is 150SF per unit and the parking, each off street parking space shall be at least 9%’ in width and 20’ in length. And, the last is, has to do with the number of units in a multiple dwelling, two parking spaces for each dwelling unit. Matt Napierala: Thank you Mr. Chairman. What I would like to do first is to introduce ‘our team who, again, are seated here before us, Mr. Jeffrey Feinberg and his wife Tina are with us tonight, Mr. Mark Harries from the College Housing Partners, a student housing consultant, Gail Pfeiffer, the manager over at Hayes Student Living, Alan Pope from Pope, Schrader & Pope, project attorney, Jason Demarest, our project architect and myself, Matt Napierala, site civil engineer for the project. Collectively, as the project ‘team, WieNesta We had some very, very preliminary meeting months ago and it was. So, lee eal aneiiatrreerpinten ste pe ‘so we want to get started and we're here before the ZI to do that. to the delight of the Town, the City of Binghamton and entire Southern Tier, th panding and growing. It's an economic benefit to all of us, especially in the Southern Tier, when times are a little bit less fruitful for the industries in the area. So, essentially, in the last few years and, certainly, into the future, Binghamton University is in a growth pattern, which is exciting to be a part of. Projections from the University are that by the year, 2020. that the University will be educating over 20,000, both in the undergrad and in the level. And, of the fusat percentage of that, the new percentage of increase “utente “sgfaduate level, Most of the graduate level students live off campus. Hence, the n and desire within the community to provide appropriate housing for those students at the higher level of education at Binghamton University. So, we've got a little presentation that we would like to present here in a PowerPoint sense. Sorry, a little technical difficulties. We're going to talk about Hayes Student Living , Sena aconmunt 15 oe and tw bojeon sone Ae ie 2 theme that we want to stress tonight to the Board itself. These uote are. dnAsiaht bi and currently provi layes Student Living today. The a minute, ro d, also, as you will seeOur demographic, Hayes is marketed to the serious student. A great percentage of residents|are international and graduate level students that are housed at Hayes and. id a only. Hayes has key line of taeceactist *. This particular graphic we're trying to tempt to show, here's the University itself, Vestal Parkway is sitting here to the north, @ development along the Parkway, University Plaza, the new apartments on Iniversity Plaza, you have a bunch of medical facilities, we have Time Warmer, Izheimer's Clinic, we have other apartment complexes off further to the east, the low outline is Hayes and in between this development is the Vestal Hills Community ingle family living. Again, another view of that same thing and we look at it again. The ighlight of Binghamton University, the highlight of Hayes Student Living and we talked bout walkability of the students that live at Hayes, they can come down Oxford, down lurray Hill, cross over by the Newman House where the bridge is and get right to the iniversity. The students say that is less than a ten minute, more likely an eight to ven minute walk The bus route itself, in this we've highlighted essentially the University bus route and there is also the BC Transit bus route, but we didn't really highlight that. But that essentially comes right in front of Hayes, wraps around, stops at the student union and back around and gets to University Plaza and back up the hill. So, that's a bus: ‘it runs every fifteen minutes from at least 7:30 until 2:30. From 2:20/0n untipast midnight runs currently today every thirty minutes: This particular shot, and we like to show this because it really exemplifies some of the work that we've already done and this is ao and the that was performed by local land lot of our work and a lot of the flags that are to come and the fact that the topographic |, as well, a de north parcels, The one thing is, it is and currently it is rcels, there is essentially the south parcel and we've kind talked about that as the slides come up and ihe-scull pare xis with these units and then the nochupaiget ‘on the north side Oxford Place with development that occurs to the north. So, wt we talk about that | wanted to identify that to the Board that we've ‘separated it for no other purpose than for explanation. We've provided some real life photos. These photos of this year, 2016. So, it's. probably similar to what it looks Ii : You'll see in some these photos some light budding of the trees, but it's anApril kind of timeframe, jario isi the rh ihe neighbor This particular photo, this is Oxford Place that splits that north and south, this is one of the entry roads to the south parcel. This is one of the residences, probably the closest residence to the development property sitting on Oxford. These buildings that you can just kind of see in the back, very light, way back, are residences off of Midvale. This particular photo, and Vl kind of run these just so we can get an essence of the development. These are of the existing Hayes units on the south parcel itself, there is some grade issues and some retaining walls that exist, but please note, the existing tall evergreen pine trees and, in this case, these are some white pines mixed with some spruces. Again, existing Hayes along the south parcel are three story units with pictures. This is a photo from the site sitting about at the location, and you'll see that in a second, of the future buildings for the south parcel looking in the westerly direction toward the Midvale neighborhood and, in April tr , certainly, c ner, you can, again, he.ho rther back. So, again, there's,a decent most part, lhe cexsluomentsnslSaiegaite jhaf Somer and we'll show as this presentation continues. looking to the north, again, April timeframe th itself and that parking This is a and essentially field in an April timeframe, spring semester, full bore and essentially 220 units and we This is a photo from the south, southeast, side of, looking, standing on Deerfield Place, looking to the northwest, or northeast, sorry, looking northeast at the existing Hayes buildings and, frankly, the rest of this as we continue and as you lool here as we continue to the north, the coverage gets pretty dense, This is along Midvale _ looking between two houses, between those two houses; again, you can see the dense Essentially, this dense coverage will not be impacted and will remain with the “another photo from Midvale looking at that dense. coverage _ Here's “between two houses. On the north Sinan sae Tou nan SaerBneigreenn sea Giigebnstnden corer ereeppaazaalaigg (Ns a view looking north, sorry, looking south from the north parcel at the existing north (On the west side these units are three story, of note of interest, there parcel units.So, the proposed project, we can get into that. Again, south project, north project, the is to include 168 units and when we talk about units, that is an apartment, Looks like we lost a little bit of the screen here, but the 86.units. The south _ _ parcel includes pacing nat lo. underneath te budgss and south. So, these are, essentially, both the western and eastern limits of these buildings will be on/piers witha” that will be our covered parking here for our south units. The , there will just be surface parking’and a little additional parking here and some reconfiguration of parking along the drive itself. Again, is you can see both for the north parcel and the south parcel and someone might say that's just a graphic representation. We want to further detail essentially the development itself. So, let's break this off and you will see what | was talking about earlier. As far as the'south parcel’development, it makes it easier to talk about it a little bit. The existing units sitting here in the gray, those are 95 units mixed ones and twos. er on the blueythese }@ new office location in its own facility and a maintenance” Right now currently at Hayes the office exists in an apartment that was already there and the maintenance area is taking up one of the former apartments before it was turned into student housing. So, they get a standalone space for office and maintenance, as well as, a’ brand new student center for studying and essentially on-site facility for the students themselves. With this , the is ~ existing buffer, again, we can talk about that, along the south parcel we~ be, at the closest point, 100° and up to 150’. The tree heights in this area are between, vary, certainly any tree varies, but there are trees up'to 80"tall im'thisjarea: This lighter” This project will:havejtoyDetailing a lite bit the north development, again, the existing unils here are in the gray. The proposed Units/here are in yellow and the reason the color changes is because these units are different in the fact that there are no pier under building parking, so that the graphic of that is slightly different. There are 56 units in here, again,.a mix of ones) The existing resident count, and you'll nate, there’s 90 units in these residents today and 92 because most of the existing residents here along the south parcel are one bedroom units. So there is existing only 92 units/along the north parcel» and the proposed condition, we will have @ mix for those 56 unifs, ones and twos fora _ total of 88 new residents in the overall development. The existing parking count is: 88 with ar The vegetative buffer, |, essentially, when Jason stands up and talks about building height, the Ce ee vat that 35° set back. The existing trees in this area, there are trees up to 80"as well, with probably an average tree height of around 60°. Essentially, all that comes together into a full developed site plan. This is a site plan that has been prepared and will be further advanced as the project goes forward into site plan review. Again, the ZBA is the first Board we have come to, but you can kind of see the flow and continuity of the plan, the buffering and some of the dimensional labels and we'll hold that and, certainly, when we answer any of the Boards questions, we can refer to the site plan as well as we move forward. So, why are we here? And Mr. Johnson kind of read in the notice, we are here for five separate variances. We are here for we're here for maximum c we're here for mit in this case, our single bedroom units do not conform to code, we're here for parking space size and we are here for the number of parking spaces, So, let's take each one of these and detail that and let's talk about these variances and the justification of those variances. _ So, the top line, what we've done here is presented the exact excerpt from code itself. And, the thing that applies to us is not the first sentence of this code requirement, but second sentence is highlighted in red. The minimum lot area is 3,000SF for two and three bedroom, two and three stories, two and three stories multi-family dwelling structures. So, that means is, in this case our. that's the square footage amount and you divide it by the’'3,000SF and The one thing that wanted to identify and we'll talk about it a couple of times, is that code defines a ae essentially, a family structure of up to five. Ine prepensdomeneiide Existing dwelling units that we have today, we're only allowed 150. it, 185 units. Weare requesting and So, we are requesting a total of 409 dwelling units, and change, youagain, you go back in to the math, we take that square footage of the area, we divide by the number of units, the variance we are seeking is to allow a unit in 1,100 feet of total lot area versus the 3,000SF that is defined by code. Th ion of this, essentially 150, We are allowed by code ani that is a total o , because of our configuration, _ 862 occupants. And there is a reason why the developm ihacontauaionthehiieuERN Ard that i he rot of That's the ;ousing that we seek, that’s the housing that we are “inernational students. providing. Frankly, the code doesn't identify student housing in their code itself. It talks ~~ ing ul id a ¢ OF Uf vi Essentially, the math is done here in this blue table, so, in the existing condition we have 148 single bedroom units and 37 two bedroom units for a total occupant count of this. In the proposed condition between the north and south we have so many, 108 one bedroom apartments, 116 two bedroom apartments for, again, a grand total of 562 occupants being proposed. The next variance that we are seeking and I'm going to turn it over to the project architect as I'm the site engineer, Jason Demarest will talk about the maximuny height» Jason Demarest: Alright, maximum height is defined in the zoning code, in this case for multi-family dwellings, we're limited to three stories, which we have, and Mark had pointed out this increase that we are allowed if you increase the yard setback by one foot, you can increase the height by a foot up to a total of five foot additional setback resulting in a maximum height of 40’. On the north parcel, our buildings are currently place 36’ from the property line, so we're allowed 35’ in height there. On the south parcel, we are much further from the property line and I'll get into that in a little bit with some upcoming slides. So, we're allowed 40’ in building height. The buildings are designed as a pitched roof buildings and that increases the height. We could, well, I'l get into that in a little bit, but the proposed buildings are 47’ tall for both the north and south parcels. A key factor here is that But in character, building and, as a result, we, like a said, 40’ is» e 7 We have an eave But invariance essa" Vaan On the south development parcel, the good news is that you barely be able to perceive the difference.AA flat roof building versus a 47’ pitched roof, it all depends on where you stand. We're — _ trying to be sensitive to the adjacent neighbors, if you are standing on their property looking towards these buildings, because the human eye sees the perspective, you actually do not perceive these dramatic height variances. In particular, | don't think 7" is that dramatic, the 12’ variance on the north seems like a lot. But on the south development, |'ll start there, as you look at these buildings, the eave is 38’ and youreye “tends to stop there. These roofs are pitched, so you are no longer looking at a vertical / wall, the roof pushes back into the background, again, because of the way the human “eye sees in perspective. So, in a sense, these buildings are perceived 38' tall, but you ry will see the roof if we didn't have the tree buffers. One thing we want to point out is _- from a second floor window in a neighboring house, the peaked roof only appears +, slightly larger. The difference between the eave and what you see at the peak of the roof really only reads as about 3.3’. |'ll show you that in some upcoming slides. And, so, on the south parcel we have a 3.3 perceived height versus a 7’ variance. Essentially, the same, similar thing happens on the north parcel. Again, the height is, different, 35' flat roof versus the 47’, it seems dramatic in a 12’ variance, but, again, Fo you'll barely be able to see this difference. The perceived height of the peak will only 0 appear 4.5’ higher as compared to the 12' variance. So, first, our justification of the Ly)! variance comes down to the form and aesthetic value of the building. It shows the two existing buildings. This is the building typology on the south parcel, this is the building Jot joe) typology on the north parcel. This is essentially a flat roof building with a litte architectural feature to soften that hard comer of a flat roof. On the south parcel, we have pitched roofs with a gable presentation. So, | ask you, which one of these is more visually appealing we've asked ourselves. We really prefer the look of this kind of building, because of that it is exacerbating our height variances, so these buildings read taller. One other thing | would point out is with a flat roof, you can't really use it for mechanicals, if we want to keep those mechanicals in conditioned space, with a pitched roof, if we want some mechanical fresh systems, they live inside that attic space and it would not be seen from the neighborhood. Another approach, obviously, with a flat roof building is mechanical equipment on the roof and that leads to screening issues. So, will build the pitched roof and the attic that it creates benefits the neighborhood in that way. evd So, now I'm going to walk you through an/aerial photo’just to give you’ a’'sense of the f° actual trees on'the site. So, here we've got the north parcel, the existing buildings you HL can barely see them, there's a roof here, here's the dense existing trees that are on the site. Matt had mentioned before that the trees range in size from 35/‘and less Xo 90 at the highest, averaging plus or minus 60° across the whole site. Over heré there is a wetland with trees growing in it; this is not a wetland that holds a lot of water. Year ~~ round it changes it changes quite a bit(0 Here are the neighbors on Midvale. Here are the neighbors on Manchester. The proposed buildings are planned to go right here, we cannot encroach upon this wetland, so the proposed buildings go in this location. As you can see there is a large setback and a dense tree buffer between. Over here, line whichis essentially the tree line. Some of these trees are on the neighbors’ property. Just as a note, the tree mapping that we did, these trees right here, these lower trees are 35-40" tall se trees on this tree line, 401 Manchester, 405) _ Manchester, these gages Comment from the audience: Thatis false sir. Mark Johnson: Please hold your comments until the public hearing. Thank you. Jason Demarest: So, here are some street level views of those'trees'! was just taking about, 401 Manchester, 405, you can see they are quite tall, Here is a view moving down to the opposite side of 405, you can see the tall trees in the background. Here's a litle closer view, those are those 35-40’ trees and | reference these because I did some sight view studies based on this property here. There's also a sight section that you can see on the site plan that you can see on the submission, the variance submission, the site plan calls out where the sections are. This is Section 3, there is Section 1 and 2 are over on the south parcel. Again, here are these 50-60! trees. One thing | want to point out from this is when you're in the backyard of any of the houses that have a tree line, decking atarspattnectionofithe:jongthroithebnidinn sarong So, here we're moving on to some sight sections to’help everyone understand)thaty eived height that | was talking about. We're getting a little cut off here, | can lower it. It's the side really, but I think well be alright. Matt & Jason are adjusting the picture on the screen. Jason Demarest: So, anyway, there are a few slides, in this one here | just want to point out, | have view, this comes from the site plan, this is site Section 1if you guys look at your site plans, the concept site plans that were submitted, this is the plan view, this is a sectional view and this is a bird's eye view. It labels it over here, but we can't see it. 20,00 th the proposed buildings are’250" plus or minus as you go down Midvale from the adjacent neighboring houses. About seereomiperesenastvay. this is the 35' standard’ setback. Again, these are permitted because of the greater setback we're adding height, but the default setback is 35’ on this side of the property. And we” so, there's a long distance. Here you can see the wetlands, the existing trees; one thing | would not about this is there are a lot of trees that grow right on the bank of the wetlands and we won't really be able to touch many of those. All the visuals we've done here, I've tiU “existyOne might say, well you might not to build, you can see from the plan view here, there's enough room here. Keep in mind, a lot of these trees because of that dense view or dense set of trees on the property, these trees have grown straight up. The trunks are very tall, the canopy is up high. So, when you are down low you'll have more access, the branches aren't affecting construction area. So moving up now, want to’ “height difference. You can see an orange dash line here and what we've done, I've located the building based on survey and aerial photography data, this topography is based on the topographic data from the surveyor. I've placed a ° \ site line from the second floor window of an adjacent house looking towards the peak of the proposed building. | then dashed in an allowable building, that's 40’ tall. This, ¢ dimension here is hard to read, but it's calling off the eave height of 40', there’s 40’ to the allowable building. If you look from that same vantage point, ignoring the trees for now, and you go across the corner of a flat roof building and then | take the dimensional difference between those two sight lines at this point, you perceive this roof as only 3.3" higher, even though the variance is 7’ Matt Napierala: We have a little graphic just so that we can represent that 3.3! of difference. That's Eee “perceived - ‘visual impact is 3.3, so you not really going to see that height; you're visually going to” “see the difference of the 3.3 because of the perspe So, we just want to represent that in some real life scenario. is t fe T’ variance difference from that neighbor, you're going to see 3”. Jason Demarest: And another thing that is depicted in these views here, like | said, the existing trees, Matt pointed this out, we're working hard to maintain as much of the natural buffer that exists, And from some of those sight photos you probably saw that even during the winter when there aren't any leaves on the trees, onthe in particular, it will be very difficult to even see the building at all, let al _ height difference. Obviously, it's going to change allttie when we get to the north parcel because the houses are'closer. But, first, | want to point out there is a site Section 2 on the site plan, this runs up Oxford, looking at the houses, this house right here, 4600 Oxford Place, what I'm trying to show here is a section through an allowable building Per the zoning law we can build a 35’ tall building on the side yard setback, 7' from the property line. And, so, again, | did this sight line study and this is a principal building, again allow 35’, and | said if you're on the second floor which is the least case scenario, if you are on the ground level, it’s going to be even more exaggerated, but if you looking at this building across the corner, you're perceiving a 35' tall building, you're looking up. This line which I'll show you in a second, as sight Section 2 goes through the proposed(L project, this is that same concept. Looking from the second floor window to the peak of our proposed building. Let me go to that now. cognizant of proper buffering and proper screening of the apartment complexes from the single family homes Jason Demarest: So, Matt was referencing this 66’ here. This graphic is a little distorted, these masses which are modeled masses, everything I've done here is based on a 3D computer model, including tree heights mapped by the surveyor and surveyed in other technics. So, that’s that 66" there. This purple dashed footprint is the building is the building that you saw, this allowable building right here. The point we're trying to make is, again, we don't want to encroach. The academe suctveante. ate lower buildings? The proposes g are further beyond. Here's that sight line view that you saw on the previous slide, looking at across the peaks of the proposed buildings. This lower area is below that sight line and, again, if you consider where we could build a building, we're doing a lot better. One thing | would want to point out on this slide is we have some parking proposed here. These thinner faint tree representations are existing. We are looking to do dense tree screen buffers in these more sensitive areas. If you go to the south parcel by the parking lot, there is a row of cedars on the property line, on the west property line, and this is a photo of those. These are all 30, maybe 25, 36, 40’ tall When these trees grow up, you cannot see the house. If you look through there, this photo is a little bit better, you can just see the house through there, but you can see that if we plant in a 15° swath along the property line, we've completely hidden the buildings and that's our intention. The parking, we want to screen that as well with lights from cars and things like that. So, now moving on to the north parcel) this is sight Section 3, again, on the site plan, doing the same kind of thing. On the lower level of the slide here I've got the Plan View, the Section View in the Middle, a Bird's Eye View up top. In the Plan View we are 85', this is | believe, yeah, sight Section 3 was selected because this was the closest neighboring house to the proposal; we're about 85' from that house. One thing | would note is thatthe houses all along Manchester range from 25 to 40’ from each other. So, this house can look into the adjacent house and only looking across the yard that 25 to 40’.| So we have a pretty good distance here. Here's the 35" setback that puts the neighboring house about 50’ off the property line. These are trees ‘Tapped, again, for the survey. You can see here we've cleared out all the trees. I'mGB not showing any tree buffer as of yet, but this'slide is really intended to show the sight “inelimpact. Again, these houses, this one is floating a little bit, disregard that. But the ht line from the second floor window to the peak of the roof is this orange dash line Again, I've drawn a 35° allowable building, we can build this per the zoning law without a variance. This purple dash lines represents the view looking across the corner of that building, again, because the roofs are pitched. Another thing | point out is/we've } oriented the building, you can see here, with the eave presented towards the neighbors, as opposed to turning this higher peak towards neighbors. Again, we're trying to soften | that impact. | So, here, if | take that visual distance, again because the human eye see in ‘perspective, this peak only appears to be 4.5’ than an allowable building, but on this parcel we need a 12' variance. So, it's quite a dramatic difference between the two These trees, like | said, are existing and I'm going to show you some graphics coming ) up in a minute to show the benefit of adding tree screening. Again, the Bird's Eye View © just gives you a better sense of what we are trying to depict here. So, we've heard that there are some concems, obviously, by the neighbors. So, we actually had the }0 out and map more trees along the west property line"of the north parcel and One area in particular, this is 405 Manchester, here's a oc | Photo of the backyard, this is 405 Manchester, these trees right here are on their sowie") property; there’s a 40’ and a 35’. These are spruce trees, | believe, spruce or pine of ‘some sort, carnivorous trees, this | think might be an ash tree and there’s another one over there. I've only represented the trees immediately between the proposed building and this house. Again, showing that same sightline view, but this time I'm looking from the second floor window, again, through trees at the eye level in the proposed building on the top floor. We want to make sure these residents aren't looking down on the neighbors and vise versa, we don't, the students deserve privacy as well. What we've determined with this is, as you can see is that, here's a 30’ dimension, here's a 40’ tree, these are the existing trees on the neighbor's property. Here's a deciduous tree represented in this model view here. When it loses leaves it's not going to be as effective, but the branches do provide some screening. This outline right here is likely the proposed tree screen that we will plant when the project is complete. And, over time, these trees if they get to be, and especially if they are planted on the higher grade here, they only need to get to be about 25' tall before they screen the proposed project from the neighbor and vise versa. In order to highlight this in more detail | set a camera view in my model looking at the neighbor and then | did the same from the neighbor's second looking in in the window or looking at the proposed project. The window with, the wood trim around itis our proposed project, here's the existing trees, | did not model any of these proposed tree screen trees yet, | wanted to see how effective the current buffer is working. And, as you can see here, Again, if you saw this, if we could zoom in on, if it wasn't as blurry, you can barely make out the neighbor's house there. This is the view from the neighbor's house. This line right here mantht(4 is the center of this window in this view and the center of the window on the building. So, this is the top of the, the eave is right here, so the existing trees completely screen’ “Our proposed (project. Again, we'll amend it especially where it's needed along that property line to completely soreen the property. Another thing we're doing is we're taking the fence, | think Matt pointed out earlier, we're going to take the existing 10° “fence and reconstruct all along the property line, that way we don't have neighbors and students crisscrossing back and forth, but we what to keep the students on the property. | think, yeah, | think that essentially covers that slide. So, then what we wanted to do here is show what would happen if we built an allowable building. so, again, we're 35° | back, so here's a 35° zoning compliant flat roof building that we can make work. In that building the window on the top floor drops only 1.4’. Again, our buildings seem higher | because of the pitched roof. So, what | did here was recreate the same camera view | and you can't tell the difference. If | go back and you look at these windows, if you stay focused on that, so, there’s the proposed and there’s an allowable building, again, roposed and allowable, It really just and this really highlights the . We're talking about 1:6" iny So, the perceived difference in height is negligible, it's more of an architectural choice, again, to be residential in character with our proposed buildings. So the next variance we're requesting is minimum living area. Matt pointed earlier that, we're building one and two bedroom units. Zoning allows families to occupy these apartments and they ah have up to five unrelated, that's a key point, the variance defines a family, which is unlimited, you can have as big a family as you want, but if you have unrelated, the zoning law allows five people, so that would be similar to student housing. Probably, more typically for undergraduate housing, some of which has been built down along Vestal Parkway. The zoning requirement for minimum living area for multi-family dwelling is 750SF, but that's 750SF per family. So, we're proposing a single bedroom apartment of 474SF, that's a big difference. If you break that down, we're allow 150SF per occupant in a five occupant dwelling, we're providing 474SF for that single occupant. Again, we've got 108 proposed single bedroom apartments. A key point here, Our two bedroom | apartments are jere’s a graphic just to show you the layout of the apartments. Roughly, 20.5’ wide, 26’ in the other direction, we've got an open living space, kitchen, living, dining, bathroom, these units are being designed, these plans really represent handicapped accessible units which we're required to do by law for a small portion, so these are worst case, in square footage, we can shrink bathrooms in some units and mix up the square footage. It's getting clipped here, but the bedroom is roughly 12’ X 10’, it's a nice size bedroom. | couldn't tell you what this says, but we're got 108SF ~ Matt Napi la: That's the kitchen, that one is the kitchen,(5 Jason Demarest: That's the kitchen and then the living area is 158SF and the bathroom is 56SF. Down below are the but, again, a Variance for that. We feel that a significant for a single bedroor New York State building code, you could build an efficiency apartment, | made a note of that, | think it's about 250SF. It's substantially smaller than this and some of you may know 7 there is a movement for tiny houses and people are making houses even as small as 130SF whether it's legal or not I'm not totally sure. So, anyway, this is what our proposal is. Matt Napierala: Just getting a little more detail there Jason? | think you hit all those points. Jason Demarest: Yeah, let me just scan them. Again, 150SF per individual is what’ ‘474 is what we've done, three times what the cade is calling for. What we're es ‘one and two bedroom units. Again, leads to or international students, graduate. ‘students, We're not trying to create an animal house, Hayes is and has been for 30 years, not an animal house, it's a place where students ‘come to\study, where they are” serious about academics and they want to be part of the Binghamton University community and that's a key differentiator between our projects and other projects. This it existed here in this area _ harmoniou: and we just that moving forward. A couple of points in here, the typical college on campus dormitory type housing provides 120-250SF. Again, we're double or more than double that in square footage and [I've already mentioned their building code and compliant with accessibility standards. Matt Napierala: Our forth-variance is for parking'space size. Code talks about each off street parking be 9.5" in width by 20’ in length with appropriate vehicle access in egress. So, the allowable dimension is 9.5' by 20’. Our current proposal is, again, for that south parking field, the spaces that are going to be under the building itself, we are looking at a variance in the relief from that requirement to have that parking space be 8.5’ in width and 18' in length. For the remaining surface parking, we will comply to zoning at the 9.5' and 20’. Essentially, we are asking for a relief for approximately 108 spaces and are going to comply with the remainder of 201 spaces. Justification for this, essentially, again, we're talking about the under covered parking itself. For the most part, the(é ‘college students are driving the smaller type of vehicles, the Chevy Cruise, the Ford Focus, the Honda Accord, etc., but even a midsize SUV, we'll use an example of a Jeep Cherokee and we went to some specs from Jeep and the overall width of Jeep Cherokee is 6.5’ wide and it is approximately 16 ‘ in length. A typical car door opening when you swing it fully is between 20 to 24 inches, so, essentially, with a width of the vehicle at 6.5’ and a door clearance at 2', they essentially need an 8.5’ space for that under parking is sufficient. Again, in the length, the 2° bumper, again, the overall for that type of vehicle, midsize SUV, is 16° in length and that's giving us a 2’ bumper essentially. Part of the reason that we're looking at this is when Jason comes together and looks his pier spacing and the constructability and then we try to be efficient with creation of those parking spaces and, at the same time, giving them a maneuvering aisle underneath, the 8.5' by 18' is a, fits better with base spacing and the pier spacing and keeping it as efficient as possible. Certainly, the other thing is, once you go under “parking, ‘the Snow removal issues and the other issues that we want to have some more space in those parking spaces because they're under cover so they're not going to have those snow removal issues. T that we want to present to the Board is, essentially, is the variance for He Sulllaaabidas The code indicates for the RC district, 2 parking spaces for each dwelling unit. There's that word again, the dwelling unit. We have 409 dwelling units. By code, it's saying need 818 spaces, we are asking relief to go down to 309. | have that full definition from code itself. By code, a dwelling unit is defined as a building or portion there of providing complete housekeeping for one family and Jason talked about the definition of family by code. Essentially, code is saying you need 818 "spaces and we have 562 residents, that's-are’ proposed total number. We're saying 818 = for 562 residents is excessive and DEC is telling us in modern design less parking, smaller areas of asphalt is better for the environment, it's better for run off, it's better for pollution, i's better all the way around if you can have a project that reduces your BiarbiaueYep) surfaces. As well, and we talked about this early on, we"have 20° ‘Student Living facility. In that time we have historical data and some references of people that have been associated with the facility for a very long time. On the low end and it does fluctuate from to year, from students to students, approximately 35% of our students actually are parking and have cars or on the high end, 43% of our students actually have cars and, more recently, just to keep control we have a parking pass system now at Hayes, so we have some pretty tight records of exactly how many kids are parking on our lot itself. So, that ratio, if you , Means) 242 parking would be adequate to that particular ratio. Essentially, when you look into the future, you have rely a little bit on the past. We have some pretty good data here of 29 years of historical ability of student parking at our facility itselfWw U (7 The 308 units, essentially equivalent to 54%, so we are providing the buffer even on our 29 years of data. As an example, Binghamton University i all the enrolled facility, that includes th ee ——. anual So, They are encouraging essentially less parking and less cars They are encouraging walkability and public itself. And, again, ouf facility is the closest’ , Off campus Housing. Less parking means less traffic al impact. This particular table, essentially, is coming from the Federal Highway Administration and is talking about the trends, there are all these ‘trendsjand the Feds are always taking a look at different aspects of what is happening in the world. Essentially, what they are finding is riving fewer miles, young adults are taking more, ore iting be tip they have Kegon fo walk more and lize public and those particular figures from that study are in this part of this table itself. Essentially, new technology is allowing young adults to optimizing other modes of transportation. And, as well, we all know that the University students, there are a great deal of inemationa! students o which Hayes is attractive to, as well as ty areas, those kids aren't driving’as much as) tself, So, they don't even have cars and they're not we feel is more than adequate. . € types of resources and not provide enough {or our students themselves. So, those are our five variances and | know we spent some time. We want to be fully detailed and present this to the Board with regards to what the project is because the first time presented it to the Town of Vestal and specifically for the ZBA Board, we wanted to fully detail those particular reliefs that we seek for this particular project. And, again, as | started the conversation, we feel this project is in concert with, not only Binghamton University, but the entire area to help Binghamton University’meet its ‘{Growth’and it is an important project. All of the projects are important for not only the University itself, but for our community. And if we can't provide proper housing for its growth potential, then the University is going to have problems meeting those needs, “and this particular project being an existing student housing project in close proximity to the University is a very attractive project for meeting the needs of Binghamton University. If this project and we followed zoning, we can provide a facility with 750 Occupants. We can do that, we.canifeconfiqure the existing Hayes from one and twos to fours and fives. we can ic We're asking for a relief for less. We're asking for a relief for Code allows us 750, we want relief to give 562 occupants.¥ ($ We feel, and Jason as a high end architect, want to make this pitched roofed so that with architectural shingles so we meet the character of the neighborhood rather thania ‘Sator keer ERM TSOP EGR by providing, | think we talked about, that pitched " [By perspective and by your eye view, the | L overall difference when 200’ away or you're 60’ away is really diminus,) The current ‘sight Tayout, we're preserving trees and we're leaving natural | think we've done a pretty thorough and pretty good job of explaining that this project, even though we are adding some units to an existing ten acre parcel, we're preserving buffers and we're preserving those areas so that we are trying to meet those needs and desires. We are screening this projéct. By reducing the number of parking spaces, what we feel is a very appropriate number of parking spaces for student housing. You've got to r, it's student housing, it isn't plaza parking, it isn’t for a retail, it for student housing, this is an appropriate number. As such. Less cars, less parking, less traffic, less environmental impact and less is better when we talk about less parking What we could build if we did those things | am talking about and if we build 150 five bedroom units at a 40° height with the appropriate number of parking spaces, we're going to have increased number of tenants than proposed with a greater impact. A less desirable building design with a flat roof and high density floor plans creating, not only not as aesthetic, but a less studious environment. Ones and twos are what is attractive to our students and are attractive to who lives at Hayes. Increased parking, as | just said a minute ago, creates more traffic. You'll say, well how can parked cars create traffic. Well, if you have a car there, you're going to drive a car, if you don't have a car, you're going to use public transportation, you're going to walk, you're going to bike. It's an urbanite study when you look at those initial maps and you say where are we, when we talk about Binghamton University as essentially an epicenter for these kids with the Parkway off a bus route, we are an urbanite center, less parking is better. What we could build and if we had to meet and we can very well meet that parking requirement, which we don't want to, but we could, we would be cutting down more trees. We would be impacting the buffer, we would be impacting the environment and we could do that, we settle our storm water aspects and we can build parking lots that meet the code requirements, but we don't want to, we're asking for a relief, but that's what we could do. Why the [proposal works! First off, it's in compliance!with your today the multi residential zone. It aligns with the which would be Binghamton University. The’unit mix of ones and twos is ideally suited for the more _ serious college 'stiidént that we seek and are currently living at Hayes. This many international. students and many graduate students, again, of which a great[4 percentage of our students at Hayes are international and graduate students. The reduced vehicle use in close proximity to Binghamton University once again kind of highlights why we're sitting here and why we want to talk about those particular five variances. We think it's a better project by doing this. So, with that, this concludes essentially our presentation. We're here for the Board questions, we can go back up and lift the screen if you want to utilize some of these slides, you can go back and forth, but we're here for you tonight. We were very excited about this project, our entire project team has spent a great amount of time preparing for this. We know that there is some neighborhood concern. There's no question that there is some neighborhood concern, but we feel this is a very solid project for not only the University, but for the Triple Cities and the entire Broome County area. Thank you very much. Mark Johnson: I'd like to have your attention please. At this time the Board members don't have any essential questions they have to ask right now, so we'll probably hold questions until after the public hearing, after we've had an opportunity to review everything and then the main dialogue, questions between the Board members applicants will occur. at the next meeting. That being said, at this time what I would like to do is start the public hearing. | know there is a lot of displeasure and even more, but if we could keep a cooperative quorum while we are asking our questions and in the public hearing your questions and comments will be to the Board members up here and not to the applicants, this will help keep creating a animosity or a poor performance here. So, if you would please, address your comments to the Board. If you have any in writing form that you would like to give to us, Carolyn Almy will collect them from you at the stage and, just in the essence of time, if hear comments from one of your neighbors and your comments are the same, we'd We understand that probably all 85 have the same things to say, but ‘tell us something different other than what we have already heafd/and that will help us timewise. What | would like to do is when we get started, there is a microphone on the left and a microphone on the right, we can form one or two lines and switch back and forth from the left to the right sides. And, before we start with the general public, | will ask first Brody Smith, he is representing a group of the local neighborhoods, | bé ‘on Country Club or Manchester. Brody Smith: Is this microphone on here?Mark Johnson: Yes. And when you do come up to speak, if you would please first before you get started, give us your name and your address just for the record so we can keep track of who is speaking. Thank you Brody Smith: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. My name is Brody Smith, I'm an attorney at Bond, Schoeneck & King. I've given you a copy of a ei Ee ahead of time. I've asked that it be entered into the record t Alan Berk, Daniel Gorman, Melina Klir, George Chen and -Piaker and they all reside on Manchester Road and Manchester Road is the single family residences that back up to the north parcel where the proposed additional building would be” onsthe*hill above their backyards. So, in touring through the neighborhood a litle bit, 'm glad to hear that everybody had an opportunity to go and Hii’) take a look around. But there are the Jewish Community Center, a yoo") Lutheran Church, a Mormon Church, a ) dlients’ house. Today | was there, | saw at the Latter Day Saints Church, children playing yard. There is an élementary school in the neighborhood. Manchester Road, Mansfield Road, Marlboro Place, Mercer Place, Oxford Place, Midvale Road, Deerfield Place and Murray Hill Road are all developed as single family homes. This is a” | know that it is near the college, but this is a neighborhood will well maintained single family homes with families who live there and are attempting to preserve the existing character of their neighborhood. It is a quiet, residential , ue neighborhood and it has been so for a long time and the to Ol (Yoo these various applications is ee 9 \with the change in the character of the neighborhood, first I'd like to point that and I'm 0 on, I'm skipping to page four of my letter, I'm not going to read a fifteen page letter, we have more important things. So, page four of the letter, it starts with this idea of the ‘and how that will impact the change jn the character of the “Heighborhood. There is case law.in New York from the Third Department saying the where new construction is so similar in size to the other buildings which is adjacent to it, then it constitutes an undesirable visual intrusion that that could be a factor that wins the day in terms of shifting scales in of these five factors and, specifically, in the fact that we dealing with, negative changes to the neighborhood. | would submit that in this instance, we look at the plan that has been put in front of you and just the amount of building that is cramped into a relatively small size, doubling those already exceeding the current density requirements. This, just to a T fits the Lake George case zu | and the point that they made there about the visual intrusion and the different in size. It | will be vast, it will be notable, it will change the neighborhood. Let me step a little bit ud, further back in terms of history, the approvals for this building came in the early 1960's and, as part of those approvals and | have attached! minutes from past meetings, this21 jypea (4 buffer was discussed at great length and the importance of it was emphasized. This 7 hat | attached where they y ite. Now, in the 1960's they left that space, that's och" the space that you see here today. The property then came before the Planning Board 44 again when SUNY Binghamton began using the property, they began used the property in the 80's and the 90's. And, again, it came before th and, again, it was 7") discussed how important ‘_—€,, the cai the privacy of the °° neighbors and that it was important for drainage and for buffering noise and negative impact. Now, increased density, so, it's important that, | think it's still important now. ‘1 I think that'space should be used for a buffer and shouldn't be used for additional tall buildings. The associated with the project, in and of itself, will create because there will be some many new people living © so many more living there. It’s just another weight On’ the scale. Density requirements exist to keep the community in balance and as you keep adding to it bit by ? bit, the scale begins to move. Here this is more than just a bit, this is a amount of density in terms Of Units that you put there. Other apartments have been built in the area. You are all aware of the large development near the intersection with \Westal Parkway just down the street from this development, The new quad in Binghamton where 186 units that were built relatively recently. There's a phase twoito as well. Again, these are weights on the scale, density increases, the existing single family neighborhood is further put under stress and under pressure. Now, if they don't need a variance, | understand that's none of your concern, but here they're asking you to vary the letter of the law to allow more density than they would otherwise be allowed to do. You don't have to do that, it is within your discretion to say no if after weighing the five factors you believe that it is not_ and here it is. Now, in terms of the change in the character of the neighborhood, the tree survey that was provided, if you look closely at it includes 11 ash trees whieh are dying, The photograph ot one of my client's house that was provided in the slide show is five years old and it showed, it's Google street oy vewpcive and if you go on the computer program, that's where they got it from and it . HERE Laos OH, unfortunately, like many ‘ash trees in our area, they don't exist anymore. The in your presentation that , il Also, many of the , these are’not and in that in the photographs that you saw depicted in the slide show. pl’ © Those trees will not provide much screening except for a lot of it here. Now, it's interesting, /the cartoons look so convincing) When there is a green , its Lows completely Gk and it would seam that the proposed project would hide behind these Cm green and you would never see them, but all you would have to do is take a pr drive in the neighborhood and you could see that right now. 1 drove” around: ther Jieighboriood today, you see existing apartment buildings completely clearly, forgetVL from the second Joo ditemdbeuetnelge right now. And a lot of the photos that they showed you that's there, you can si e apartment buildings. Now, | understand that , these graphic representations are essentially cartoons, but they are misleading, You're putting additional buildings closer, taller and somehow the existing buffer is going to work better, it won't. And all you have to do is take a look at it to see that that's not true. Additional, if you look at the elevations that were provided by the applicant, specifically I'm referring to this elevation which is included in your packet that the applicant |? Provided, all you have to do is take a look at Manchester Road. Everyone's backyard is viet!" “attabout $00: The spot where they are going to put the building is at 915, 15 feet above Ao where their backyard is. Now, in all of the visual impact ___ they showed you 4 today and I'l hold up the one that was also placed in the packet, they showed level. , the houses here and the proposed building, level event. ip. That is not consistent with their topographic maps of the that is not consistent with the sight conditions. A half hour before {this meeting | walked up onto this property up the hill and looked into the second floor window of my client’s house. It is 15’ taller here where the bottom, where the bottom of the building is going to go and then it will go up 47’'from there. This is not accurate, this | needs to be revised. Further in terms of the visual impact, the, it o-ddtvl people's yards, these will be perfectly visible particularly in the mornings, itll be particularly intrusive during those times, Further on. ‘on on the change of character issue, | (pd, Want to talk a litle bit what | mean to be light of hand)or(maybe just good engineerin (cin terms of the presentation in in terms of saying, look, we should be allowed to have a larger number dwelling units because our plan is to only have one person or two people in each swelling unit. That sound perfectly reasonable and then they show you if they were to develop it as five bedroom apartments, they would have more people and, in effect, if they didn't ask for these « AlSé «.,, Vatiances they could have more. There's more than a little bit slight of hand/at play vt Fenaithere. 1 ote ‘Baeressemonvy outhemebecasiiet hewn sniesaimencieg AIDS aE. \e?("e"" understand that they advertise they are for students, | understand that they advertise for A students, | understand that is what they are going for, but as and offer it to lease, ma cal ‘ to say that if a person is married they ou'and even if they could because they say it in the »<* lease and that might be in a legal lease, there is no way for you to enforce that as a —-- wie" Now, I'm telling you something that you already know, did | go to training courses for the ZBA that you have to sit through plus a year and the first case we talked. on about was When you are issuing a variance, it's not to a person, these people seem very nice, they seem very smatt, it is not to a business plan RCS epee seem to want to rent to tenants who won't make noise. When you issue a variance, you% on “ty \ 13 issue a variance that runs with the land and attaches to a piece of property. You're issuing a variance for the construction of this structure and this building ad ees in the future, the variances are granted, the building is built, tomorrow it's sold and ano operty o s to do ve it with the building, they can do that and the variance will stay and the variance will exist and there will be no remedy for anybody in the neighborhood and nothing that this Board can do about it. I'm not telling you anything you don't know, so | won't belabor the point. But you issue variances for uses, for property, you don't issue variances for business plans “or individuals: Now getting into the part of, there were assertions made that stuidents don't have cars annot have cars. That could be true, but no / data’has been provided by the applicant to’substantiate that: In their presentation they assert that they have many years of data, lots of experience and the parking lot is never full and they never give away all the parking passes they could. They should provide” you with that information; If you are going to rely on the assertion that their tenants don't need parking spaces, it should be more than a line on a Power Point. If you're going to depend on that, they need to provide that information. But, again, | go back to the same argument | said before, you have to be careful about issuing variances that will go with the land for future building owners, for future business plans and is this enough parking for an apartment building? Not for an apartment building with A students who are foreign graduate students, the perfect tenant these people are seeking, is it enough parking for an apartment building because that is what this is, it is ¢ an apartment building and can be used for such in a variety of different business plans in the future if this variance is granted. ‘On the character of the, still on the character of the neighborhood with regard to the building height, the reason you were want to grant a building height variance often times. is because, oh there's nothing around, it farther away, it's maybe in a lower spot, so it could be a litle taller and no one will have to look at it. None of that is here, this is close to people's houses, this is up on a hill, 15° above everyone else. There is just no as to why you would. want tovissue’ height: variance in this incidence. ne I'm moving from the character of the neighborhood to alternate’ methods of satisfying, ©. their goal could be achieved by some method other than a Variance. It had been” sort of an fo the eyes that they could do/all these things without you wouldn't like it. | would be interested to see that, that's kind of the entire idea behind requiring people to provide alternatives. If the, if they really could do all the things they say that they could do in that small space and have enough parking and build all those units, I'd welcome them to provide thatResets oot lboanttnsintholsssacaaalacsiancaes Asimple alternative to the ‘They could still have a pitched roof that is so attractive and that they say they want to provide for the neighborhood by making the building 7’ shorter and putting a pitched roof on that, there’s obvious atomatves, isis natasiuaionyousea ina caae a wheie tu sshine ieses-no: “Other way to build the building. There's lots of other ways to have an apartment structure on this property without issuing a height variance or density variance. The simply answer would be a/development with fewer units: Without regards whether or not the variance substantial, there is Court of Appeals cases and | give you some examples in my letter where they say that 60% area variances, undisputedly substantial, 60%, 50% can be. In some cases, depending on circumstances, far less is found to be substantial. Here, for the addition of 224 units in the number of dwelling units creating a total of 409 dwelling units where they are only allowed to have 150, that's a 273% variance, 273% variance, obviously substantial it's inconceivable that it would be substantial. When you look at height) they're asking for a 25% variance with regard to the height of the buildings closer to Manchester Road. Wi sini they're asking for to go'from 750 to 474, that's a 63% ev ‘or parking space size, they want to make it 20% smaller. For the number of , they want to have 63% fewer than your code requires, 63%! fewer than your code requires. So, and on top of that if you look at the drawings, there are no As you know, handicapped spaces are required, they'te 2% spaces. So, actually that number is even smaller than they put because they haven't accounted for handicapped spaces yet, it’s substantial, it's substantial The adverse impact on the environment. Now, pedestrian safety, the Third Department decided in 2010 where a variance would compromise public, safety as a result a constant impediment to of right of ways, create potential safety issues for pedestrians, variance should be denied. Here we have a situation, we have already more than is permissible in terms of units present on the property, they want to double that adding even more people, you know it's the saying, you can't put 20 gallons in a 10 gallon hat. ‘That's what we're doing. We're adding all those people and they say, well they don't have cars, they're going to walk. Well, there’s no sidewalks, there's no’street lights, all these people are Go and see it, » there are a lot of, they're curvy roads. It's already a bit of a Safety hazard now where you have people walking around without sidewalks and it's something that ought to be at least studied. Before you even consider these variance, they ought to study that issue. When you look at the orientation of the buildings, particularly the building on the south parcel that is not adjacent to a road, remember you have two long parallel buildings25 One is adjacent to the parking lot and the other one hides behind the first building. There is Seceny.a erupts got erp ‘They have a pedestrian walkway between the two buildings that's narrow and not suitable for vehicles and they have trees and buffer behind the second building on the south parcel. There's NO access for fire, there is no provision in their plan to'even study that issue: | can’t imagine even considering a variance for that those additional without units somebody addressing that fire safety issue. In’a case from year, this past August, in the application for My Children LLC (7) case, that's exactly what they found, a fire. (prov ng fox an gos a sensaat fog nt area, a height vary variance. So, fire safety is something that is not addressed and they have to. Getting on to the self- created nature of these variances, now, | think it is conceded that they are self-created If you look at the application and their Sie oe you can see that ps ore has existed as an hee = oe ‘sudden. There's } reason at this point to grant thesa variances and) expand the existing development. Vd like to Submit, for the record, over 450 signatures of people in the neighborhood who menoosrenitleiniie They are against this project because it’s going to negatively impact the character of the neighborhood, because of the environmental concerns, because of the safety concerns, because of the lack of planning in this particular plan. Now, | used the analogy of a scale before and maybe this is just very vivid in my mind because with election day this past Tuesday and no school because those schools are voting places, | was at Chucky Cheese and with my elementary school aged sons and there is the machine where you drop a coin onto the ledge and you put the quarter in that pushes it and it never falls. And you push it in again and it never falls and, then {finally, when there are enough coins on the ledge, the entire pile of coins falls to the and that's the win. A lot of points are dropped here today. Visual impacts are There's going to be more cars; there's You've got the fact that these “People who right now can already see the apariment buildings a litle bit, but there is a You going to cut that buffer in half and then the coin drops. All those pictures of the beautiful buffer that they showed you in their presentation, that's another coin drops. | If there is not enough ig. there’s just no evidence in the record that students are not going to have cars. Yes, young people drive a bit less and there is that National data that they shared with you, in Manhattan. We live in Upstate New York, it's a little harder.to-survive without, i's a little harder to get to the grocery store, there's notat p UW s own 1: subway. So, they're going to have cars, but they don't have a parking spot so they're i r king. The lack of parking spaces will result in more intrusion. | really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak Mr. Chair, if | may approach to submit the petition and thank you for your time. Mark Johnson: if | could please, Doug Rose are you here? Doug Rose: Yes Mark Johnson: Would you ike to speak on behalf ofthe Fie Deparment? Doug Johnson: | don't know if | need this microphone. Most “minor to everything else that is being presented. Access roads around the building are ‘a huge concern. Access, particularly in light of the parking that is going to be around the building Because, again, we're putting something in an area where access for fire apparatus, both ladder trucks, pumpers, things like that are a concern. Under structure parking, again, there’s some concern regarding that, as well as, interference, typically when there is a fire in a building everybody in the building, hopefully, is trying to get out. The bad part is they're also trying to get their car and leave with their car at the same time we're coming. We win that battle, but it's kind of difficult when we're having that battle in the driveway. And, again, there's been some clarification on that as far how the access and egress for vehicles versus fire apparatus and making the walkway proposed in between the buildings a Fire Department access road. We're going to need one on the back side of the building as well Firewall separation is something that is being proposed between the modules of the various buildings because this is a very large, particularly, | think it's the south one, is a very long building and it’s combustible. It's got a 13R sprinkler'system which, again, we Again, fire separations between the buildings and access all the way around the building. the code Says we have to be able to get within 150’ of all points of the building and that’s so we "gan stretch hose lines into the building, so we're going to need those access roads. Like ‘| said in the beginning, unfortunately, or fortunately,I Do you have any questions for us, the Fire Department? Unknown Questioner: The aisle in between the two buildings on the south of the illustrations presented show planters or look like planters in the middle of the decorative, there's a 24’ space, how do you cope with that with the fire apparatus? Doug Rose: It's going to require some rework, most likely. 26" width with 15-30" clearance from the building is what will be required. | think we need like, well, 26’ is to be able to set up an aerial And then there was also some discussion in that email about potentially a lower portion of the structure being concrete, which, again, allows us to be a little bit closer. The problem with that aisle way between the buildings is, it's sort of like, what do they call it when they have the parade on Wall Street or whatever, when you are in that cavern and, unfortunately, when one of those buildings is on fire here in that cavern, it's a little bit difficult. If it's concrete, that gives us a little bit of protection to being (coughing close to recorder). And, again, those’are things I'll _ forward you, | just have a handwritten list, I'll send it to you along with the email that the _atchitect sentme. Mark Johnson: Ok, if you would please, if you would take your notes and’summarize it for it and if you have an email from Jason ... Doug Rose: I'lllsend them, both’of those to you Mark Johnson: Also, some of that concerning the planters may be an issue to be dealt with the Planning Board versus . Doug Rose: Most of this:stuffis going tobe Planning Board, i's just that, again, if there is some type of variance or if the variances are granted, a little bit of for the Planning Board would be a big help for us. Mark Johnson: Thank you. Mark Johnson: If there are elderly that may have a problem standing in line or anything like that, if you'd like to come up and speak first, please do or if you would like to wait until the end you can do that too. If you'd like to form a line, start there. Again, please, names and address for us please. Dan Gorman: My name is Dan Gorman and | live at 409 Manchester. Just sort of a background for the record, | joined the Town Attorney's office in 1977 and | worked there for in the neighborhood for 27 years. | worked on the Zoning Board of Appeals, | worked on Planning Board, and | actually (there is a lot of background noise) Unknown Woman: Could you speak up please?13 Dan Gorman: | won't repeat myself, this is background. | worked excessively in the Town of Vestal for 27 years. It's been a while since I've been there Ido have a lot of experience working in a neighborhood, understanding the town's problems, understanding the development and also, please understand how Boards worked in the past with other Boards and some of the difficulties with extensive problems like this. So, I'd like to share some of those with the Board. First of all is pedestrian traffic. When you go to the City of Binghamton or you go to some of these places where they do a lot of these studies, they have sidewalks. The Tow t and the answer is yes. Now, i's not the biggest concern, it's not the biggest concern, but it is a significant concern and as these projects get bigger and bigger, you can get overwhelmed in the neighborhood. In these | primary routes these people take right now is, one major route is down Oxford and down Manchester and they go down Mercer and they go down Murray Hill. That means in front of all their houses all the extra walking traffic goes through it. Now, what's the problem with that? The Chief of Police is also aware of these problems. We have people now, the Town of Vestal code is designed pretty much so that all the residents have their own parking and their own on their own lot, that’s changed. And why the change? It's changed because of the University. Spams University $0 they park on the street, It's a very short walk, they go across. As an attorney, I've had cases eee a medical thing. We all grow from experiences. When you have people walk down the street they walk in the road. ng 2 No, ind this becomes a very significant issue in my mind. The type of ‘community we are, now this was an interesting conversation | had, | had it myself with ___ people that are college professors don't want to live near students or with them (some coughing near the machine and | couldn't make out what Dan “Gorman was saying). ... it doesn't bother him, it's when it becomes overwhelming that it bothered him. When you say you have all these notes and pictures you see, it Ww reminded me of University Plaza, when |'Saw the old plaza, they were having problems and now | drive by it and when | drive by it! say, thank God that's not in my backyard, It isn't the first thing you want to wake up in the moming, walk down at the corner, it's actually in my backyard. It’s what | see from my backyard. And, also, if | walk down one house, people are, one house away from you, one house on the corner, then you are on Oxford and immediately the visual impact isn't protected by the trees and the fences and you sée everything. It means up (more coughing) it's just the neighborhood, it dramatically affects the neighborhood As our attorney represented, | think he had this map. The map basically shows Clubhouse and | have 409 Manchester and if you look at, !'m pretty sure you have that.Fr 24 "did you make copies of it? Basically, if you look at that you'll see which is 7409, which is the and when you a, el ‘buildings and you see existi and then you see where they are putting in the fenapendiibaeamenigg, bt-cl:my ireessaip.uil be.italy.ceigaxed, | can 202 them When they made the statement that there was going to be, everyone was given a visual of the height and in which you had, you couldn't see it. | saw Mr. Feir “said well, we'll have somebody do a new picture of it. It was never given in the presentation. 1 do have other exhibits that are taking time. I'd like to be able to hand them in later on if that is not a problem. Mark Johnson: Nota problem at all. Thank you. Paul Stein: My name is Paul Stein, | reside in the Town of Chenango and | am the which is right across the street from Hayes Manor. Mark Johnson: You're name again, I'm sorry. Paul Stein: Paul Stein. My project, my business was impacted mostly, even with the student housing _ turning it into student housing. ar rt never bothered my residents. ‘A women is speaking in the background, but I can't figure out what she is saying. A man is also speaking. Paul Stein: I'm just saying, in’the thirty something years that l'had the project, "I'sold ~ them in 2003; | drive by there daily with my granddaughter, there's nota traffic problem,A.woman in the audience: That was 13 years ago. Paul Stein: No, now, | know it was 13 years ago, but ’still drive thy granddaughter over ‘to Hillel Academy. So, | don't have a traffic problem, | don't a student problem, {im not concemed about someone walking out in front of me. He's” ws procctve wilhceentijonuhedeas, I'm just Mark Johnson: Ok, thank you. If you would please don't interrupt anybody else, you'll have your opportunity. On the left Candace Mulcahy: Good evening, my name is Candace Mulcahy, | live at 4600 Oxford . [live in the house that seems to be overlooked in this whole experience. It was a lovely presentation except that There is no buffer, In fact, there grounds person is here and I~ But what they are proposing is is an have and od Another point | want to make before make my real point is that ne the CSRS eciaus are studious aoypotuauatysexchaive Jo ievise goose Ae f a serious and studios former studer a professor at Binghamton University and A | like to have a good time and | invite you, all of you, s if that and that's fine, right, you should be able to have a full life, but the” ¢ Anyway, so, Alan (?) and | purchased our home'nine years ago from the Binghamton” b _ University. I'm a professor at the University. Our house purchase supports the annual - |. scholarship of a student in Judaie’studies, but for me this issue is very personal and very professional. personally, what the impact is. _ This is a hard thing for someone like me to do. But it is not a situation that community members have any kind of acrimonious relationship with a student. The students are my life's work. If | didn’t have the students, | work with undergrads, master’s and doctoral students, if | didn't have them, | would, I'm sorry, i wouldn't | © haveva job. “L enjoy living next to the University, that have lived have come and children, have walked my dogs, that is'not/a’problem. The problem is is that there are and you don't have any other impact on the community is kind of ano point: ee, 31 issues that have been mentioned already. Density, quality of life, home value, which is, avserious concern for me right now, environmental impact, including the Fisher Cat Code, do we have any in this neighborhood, so-exciting, Fisher Cats are: protective, traffic, noise, land and water and lake pollution and then the character of the neighborhood. But forme, the most critical issue is safety. As a mother, a wife, professor, | have great concems about the safety of my family.and my neighbors including those students we're talking about. Not only the students that are at Hayes Community, but;the students that live beyond that live at University Club that use my street as their primary way to the University or out of the Community. There is a huge amount of daily traffic. | have spoke to Mr. Butler about it, I've spoke to the Police about it regularly over the last nine years and the traffic is increasing as the development is increasing in that area of town. The street is down a curve, it's an east-west street so that you get'the sun in the morning at one end and the sun in the evening at the other end. It comes down around a blind curve with foliage cut over the street. Cars have a 30MPH speed limit and that's too fast. Students, as we have mentioned, walk up and down that street. | have pictures from just one weekend of students walking up and down the street, some with their parents because it was a holiday weekend. These are, any given weekend you will see some students walking up and down the street and during the week. When the cars, especially during rush hour, are coming up and down and the students are walking, it's an unsafe situation. My husband and | have a difficulty pulling in and out of our driveway most days because of the traffic, both pedestrian/and vehicular. On several occasions they pass on the left.as you're turning left into our driveway. I-have called the Police about this. We have witnessed cars Swerving to avoid hitting pedestrians, including myself and my children and swerving to avoid oncoming traffic. More than once, as a pedestrian, | have been nearly hit. Cars are passing, there's very limited Police patrolling of the area, there's one caf@assigned for our entire area and they come when they can, but they can't be there all the time and because there are Stop signs at the top and at the bottom, cars rarely stop at those Stop signs and they are just coming down and see students swerving around them. So those Stop signs and speed limit signs are ineffective, they are just superficial band aids toa very serious problem. We live within a % mile of an Elementary school, my children > Jare walkers. They are very responsible girls, but I' will never’allow them to walk to School on their own because of the traffic and safety issues. They can't go across the street, across Oxford Place to go visit their friends on their own because you have to dodge the people and the cars that.are coming Up and down. The problem is only going J ® get worse. With no plan by the Town to reroute that trafic Goring from University | Plaza which includes all of the buildings that they have mentioned, the medical buildings | the Alzheimer’s home, the Time Warner, all of University Plaza construction and | existing buildings and businesses, the attorney's office, all of that comes down my street. and that's only going to get worse. Another cut through will be right by the ElementaryBL egret Aicn is just down Country Club. Those streets are going to be going that was ecause it's a quick entrance to get to the University in the back, they just go down “Country Club to Washington. It is irresponsible and a recipe for disaster. It wil irresponsible and shortsighted of the Town of Vestal to approve these expansion plans based on safety issues alone, Just because Hayes Community property is close to the University does not mean it is a viable location for expansion. | have these which you can see now if you'd lke. | have more if you lke. Mark Johnson: Yes, on the right. Nancy Harrison: My name is Nancy Harrison and | live at 1332 Cameron Lane, Vestal, NY. , however, I'm a 48 year resident of Vestal, Vestal's Town has a Zoning Board, has a Zoning Board of Appeals, the zoning laws are in place to protect all of the residents of Vestal. When we ask to have a variance to a zoning restriction, it impacts the quality of life for every single resident of Vestal. I'am. indirectly as a Vestal resident saying please look these applications very carefully because you've been given a big, big charge and you're sitting on a Board that has a lot of responsibility and I'm counting on you and a lot of other people are counting on you. These zoning restrictions are in place to protect the residents, to preserve the integrity of the community of Vestal and the quality of life in Vestal and | know these individuals have a personal interest in it, but | support them in saying please look carefully before making any decisions. Thank you. Deborah Borelli: Hi, my name is Deborah Borelli and | live at/936 Murray Hill Road, which is about a mile from this proposed’development. | know that my house does not butt up right against this development, but | really believe that thi this proposal will/have the impact the entife lower stair track and pe en a few things that | do want to talk about and some of it will sound repetitive from other people, but it is important. The first thing is vehicular traffic, not only is it right in the area, not on Oxford and all of those other places, but th across Murray Gieray wo ony from the Ha gut elsoromiUniversty Plaza and know that's not what we're talking about tonight, but that is very important they do not get down the Parkway because that entrance into the University there, that main ‘entrance; that left turn lane is inadequate, they can’t get into that lane, they've got to go around that turn into UHS and come across. So, that's inadequate, they just shoot through this residential neighborhood as their way to get into the University nore thaesiaaaanS. they ignore the speed limit and a lot of times late for class and3> |. — they shoot in there. I believe there has been an increase in accidents on’ Murray Hill uA} Road, specifically, at Washington, there was one the other day and then recently at f Murray Hill and Salem, a little further south. The increase in these accidents | also think is something to really look at and to take seriously where these students travel. The ye. "dog and there have been times that we've | and that is something to take into consideration. A couple of things have been put into One of them is that there is a speed check on Murray Hill and Washington, | stand there and watch these cars go down that hill and they slam their brakes as best they can whenever they know they are being ‘(ev — monitored and even then sometimes they are clocked at 35MPH. I'can read this from» is smyyhousé. With all this increase in traffic and accidents, all our Police force cannot control it. Recently, | attended our Vestal Police Citizen's Police Academy, | suggest you all do that because it’s a fabulous thing to do. They have about 33 officers, 22 who are patrolmen and they cover a 53 square mile area, They cannot cover all of these things they have to cover. They are spread very thin and snery Tha. rey, ewaesmly ib eee somebody | think that wit In the jeg obparkinowpecesay Hayes, Dedigpgpe-iocuniiromeananmblaay they're going to find other places to park. The foot traffic, the same thing, they're walking, we have the issue already atthe it is very dangerous to drive through there. TI lighting is fine, but they walk four and five abreast in the wrong direction, they don't face_ henever they run, there, not paying attention to cars, so we already have those issues. Why add to those: Now, one of the things | heard in this presentation is, the allowable would be and they are say it a lot worse than what they are saying, and I'm sitting thinking, excuse me, but you have to ask fora variance to get what — » 0" you say is all ‘None of this is allowable right now without a variance. The land is already over developed by Town standards it is already overdeveloped and they want to There is enough student housing in our area, it away” hare hborhood; my thing is, enough is enough and ve m 1 Sia tietrermcchmaniarnectatentndoeioret ard. again, I'm not anti-student, 'm just stating these things, I'm asking you to vote down this project, I'm asking you to deny the variances that have been requested34 Mark Johnson: | need you to do me a favor. We understand that there are pedestrian hat there are'ttraffic issues, we need to focus on this project. Unfortunately, this rs fu n Murray Hill, Lehigh; the other area, | understand it all has to do with quality of lif iat testimony, what we would like to do, if you have something different than we've already heard, please. ‘A Woman in the Audience: May | just answer to that real quick. It is an issue because if you add the students to that development, if you add the number of students, the cars and everything else, it does become an issue for the rest of the Community. Mark Johnson: We need to deal with what's before us on our variances, ok Woman: | agree, | agree, thank you. Marlene Fry: My name is Marlene Fy. | live at 4500 Mansfield'Road. | had a couple of questions. How many Board Members actually saw this property we're talking about tonight? Mark Johnson: We've all sedi it. nae ef Marlene Fry: So, you did see it, ok. And, then, OCR SEREAMTASID EE Mark Johnson: | don't believe so. The STAR program is something Marlene Fry: Yeah, | know thathat they are not plann sking for tax breaks. |. That's just a quick conversation that we had beforehand Marlene Fry: Well, | recently talked to a student living in one of the apartments or buildings adjacent to this property who told me the buildings need updating and they are .’not handicapped accessible, which is a major issue these days and they have to pay an additional fee for parking and that’s a very busy corner and the area of homes in this particular Mansfield, Manchester, Marlboro, those homes are originally built as residential and they have restrictions, some many feet from the curb at the front of your house, the side is so many feet to the lot line, your neighbor's, and I'm saying, well, now ‘What's to prevent me or any of my neighbors, , from. asking for a variance so that a it to whoever or whatever? That's a possibility and the last thing is, ‘rezoning can't be just for economical reasons. Go to disc two.36 Hayes ZBA Public Hearing 11/10/16 STEVE DURSO (404 Murray Hill Road, Vestal, NY) | have a great deal of love; I’ve seen vestal change an awful lot from the time | was a child growing up here and | can’t say that every change “here has been for the better and | think this represents another change in the interest and progress and the interest of business development but isn’t going to be a change for the better in terms of vestal and the community that you know we try to create. Um...some of the concerns that the neighbors has brought up. oO eerasengsine crmloymantanDaaEnauauengy so, like my neighbor Candi | am certainly not against the students as | am well aware that the students are the reason why | have a job. However, in the stretch that | live on from 400 Murray Hill Road to the new religious facility that must have gained some sort of variance because the building certainly is not in line with the residential homes. In my _ “opinion a mistake was made in allowing that building to be built, because the section of Murray Hill has already been greatly impacted by the student traffic flowing off of campus. | have had trash thrown in my yard, again nothing against the students | was a college student at “one time and that’s why | know how they can act especially on a Friday or Saturday night. I've had students come'by late at night, pound on” my door pound on my garage door, kick m y garage door, scare my young child, its, | know their intentions are the best they can be, but it’s jlike an animal type atmosphere already exists in certain section of the yr neighborhood on certain nights of the week. Adding more student to \“", the neighborhood all the other issues that people brought up, safety, traffic, totally valid, but adding more students to the neighborhood ‘ "exacerbates problems that already exist there. I completely appreciate37 the attorney's co: what will happen if the proposal is allowed to proceed. I’m telling you there is stuff there that is already happening that no one would want to live around. There are for that purpose, there is a house across the street from me that is being used as a religious center there are other houses farther up. ~ “Murray Hill Road that are obviously student housing by people going in ,, did out and by the number of cars in the driveway. Um, | understand, -ol'm just asking you not to do to my neighbors on Manchester, Oxford " and Midvale, what has happened or already been done to my section of the neighborhood. n Darryl Riggs (Grounds Keeper at Hayes) | just want to literate that some of the things people said here, umm...the traffic, the stop signs, yes, it isa problem, but you know what...90 percent of them when | am standing out there are adults, adults that are coming from jobs. These children, these kids, these students are our future, we have to protect them and give these students a place to live a place to go to school. Our parking lots are understand they do walk on the streets because they respect the neighbor's yards. Nobody wants to trespass on a neighbor's yard so we walk the streets, yes that’s a problem, now vice versa we have adults: that let dogsiroam.on,our. property, use.it as the bathroom, ok no big deal, but why pinpoint students, a certain group of students when we are trying to give them housing because the they come here, their internationals, there from inter cities, there from other states. They come here because this is one of the best places to get a college (he clears his throat-says excuse me) this is one of the best places to get38 the schooling that they need. Why pinpoint a certain bunch, our place ‘isavery well maintained place, it’s a very quiet place, ents, very nice, we have um...we talk to them, they talk tous, they let us _ ‘know what they need, this is an opportunity of a life time for these young students who are for our future! Thank you. Sandra Duriga (4720 Deerfield Place) | am in the thick of things, | am one of those adults who drive by that building on a daily basis multiple times a day in my minivan as safely as possible with my children in the car. | want to thank the gentleman for ( the landscaping and the good care he takes of the property. Um. | want ..| to note that Ido not have a conflict of interest in the sense that am (not employed by Hayes. | want to begin with the safety issue and to say that there are almost always and | wish the lands keeper or somebody on the property would contact the police department regarding the disobeying of no stopping, no standing signs that are \ placed there, so if these students don’t have cars they going to have to _,t&% order out, or they're going to have to order UBER which the slides neighborhood, now we have multiple strangers driving cars in our, in our neighborhood, presenting in front in front of the apartments, right in front of the apartments. They already mentioned how dangerous that road is'in terms of having ~ pedestrians there, here another piece to that, what about snow, it snows here, it snows here a lot, have you ever driven'up country club» road on a snowy day, when there’s snow um piled up alongside where do you think those walkers are going? That's right there not going in the neighbor's yard, there going right down the middle of the street, try driving up the road, that's a hill, | got to pick up some speed to get up Ythe hill, try avoiding that, now imagine the conditions are snowy even more dangerous! That’s another piece to the pedestrian puzzle that we need to be aware of. The attorneys for the Hayes developer spent a great deal of time discussing perceived sited ones. Now | am not in the construction industry, | am not in zoning, | am not sitting on the board of you, | am a resident, a neighbor the average joe person. ‘don’t believe zoning laws are based on perceived site lines or ‘Perceived heights, they are based on actual heights, actual measured ‘heights, the is a reason why those laws are in place ahd it’s not what |__ “can see, when | squint my eyes and look right, guess what the whole building disappears (crowd applauses and laughs). It is the same truth ‘\.\» for parking spaces? Do we just base it on perception of space? So, > “everyone in the apartment complex, these very wealthy students are_ ? Iseriously doubt it! They are all__ * driving SUV's, ‘they not going have any perceived spaces cause they're (not going to have any actual spaces. In addition, in the apartment's they're talking about measuring a perceived space in the apartment or do we measure actual space? Do we measure a sense of area like the walls? | don’t know that’s for you to decide. heard it mentioned briefly that there are wetlands, | am very pleased. to hear that there is species of fish, | am very concerned, some of that ( was news to me. | want to know that that wet land is protected, not just by the distance of the building but by the density of the population that will be encroaching on this wetland. I’m wondering if, if an. environmental impact study is needed. Again, Lapeer peioness Carne teceseucedamaaliyliiesati “we can build anyway” “we can build according to allowable laws” meaning zoning rules, meaning a - ee environment they said” well guess what a less studious environment is not very smart for them either. They can have fewer trees, well fewer trees He undesirable forthe as itisforus because as they stated they are aan nv v 1 x f jum 34uo their residents and they want their residents to have privacy, they run themselves right out of business by being so undesirable. I hope that you consider your neighbors and ask the voters um in your decision to deny these zoning variances, | thank you for your time. (crowed applauses) Mark Johnson Says “mam you did mention something about environmental study and | will discuss that in a little bit. Chung Yu Levy (313 Manchester Road, Vestal, NY) to actually talk about the news in ah everybody else talk about ah, the water drainage issue ah. | look at the ah, um, the plan, uh lisawey they were gonna be a huge sub water pump..you know about 50 yards © “from my back yard. | sent ah, um an email to you, chairman, probably you don’t remember my name is Chung Yu levy of 313 Manchester Road, | talk to the house of wiser, ya know to get a survey, so it’sa, "really a nightmare try to do ah a huge water pond. They told me. actually ah...twenty yards, twenty feet away from my back yard because right now | am suffering from the water flat easier lower guardian high land parking lot and the town has already done there ion and their conclusion is right now water draining pipe initial inscati o\ from that highland parking lot, it’s not enough try to take away the stuff water from the LGT attorney parking lot, you can clarify you know * my property the town supervisor and the town engineer. They can you know; you know talk about the detail about the about the you know uh......water issue about my home. It'seems to me that there is only one currently existing water pipe that you know thatiis draining away‘the water behind our neighbor's yard. That is water pipe the narrow water pipe existing water pipe between 317 and 401, Manchester Road and that part is narrows. I'see i invafeasinew,variancessdying,towuse.this, narrow overloading pipe, | think that that is there plan, because they are trying to build a huge water pond close to this pipe. As you know all of our neighbors are opposing our plan they no way have a deal with our neighbors try to do you know help with our yard. Because they are the only way to try to prove their plan is try to use a current nail or larger water pipe which has been used by the LGT attorneys at law. So, lannot imagine they put a huge up line ah...water pump 20 feet away "from my yard, ah it is going to cause a water septic issue. It’s going to have cause you know acute septic—ah | have 3 young girls, ya know that going to .......... a build a water pond just immediate behind my yard. I'm worried about my girl’s septic. Ya know.... if in the future we e if anybody you know, see from our second floor “that there is a pond nobody is going to want to buy our home because if you know our respected member if you have a chance you know physically take a look at the side you happen to see a very narrow place where basically no extra place for the buildings and no extra buffer zone for our septic. So, | am extremely worried about their plan of building a lot of the huge water pond, that is because there is no choice, they have no way to negotiate with our neighbor try to put the _ new water drainage pipe, so they come up with ah you know a funny _ idea to come up with a fake huge artificial water pump ya know. So, | wish the board member you know take into consideration of our you know our separate issue, your whole park is a de ratio, our young children ahh you know personal separate issues.im a new immigrant to the country, I’m happy that the students are international students and you know get scholar... .which those new students are trying to attract the new buildings. Mostly they are much more financially struggler—aL m the students in the city of New York. You know ah...a leg ham of my neighbor they living 5 international students each one has a big you know SUV that even now two of them have the big Nissan, they have Mercedes, Audis, BMW, personally owned as you wait, so that is my another concerned. Parking -so parking, parking lot, so, so there is nota lot of parking ‘space, so those students are going to park those vehicles along our lawns. So, so, so, it puts our children in danger. Ah ah, thank you very much. (crowd applauds) Mark Johnson (chairman of the board just so you understand again this boards responsibility is to deal with. ‘variances that the applicants are requesting. There is another section with the planning board where they deal with storm water runoffs, drainage um, the appearance the buffers things like that. So, if your comments again like that if you could just hold them to what we are talking about and | understand the quality of life issues that everyone has brought forward and we appreciate those, but ah just in the essence in time if we can stick to what we need to do for this particular hearing.... thank you. Alan Burke (405 Manchester Road] | oppose this project for several reasons, the first extensity earlier tonight I heard a slogan to look into the future you have to know the past. And I’ve been trying to wrap my hands around this apartment complex from the time it was first proposed from the late 60's to present day. Now in looking in what was presented up there, there was ( 450K s/f “your aloud 3ks/f per dwelling unit that means they can have _ . Now what I don’t understand i is when | looked into my house in 1988 Suny around that \43 time made an agreement to rent those apartments for 10 years because they had a shortage. At that particular point in time there were maps drawn up of 8 buildings and each room and there is 179 units in 1987. So, Wirrirotreally.clear of how this proigctsomehowseot Now the project up there says its 1856/, so | can clearly see where storage units were turned into apartments so there were additional that | know of six units that were kind of gifted in. now this proposal of 224 units clearly exceeds density | mean again you have this one pound coffee can that has more than one pound in it and now they are putting 2 to 3 pounds in it and the story that they want you to change the code to square feet _ _to people that live there | think its hypothesis generating but there is no _ “facts behind it, it'still exceeds density and | think that another person spoke earlier that there is rules in vestal to protect the citizens and protect builders. And so, | don’t think o1 ‘this property. With respect to height | heard that the perception I think that people should come to our neighbor and look at that, because these computer-generated drawings are not reality. (crowd claps) | ing ok, and furthermore the data is old, ok things have sthange as we heard. So, that three story building behind my house. really add 15 more feet it's more like 4 to 4 % ok and there was two pieces of wood brought up here you need a 12-foot piece of wood. Piece of wood on the Manchester side, so Id like that to be known and | will see the roof ok, | do have computers there. With respect to parking | think enough people said that, but this apartment was original rented out to anyone The Garden Apartments, | had friends that lived there, | was in those apartments they worked for IBM, things changed they are rented to students and as it was suggested there a lot of building in this area, everyone's runninga ‘there's going to be a tipping point and all these places are going to rent, ‘to anyone they want and | think that should be taken into consideration. The last thing I'd like to say is there was a recent article in Pipe Dreams_ which is as everyone knows it’s the Binghamton University paper. October 16'" page 5 opinion “with this address was the students talk about the lack of the Binghamton University leaders working with developers, community leaders like yourself, whether it be here, Johnson City or Binghamton and the residents to work on the growth. There has been a lack of it and | would just like to read the last paragraph and | will end. “we are sympathetic with concerns of the vestal residents it is Important to respect the character and culture of the neighborhood, when new developments are proposed they should respect the existing zoning laws, and carefully consider their impact on neighboring residents. Currently the Hayes Manor proposal does not — ‘do this. Now I've listened to the presentation and the majority of the time it talked about trees, it didn’t talk about violating the variances, | think it’s important to have a compelling argument to break all these variances and to change the character of the neighborhood, | did not hear that tonight, thank you (crowd applauds). Mark Johnson (chairman of the board) Sir, just for clarification that is and editorial? Or and editorial by the board or and individual? Can | have the date again please (yes-October 16'") ok but is that and editorial board of the Pipedream? Or it is and individual's editorial opinion? Mr. Burke says “no it’s the opinion of the Pipedream” ok thanks. Richard Matson (faculty member at the University)4S I'm the director of raduate’s studies in Phycology, I live in the neighborhood and I’ve listened to the arguments here and one of the primary arguments to have this is that there is a huge growing need to house the influx of students but what | didn’t hear was ah why this is the only way to do that break variances in the surrounding neighborhoods and potentially and put at risk the character of the neighborhood therein, there are certainly other options that | hear no_ one from the university saying that the only way we are going to “manage this is in this particular way in this particular neighborhood. The university exist in vestal and vestal is the university town and so you have to balance those needs very carefully and as soon as you start - ‘aggravating that balance you going to mess with the positive liaisons between the student residents and the current residents of the town...thank you (crowd applauds) Andrea Korchinsky -| don’t live in the immediate area that is impacted by this, however | support the neighbors that are impacted so | came to the meeting and ah I’m not really prepared for the meeting so I’m not gonna duplicate what everybody said, um my comments are basically presented by the developer um | have questions what he had on the screen. But before | comment | would like to know um | guess there was 450 people that signed the petition, um when | was canvasing the neighborhood to get people to sign the petition alot of people in the: stair track neighborhood said to me when | tried to put a front porch or — ~a front deck on my house, um apparently and | don’t know what the code is but your probably familiar with it or you can research it. They” ")\ said that they had a problem putting a deck on their house because when they applied for a permit the um town code whoever goes to the immediate neighbors that are um by this person’s house and they have4b deck/front porch on this house and if one neighbor says they are not ok then that holds of the process of a person putting a porch on the front of the house and this is actual facts from people who sign the petition as they went through this with the town of vestal and they had to fight it and it took them up to a year to get the front porch on because one” "person complained. So, if one person complains about that why isn’t 450 people that complained about this isn’t enough? (crowd applauds) Ah the presentation are and these are not his exact words because like I said | wasn’t prepared and | was trying to write long story during power point um again that is upwards, kids at B/U don’t drive cars or — they drive Ford Focus or Chevy Cruses, the previous gentleman said um many SUV'S, land Rover big huge cars that don’t fit into compact spaces and cov’ it i ester y ‘that you can’t even find a space to part your car and shop there has a unit and has a car and is parking at Boscov's because you know _ ‘Spots were provided for the livingroom trend. Um he said that there were 562 people | did not um recall how many parking spots he said he was going to provide for the 562 and then also | heard that you had to pay for the parking so on r the “parking um obviously, they can’t park on the street. And so where are they going to parK/ um I think the roads are sectioned and marked in the winter, and some people say students don’t care they are not here and yes they are the winter goes until march. Um and if there is obviously not enough parking spots for these students at Hayes um is he made a comment that uh “well fewer kids live on campus and they don’t have cars” well | remember when | went to B/U | think it was the rule was when | was a freshman you were not allowed to have but that’s obviously why we don’t have one and is a this a voucher your gonna putin these student —u7 leases that when all the parking spaces.are filled up they can’t have a ‘car and if they can’t have one, uh um where are they gonna park? Um then this presentation talks about trends for a walkable community we don’t have a walkable community, I'm sorry this is not down town ‘Binghamton, this is not the Westside of Binghamton, this snot a, ‘Walkable community, uh there is no sidewalks, there is no d the University there is no sidewalks for the pedestrians that live there, so | don’t know how it's a. walkable “community when you have to walk down the middle of the street. Um he talks about the tree buffer, the height of the trees, um the height of the trees what difference does that make if there areno leaves and you _ _can see through them because there is no leaves in the winter time Also, do he an agreement with the neighbors of who is responsible for the tree buffer? When all these trees start dying due to the bulldozers and all the construction work, ripping up the roots and these trees start dying and they drop and fall which makes it look like a petrified forest back there. Whose responsible for making that aesthetically pleasing for the neighbors back yard? do they have to pay to have someone come and chain saw all the trees and clean it up and have it look nice? Or is the developer gonna have an agreement with the neighbors that says “oh when | move your trees from construction | will clean it up? We can choose to make it look nice for you, | didn’t see any of that. Um to protect the neighbors, yeah, | didn’t see any of that. Um he also says that he doesn’t want a flat roof because it wouldn’t “fit in” with the character of the neighborhood, um his whole project doesn’t “fit in” with the character of the neighborhood. Um he says he. @olit! Thank you. (crowd applauds) Gouland- (824 Lehigh avenue)lam not directly affected by this development but | am going to ask that you make your decision based on hard data and numbers and facts and not illusions. Ah you may see for example ah Yosemite National Park ah, it looks beautiful in the pictures on your computer screen ah, there is a nice granite rock you would not say how tall it is, it is a half mile tall, if you look at it from high distance. But don’t speak for who live in Manchester Road, they cannot choose that distance from that building. It’s the north part of the property, ah the pictures that we see in the presentation most of them are them are from the south part there is more space, on the south part there is much less space, there is no picture taken from the north side because you would probably not believe that somebody can build anything more than there already is. Ah then ah I want to talk about those variances, the first one is the Height of the building, | mean you can trick people with optical _ | familiar with photographic, ok, um, so you can tell that "building that is forty seven foot high looks like forty three, or forty foot high, but if you really draw the building next to it all that computer | simulation or drawings they would not appear the same height, so um also sum will not ah, will ah, the sun shadow how far the shadow reached is not based on how we perceive the building height, it’s based on the real height of the building, ok, so those people live in Manchester road the shadow will be based in the back yard and they have plants that were planted there and they would have sunshine,, “but it won't be the case anymore. So let’s ah, that’s one variance and the second is about the Parking Spaces ah, eee here at Suny at one point and | know hundreds of students, graduate j=’ students and it’s a big difference between graduate students and other graduates cause first undergraduates not all of them can park their cars in fence post, graduates students would like that, but un=m, | can tell49 you ah, those amount, hundreds of students | know and | knew. )know- “only.one'that doesn’t have a'car, only one. (crowd applauds) \2c>zmpavis (821 Dickinson Drive) Forty | use to live on up dampus"i moved down their last year, just to reiterate the i in the upper stairs no “problem, when | came down the traffic issues are real. The main concern for these people and if you get the visual effect for yourself is_ to go up Murray Hill Road tonight look to the right you gonna see Suny Dorm, much larger structure, ok, look thru that wonderful fall foliage that’s there you can see lights and they are coming into theirbackyards” | know Jeff for a long time very honorable man, | can disagree with him though, this is the wrong place the wrong thing to do. That's it, Thank you. (crowd applauds) Lisa Burke (405 Manchester) I’m not going to reinvent the wheel and reiterate everything everyone said tonight. | just am going to speak to you on the zoning board, the — _».Map that we saw of all of the buildings only shows the widest parts. ‘The houses that are sitting behind the widest pats on those parcels, | am implore you said you've been to those behind to those houses, | implore you go behind each house the shape of the of the property gets rete ? narrower and narrower, some of those people that live on the straight rs now it will be so worse, please take a look, and to the point of the point that Mr. Davis made here’s a picture Tr ~ of what you see at night on campus with the lights on the dorm, granted he’s not gonna make a glass building like that, but we will see” ? ionindlevatenmsbidenshesterranistertalinpt ste: will not have sunlight _ and I’m going to give you what | was originally going to speak because that is a little different, please think hard look at what you're doing , the future of Vestal is in your hands, you need to make a‘smart decision, not just for today but for ten and twenty years down the road when we may not be here, but vestal will still be here. (Crowd applauds). Roland Miller (500 Plaza Drive) So, I'm a resident at Hayes, I'm a graduate student at B/U, B/U is one of the most prestige’s schools as you all know in New York. Ok B/U is also expanding so they put the center of excellence buildifig, you guys all know what I’m talking about? (crowd says yes) so guess what all those _ new grad students. Hayes provides everything a grad student needs, grad students you have to get a B or better or guess what you get kicked out of school, that’s what you have to do. Hayes like they said, you can walk the campus , | know you guys all complained about walking but guess what that’s more environmentally friendly and guess what the track team, when | go to the gym in the morning | pass at least four or five residents that run, so you guys do the same thing when we walk, ok the parking, | know that was brought up, its ten” dollars a month for us to park, it's a 120 year, you guys can do that math. | already renewed my lease for next year, and the lights, well you all see your neighbor's lights, at night, don’t you? So, what’s the “difference there (woman in crowd says a lot, he says “ok you guys, no \ one interrupted you when you spoke, so let me speak please (woman in | crowd so don’t speak to us, speak to them—meaning the board) Mark Johnson “speak to us, don’t speak to the audience Sir’ he says ok. Um yea | think that’s all | have, thank you for your time. (crowd applauds) 1 Michael Wolfe (47 country Deer Road) As other people, have mentioned, | know Jeffrey Feinberg personally, he is a very successful business man and good person, he has a lot of real estate in the area and | can attest he takes very good care of his — properties, | live close to the Hayes Manor and its well taken are of theground keepers doa great job. I’m hear to speak in opposition of the variance in request, first my understanding is with a variance you have to express some type of hardship, and | haven’t heard any hardship from the representatives of this project, second as in mention these apartments exceed what was currently allowed, somehow more than 30 apartments have appeared without doing the research from getting permits that need to be created. Speaking from the specifics of the variance, if you would like us to speak to, | would just like you to understand, every action that you make we all know the same has a reaction and | would just like you to look at the variances that were | granted to University Plaza, currently very difficult to get a parking spot there, | called the rental office and they don’t have enough parking passes to give to the students. | will point out that they give theme parking passes for free, this proposal here, they are charging the ‘students is a great concern, not enough parking, charging for parking, . | believe students will have to park on the streets in our neighborhood. the police are understaffed as mentioned. They are not able to do” _speed enforcement, traffic enforcement, and ah, in some ways | feel that the town board is ignoring what’s been going on in the eastern part of Vestal between the university and the city line. We don’t have the services, we don’t have police patrolling our area, ah we don’t have “ traffic enforcement, and if you approve this, you will definitely be increasing cars, pedestrians, there will be cabs coming in the area and _this will certainly affect the safety of people. Please just don’t take in account the strict zoning plea from the developer. | also resent the” presentation form the developer, it makes us feel that we are quite naive. We cannot be responsible for the success of Binghamton University, it’s not up to Jeffrey Feinberg to single handily take care of students from inner city and international students, it’s not his responsibility to provide housing to the growth of the university ofSL these students, it’s the responsibility of the university if they want to” ‘see the growth. The university itself owns a tremendous amount of land. The building going on in Broome County, the nursing school, the pharmacy school are very large buildings located in Johnson City near Wilson Hospital that’s where the area of development to the student “* .«) housing should quill be. Students are not going to walk from Hayes” Manor to the nursing school or the Pharmacy school. In addition, the ah, I just resent the vail threat that if you do not takeiand accept the Sef application for variance changes then then are allowed to build five q bedroom apartments -so like | said certainly inappropriate. Thank you ea] (Oy wet Michelle Gardner (408 Karen Avenue) I live closer to this school to the one | work at, Binghamton University. I'm also a graduate student at Binghamton University in addition to being an employer. | just want to be clear and | the gentleman before me touched on this the pharmacy school and the school of nursing will be located in Johnson City, um this colt for community and public affairs is in the downtown campus. So, | think it’s very clear that when we talk about this our efforts and the community efforts to build a ©) more walkable community that Hayes is a walkable community to the + main campusand so variance should not be committed as such a global statement because the university growth is occurring, it should be clear that Hayes is a viable model if a viable model for development that it relates specifically to the main campus. Thank you (crowd applauds) Marissa W (509 Midvale) just moved to 509 Midvale | am here to represent Midvale. In my__ “|p c= backyard | can see the apartment complexes, | can see candidly in my53 back yard. The only thing | would speak to which may not be related to ., debe the variances but the site issue with the trees | assume maybe | can ~~? bring it up is, | know Candi lost a tree um recently, my husband and | je’ were thinking about taking down trees and | understand the new buildings will between or behind what's currently there, that just makes vgrme nervous, ah um, | know it will be a little bit more viewable, it really isn’t that right now, right now | have at night when everybody starts their car at night | can see their headlights in my kitchen, and so Having an apartment building between them and me might be kind of welcomed. But at the same time the height and what not and people . that said that their backyard was a mess and so Thank you. Mark Johnson—Thank you Al Burke vp U Ah one last thing ah, | did forget to mention there appears to be other — “_ land in the area that such a development can go up across from Vestal | a Plaza, there’s a large amount of acreage that has a for sale sign on it P<. and there's the old orthopedic office in the old area where the rr Headlines Bar was. So, | think there is other areas in Vestal where \ cy €@something could be built that may meet the density codes, probably would be a safer walk, you'd be walking along that new construction where the engineering school is and other things or the students can / bus because frankly the numbers of runners and | ama runner and my gear is fluorescent because of the danger and when | went to vote on to do Tuesday I was almost hit by a car from him speeding up from the North side of the parking lot. Ok and nobody mentioned the leaves that they Y uwr A Yr a ws f a in teensy lrwlll we baa Cuneo yipelerant . leayer Cat, mee n ger 2 PASt were picked up today but that road gets narrow when they are leaves and snow. So, thank you (crowd applauds) Mark Johnson (chairman of the board) if you would please give me one minute to speak to a couple of the board members and | have some comments ah and a couple of request. Mark Johnson Ok there are a couple of things ah, we would like to request and Mr, ‘Smith you indicated that there were some drawings or plans—Mr. Smith says “oh your talking amount the attachments” Mark Johnson says “there are minutes form the meeting | see, but | think you indicated some sort of plans, Mr. Smith says | will send your attorney a complete set of plans as part of that too” Mark says “ok perfect, thank you’ Um just for clarification purposes, um, environmental impact study, there isa large study that the applicant may be required to do, this board does what's called a short form of assessment based on the variances that are requested. Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith says “oh | located the drawing that you are referring two, um, ah, 1, 2, 3, 4, um, page 5 of exhibit A, this is drawing of the parking lot with the screening plan, that’s part of the 1960 era approval, that was the _ drawing | was referring to. The other drawings | pointed out to in my presentation are part of your package that were prepared by the other. Mark says “Ok thank you” Um, Mr. Napierala, on the back of your package here, there is a single etter from Binghamton University, concerning parking vehicles, um I don’t know if there is any, but if you had any other association with5S” Suny concerning the property, the students, any documentation that maybe helpful for the board to help understand the relationship | between Feinberg and Suny. Um to have Feinberg only to have Suny ‘students, or whatever, if there is anything, if you can provide that for us at the next meeting and Mr. Déever if you would please, between now and the next meeting if you can do it determine based on area and space how many units could actually be built on those 10.36 acres and — maybe with the help of Mr. Napierala and their pint of view and they come up with these number and how they can present to the board of what would be available on those particular spots. This is going to end the public portion of the public hearing, um any further comments to the board we would ask to be in writing and they can be emailed to myself, the town clerk’s office or to the code enforcement and we will be scanning each and every one of them, and | would ask that any information that you would like be to us by the 24" of November, that isa Thursday at the end of business, and that hopefully on Friday if we keep up with everything we should have and every one of your concerns and comments—someone in audience said “isn’t that Thanksgiving? Mark Johnson says “ok let’s make it the 23” crowd laughs...someone says let’s make it the other way...Black Friday, Mark says “well we don’t work on Friday either. So, get it to us in that time frame by Monday we will try and post everything, so whatever that» date is on Monday the 27", because what we do want is we want everyone to have an opportunity to see the points of view and we would also like the applicants to have an opportunity to view those so they can address any concerns um, in a presentation that they will follow up with at the next meeting. Mam? Um you started to mention your abbreviated environmental impact study? Yes, “and | think you stopped and went on to something else? Yes, ours is abbreviated it does require a full impact study, but the planning board would probablyS6 require’a full impact study so it is not going to go by the way side. Lady in audience says “I have a question” “Does the 10 1/2 acres include the water land area? “Wet landarea excuse me” Mark Johnson says “yes, yes it does” and if | remember, lady interrupts --Mark Johnson and ask “can they segment the water shed area? Because you can’t build on that. Ok-ok-Mark Johnson says “That's going to be up to Mr. Dietrich, Dabv cl: and them to work out—lady says ok—it needs to be pointed out because its muddy—she keeps interrupting Mark Johnson -I do believe that area is patrolled by U.S. Army Core‘of Engineers. Lady says “it is | spoke with them” Mark says “so there is gonna be you know issues that is going to have to be dealt with also, so but they will work that out and that can be presented later—man from audience says “Mr. Johnson, one more question “can you explain briefly to us what factors you consider when you are weighing a request for variance?” Mark Johnson says its right here and I’m getting to that “ok?” gentleman says “ok” so anyways the documentation will be posted on the website “ ” for anybody that’s interested. At this time the issues that the board has to consider um and this is for area of variances. ~whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character of the neighborhood or detriment to nearby properties will be created by granting the area variance. ~whether the benefits sought by the applicant can be achieved by some method feasible or the applicant to pursue other than an area of variance ~whether the requested variance is substantial ~whether the proposed variance will have the adverse effect or impact on the physical or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district.57 ~ whether the alleged difficulty is self-created, and this particular consideration shall be relevant to the decision of the board of appeals but shall not necessarily preclude the granting of the area variance Lady in audience “can that be posted on your website?” Mark Johnson says “um yes we can get them on the website. Gentleman in audience says “so economic factors are not in consideration of your deliberation? Mark Johnson says “no sir, only those 5 variances that they are requesting, ahh, the 5 codes they are requesting the variances for. Gentleman in audience raises his hand and Mark Johnson says yes? Gentleman says “oh | apologize, | just have one more administration question “in the event that the plan changes, would there be a second change of plan? Or you have to think about that? But that is something I would like to point out. Mark Johnson answers, “Yes should they come _toa ah ultimate plan and they still need variances there would still be _another public hearing to allow input fromthe public on that particular set of plans”. Mark Johnson “Ok | would like to thank everyone for coming tonight, the board appreciates your comments, we appreciate all the information you have and we certainly have an awful a lot to go over. And if anyone has anymore documentation they would like to turn in we will collect it right up here. Thank you very much and | will take my motion to the secretary.