Town Board Meeting September 18th, 2023
OFFICIALS PRESENT: Police Chief Maresca, Attorney Bill Bavoso.
Following the Pledge of Allegiance, Supervisor Howell called the meeting to order at 7:30pm.
MOTION TO ACCEPT THE PRIOR MEETING MINUTES:
MOTION offered Councilmember Davis 2nd Councilmember Jennings to accept meeting minutes as presented from September 5, 2023. All in favor: Howell, Davis, Furman, Jennings; motion carried.
CORRESPONDENCE:
1 Supervisor’s report August 2023
2 Building Inspector’s monthly report July 2023
3 OC Mortgage tax receipts August 2023
4 Email from Jason Pitingaro re: partial road bond release – Winnetaska
Supervisor Howell stated he sent that information to the highway supt. who has a meeting scheduled with the planning board engineer, himself and the supervisor to go over the details of this request. He will keep everyone informed after the meeting.
BOARD REPORTS:
Councilmember Jennings: The village meeting is cancelled for this week. They are still looking for alternates for the village ZBA. Anyone interested should contact the village clerk. The networking project is coming along here at the town hall. Next step is to get the other components with the rack. Hope to get those purchased. Then we can start to get everything switched over to the wired network.
Councilmember Furman: Minisink youth FB wants the crosswalk sign – he will speak to Dean about this. They also need more garbage cans for the football field area and parking lot. They would like to know if they can use the soccer field when it is not in use for their practices. This will have to be coordinated with the highway supt. as he has the soccer schedule. The D3 football team lost 4 players and the remainder of the team is working with the county to find another team. The historical society had their tricky tray this past weekend. It was a great turnout. They are having a fall harvest festival on October 8 12-3:30pm at the historical property. The mobile DMV bus will be at town hall on October 13 from 10-3:30pm. Mount Hope Chinese association is having a fall festival at the village park on 10/7. The gate was found open at the sewer treatment plant due to deliveries. He will be getting some quotes on a camera system for the sewer treatment plant. He also attended the Orange County Economic Summit at OCCC. He left info to be put out on the table in the lobby.
Councilmember Davis: The planning board meeting in on 9/20 at 7pm. The generator alarm went off again at the youth center. Councilmember Furman assisted her with the pilot light being off in the youth center kitchen.
Supervisor Howell noted that the CPR & First Aid classes are both full. He stated to Councilmember Furman that he should coordinate with Dean about the football league using the soccer field.
MOTION TO APPROVE THE FOOTBALL LEAGUE TO USE THE SOCCER FIELD WHEN AVAILABLE:
MOTION offered Councilmember Davis 2nd Councilmember Furman to allow the MV football league to use the soccer field at the park pending coordinating with the highway supt. All in favor: Howell, Davis, Furman, Jennings; motion carried.
MIDDLETOWN CARTING PROPERTY AT OLD LUCY GRACE FARM – ROUTE 211 AND WHITE BRIDGE ROAD:
Ross Winglovitz from Engineering & Surveying Properties spoke re: above mentioned property. (He was with the realtor for Middletown Carting, Bill Duquette.) Middletown Carting is the owner of the old horse farm at the corner of Route 211 and White Bridge Road. In 2018 the town adopted some new zoning for this area. The property was re-zoned B1 and the uses were changed slightly. The use that we are looking to apply to the property is warehousing. Warehousing in this municipal code is permitted in the bulk table but it’s limited to a maximum of 50,000 square feet. When we were 1st retained to look at the property, we came up with a basic layout of what would 50,000 sq ft buildings look like on this property, how would we lay them out; we’d have a center road – 5 clustered around here (referring to the map). There’s a large wetland area here in the center. And, 3 on the other side. Total of 150 here and 250 there – total of 400,000 sq feet.
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Nobody thought that was really the best use of the property although viable. They asked us to take a look at an alternative. What we’ve done here is group the buildings. There’s 150,000 sq ft in the same location of the 3-50,000 sq ft buildings. The same sq footage – creates a lot more green space. We’re able to push the building back away from the road. Then, where there was 5 buildings – a 250,000 sq ft building. We’re not looking to increase the sq footage that would be permitted. We thought grouping these into 2 buildings as opposed to 8 buildings that this would be much more of an attractive project. It’ll be much easier to landscape. We can provide berms and buffers to screen the property. (He referred to the map to show various propositions to the property.) This has been discussed with the planning board chairman and the supervisor and Glen Plotsky. We need to know if this is something that the board would be willing to entertain. It would require a zoning amendment. Currently under your B1 district schedule 7 – warehouses are permitted in 50,000 sq ft or less. Between the chairman, Glenn & the supervisor, they thought there was enough merit to have us come here present it to everybody and see your thoughts were. Councilmember Furman: on the original plan, those 50,000 sq ft – is that per so many acres? Is that what’s permitting how many? Mr. Winglovitz: the entire property is 73 acres. We’re not asking for more sq footage. We wanted to maintain what was permitted as of right now. Councilmember Jennings: didn’t we have a discussion on this property for a piece for residential? Supervisor: that was at the planning board. Winglovitz: he was prepared to build a house there but I don’t think it ever went through the final plan. I think it never went for final approval. That plan is abandoned in favor of this plan. Supervisor: to the attorney: that would be more of a planning board level? Attorney: that would be planning board. Supervisor: we can get with David to draft a revision for the zoning. We can review it and set a date for the public hearing.
GOOD DADA REQUEST TO EXTEND SEWER DISTRICT BOUNDARY:
Supervisor noted that the town engineer John Fuller was not present. This matter will be tabled.
MOTION TO AUDIT THE CLAIMS:
MOTION offered Councilmember Davis 2nd Councilmember Jennings to pay the abstracts 36-37:
ABSTRACT #36:
GENERAL A: #421-438 $ 59,081.99
GENERAL B: #106-111 $ 7,943.16
HIGHWAY: #155-162 $ 69,557.27
SEWER: #83-85 $ 2,053.75
ABSTRACT #37:
GENERAL A: #439-451 $ 44,848.48
GENERAL B: #112-115 $ 13,212.19
HIGHWAY: #163 $ 42,154.72
SEWER: #86-89 $ 3,295.84. All in favor: Howell, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO ACCEPT THE SUPERVISOR’S REPORT:
MOTION offered Councilmember Furman 2nd Councilman Jennings to accept the August 2023 Supervisor’s report as presented. All in favor: Howell, Furman, Davis, Jennings; carried.
BOARD COMMENTS:
Supervisor Howell: The senior overnight trip is this week. The cars will be parked at the senior center.
Councilmember Furman: Bulk trash days are 10/4 through 10/14. He put on FB. He left info packet in foyer from the summit. He is also leaving the Orange County travel guide.
Councilmember Jennings: Budget meeting is 9/26 at 6pm here at town hall.
POLICE DEPARTMENT:
Chief Maresca noted that he put in for and they were awarded a grant for the live scan fingerprint
VILLAGE OF OTISVILLE:
Trustee Clouse affirmed that there is no village meeting this Thursday. The DMV bus was here recently and was very busy with a steady line. Arbor Day is September 30th and some trees will be planted at the village park.
MOTION TO ADJOURN MEETING:
MOTION offered Councilmember Furman 2nd Councilmember Davis to adjourn the meeting at 8:02pm. All in favor: Howell, Jennings, Davis, Furman; carried.
The next town board meeting will be on October 2, 2023.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen A. Myers, RMC
Town Clerk 68