Beacon, New York Council Meetings & Workshops, 21 Aug 2023

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From YouTube: Beacon Workshop Meeting 8 21 23

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The City of Beacon Council Workshop & Meeting on August 21, 2023

A

All right, everybody here all right good evening: everybody um so welcome um the first half of this meeting is a workshop. What that means is the council does its business to kind of get ready for a formal meeting immediately after our Workshop there will be a formal meeting, so it will be broken into two parts. Again, this part is the workshop or the informal part.

A

It does not involve the public in the process other than listening and you're certainly welcome to to hear and then once we finish up that we'll go straight into our regular meeting, where which will include an opportunity for public comments. uh Just looking around the room, I'm observing uh you know, five council members here, Somali Justice, George, renin myself, I, understand that uh six council member Paloma may be online. If you're there say hi hi, everyone, hey and then um Danny marpolare is excused.

A

So that's our roll call and then um so we've sort of organized this by uh topics our first one is going to be a housing discussion. We've got John Clark uh to talk to us about that. Then there is one on a specific conceptual plan uh related to housing, construction and then the rest gets easier after that, so John you want to open us up and.

B

Mira I just want to note the city attorneys on.

A

Probably too I'm sorry, Nick, mayor, yeah, sorry, I, I, didn't see the bats and so I was taken off guard, but now I see them fair enough.

A

So uh hey John, thank you for being in person, so I think that when we last met, um we had talked about three areas and I think John you're going to talk about each one is um some potential changes that would affect possibly all zoning or maybe some particular zones, but not all things like parking or things that would affect the overall cost of any construction. Second area is maybe some specific changes that would afford easier construction for a particular site.

A

The Housing Authority who's, looking at some things and those May overlap, don't know, and then the kind of third and kind of separate one was several of us are starting to do some thinking around Route 52 with the departure of one of the auto dealers and we're thinking. If, if we might actually afford the opportunity to alter our zoning and create some density and maybe a new neighborhood, so those are the topics you knew that your come prepared. So thank you all right, right.

C

First question:.

C

It was app was: is there any impediments to smaller size units in the code and I? Looked it up? There are a few places, not many and I, don't think they're really what's keeping people building smaller units, but there are a few in the code that require a certain minimum floor area for unit size. I pointed out, there's four different places that I found artist live Works require a minimum 800 square feet.

C

um Accessory apartments require a minimum of 200 square feet and a maximum of a thousand.

C

That's hardly a hardship. 200 square feet is pretty small. um Sorry.

D

John, what was the first I didn't understand what you said.

C

The artists live work units.

D

Artists live work.

C

Yes, we require 800 square feet, which is pretty big.

C

You know if you're a jewelry maker, it's different than if you're a Furniture maker or some other more spacious, but it seems to me you could get by without minimum square footage and the artists live work spaces.

C

um There isn't a minimum sizes for various size apartments in the affordable, Workforce housing law, I'm suggesting that perhaps you leave those in because those are so that the developer doesn't make super small units for the affordable, lower market rate, housing and then larger units by comparison and make everything seem unfair within the building.

C

So that's the purpose of those and and the sizes are relatively small anyway, so they may be something you want to leave and then the one that seems most egregious was the senior affordable housing overlay District, which nobody has used for a long time, but they do have minimum sizes for those and I don't think theirs are justifiable because seniors come in a lot of different variations in terms of assistive living and things like that, and you don't necessarily need to assign minimum uh unit sizes I. Don't think for that.

C

But again nobody uses this senior affordable, housing overlay anyway, so it's kind of so what I suggest in the memo is that it's not really the code, that's limiting people from building smaller units, more affordable units, it's Market forces and parking requirements.

C

Market forces are such that people who can afford rent in a brand new building new construction, generally speaking, can afford or what a one bedroom or even a two bedroom. So they can have a home officer, have a room to grow. So the market replies to that it's less expensive or more profitable, I guess I would say for people to rent larger units they get higher rents.

C

um They are easier to manage because you have few fewer units in a building, so there's all sorts of incentives for developers to build larger units. Now they don't usually build two and three bedrooms anymore. A lot of them are one and two bedrooms, but they tend to be larger than um what we would consider more affordable size units.

C

The other aspect is parking requirements, um so park requirements are based on the unit count not on the size of an apartment, and so, if you have limited land for a building and a parking lot, you're going to build fewer units because they need fewer parking spaces which take up a lot of room, aren't a lot um so there's a couple ways you can deal with a smaller unit. I suggest a few. You could eliminate the ones where you can and the artists live work. Loft the senior housing overlay District.

C

You could eliminate parking standards for smaller units so that there's an incentive on small Lots where there isn't a lot of room for parking. You can have an incentive for a developer not to have to put parking in for either designated affordable housing units or for units under a certain size, and that would encourage them to come below that limit because they would not have to require a parking space which can be uh impossible in small Lots.

C

um So those are sort of the the things on the table and then I point out the um thought. Let me just back up to these presentation. Slides here's a couple one bedroom units that are smaller size most one bedroom units is considered 600 750 square feet, that's the sort of normal range for market rate units. These are more in the 400 60 to 420 and they're still respectable size units. Yes, they're, not spacious.

C

uh Yes, they don't have a lot of storage room, they don't have dining room separate or you know, and but they they meet the needs of a one-bedroom apartment and if you're willing to spend less and live with a simpler lifestyle, I think there would be a market for such things.

C

um The same can be said for um Studios or one bedroom or, if they're small enough they're considered micro Apartments, which is generally speaking under 350 square feet, um which is the lower limit that you have in the code for efficient efficiency units or Studios.

C

All right, you do butt up against um building code, State, Building Codes, there's a minimum I boost from the building inspector sent me an email. I asked the questions and there is a minimum 220 square foot floor space for up to two occupants.

C

So that's the sort of bottom line, but most most micro apartments are sort of in the 250 to 350 range. So that doesn't um you have to have a separate closet, but there's no minimum size. You have to have certain clearances for kitchens and a separate bathroom and the real difficulty on smaller units is Ada qualified bathrooms.

C

You have to have a certain turnaround space in a bathroom, and that means you can't have this sort of little tiny bathrooms that I. You know when I was young and staying in apartments. You had tiny bathrooms, um so the the 88 bathroom can be something on the order of 50 square feet which takes out a good chunk of a small apartment. So that's the only constraint is you have to have a room for either an 88 set up bathroom or one that can be adapted to an Ada's um bathroom, so this one could be.

C

You would probably lose the closet in the bathroom. If you wanted to put in an 88 qualified bathroom and then you would have to put smaller closets in other locations in the corner of that big room, bigger room, but.

E

You could for.

C

Instance, do this so, as you know, I did the conceptual layout on the county lot, the first time I did this. I did normal size. Apartments and I got something something in the neighborhood of 20 apartments, on three stores, Hank.

A

Do we want to spend a little time on the either the parking or the size, or are we ready to jump to the next topic? Should we or you do want to present it all at once and then have us.

C

Take, let me finish this and then we can talk about units.

A

Okay, that's fine.

C

And then we can go on to the parking.

A

C

So um so the first time I did this I came up with about 20 units, that's on two upper floors, ground floor, commercial about 10 per floor and then I set it up instead for micro apartments. Based on that previous floor plan and I got close to 40., so you can almost double the amount of units if you put in Studios that are designed for single people, young couples seniors who want to really downsize and live in a more walkable place, um so a little blow up of it.

C

So you know you can on this corner if we could convince the county who's interested in possibly setting up a request for proposal or expression of interest for developers to develop this corner and a park in in between that and the DMV building.

C

You could perhaps ask them, as part of the RFP process, to consider a proposal that would involve micro apartments or at least smaller scale apartments that would be inherently more affordable. So you would still get a certain amount of below market rate units based on our code, but all the units could be more affordable if they were smaller and designed to be so and this one. This parcel is set up for it.

C

Well, because the parking is so inefficient that you can cluster all the parking on the back two-thirds of the property and end up with 21 more spaces than you have now. So that would cover the commercial parking and you could have um as I point out.

C

You could have car free buildings. People are doing that around the country now, where they have lease agreements with tenants who don't have cars and that way, they're even.

F

C

Affordable because you don't have to pay for a parking space or a upkeep of a car, so this this.

B

Is John could I ask a question: does what controls the density in this Zone and I know it may be different for other zones, but is it? Is there a total square footage that you get based on the lot size or is there a unit density? It's.

C

Basically, the building envelope, there's no units per acre cap in the Central Main Street District, or the linkage District.

G

C

Many stories you have how many setbacks you have and what the parking requirements are. Those are the sort of big three variables that.

B

So it's kind of a that's a form-based code in those districts.

C

B

C

H

Again, here's a building.

C

Envelope you could create 20 units or you could create 40 units, um the developers who would come in when more likely, if it was a market rate building, want to build 20 units. But if it's sponsored by the county in the city, specifically attracting affordable housing builders who are interested in doing such things and looking for subsidies to help build them and subsidize units. Maybe you can convince them to do small-scale units either small one bedrooms, small Studios or a combination of both and.

F

C

You have enough parking that it doesn't matter if you have 20 units or 40 units, because you have excess parking on the back of that lot, and I also showed how the green can be set up to to integrate itself with the Farmers Market. So those blue.

H

E

C

The size of a market tent and you could fit 20 Market stalls around the green set it up. So the borders are designed to do to cover that and then any stalls that need trucks or cars or automobile access could overflow into the back lot on Sundays.

C

So this so let's you want to stop here and talk about smaller scale units before we go into parking.

I

What do y'all think you want to do parking too and we'll do them together. They're.

J

Kind of related, though I mean yeah. If you eliminate the parking the likelihood that a developer without subsidies would be more inclined to build these micro units correct.

C

I, don't think they'd be more inclined, because I think the market still is more valuable to them at larger units, more luxuries type units. But um you could attract developers who are interested in getting subsidized units and and doing smaller ones, and there would be the flexibility that you'd be able to provide. So.

A

Less disinclined with easing the parking, the minimal parking right, but.

C

Not necessarily yeah enough to make it work guarantee if you take.

A

C

Parking requirements which are going to build small units but I think there would be at least the option to do that.

A

C

I think the biggest problem is Market forces and profitability, and so um so.

A

Why don't you guys.

C

A court subsidized properties developers or kick in public land like on parking lots or something like that. Where the city kid has an incentive can say, we want smaller units as part of the package.

J

It's likely that without subsidies.

I

Wouldn't make the financial sense for developers to build micro units.

C

Well, it does, to a certain degree, depend on the size of the lot and the size of the um you know configuration because some buildings are small enough that you, you know, you'll get five units or four units or two units and and or six units, depending in the the profitability, might work out on certain smaller scale buildings for smaller scale Apartments, just because the nature of the building or the lot, but all things being equal, I think my experience has been.

C

Developers are more interested in building higher end units if they can get away with it, because that's um the Least Complicated and the easy easy easiest to Market in a in a high demand Market. The way Beacon is now with low vacancy or interest where they don't have to appeal. If you have a big complex like a lot of like Edgewater or something like that, then you would probably want to do more of a market mix, because you can't, you know, assume that everybody's going to want a one or two bedroom apartment.

C

You want to open up the mix, but for most buildings in the Main Street area or in the linkage District they're going to be looking at one and two bedroom apartments and maybe a couple threes. If they had.

B

um But on the DMV lot, when they put out the RFP, they can also put criteria for scoring those um and they are willing. The planners at Duchess County were willing to consider smaller Apartments.

A

Yeah I would hope that we would be able to work with the county on structuring what we're looking for and that they would take our interests into consideration, if not full partnership. So.

D

And I know we said at one point one point that that bottom income level there was just sort of no way to get at that bottom income level and I didn't jump in because it's like beating a dead horse over here with Supportive Housing. But um you know I keep bringing it up. It does get at that lowest income right bracket, I think you know, survivors of domestic violence, their average income is like 25 20 000 a year, often but I'm wondering from a planning perspective.

D

If we were to put that forward as something that the council was in, that the city was interested in in scoring high for, if, if a developer had a supportive component that they would score higher, and that was something that we were all interested in. Can you see any barrier within, um for instance, discounting lot to allowing that or recommending that to the county, Well.

C

You certainly could, and it's I shouldn't say that it's impossible. We have a developer just proposed.

H

C

Two cross street all elderly because they could get a certain amount of subsidies. So a private developer with.

H

C

Sort of subsidies can do low-income housing in the main street corner, but.

H

C

Think you have to have an enlightened developer and somebody who's, um maybe looking for Capital extra capital, and this is a way of doing it. But your standard developer not so much but.

D

It's sort of where we could put a preference in. Would you see that as a deterring factor.

C

I wouldn't, but I can't speak for the county in in this case, uh you know, I think the beacon, Housing Authority would be a another good option. That's been talked about for that because they have two properties that are reasonably centrally located on bus routes and perhaps could could do some expansion we're going to talk about that later. Both and thank you, uh that's the second topic. If we want to move on, is parking minimums.

C

um There's um there's been a big push in the planning Community to outdate to reform outdated parking standards. Most parking standards were done in the 1950s and 60s and they sort of been passed down without a lot of good justification. If you look at the ite, which is sort of the the industry group that puts out a book, that's updated all the time about what parking should be for each type of use.

C

It's based on Suburban models based on very few examples. It's really um I think not appropriate to go by those standards for the city, but that's the only one out there.

H

um And so there's.

C

There's been a big push: um there's a fellow named Donald Shupe out of um UCLA, who put out a 750 page book on parking standards. It was just a revelation to people talking in scientific detail about what makes parking work and doesn't work and um had called the high cross, the free parking and, as a result of that book, it's taken like 20 years baked into the process for people to respond.

C

But now, if you look at this map, something on the order of over 200 communities have reformed their parking standards to eliminate them in either the whole city or sections of the city. Most often the central business district of the city, um making the.

E

C

That parking lots to story, walkability parking in central areas, in particular, there's a lot of street parking available and you can get by with that. um And then, if you eliminate minimum parking standards that requirements that aren't based on good scientific data, um then you create flexibility in the market. There's more options for develop and most developers who finance your Banks and that sort of thing will still build parking.

C

They won't take advantage of the system, but they'll only build what they need, rather than what some arbitrary list says. They need and we've seen that on the planning board in Beacon how the parking standards don't make sense, even the revised ones, for the Central Main Street District, there's there's the lots are just too small to create parking lots if.

E

You put a parking lot.

C

On the parcel that's being rebuilt over on skank, there.

E

Would be no building there's.

C

The parking itself would only create 10 spaces on that building that lot. So you end up with creating parking lots all over the city center rather than buildings, all over the city center and relying on public parking and and street parking to handle the flexibility needed for parking.

C

So the experience with these communities that have eliminated parking standards has been actually pretty good. There hasn't been any there's been a couple rollbacks, but usually the two rollbacks that I know of were based on other issues.

C

I think it was uh it's Gainesville Florida adopted a form-based code with all sorts of new standards, including Bill minimums and conservative group of candidates ran in the next election against it and then jerked it back, but it was more over the housing and Suburban areas than it was about parking standards, but.

H

C

Speaking the ones that have done it and there's been a 10-year track record now of communities that have eliminated parkings minimum parking standards that the results have been no big catastrophe and more flexibility and more options for infield development in tight locations. So.

H

C

Shows the both the Countrywide, the the red dots, eliminate all minimum parking and the sort of golden ones are eliminating for the central business district or the main Center districts. So.

F

You can see most.

C

People do it mostly in this Central districts, but a significant number, including ones that I included in the memo locally, have eliminated minimum parking standards and haven't had a terrible time of it.

C

Hudson did it in 2019 eliminated all minimum parking standards just put a one one liner in there that any new development doesn't require parking minimum um and, generally speaking, the planning board negotiates with developers, and they come up with a reasonable number based on the size of the lot and the location, um and there is an incentive to developers to satisfy their customers and build what they think is adequate.

C

You might get a few freeloaders come along, but, generally speaking, it has worked in the places. They've tried it fish enough. Fishkill Kingston uh just adopted it, so they went through a three-year Ford base code, rewrite of the whole zoning law and it's very Progressive and very um out of character for any community in in this area, because it's entirely formed base code. It's based on a Transit theory of how to do things. It allows a mixture of uses much more flexibly in residential neighborhoods and they eliminate minimum parking standards. They did Institute and I'll.

C

Show you the this is their entire. This upper part of the screen is the entire table on zoning requirements for for parking, so there's no minimums in the Broadway, the Wall Street area, most of the residential neighborhoods around the Ronda area along the uh the only places that have minimums are the shopping center districts, the big plate develop condos, and things like that. Where there's 150 units already in place, they sort of grandfathered those and left them alone, and.

H

C

Along the edge of the Waterfront between the main road and the waterfront on the other wronged out there, because those lots have hardly any room and they so they put some minimums there.

C

They did add a minimum bicycle standards as.

E

C

Countervailing requirement in the zoning, but even those are pretty flexible. No minimum requirements for non-residential uses but suggestions uh they do have- and this is a big thing about their code. They have what they call minor site plans and major site plans and the major ones which are pretty major, go to the planning board and have a public planning process and that sort of thing and for those um for single but Footprints over 10 000 square feet or a total gross floor area that exceeds 50 000 square feet. You.

H

Have to go through a negotiation.

C

Process with the planning board for parking- and it involves doing a parking analysis, that's specific to your building and your location and then coming up with a whole list of parking reduction measures that you have to consider like bicycle parking and um Transit passes for residents. And you know things like that- that encourage people not to have cars and that way they Whittle down the number of required parking spaces. But the as.

E

C

Plan you can negotiate required parking in Kingston, but it.

K

Is right, can you say more what you mean by transit passes they're paying for their residents to take public transport, yes or alternative means.

C

Instead of building a parking space which is really expensive and and really expensive to maintain, they give them a free pass for for Transit things.

A

Like that on the County bus system, what's.

C

A

On the County bus system, yeah.

C

Yeah I assume I, don't really know what the bus system is. Yeah.

B

The county took over the city of Kingston's buses, okay and I. Think they've made riding free.

L

Yeah isn't Ulster County transportation.

C

Or ahead of themselves, but they they also have you know, so they have four or five cars in a big building that are, you can sign up for and use as part of the tenant package, or um they unbundle the cost of parking. So if you pay for an apartment, it's just for an apartment, and if you want a parking space, you have to pay extra and they inflate that priority as a way of convincing people who don't have cars or have fewer cars that live in that building. These there's a whole.

E

C

Of these sort of parking reduction measures that you negotiate with the developer to come up with what the ideal location a number of unit spaces for that site is on large partially but for most projects.

C

Anything reasonably small on small City Lots, no minimums there's a maximum parking requirement, so you can't have too many parking spaces, but there's even an exemption for that. So you can negotiate with them and indeed, in Kingston um minor site plans are decided by the administrator, there's a planning administrator and they give approvals. It doesn't go to the planning board. So anything, that's relatively minor and I I couldn't find an actual list of what makes something major or minor in the code. So it must be in there somewhere, but I couldn't find it.

C

But that's a real different way of looking at planning and zoning. Is you have a planning administrator that you trust to do the right thing and they make decisions on minor site plans and that can include three and four unit apartment buildings in residential neighborhoods.

C

So that's how how Kingston is doing it? We don't have any track record yet to see how it's going to work. They did form a parking task force or they're in the process of doing it. I'm thinking that that was in response to concerns that we want to keep an eye on how things go and monitor parking, um but um Hudson, for instance, I've been there plenty of time, I, don't see a major parking problem in Hudson and they've had there's no minimum standards for anything for since 2019.

C

So I I, propose or I suggested um different options. Sort of a council could consider if they're interested in reducing parking standards. One is just to go across the board and reduce them. You know the their 1950 standards, um maybe 1970s I, don't know uh when they're put in place, but they're Antiquated they're much larger than they need to be.

C

um So you could just go.

E

M

C

It two-thirds of what's there or some look at other places that have reduced them and gotten away with it. You could eliminate you could do that and or you could eliminate the minimum requirements for certain types of uses like affordable housing units. That would be a good incentive for affordable or smaller scale Apartments, so that the units under 500 square feet, for instance, would be exempt from parking.

C

That would be an incentive for developer who's. On a small lot to put in smaller units, uh you could eliminate requirements for specific districts. The way a lot of those golden dots on that map were for the Central Business District Central, Main, Street District or the Waterfront development District. Where there's you know, 1400 parking spaces down there.

C

um You can eliminate the required parking for the entire district, and that way the rest of the city would be. um You know, maintain a certain amount of parking standards, but in the Central Main Street District or the Waterfront development, District I think those are the two that are the likeliest candidates. They wouldn't have any and you would just negotiate with developers as part of the site plan review process.

L

John I have a quick question um if we were to eliminate um requirements where there's accessible street parking and public Lots mostly available. If somebody were to like just move here in the winter, where would they go when it snows well.

C

Usually they go to the public Lots right, yeah.

L

Those are good and.

C

They they have the right.

L

C

Park in the public lots for a certain amount of time before this, when the streets.

B

Are coming yeah, we encourage people to move into the lots for the first 24 hours, so we plow the roads and then they have to leave the lots and then we plow the Lots, but sometimes we plow the Lots initially too. If we need that to allow people to get into it,.

C

The green communities eliminate requirements within so many feet of a regular transit route. So, if you consider you know the Main Street shuttle to be a regular transit route, they could be eliminated on the corridor from the train station up to the uh the.

E

End of Bay Street, or something like that.

C

And- um and that would be an inducement, those people have access to free Transit. They don't need a car, you can get to a grocery store and almost everything you need in Beacon along the main street corner um you you can get. You can live without a car in Beacon, it's harder in other places where grocery stores or on the outside of canal, but you can live in Beacon without a car. Well,.

L

I think in some areas, like my word particularly, is very walkable friendly, where I live. I live right off of Main Street, but if you're living like on the mountain or towards the east side of Main Street, it gets a little harder yeah.

C

Absolutely that's why this one was set up to be within so many feet: the Main Street coroner for instance, so it's not tied to the Central Main Street District. It applied the linkage. It would apply to Waterfront development and applied the central mainstream, but along within a quarter mile of the bus route, the free bus route, for instance. That would be another option.

N

The other concern there seems to be, of course, as we were discussing two weeks ago, the city itself doesn't have control over where our Transit is. um We have influence, of course, um but that feels uh like a concerning uh piece of the puzzle. In my mind, um I don't know if John, if you have thoughts about that.

C

Well, um I think it's true, you don't have absolute control over the bus routes, you do have a pretty good working relationship and they respond to City needs. But um you know that's. This is one of five options that I put on the table. So if that's a concern then you might want to just do it for the Central Main Street district and the Waterfront development district and not tie it to if um a walking distance and.

B

John I think we had talked at a prior meeting that Dutchess County is looking at revamping some of its lines like the the Free Loop. The G would essentially become the trolley service that you've envisioned, so it would go basically from Main Street from the train station up Main Street around East Main Leonard. You know just turn around and come back and then they would augment the B and the F lines so that you had.

B

You picked up some of the other areas like the beacon, Housing Authority that no longer are on the g-brew, and then it also augments the buses going out to Fishkill for shopping at Walmart and and some of the other stores. Where you know, people often need to go.

A

So um I mean I appreciate your list, but I I was on five a while ago, which is I. I have no idea why we are continuing to impose minimum parking requirements. It's a throwback to like building suburbs and Roads and I.

E

A

It so I have a very simple solution, which is the Kingston or the looks like Burlington example, which is just stop no minimum requirements. Let the planning board sorted out, I, don't know where others are, but that's.

C

For sure now it does put the plan Import in a bit of a spot. If you ever have a concentrate developer. Who now doesn't have anything in the law that you have to that it that that person has to abide by but I think generally speaking, but.

A

The Market's going to manage that I mean. If, if you don't do it right, you can't sell your stuff. Yes right so.

E

A

I mean I could see Main Street uh I, don't want to have any parking yeah. That's fine, but I think we're going to solve that. I I would like to see a cell that a different way, which is if Main, Street Lots, don't have parking. Well, then maybe then be a contribution to a Central, Parking Arrangement right. So.

K

Related to that I think all the cities that you listed all do have some form of paid parking or resident permits, or some combination of there, including Kingston and Hudson, which is not something that we have by and large and so I'm curious in your I opinion, whether you think that's something that should be taken into consideration along with any change in our minimum parking requirements.

C

Yeah I know the topic, but um well.

K

It's connected in terms of it. It directs people towards the how you want them to act in terms of Parts manage.

C

C

Book that Empire has essentially three big points and I can't remember all three of them, but two of them are paid parking. That's managed by demand, eliminate minimum parking requirements and I'm trying to remember the third. But yes, the theory um that goes along with eliminating all minimums works.

E

C

When you have paid parking, that's managing demand, so it's more flexible in high demand areas, cost more and in low demand areas. It costs nothing or much less so um that it. That is an option that you consider, but I I think the the reason I set it up is sort of five options. Is you could phase it in?

C

um You could do it where it makes most sense. um You could see how it works and um consider, and it doesn't have to automatically go along with paid parking.

A

Yeah, because I I view our discussion is about zoning and about imposing costs on putting a a unit up right because it comes with parking, whereas managing parking is just sort of a different issue. I mean you know, you could eliminate parking requirements and not have any parking problems that would require demand management. You could have a ton of problems that require demand management and again you could have parking requirements right and.

B

And like when they did the Main Street access report, there were kind of different. There was the low hanging fruit and we still haven't implemented all of the low-hanging fruit.

B

One of the primary reasons you charge for parking on Main Street is to try to drive that traffic into the Lots so that somebody's not sitting in that spot all day. But if you look at our main street, it's all posted for two hour parking. Now the enforcement hasn't been as good as I'd like, but we do have the mechanism there and then we've been picking up additional spots within a block or two of Main Street.

B

By doing some of the restriping that John suggested at Eliza Street we're going to be doing Henry Street in the next few weeks and taking that from parallel parking to diagonal parking. So there is still quite a bit of that low-hanging fruit that we haven't hit.

B

Yet you know look some of our Lots we've put signs in, but I still don't think people know to park there like Digger Phelps lot, I've, never seen more than two or three cars there Chestnut a lot on the weekends is often you know, sparse Henry, the Henry Street Lots as well.

A

So um we have other topics.

I

A

Viewpoints before we move on again I'm giving you mine, which is yeah, it's easy, just just eliminated.

C

Right I think it's an important point that I'm making here is the average cost nowadays of owning and operating and maintaining a cars has stopped ten thousand dollars a year. So if you're talking about affordable housing, that's nine hundred dollars a month, you can apply to your rent if you don't own a car, and so if you can figure out how to live close to where you work and where you need to shop and get along without a car, you can subsidize your apartment substantially.

C

900 a month is a lot of money um free freed for the year, so um in the average budget. That makes a big difference. So if you come up with strategies to to allow Apartments not to have vehicles and encourage people not to have vehicles, it's a naturally occurring way of creating more affordable, Park Apartments.

K

Yeah I I personally really like the idea of the um the shared car services and I know that I think Ithaca has tried a municipal model at least a model that was non-profit, that I think I, don't know if it's even currently going, but just as a way to get us from where we are to the future. I think that the reality is a lot of places. People want to visit, they either does require a car. People have the idea that it does so to give them a way to experience.

K

You don't need to be own, a car that is just yours and what's a way of the city, that we can support that. Do your question. Lee I'm, also fine, with the Citywide Approach, at least at this current point in time. My one question is that I also want to encourage smaller units and affordable housing, and so, if there's a way that we can direct developers towards that by offering reduced or the elimination of parking minimums in certain places, but not others, it could actually drive us towards the development that we want.

K

So that's the one thing that I'm thinking about and weighing in what we want to do in the short term.

A

Others before we go on and we'll come back and we don't have to have the answers right, I.

I

Mean whatever we do end up um determining it can be Revisited. As you know, Kingston I'm sure will be looking at this and looking at when you take these radical approaches and departing from a 50-year. You know policy yeah. You have to constantly review it and see how it's working in suburbance tweaking.

C

So the third issue that I was asked to look at was the beacon housing authority and I haven't talked to them, so this is sort of off just the top of my head.

C

um I, don't know what their plans are: I'm, not speaking for them. I, don't have any insight knowledge about what their plans are.

C

Just what I've read in the paper and what I've heard talked about is they're interested in providing and housing that is subsidized that would fit into that category of the lowest quintile and.

C

There's a few options that I thought I'd just look at the first one: they owned two properties in Beacon, the ham, Hamilton Fish Plaza up on Fishkill, Avenue, really fronts on Eliza, but um people recognize it from Fishkill Avenue, it's shown on the screen here. It's a 1.5, Acre Site. It has 70 apartments two and three stories.

C

It doesn't have a lot of parking, but it has enough parking that apparently it handles it because they have room for more and they haven't built it. So that means that the people who live there don't use a lot of cars because it doesn't have a doesn't appear to have a spot for every unit. So there's an insta. You know an indication that at least this type of tenant doesn't need one car per unit or two car per units that are in the minimum standards.

C

There isn't much room to develop on this site, it's surrounded by single family homes. You could build a building on the rear parking lot and have under building parking, but then you only get two stories out of it. It's not something I would think would be um worth the money to create a limited number of units, and then you would probably get complaints from all the Neighbors about building a three-story building on the property line.

C

um I looked at the parcel across the street. This is an OM, so this is purely conjecture. I have no idea who owns that or what their plans are, but it's been vacant for a long time. It's in the same zoning District. So it's a zone for multi-family housing.

C

So it's 1.2 Acres, it's got an existing building on it that looks um probably rehabbed I've never been inside of it. Under the current zoning, you could only fit 10 units on this property, which is not very much. If you move to the T district, there would be 20 units if it if you moved into an RD 1.5, which would be more consistent with what the Hamilton Fish is. It's even less um and consistent with what you allow in the general business district, for instance, 1500 square foot per unit.

C

You can fit 34 units on it, which would combine between the two buildings. Look something like that with rear parking lot.

C

um So you know if this property was available and the beacon Housing Authority was interested or had the financing the buy property.

C

um This might be a way of expanding and the the only way that it would work is if you change the zoning to something like the um an RD 1.5 which you don't have in the code right now, the lowest district is Rd 1.7, which is what Edgewater is.

A

1 7 is not a mile off from one five. It's in, at least in the ballpark right.

C

A

E

C

Said you allow that in other places in the city in the general business district, you can put your 1500 square foot, so it's not like unheard of and for senior housing or um subsidized housing with smaller units. This might be a good location to think about. It's yeah.

A

Across the street, we had a Zone that we retired an RMF 1.5 right, yeah.

C

Residential multi-family one yeah 1.5 yeah- that was sort of gone by the time I got here.

A

C

I, don't no I can't remember exactly what the standards were.

A

Yeah and I'll go look for it.

C

But you could still keep the 35 foot limit and things like that. You just allow fewer parking spaces and more units on a pretty good sized parcel in walking distance of Main Street and surrounded by um you know not single family homes, so the neighbors reactions might not be as severe.

C

The big property is down off Walcott.

C

um It's 175 units, one in a 70 in a nine story building and the rest in one and two story: um walk-ins that are clustered randomly around the site. It looks like they have dead-end parking lots which is not always helpful in terms of circulation and and and acts emergency access.

C

um So there's I saw you know again: I don't have any inside information about the what they might be thinking. But if it was me, if they were asking me I would say: there's two options: one is to build on existing parking lots. You probably have more parking than you need, or you could build over a parking lot. uh There is a 10-story limit in this District, so you could put a pretty substantial building on if you wanted to I. Don't think maybe anybody's talking about that.

C

But you could put Sam mid-rise building a four-story building or a five-story building on one or two of those parking lots. I.

B

Think they've been exploring a four because above four, you have to go to different materials for your structure.

C

Yes, yeah, usually that's the limit. You can go to Five if you ground level and a lot of times you have under building parking. So you'd want to do that anyway, and so you build four Stick built above a one-story Podium for parking.

B

And on your map, the two parking lots I know that they've been talking to developers about are the ones on the East Side by Dean and Street, and then on the North side that longer lot that runs along West, Center yeah.

C

I I a little harder time. You know because I think those are up against single-family neighborhoods and they um you know, I think it would be better to front on Walcott than it would be on Center Street.

D

um John, do they have HUD contracts that limit their ability to get rid of parking.

C

I have no idea.

B

I think they just have to abide by the affordability.

C

Most of the time I, my assumption would be: they only have to abide by local zoning, but I don't know.

C

um So this was these were the two options that I put on the table: building over the main two parking lots that front on Walcott, uh and so you would be able to pull underneath and put four stories above that one building would Overlook the park and the other one would be next to the Housing Authority office.

C

Building I would also suggest you, you think about the idea of putting a street connector through the center of the property, so that you don't have dead-end parking lots and you have some emergency access to the middle of the property.

C

um I think you could do that and you could put some on-street parking along that so that you have more of a you know: Street Front block situation more traditional.

C

um The way the rest of the city looks rather than having this Oddball conflict cluster of kitty corner buildings that are all different angles. That's not the way the city usually builds.

C

So most people who have redeveloped come up with different schemes to to add buildings to housing, developments that were built in the 70s I'm, not sure when this was built, but I sort of assume the 70s um do talk about having more Street access.

C

So there's more options for interior surveillance had better emergency access on street parking, rather than in parking lots.

C

Those sorts of advantages you get because of this layout I couldn't find another location where you can break this Mass up because they're at such strange angles, but that would be something I would suggest they think about, um and so you could have a four-story building on a one-story Podium which would replace the existing parking and then use the existing Lots connected by a street to allow circulation between the parking lot and the new buildings or the existing buildings.

C

H

Again, the zoning.

C

Is is 1.8 which allows 192 units, so you only get 17 more units. If you leave the exoding the way it is now so again, I suggest, if you think about doing it to a 1.5.

C

So therefore you could get up to I think 56, more units which would be a decent size number of units for a four-story building.

C

But you know you can think about multiple buildings. You could also replace some of the one and two-story buildings with mid-rise buildings, which you know involves displacement and that sort of thing, so it's a little harder to imagine happening, but that's also a possibility. You end up with a net higher number of units which I think is the goal is to provide more units so that there's more opportunity for people who are in the lowest income brackets.

A

Other possibilities for this site in terms of zoning changes that we could help.

C

um Well again, the two impediments to developing this site with any more housing is you'd, have to change the zone, to.

E

Something that.

C

Allows a little bit more development potential and then you would also have to eliminate the or reduce the parking standards.

B

Yeah because I'm sure have a setbacks.

C

You may need that it doesn't have bad setbacks, but it it. You know that you are trying to cut things into small Lots I mean in the small building envelopes I. It depends on I didn't want to get into too much detail because I have no idea. What's on their mind, the Housing Authority.

A

Yeah I know I appreciate this, because my my reactions to this is one um going from 1.8. So for the public, the r stands for residential. um The next letter would probably indicate something lower. It was multi-family as opposed to single family.

C

Design, residentialism right so Rd or RMF and.

A

Then the number that follows that is the number of square feet in thousands per dwelling unit. So when we say R something five, that means one unit per 5 000 square feet, there's only eight of those in an acre. That's what you'd get out of five thousand square feet, but 1.5 would be one unit per 1500 square feet of the lot right, and so it's at 1.8, that's 1800. So it's not a dramatic reduction but you're saying going to one five. Fifteen hundred square feet per unit would allow probably another building with some ease right.

A

Yes, that makes a lot of sense and then yeah the setbacks, issue, Chris I think the only place where the setback issue would again in the.

B

A

Lots is is, if they wanted to build in the parking lots, then there might be a setback.

B

That is what they're looking for, because there's a really nice canopy of trees in between that kind of creates a natural block. The.

E

Other the other.

B

Thing is in the center of their property. They have some beautiful, mature trees that are 40 and 50 years old that are just um I it'd, be heartbreaking to see a road go through some of those areas.

C

Well, I only saw one tree that would have to be lost if that tree, if that road going on, but I was working off Ariel, so I might.

L

C

um But if you put the buildings on the rear parking lots uh they're not only right up against um single-family neighborhoods, but they're also, you have to build them at the end of the dead end, so they're sort of removed from the street system in terms of walkability and that sort of thing, because you can't put them at the beginning, because then they would block access to the rest of the parking. So you know I'm certainly willing to court any possibility.

C

But that was my suggestion. Looking at the Aerials and the and the configuration in the current layout.

A

Any input from Council I'm just kind of talking through ideas.

N

uh Just thank you, you John, for confirming and clarifying what role the city could potentially play in supporting further development here.

C

A

So again, I'd be interested in seeing us alter the Zone into the one five that you're suggesting that was sort of my target as well. I think the city-wide elimination of minimum parking standards- it would be an easy fit here. This is, um you know, a customer base that doesn't use a lot of cars already I, think that makes a lot of sense. As for the rest, it really would depend on what they're thinking, but the the setbacks might be of relevance too.

A

So we might want to think about that, because I I think Chris is right. They're sort of looking at parking lots right now, and that might be the third.

C

The last question that I was asked to look at was the fish go Creek Fishkill Avenue corridor, and um you know if you go out there, it's pretty sad. It was sad already when there was a thousand cars parked right up against us, the um the sidewalk, but now it's even worse, because you have complete empty asphalt up against everything. It's starting to look pretty Barren in some of those car lots and uh I I've heard through car dealers that the model has completely changed about.

C

How, and maybe you know it was instituted during the pandemic and maybe it's going to be a permanent model now, with competition from carvana and online based dealers that you order your car, you have a showroom, but you don't have a huge lot and you don't go out there with a huge inventory to pick from you order, your stuff based on options online and they ship it to you in two weeks or three weeks or whatever they can manage, um and so this sort of dealers that are lining Fishkill Avenue may not be there very much longer I don't know, but there has been rumors that um these these Lots out here may be open for other options, and you know the what the current zoning is.

C

uh Light, industrial or general business has no design standards, so by default you can do almost anything there um and the planning board, in spite their best intentions, would have a hard time convincing you you couldn't do front yard parking or um you know, limited landscaping or the rest of it um drive-through Windows whatever now. Maybe maybe you need a spot for that, and this is the spot in the city, but there has been at least um some talk about, um and there was one building.

C

That's come before the planning board that has used the Main Street model rather than a general business model as a way of um building and I'll show you that in a second but I just wanted to sort of look. This is what's existing is sort of a hodgepodge of different districts um and you can see uh what they look like I'm sure, everybody's familiar.

E

C

Is a a couple: there are a couple Remnant buildings that were there from before the car dealers and the strip development happening. So you can see that one brick building of the of the North End of the GB District. uh It has a nice brick wall, That's shielded side yard parking lot. You also get an idea now that the MTA rail line is going away and it's going to turn into a rail trail, and that seems pretty imminent or at least inevitable. Yeah, not.

A

Sure how it's coming right, don't know when.

C

But it's coming yes! So if you look.

E

C

It any attitude, because all those properties along the East to Southeast side of of Fishkill Avenue, we'll now have Creek front and rail trail, Frontage and so they'll, look sort of like this middle picture on the right, where you see the rail trail and the creek, and so those properties in particularly I think, would be much better suited for mixed use, um sensitively, design, building and parking Arrangement rather than the sort of standard strip development along there with card oriented uses, backed up to a rail trail and a and a creek.

C

So I was asked to think about what could happen here. If you were thinking about an alternative design scheme or a zoning change- and this is a suggestion, so here's the building that was approved already and is going to be built at the corner of Conklin Street. It was designed by somebody who is familiar with Central, Main, Street and other building, and they came in with a really nice design, with all the parking cluster to the rear. A two and three story building um you know consistent with sort of the way buildings in Beacon.

C

Look it's and put in Street trees and all the rest of it. You can see by the site plan here that it still has, you know more parking than building because they met the building requirement.

E

C

Parking requirement, so that made me be able to Be Tamed. If you, for instance, there was a lot of there was actually quite a few um on-story parking spaces that are never used along Conklin Street. That could have been negotiated to lower the number of required parking in the back and allowed more landscaping, for instance, but they provided everything that satisfied the code. They did it right. They put the building in front the parking and back Landscaping sitting area for tenants, the rest of it, but.

E

There's no guarantee.

C

The next developer isn't going to put in a you know: a uh McDonald's Big Mac Burger King drive-through, with a lot of parking around it um or another. You know dollar store or whatever.

C

So if the city wants to rethink this area, and particularly based on the fact that it's going to now have new sidewalks, hopefully New Street trees and a rail right-of-way rail trail right-of-way with creek access along its entire length, you could combine the existing zoning into a fish, kill, Avenue zoning district and set up design standards and parking requirements and Landscaping requirements and Architectural standards that are similar to the linkage District or the Central Main, Street, District or whatever District. You wanted to start building off of what.

D

About environmental, what's.

C

D

What about environmental just to protect the the Watershed at the creek sure.

C

I mean you have that anyway, but under the secret standards we can do.

D

E

C

Look at that yeah, um but it's easier to do if you have design standards. That say this is how you have to build in order to be sensitive to the rail trail in the creek.

D

um Yeah I think about things like lighting, for instance. Absolutely you know it's just a little goes a long way to.

E

D

C

So this would include the general business district on the North, some of the light industrial district down towards Memorial Park and the heavy industrial district, which is the rail trail quarter, and it would it wouldn't be that difficult to put together, because you would pick the best standards that are already part of the Central Main Street linkage districts and just replicate them out here now.

C

The question is: do you still want a place in the city for gas stations or car washes or whatever I left some white industrial district down on the southern end, um where the Meineke place is and on that Comenity the taleks complexes that what former Talent complex? But you could leave some more of the you know at the fringes, for uh you know if you thought that you'd still needed a place for auto oriented stuff.

C

But those are those are sort of the choices on the table. If you want to do something different for this District before it turns into more of the same, and you lose the opportunity for when these card dealers go out of business, that they can be retrofitted into something that looks more. Like the city and less like Route, 9 South,.

C

Sorry, Route 9 South looks a lot better than this section. S.

K

John, do you have any thoughts about parking in this area if we did allow sort of denser main street-like buildings sort of how we should think about Park I, don't know if Fishkill Avenue itself is wide enough to take parking even on one side or if it's more about side streets or just having parking lots in the back.

C

E

That you'd have to think about.

C

That I mean if you wanted to eliminate them, you could, but you would likely have spillovers on side, streets and they're, not a lot of side streets in this neighborhood and I. Don't think I haven't looked at the plan since I thought about this, but the fish collaborative Rehabilitation plan does not Envision on-street parking.

B

No, but it we we've truncated, the Fishkill Avenue project to stop at Memorial Park. We.

C

Still have the option.

B

Yes, so we we can rethink this area, and um so we've done a couple things we've rejected the bids that came in this spring that were five million dollars over budget.

B

We we have the engineer going back and doing all of teller, all the fish Guild to Blackburn and and we're seeing how much project we can buy out of that we're going to rebid that this fall okay, the council then put in money for sewer replacement along Fishkill Avenue for that next section going towards the town, and then we thought at some point: we'd come back and we'd use our state touring money and our chips to repave it and then we'd. Look for other money for the sidewalks.

B

So we're going to stop the Fishkill teller Avenue project at Blackburn, and this can still be in play for realignment of that roadway. We don't have to go with the original plants and Dot will be extricated from that piece of it. Oh.

C

Yeah yeah: huh well then, you know, then you could build on-stream parking as part of a mix and that would replace a lot of the need for parking lot specifically on this on the side. Next, to the creek, where you you don't want to have parking between the buildings and the creek, and you don't want to have front yard parking either, so it's always becomes tougher on. So you might have different standards on the east side of Fishkill than you do on the west side, where there's more room for parking.

B

And we really didn't have the play to do that before, because they parked the cars right up to the curb line and.

A

B

They didn't even want the curb line: yeah yeah.

C

The stripe was all they went out.

B

Of there well, we put a curb, but they weren't happy about it.

A

So you know this picture in the right hand. Side of the site plan is just a travesty because of the amount of parking uh that's taking up on the lot. I mean just look at it. It's just awful and it's like we need to fix this.

A

Now is what I, when I see that, because you're telling me if, if we had eliminated the parking standards one, it would either be more units, which would be a good thing or to be more Landscaping, and it's just like what a disaster so I I'm I, look at that and say we're already late um and I'd like to get it fixed and again, I still go back to I.

A

Don't see why we have this minimum requirement at all, um but the other thing I look at is oh on this street there isn't housing directly behind the Main Street buildings. In other words, whatever we whatever is on 52, is very different than what we put on our Main Street. Our Main Street goes immediately down to single-family homes right next to it, which you know kind of puts reasons for us to have height limitations.

A

I, don't know what the right height is um a four a four wouldn't have hurt at all in this site because look what's next to it.

A

um So I'm, not saying I, don't know the answer, but I think that there's a there's a a more of a blank um easel here for us to work with canvas in terms of Designing I mean if you said, if we did on-street parking well, maybe that means we're just going to alter the speed of which which people come in and slow them down a little bit, and we want them to come to our shops and boy.

A

There's lots of possibilities, I, don't know the answers, I'm, just throwing out ideas that we may want to think about in the process other than parking. It's really obvious for that picture. We've got the parking wrong so.

C

That's current parking standards in the GP District they're. The old parking standards are not the more reduced parking standards that you see in the Central, Main Street or linkage. District.

C

um Yes, I I think those are the questions on the table. I think there may be. There are houses that back up against the GB District.

E

C

For instance, at the Northern end you could put higher height limits because it backs up against the chemical manufacturer yeah. You could put higher ones along the creek so that there's better views of the mountains and.

E

C

A lot of this is because you know it's Trail right-of-way, so you're not going to get but I I would think that if you can redesign that Corridor to allow on-street parking on both sides, it would make a huge difference in terms of being allowed to do minimum parking requirements that are either way down or uh non-existent for certain areas.

N

Don, can you help me understand um what leverage we might have um to incentivize things like Grocery, Stores um or laundromats, or other sort of day-to-day life use um Industries in this area, or is that just purely commercial and we just have to yeah.

C

There's there's just.

N

Ask the market to do it. Federal.

C

Retail, you know it's it's hard through zoning to it's I think it's impossible. The zoning to unless you create a specific Shopping, Center District, with only limited uses, allowed like a grocery store or Pharmacy and whatever.

D

There is a laundromat.

E

D

Already yeah the groceries.

C

E

This road yeah.

C

But the other way to do it is really opened. It's open, yeah, yeah yeah. So it's hard to do through zoning, except that I would say that if you allow a strong residential base to develop there, then the services will follow.

C

If, if you have, you know a thousand people who live in this Corridor or whatever number there's going to be a laundromat that comes to that neighborhood um and the same, you could say for a grocery store or some sort of food Outlets, because commercial follows residential and so right now it's it's a drivable Corridor, the only things that have exist out. There are things you drive to, and even most of them you only drive to once in a while, because you know you don't need a car every weekend.

I

We also don't want to. We also don't want to Zone it so that these those are not options going forward. You know a supermarket in parkings.

C

Yes, yeah, but you know in areas where you allow next use development. Grocery stores have gone in if there's enough Demand on ground floors of larger scale, buildings.

A

You had a road that poured into this section with some housing that was feeding into it. That would only encourage the activity that we.

E

A

B

John, would you include the kempren property so that the front of that property could be redeveloped.

C

For job creation, types of buildings.

B

C

To be built, I mean I, don't know why that that company.

L

H

C

Front of their property yet um and because they have enough room, the setbacks are not large in the light industrial district, so you could I didn't build out on that property. It was like a hundred thousand square feet or something you could figure it out in the front of that property. If you had a two-story building with and it goes up a hill, so you could have access from different levels.

C

um So it just seems you know you could turn it into next year's development um or you could leave it the way it is and encourage the.

H

C

To bring in job creation type uses that would be walkable to this area.

D

Could I'm just wondering if there's something about what they're, what they're making there that could keep them from wanting to have housing on top of their land? I've.

C

Never heard of any complaints about that. We.

D

Have a smell for sure: I don't know if it's coming from there, but but.

C

I'm not sure what they make in there. I don't know.

D

Yeah I think there's there's definitely some emissions of some kind yeah.

C

Well, that might be a better reason to leave it. Industrial on the front end.

E

C

Than mixed use, but it.

E

Depends also you.

C

Know there's been talk about trying to convince the state to open up some of the state land south of the prison for industrial type uses, and so, if you could rezone that area for industrial and have an access road over Matawan, then the frontage could become more flexible. For instance,.

A

So any other input, because I would I would suggest a set of to-do's for John this next step. If that's okay, I would I would suggest that um he comes back with you know, sort of. What's the process for us to do here and what might be kind of Target. You know sort of high level components of the Zone.

A

um Maybe that just means you're you're picking the best bits of our form-based. You know components but I would I would say you know we would move forward, there's something conceptual in this area. It doesn't have to be fully formed and then just working, you know kind of backwards.

A

um I would suggest if it's okay with folks that we come back with a proposal affecting the zoning or um on the Housing Authority lots and I kind of heard us talk about um um The, Zone itself. You know possibly going down to R15 thinking about parking, although again I would propose that city-wide and then also setback concerns and maybe to have a conversation with them as the next step of with something like this help. Or do you have other things in mind?

A

So maybe it's a two-way conversation and then um on on parking and a small units. I would suggest that we, you know, make a proposal for consideration and you know where I sit, which is just eliminated Citywide. What happens.

K

With them the county lot, is there any further information about their timeline for when they're hoping to do an rfprfq, nothing. Yet, okay, great.

B

And and I do expect that if the Housing Authority wants to move forward on something they'll come back to us, this fall, so we might want to hold fire on that until we understand what we you know, what they're looking to do, yeah.

A

Or maybe what we do is we generate a memo of kind of our thoughts and then we kind of hold that for a while and wait.

D

Mayor would it be okay if John also looked at the environmental concerns that I brought up for that Fishkill District.

A

D

Well, in the outset,.

A

Yeah, absolutely because you know the Fishkill Creek development Zone has a set of those that you could pick and choose what would make sense right because it is along the creek yeah.

D

I think that our ward 3 constituents would want to see what we have now and then how we could step it up a few notches if we were expecting more development in the area.

H

Thank you, yeah. The.

A

Other thing is that that's an area where the rail trail actually may simplify, you know sort of our long-term Greenway thinking, thinking right, because we were slowly kind of building pieces of it and it's like ooh. What a gift directly.

I

A

To it right so um then.

F

A

Mean you know we may want to kind of think through that component as well. The.

C

Current Greenway Trail is built has been built piecemeal because it's been built by developers as development happens. So there's it's not this one. Theoretically, if the funding was there come in and one big swath and.

H

C

A link all the way through the city um that would be a terrific asset, for you know, circulation down to the train station and along the whole Creek Corridor, and for bikes and and lockers as well.

C

You know Beacon really needs micros designated bikers, and this would be sort of number one bike route. I would think, as it goes right to Main Street from the north end to the South End so, um and it would provide a buffer that rail trail provides that sort of buffer between the development and the creek. So it automatically creates sort of a stopping point so that development can't happen right along Creekside, which has been on a problem with some of the other sites that are along the creek.

C

Is the developer wants to be as close to the creek as possible? This way, there's always going to be a 40-foot right-of-way or whatever it's publicly owned between development and the creek in that quarter.

L

C

Reducing impermeable services in there from all those car lots would be a big help.

A

So is that, generally, okay, again, details won't be so fleshed out that they can't be worked as a group, but at least to start to kind of conceptually put down something to work with all right.

K

Thank you, John.

B

um John's on this next agenda item so.

A

um 8 20, but the next time it's going to take us a little while- and it's directly related to this- so there's a discussion on hiploss sort of a concept plan on the next piece of their puzzle. Nick. Are you going to introduce this or are you you're going to come? Talk to us? Nick was going.

O

To try in there I'm happy to kick off this discussion and provide just an overview of the project and also the council's role and then see if Harry just wants to put the plans up on the screen and walk a group of plans and give you a brief overview of any items he thinks. I may have missed and certainly from John as well. But let me kick it off and see if I can cover.

O

95 is not 100 of this, so the council may recall it previously reviewed the hitbox project for a concept plan review back in August, and this project concerns an existing three and a half acre Basin vacant parcel adjacent to the previously developed Beacon Lofts project located off of fiscal Avenue along with fishco Creek, and you referred this to the planning board, the city planning board for a review and Report with respect to the concept plan and also for them to be the lead agency under the State Environmental Quality review act secret, so they could make a determination of significance.

O

The planning board reviewed this project at several meetings, starting in September and concluding in June, and issued a determination of significance with the adoption of what's called a negative declaration, which is a 10 or 12 page document, going through various environmental findings and issuing its opinion, and they also issued a report and recommendation with a favorable finding that the city recommendation that the city council approved the concept plan. This project requires concepts of plan approval from the city council.

O

You will be required to hold a public hearing and schedule that when you think it's ready, it's not on your agenda for tonight. But if you are inclined you could do so, we could I could verbalize a resolution at tonight's meeting for consideration. If you wish to do so or hearing at your August, your September 11th meeting and after the issuance of the concept plan, a project goes back to the planning board, so the planning board can issue the site plan.

O

It's gone through this back and forth because your Law requires review of a concept plan and also by the planning board and state law requires that the project have a secret review and you determined that would be by the by the planning board. So generally, the project is again vacant: land, construction of a new two-story, approximately 52 000 square foot, building which will have a 30 000 square feet of commercial artist, Studios on the first floor and then 28, one bedroom, loft apartments.

O

On the second floor, of which three will be the below market rate units, the BMR units, the project is located in the fish: go Creek development, the SCD zoning District, as well as the historic district and landmark overlay District.

O

The planning board in their review report dated July 25th I'm, going to read it because I think it's important to see the plan were put into this and revising the project with the applicant that, during the boards review, the applicant modified the concept plan to make substantial improvements to The Greenway Trail, including increased landscaping and enhanced accessibility by the elimination of stairs that were previously proposed.

O

On the trail, in addition, the concept plan was modified to reduce a proposed amount of impervious surfaces, specifically in the area of proposed off street parking, and the majority of the planning board is in support of reducing the required number of parking spaces from 95 to 80, based upon a shared parking analysis.

O

In addition, the planning board is in favor of land banking, an additional 14 parking spaces based on the anticipated interplay between this project, the new building and the tenants of the neighboring developed parcel whereby tenants of the neighboring parcel of expressed interest in renting the proposed art studios. Therefore, the playing board finds that 66 constructed parking spaces plus 14 Land Bank spaces, rather than the 95 required by the City Zoning code, would be sufficient for the project and then the board Note, the Nation.

B

We're losing your audio! Oh okay! Sorry! It's very muffled.

O

I apologize so I, just read: the city counts. The planning boards report recommendation report, which is in your agenda packet, just want to briefly go through the negative declaration, which is also in your packet and in there the planning board goes through a required sikra categories of potential impacts, the first being the impact on the land, and they note that 80 percent of the site will be maintained as open space, which is an exceeds the 30 measures required under the zoning.

O

District regulation may also note that it's um presently vacant land that is not really vegetated and that it's again a three and a half acre parcel and it will be improved with the greenway Trail, which is existing, but it will be uh be enhanced.

O

um There also his comments on the Water and Sewer, which particular required to be examined and there's um on page three goes through and notes that um will be steps taken to eliminate the stormwater inflow and infiltration the ini that is presently existing. Coming into the municipal sewer system, by removing an old plates, Old Clay, sewer pipe and also there are a number of improvements proposed to the sewer pump station that will eliminate odors that have been recognized mended by the city's engineer and I understand agreed to by the by the applicants.

O

If that will address some concerns, um there's also a discussion on stormwater management and erosion and sediment control, because this is located near the fishco creek, noting that there's an infiltration Basin for water quality control, there's a storm water pollution prevention plan, joint construction that will be as being reviewed and will be implemented.

O

The negative decoration also announced the Board review, the impact on flooding that the property is located within the 100 year, flood plain and it does comply with the city's flood plain control law and that the proposed buildings and structures are outside of a floodway and proposed action will not increase the 100 100 Year floodplain elevation by more than one feet.

O

um There's also a discussion on Aesthetics Resources with the board. Finding will not have a significant adverse environmental impact. The board notes that it reviewed the site plans and the detailed architectural elements that the site is being preserved, if only with 80 of it remaining as open space, and noting that the architecture is being designed consistent with the sort of the Old Mills and the adjoining buildings. On page six.

O

It goes for the archaeological resources and the review that was undertaken with the finding of um no disturbance by the by the state and by the by The Village or the City Board I'm. Also noting, with respect to Recreation, will that be enhancements and improvements to the rimway trail as a positive, then, on page seven is a commentary on the impact on transportation and I understand.

O

There was a traffic report reviewed by the planning board and some review letters and additional generated by the planning boards traffic consultant, and there were responses and some back and forth between as they flesh those issues out.

O

But it was determined during the secret review by the planning board that the additional traffic to be generated coming out of the intersection of Route, 52 and Mill Street, and also along Front Street, would not have a negative impact and that it was um was adequate and then there was also a discussion about the impacts to parking and the recommendation. That would be reduced, but that's just an overview of some of the work that is, uh the planning board took, which is um contained in your packet.

O

Also in your packet is the actual site plan which I'll ask Aria to just go through work for board room and then I'll have some comments as well.

O

You also have a memo from our office that walks you through what the requirements are for the city council to consider during its review of the concept plan and that's in section 223-41.13f, as well as the development design standards in 223, 41.13 I. So tonight the council should consider and ask any comments. It wishes to make to the uh to be applicant for clarification of the concept plan.

O

If there are any changes or additional information that you would request of the applicant or if you think this is appropriate for scheduling of a public hearing, so that you can receive comment from the planning board. That mayor concludes my comments.

B

Here we have the architect here with a slide deck. Okay has more visual representations. All.

A

Right so absent any questions for.

E

A

Specifically, I would suggest Rea you go ahead and then we could talk after that. Yeah.

P

Thanks Nick, that was my presentation.

P

um uh Ben, if he could go to the next slide, you.

A

Get pretty pictures right.

P

A

P

Yeah, so he said what you're looking at now is the updated site plan. um The the basic configuration of the building is what we showed when we were here last August, but um as Nick mentioned, the parking was greatly reduced. You know, there's 95 spaces required for the zoning code and between the shared parking analysis and land banking, we're down to 66. that would be constructed right away and that that allowed us to do some extra Landscaping.

P

We also have a full Landscaping plan Ben. If you skip ahead a couple until you hit the similar drawing there and then one more.

P

F

P

A full Landscaping plan, where we use that Land Bank area, along with the other you know, vacant parts of the parcel um and.

E

P

A fully developed plan with eco-friendly planting it doesn't need a lot of water and um I'll. Also I, remember a question came up. It may have been from Dan um about the Indiana bat issue. That um I mean one thing is that that comes up on every project and Beacon. This is because of the area, but we're only removing one tree on the whole 3.5 acre lot. So we're not going to have much effect on anything in terms of that um I mean I. Think Nick covered a lot of it.

P

um We're also looking at doing some some combination of either green roof or solar panels on the roof to you know: try to try to use that instead of just having a um you know: EPDM roof up there.

P

And and then I I assume that this is going to fall under the all electric building requirements now, so um you know I think they were planning that anyway, but there's not going to be any uh gas or fossil fuels.

O

That is correct. It would be subject to the all-electric building act right.

P

um And then otherwise, you know we fit all the zoning requirements so that we're not looking for any variances we'll be working with the Architectural Review Board on on. You know tweaking the building design but I think generally they were in favor of it and then um yes, so we're you know. If you have any questions but we're you know we're hoping you're good with this um further developed concept plan and we can get back to the planning board to keep working on the site plan and review.

A

Questions from Council comments.

K

Can you talk a little bit more about the sewer Odor Control that was mentioned a couple times in the reports and what you're doing about that and I think councilmember longnew also brought it up, just as maybe a general issue in that area.

P

Yeah I know that was Misha I mean I'm, not the engineer on the project, so I can't get into the specifics. But but I know that I mean that's that's another thing. We have a pretty well developed engineering solution for the storm, water and and and for those issues, so I know that you know they're they're, replacing That, Old, Clay pipe, which may have been part of it and and then there there's some work in the in that little sewer building.

P

um But yeah I can't get into specifics on that.

P

But but it's been addressed by you know by the uh applicants engineer.

N

It is a follow-up question on the Landscaping plan. Sorry I just interrupted someone.

A

N

um Thank you for sharing um the plant list um and I'm just curious. If you could tell us more about the water management aspect of the Landscaping, um what Paving you're planning to use on the parking spots that that are there um and if there is a plan for ongoing runoff, if we continue to have you know the heavy rain that we've been having this year, for example,.

P

In in terms of the paving of the parking lots, it's going to be a standard asphalt, kind of Paving, but it like I mentioned. It's been significantly reduced.

P

um All the water that hits either the building or the impervious surface of the parking lot is being managed through that bio retention Basin, so that that that's all been fully engineered as well.

N

C

I just wanted to say remember: this is a concept plan for the at the council level, um because the planning board was given the lead agents, a responsibility. They went into a lot of detail on soar and water and storm water and floodplain and all those issues, but um your approval is for consent plan not for architecture or engineering details.

C

That's supposed to be up to the subsequent site plan review, where all those things will be finalized. We haven't looked at the architecture yet just sort of generally in terms of the renderings right, but um the planning board will still do a thorough, complete review of all those engineering aspects as part of their site plan. Approval.

E

C

Comes after the concept plan, approval at the council level right and.

O

And John that sort of goes to the interplay between site plan and concept plan review, because it does overlap a little bit. The council drawing concept plan review is required to take a look at the fish, go Creek development, design, standards and and uh section I, which does go through architecture and some of the other traditional site plan issues. But I agree with you that it's not meant to dive into the details. But you know if, for example, the building was proposed to be painted purple.

O

That would be an appropriate item from a board to comment on so you're, looking at it more from a generalized Viewpoint to make sure you think that the abilities architecture matches and meets the intent of the fiscal Creek, Design District.

A

So yeah I appreciate the reminder of our role in this, which is concept only so that's pretty high level right. So planning board's done. Seeker they're going to do a detailed site plan. We could provide them some comments if we want, but ours is really that concept focus and so I'm appreciative Nick of you saying well, where do I look for concept criteria and you're, saying section I of the Fishkill Creek development Zone, uh and so if I were to kind of stay at the conceptual level, artists live work is a great fit.

A

Some commercial States, I'm. Sorry, artists, um Studio space, not live work, Studio space right or is.

C

It working for a studio space, upper floors live work.

A

Right, so it is a commercial and residential use that certainly fits in our in our concept plan. Our our Fishkill Creek development, Zone, the particular mix, looks attractive um again, I, look at the parking and thankfully you've you've ended up with something less than what we would have required, because I would have said geez again I'm struggling to see what what part of the concept I don't find attractive. That I would want to comment on, and maybe there's criteria that we might want to consider I didn't think about purple paint. It's a brick.

A

It looks like a factory building which is kind of the fundamental concept that we've got for FCD. um It looks pretty good. My first reaction.

C

And this has a big front yard, with a lot of Green Space Between the building and the Greek.

A

O

And also, for example, if there's any change to the concept plan of the material right, we have to be careful. Not everything requires to come back, but some of it. If it's a change. If, for example, it's no longer brick, but it's aluminum siding or some other material, that's permitted, but not brick. It would have to come back to the city council for concept plan and review one example of something that a traditional site plan is, for example, loading zones, but this commercial space, but there's no loading zones uh shown or discussed.

O

So how are moving trucks, however, commercial delivery is going to be made if that resulted in a new driveway coming in through the flood plain at the back of the property. That would then have to come back to the city council, because that is changing the concept plan in my opinion, but it's a traditional site plan comment that would be discussed during the planning, Board review.

K

John or Aria I'm I'm interested to know with the traffic study that was done. Was there any discussion of the intersection of Route, 52 and Mill Street I know I, think Nick mentioned it, but I'm actually not seeing it in the Seeker report I'm, seeing more of the focus just on the Front Street area, so I didn't know. If that came up at all.

P

Yeah I think I think they I mean they looked at the intersection and and the surrounding area. um I I, don't recall any specific recommendations that they made in terms of changing. That I mean that there is that flashing, yellow traffic light there.

P

um You know so it's red on the uh coming out of Mill Street and flashing yellow on 52.. um You know it came off at one point whether that should be. You know, actually made into a working signalized uh traffic light, but I I I, don't think they recommended going there at this point, I think my.

C

Memory is goes back again too and I wasn't the traffic consultant so I. This wasn't I didn't review the traffic plan, um but my memory there's two changes. They agreed to redo Mill Street in.

H

C

With the owner, that's a private street, but it's in terrible condition and they agreed as part of this development to redo that Stream.

P

C

Would be fixed up yeah.

P

They already did that one that happened yeah.

C

There we go, and uh my memory was- is that the rehabilitation plan for Fishkill Avenue called for a fully activated signal there. Yes,.

B

And that's now been taken out of the project and.

C

That's been taken out of.

B

The process, this might be something.

C

Traffic light by the.

K

Way right, yeah! That's why I bring it up thinking of the concept of Ingress and egress, which I was listed there. If this is one thing that involve intents and purpose, as you said at the time, it was like. Oh this Project's going to take care of it. But now that isn't the case, and that happens to be the one point that both cars and pedestrians and bicyclists pedestrians actually have to cross to the other side, because that's where the sidewalk is um so just that that would be a great thing to.

P

Note for the planning board to bring yeah I, think that makes sense and and I think when we stop at the at the planning board a couple months ago. You know getting ready to come to the council and.

O

What we've done another concept plan applications is the city council has given a request list, if you will of additional areas for the planning board to review during site plan review and the playing board I think has found that helpful.

C

Great so I think in in terms of the final site plan review that will be looked at again right. What changes might happen at the intersection yeah.

B

um And we just restriped that crosswalk and I have our guys putting in those high visibility signs, but there could be other things that you do to make that even safer like if they wanted to reactivate the light we're willing to work with them if they want to put in pet heads. You know pedestrian activated signals we're willing to work on that too. Yeah.

P

I mean I'm there every day my office is there and and um there's not a lot of pedestrian Crossing, but you know I think anything that adds to that safety factor is good, so I think you know it's probably a good idea to bring something.

K

Yeah and you're building out the site, and particularly knowing the future as we've talked about it, of that Corridor of the rail trail going right across the top of that. So.

G

I think it'd be good.

K

To think about for your own residence, if nothing else.

C

Yeah and the requirements for Mill Street, including crosswalks, right.

P

C

The lower end of the site that aren't there now so they will have drop, curbs and crosswalks so that people can get up to of Hawaii right.

P

Yeah that that's one thing we worked on during the planning process is getting The Pedestrian access, you know working better, but um yeah I think I think going all the way across makes sense.

C

Yeah when they started they, you actually had to walk through the parking lot for Bill Street and there were no grassworks. So the planning board has gone into right.

G

C

Get from 52 down to the site on sidewalks, with Ada, accessibility of the rest.

K

Great and it's great to hear that the other owner of the property that kind of is in between yours and 52 is also on board with this and helping with it. So.

P

You you let the owner of this project, you know, give them some new roadway for free.

K

E

Generous of him.

O

One final point: I want to discuss with the city council also have some requests of the applicant concerns the sewer pump station. So there is that separate, smaller lot on the sewer pump station um Ben. If you could put that up on the screen, I think it's.

Q

Sorry Nick, which slide did you want up, lied.

O

It's not on slide two slide. Three would be an.

P

Existing condition- and you know what I'm sorry.

O

Sliding five and so there's a sewer pump station that Services several properties at the hip lost and this property itself will be serviced by the applicant, is required to create what's called a transportation Corporation, because New York State wants to make sure when there's sewage facilities provided to multiple properties. That is not a dispute as to who is responsible for the maintenance of it.

O

It's not being offered or maintained by the by the city, so it will be privately operated and maintained, and the transportation Corporation has that responsibility and can then charge rates to the um benefited property owners. And if we just zoom in you'll, see it's on the left-hand side of the screen. Where there's a small square.

O

That's right right above where Ben's cursor is that's the property, and so the city will be required to counsel, adopt a resolution authorizing the creation of the transportation Sewer Corporation, because under the state law should that Corporation fail to operate or maintain it it then it could be deemed abandoned and devolves onto the city.

O

It becomes as the city's responsibility to run it and then charge appropriate fees to the benefited properties, and so, as part of this concept plan I would ask that the applicant, um because we don't is there's no visual here, showing how the sewer station the pump station will be accessed.

O

I, don't see an access road I, don't see appropriate parking spaces, it would have to be an easement provided and again we can debate whether that's concept, planner site plan review, but since it's going to have to be approved by the city, council I would think we'd want to at least get some of those details fleshed out here. The applicant also would have to go to the Justice County Department of Health to get approval for the transportation. Corporation I don't see any issues with it.

O

It's just some steps that need to go forward and I think there's a benefit to getting some clarity at the outset.

K

Thanks for calling that out, Nick I also I see it's right next to the greenway Trail and not that far from the creek, so I'm curious what it means by pump house like how big and how loud this thing is: I'm not familiar with pump houses, so more detail about that would be useful. Yeah.

P

I mean that that's an existing structure, so oh.

K

It's already there yeah.

A

I gather that our input to the planning board on taking care of that would be what we would do with that information, because.

C

There's upgrades that are needed for that pump station in order for this to tap into it and.

O

I agree native, but I would one because, as part of a concept plan, I think you'd want to see how is especially because the city council may have to at some point take this over in 10 years, 20 years. Hopefully never you would want to see as part of this concept plan. How is that building going to be accessed for service as well as parking for it? Thank you, I. Don't think that's I, don't think.

O

That's a big lift I agree some of the more engineered details we can list and provide but defer to the planning board.

A

D

We do get regular comments about the smell from The Pump Station, it's about the size of a garage about a two-car garage. It's an old brick building. It looks like it's in some dishevelment and um we haven't. You know really fully fleshed out. What's going on there great and.

K

G

K

Nick, do it does the city own it, or is that part of why it's in its current state.

O

It's privately owned: it's not proposed to be owned by the city, it's privately owned and there are some engineering review comments and also on page three of the planning boards negative declaration. They go in and recite some suggested recommendations which the applicant has accepted from the city's engineer as to how to improve the pump station and address the odors and I'll call that out for Council and provide you with that information.

A

So what you're saying Nick is comments like please address. You know the current state and where it's going to be, including you know, noise or whatever would go to planning board as a comment for them to take into consideration for their site plan, but the concern of if this place, if this Corporation goes Belly Up, are we okay taking that, because that could be considered part of the concept plan? That's.

O

That's correct: yes, how does this Pump Station interact with the ex the concept plan in the proposed construction? Okay, okay of the.

P

Building yeah there was some dialogue um with the city engineer about you know we had more landscaping around that building and and we removed some of that to ease the access to it. um You know I mean we can look into that further during the planning process, but we're setting up for that thing um accessible and you know easy to manage.

D

Arya, can you describe a little bit more about the external lighting plan for the property and the parking lots.

P

Oh um yeah I mean we're basically providing LED parking lot lights, so there's adequate parking for you know people in the park and find their way back to the building. It's all shielded. So none of it's going to go on to other properties, um the especially with the LED they're very directable, and you know you can sort of customize the shielding, so they should basically provide a glow at night in the parking lot. Are they full cut off yeah that yeah that that they will be.

B

Yeah all right so.

D

What does that.

B

Mean it means the light goes down, it doesn't go up or um create glare to their buildings. Yeah.

C

Or waterways yeah there's the new laying Sanders require full cut off.

P

um And dark sky compliant like candles.

C

And no glare off-site right.

E

D

Again, temperatures.

C

B

Even the height right, if you have a lower.

C

Heights for pedestrian area parking lots.

C

Lots of bright blue lights or the Amber lights.

A

And, and in terms of our next step, I I don't think we have to end our questions about the site, whether our conceptual ones or whether ones that involve topics that we might refer to the planning board for their consideration. But is one of our next steps? A public hearing and.

E

F

E

A

We be as a council prepared to set a public hearing without ourselves. Closing off our own discussion on this topic is.

L

He okay, yeah I'm.

A

Okay with that yeah and uh do we have a Target date in mind.

K

I think the 11th is our next public meetings.

A

B

We said yeah, it's our next voting meeting.

A

Are we okay with that and again does not close off our questions or considerations? Yeah.

B

We can that's enough time to notice it. Okay, yeah.

K

We can add it to our voting part of tonight.

B

um And I just want to say I I think the landscape list is amazing. Yeah, the the the the wide array of of native plants and trees that you have is appreciated.

A

And then, just for the record, I would put both the John you. Your memo to us is a positive recommendation and the planning board's letter to us it's the same right for our conceptual plan. Approval. Yes,.

P

All right, thank you very much.

A

Okay and again, we may we'll probably have to do another workshop on conceptual conversations.

A

Sorry, you may be coming back to us to help answer some more questions, but we're good with at least setting up the public hearing component next here good, thank you and not to push him out the door, but it's uh five to nine, uh and so, let's do five other items on our workshop and let's see if we can get to a council meeting, um so there's the appointment of uh three people: uh Heidi Harrison, Akira, semino uh and Sandro Cabrera to assistant Recreation, director, a recreation assistant.

A

You should talk to about those first and I'll, stop on the mort equipment operator. So Chris, would you tell us about those first, two yeah.

B

So we have Mark Price. Our director of recreation with us tonight. Who's um is can talk more about this, but these are two changes that we've envisioned for a while. One is a promotion for Heidi and the other is the hiring of someone who's been with us for many years on a seasonal and part-time basis. So Mark can I. Ask you to talk about your colleague.

M

um So Heidi currently Works uh for the recreation department under the title of recreation assistant.

M

um What we found over the last several years is her responsibilities and and duties have changed to a point where we sort of looked at our structure and, and it makes sense to promote her to an assistant director and it'll, match her her sort of responsibilities.

M

um It also allows us then, to backfill that Recreation assistant um position with somebody that's worked with a seasonally year-round for the last three years, but since 2017 um in the summer, setting um in a part-time uh capacity, but that would bring her on board year round full time.

M

um Both of those things would allow us to sort of take steps in the direction of what um our Recreation study has has pointed to. Is uh you know, sort of growth and and a change to programs or expansion to programmings, uh mostly by freeing my desk up um to do some higher level work, and uh um you know kind of increasing our bandwidth on the day-to-day with a an additional full-time employee. So, basically tidying up the house and and adding one more full-time, year-round, employee, Mark.

K

Can you give a couple of more specific examples, just a sentence or two about the kinds of things that having additional staff and promoting Heidi would help you to look into or accomplish yep.

M

I mean Heidi's job responsibilities will now match the title more so, but um she would be responsible. um You know for as as we grow our Recreation Center or change our Recreation Center. She would be sort of sort of a facility manager.

E

Most importantly,.

M

Having Kira around full time will allow us to um very soon expand our after-school program. In addition, hopefully uh great, um you know a little more bandwidth to expand upon our summer programming. For the most part, you know.

B

So we have three after school programs, but there's more demand than Supply. This would allow us, towards the end of the year, to open a fourth site at the community center for fourth and fifth graders, and then do the other three for first second, kindergarten.

M

Yeah K through three yeah through three current sites and we've already permitted that we spent the summer months um acquiring the permits from the office of Child and.

B

Family Services we'll talk more about this when we get into budget in early October, but we're going to also propose to add another session to summer camp. So you know we keep throwing things on Mark's plate and um I'm very clear that he probably could have used this additional staff person. A year ago we were holding it up just because of the We were finishing our community facility and program report, and and that only reiterated that people are looking for more services better facilities.

B

This will help free markup, too, to work on major capital projects that we have coming up. We're going to be doing resurfacing of the Lots at South Avenue we're going to be do a major overhaul of Riverfront Park, Pete and Toshi Seeker we're doing the we play area of Memorial Park, this fall, so there um there's there's quite a bit that we need to get queued up and- and we thought this was a good time to do. It.

M

And Kara will actually be our fourth site coordinator for the after school program. So she'll come in a little bit earlier, help out with some general Recreation steps and then transition to a site director for the fourth After School site.

A

So my only comment um when I heard this was um okay, so that will require a budget amendment for this year, which I I don't.

B

Think I'm too worried about. Are we good we're good yeah, so the Heidi's position was already budgeted for and we have um remaining funds and another Rec fund, so I think we're good. But we'll come back to you. If we you.

A

Got to do a transfer or yeah, but.

B

It's it's salary to salary, yeah.

A

Okay but then my other comment was okay, but if we're, if we're shifting a position from part-time to full-time, that just means when we do the overall budget, we've just got to make sure we've got room in there and that we're not affecting our you know: tax rate in an inappropriate fashion, I view it as an appropriate priority, but we just got to make sure it fits that's all yeah.

B

We're confident it will yeah.

B

um And then thank you thank you um and then we are also proposing the appointment of Sandro cribera for the motor equipment operator position. He has been a um he's, worked on on doing snow, plowing and Paving, and he has experience with all of the Machinery that we use so we. Finally, this is the last Meo position. We have open and we're excited to fill it.

A

And just to confirm everybody good with those three appointments.

K

A

All right, um you want to talk to us about curb ramps bids. Yes,.

B

um As part of our yearly milling and Paving, we use our chips, funding, which is federal funds for redoing local streets and when we, when we Mill and pave streets, we also have to put in accessible curb ramps so that people with limited mobility and people in wheelchairs can access those those curbs we had um in in the areas that we are looking to Mill and pave, and a couple other that we identified that we really needed to do. We came up with a list of 30 curb ramps. Those are in your packet.

B

In a memo from the superintendent of streets, we did put that out to bid and originally you'll remember. Last year we bid these and they came in really high and we only had a few. So we did them in-house, but they were coming in at about ten thousand dollars a piece. Our low bid was actually from contact construction technology for just over six thousand dollars a piece. So so we might have gotten some economy of scale by having this many more.

B

Our engineer has reviewed the bid and is proposing to award it to contact construction technology in the amount of 189 292 dollars, and we did have two other bids.

L

So the thought is that the bait came in significantly lower than the rest of the bids, because it's such a large scope of work, as opposed to just like a handful of curbs.

B

Yeah I mean that that probably is one of the factors it's also timing might be a little better than we did it than when we did it. Last year.

K

Next year, our goal is to get within 50 000 of the actual bids that they get in one of these years.

B

This helps us pave more Road yeah, you know whatever we don't use on the curb ramps we can use for the milling and paper I.

K

Saw that The Beekman at the Metro North stairs is one of the or two of them that are being proposed and I was curious too. If part of that there's also a discussion of maybe moving, because I think that parking space, the thing that Metro North has is in the.

B

K

Of the crosswalk, just to kind of if they have the room just to shift.

B

It there, our superintendent, has had conversations with them about them, removing the two parking spaces on either side of the crosswalk. The crosswalk was just redone, but it accentuated to us that it's not accessible in any manner.

D

B

We are going to put in accessible, curb ramps there thinking ahead, that at some point we're going to come back and either do a full-on, comprehensive redo of of the road or we'll do a milling and Paving.

K

I'm speaking to, if that it might have already been done and sorry I haven't driven down this road in a while, but with the new crosswalk, the crossover plank I see is another intersection. I, don't know if that crosswalk has been repainted or is on the um the list to be repainted to this year, and it might have already have been repainted to be fair. I haven't.

B

Been we did a bunch last week.

K

Okay, oh great, it might have been done then already.

A

Any other questions on this one, so the last one's also related to this, which is uh you, need a supplemental Revenue agreement regarding pedestrian signal development project and you're, going to tell us why we can't use doe for one thing for dough for another thing, right.

B

That's one way.

A

Of saying it that this is I have the right Topic at.

B

Least right: you do okay, so you'll recall. Last year we finished a project to do the bump outs on Main Street and it was associated with a pedestrian Improvement project which installed four pedestrian countdown timers and rebuilt reconfigured, the entire traffic light at Wolcott and South Avenue.

B

We we came under budget for the bump out and um and that was tap funding, Transportation Alternatives program and we went over budget on the signals. What the mayor is referring to is dot. Wouldn't let us take the money that was left over in the tap, because it was a dedicated source and put it into the signals.

B

um So we were 222 000 short before I closed out. The project I asked the county. If there were any other mechanisms, they could use to backfill this money. For us as part of the um some of the the inflation reduction act had money in it for the carbon Reduction Program it's the first year, we've had these monies the county. Let me know we were the only one to put in an application, so we got the 200. We got 80 percent of the 222. Well.

L

B

um So um we just have to do this kind of pro forma resolution with DOT they'll put it on the State Transportation Improvement program, the project's already done the prod the bills are already paid all it does. Is it allow us now to send them a bill for 177 800 and get that back?

B

So it's just we're doing paperwork and thank you. You're.

H

J

We otherwise good.

K

Yes, that explains questions I had so. Thank you.

A

So I'm gonna call a workshop to an end if everyone's okay, with that take five minutes and then do a council meeting starting at 9 10., is that okay, it's.

E

905 right great everybody.

A

A

B

Lee, did you get the list.

A

I haven't yet all right, so it's 9 10, um it's already late for folks and I apologize for you all having to wait as long as you have. But thank you very much. This is the formal meeting, so I'll just call the formal meeting to order uh and we'll start with a pledge of allegiance.

A

Pledge allegiance to the flag.

E

S indivisible with liberty,.

A

And justice for all, thank you.

A

Okay, let me do a.

K

A

Roll call now um Molly, are you here? Yes, Justice are you here? Yes,.

L

A

Yes, Brad, yes, Lee's here, uh Paloma are you here.

E

A

Right so we actually did a roll call tonight um and Dan Amar Blair is excused he's out of the country um and that's our roll call. So first is our first opportunity for public comment. If you would like an opportunity to speak on any subject of your choice for up to three minutes um now is the time to do it. I have two people on the sign up sheet, so we'll take them. First, Teresa Kraft.

F

Sure walking in tonight, without rushing I, took a look at the Planters excited to see. What's growing, one pot was empty and the other pot had one giant weed in the same vein. Last week, I took guests down to the riverfront park and their opinion echoed my internal thoughts, disgusting old glitter and overgrown thank God. Cena cutson takes care of their green spaces, because tourists think Beacon is doing a good job.

F

In truth, our streets are in dire need of TLC they're overgrown with weeds scrub, trees and old trash Beacon has not looked this neglected in years. Maybe never reading tonight's agenda and supplemental materials I'm not sure why the city would fervously throw out the book and infringe Mass build out development in every neighborhood and Zoning District Beacon should not be gelled into a bedroom community with dorm living. The city has spent decades fine-tuning its zoning district and codes bacon does not need to copycat every other municipality in the world.

F

Just like the electric car bandwagon that grandiose idea is backfiring. It's a fact. History has a way of repeating itself and we will see larger families and more family cars and you'll have to shoehorn it all back in. We recently saw the prophecy theater get pushed through board. Members were speaking out on one side of their mouth saying no, and the other side was the way to vote Yes, two years of public outcry and public hearings on a night when a few long-standing planning board members were absent, the chairman rushed it through.

F

It was obvious to all that nobody was allowed to talk their mind. Now we find the developer to purchase other properties right across the street to develop into their project. The public has never really heard the real facts. Tonight. The planner proposed building low-income housing on Fishkill Avenue across from the Hamilton Fish housing complex on unsuspecting Property Owners land at the last PB planning public hearing, a neighbor who lives across the street objected to looking at cars coming and going all day and lights, 24 7 from a large infill building.

F

Next to that very lot that that the planner mentioned tonight, she was told by the lawyer of the developer that if the neighbor agreed they'd install a large green wall on her property, why should residents lose their quality of life and be fenced? In last Workshop, you talked about how you had an idea for infill buildings may be working with Dutchess County DMV law.

F

Only to read it in the next few days in the paper that the meeting had already taken place the week before I am convinced that everything that comes to the council table is a done deal before it's presented to the residents. The same Council will have nothing to.

H

F

Because everybody's busy on their own agendas, this is not what any of us imagine would come of. Our hometown. City I went to the recent Fishkill Town board meeting and they've they're more worried and concerned for the beacon residents they don't want to have pulled.

Q

F

84 interchange that will negatively impact the residents of Beacon that language is missing here.

A

Thank you, uh Clark captain.

R

Good evening so um to Wilson Street 20-year resident and.

R

This idea that um segmentation doesn't apply to the project discussed earlier tonight. The Lofts project is.

R

um Ripe or contest in front of a judge, there are several problems with this project.

R

One is it's been presented that the structure incorrectly by the attorney isn't on the floodway it is true, is that a dam is part of this assemblage of properties that was previously approved and before the planning board, crates and Circumstance, by which the true owners have the exam have been identified. The liability for the dam failure has not been discussed or Quantified, nor has the impact on the city in terms of any potential polluted invitation. That's at the base of the dam behind the wall, so there's an environmental concern.

R

There is a uh larger concern as it relates to the Wolcottville.

R

Which was laid out in the late 1800s, commonly known as Liberty Street Wilson Street, which was laid out in 50 foot wide Lots in the remnants today are many homes on that street. Where there's 50 foot available for further development should families find that it's within their means to do so, which is a whole other topic on affordable housing development but, most importantly, the.

E

R

Station which I I've only been over there twice and and the one time I was over. There I actually videotaped the alarm going off and it was in a state of failure.

R

Of course it's going to create odors, but when you double the capacity when you add 200 homes, then you eliminate the ability of Liberty, Street and Wilson Street in the Neighbors on that side of the creek to develop land potentially because the sewers are at full capacity or maybe they're at over capacity, because you have no comprehension as to that 10 or 12 inch pipe. That goes across the Fishkill Creek, the fence Services further Downstream, every single best.

E

10 seconds.

R

On that side of.

E

R

And so the engineering studies have to be more than just can The Pump Station work, but what effect does it have on the odors coming up to the sewer, manholes and also.

Q

R

Of every single house sewer in that neighborhood.

A

um Is there anyone else in the public Arena who'd like to speak, come on up, tell us who you are.

H

Where you live in River Ridge I was not um did not coordinate with it. It's not even coming here.

A

Speaking of the Mike's weekend, it's.

H

Not even coming here to speak, but I was listening in and um yes I think you should either tell us a deal, is done or not to the public, because I have spent two years against one one, one one three Walcott Avenue prophecy theater and that was gunned end. All right and I keep always on the mic. I say: I'm short, which I am but um I bought a beacon to stay, but now I'm thinking like.

H

Should we just do fire sales here like get out, because what is Beacon now are we saturated and why even have public hearings? If it's a done deal because I do walk these streets and I'm one of those people that doesn't have we have one car, but I walk most of the time. So what are we becoming?

H

As stated? This is I left, New, York for a reason and you're talking about bikes and trees, and all this, why don't we get the illegal bikes off the streets before we start trying to imagine this beautiful Greenery or whatever it is.

H

That's it and again: I, don't know how 113 Walcott got through, but it had to go through you and I would like to know what the use of a church is if they're allowed to use that as a church. Currently, what does that mean? There are a lot of weddings. How are we going to govern this because everything you're changing everything in today's meeting?

H

A

Thank you. um Anyone else in the physical public want to say something. This is your opportunity to do so um so Ben is there anyone on the online portion of our meeting that would like to make a public comment.

Q

If you're on zoom and you'd like to make a comment, please use the raise hand option at the bottom of your Zoom screen. If you're joining us by phone, you can press star nine.

Q

If you're watching on YouTube, you will need to join the zoom by visiting beaconny.gov and right now we have no attendees in the zoom room.

A

Okay, so let's do reports of council? um That's! Where do we want to start run? You want to start on your end, sure.

D

Okay, um thank you short report today. Just wanted to highlight for everyone that there are affordable housing applications on the city website offered by Hudson River housing for the Edgewater Workforce housing applications and for Dutchess County Rebuilding Together, Duchess County applications are available. My office can be opened for anyone at any time just reach out to me at w longnow at beaconmy.gov. Thanks.

I

George no report this evening.

L

I also have nothing to report this evening.

K

And I just wanted to quickly share that. For those who remember, we talked about the Tompkins terrorist renovation and that is moving forward. They are close to getting I think all their funding squared away and as such they're going to have a meeting for the residents this coming Wednesday. If you are a resident there and would like more details about it or have any questions or concerns, you want to share with me and either cannot make those meetings or just don't feel like sharing.

K

You can feel free to reach out to me at M, roads, r, h, o d e s at beaconny.gov and that's El pasadilly.

A

So I'll be brief. Just for the record, um the I believe that I once met on phone with a potential purchaser of the church, not the actual purchaser and as far as I can tell I, have never had a meeting with the current owners of the church down the street.

A

I live for those of you who aren't sure directly in the neighborhood of this church. All right, I am three doors down the street on Route 90., the.

E

A

That somehow I'm involved in some done deal and something that affects my neighborhood and my home directly is just utterly contrary to knowing, where I live and knowing what I do for a living and knowing that, knowing the professional way that I care to run this city I also was a history major in concert. College I, don't believe in the conspiracy theories of history and, generally speaking, there are a few that actually occur, but just for the record, um you know if, if people think it's a done deal, that's all great think whatever you wish.

A

But it's been sitting in the planning board for how many meetings and how many hearings and how many you know, concerns and how many adjustments were made to go through that particular one and I can respect and I've talked to many of my neighbors about the concerns they have I have similar ones. They aren't dramatically different than those raised. You know whether I think there should be no development whatsoever which wouldn't be legal for that church or whether this is an appropriate development, was properly left to the planning board. It is within their Authority.

A

The Zoning for that particular property is identical to the Zoning for many of the properties in that neighborhood, because we all survived urban renewal. Urban renewal was expecting all of the properties of the historic homes to be torn down. My particular house, which is on sits on just over an acre, was zoned for 15 Apartments. What a disaster that would have been. We protected those homes we applied the same zoning to the church, the Zoning for all of those are r140 historic overlay.

A

The historic overlay permits additional uses for something like a church which, as everyone can understand, has the direct use of a house of worship have gone down significantly over the years and, as you can tell, many churches are looking for alternative uses. If we want that structure which sits on the historic register had Frederick Douglass preach from it that if we want to preserve it, we have to permit additional uses. That's a tough call in a neighborhood that has homes, including my home, but the zoning is what governs that.

A

We entrust the decision of fit of neighborhood to the planning board and I just want to say that I, my hats are off and I'm thankful for all of the effort of those volunteers who put in an immense amount of time not just on this issue, but on many many issues and it's a tough, tough job that we have for them, because they have to figure out how to balance and make things work.

A

Given the zoning that's given them, so I just wanted to add that again, I I'm ever thankful for their involvement, I'm, truly appreciative of all of the input. That's been provided not on that that particular um proposal, but on anyone that comes to the planning board. It's a tough call that everyone has to make these boards make tough choices and I trust them a great deal and I'm thankful for their time. I am thankful for the input of the community. We make decisions and we move on. So that's all I just wanted to add. Personally.

A

Thank you. Chris. Do you have anything you want to add as administered I.

B

I just want to close the loop on two resolutions you did earlier this year. This Council passed resolution 36 in April and resolution 65 in May, opposing the release of radioactive water into the Hudson River I I'm, happy to report that the governor signed the bill restricting discharges of radioactive waste, so that was passed by both the Senate and the assembly and is now signed by the governor and.

L

That's all I have does diploma. Have a report, pardon does paloma, have a report. Oh Palomas.

B

A

On I'm, so sorry, um Paloma I apologize.

N

My report, but um I'm kidding and also.

N

Very excited that the governor has has signed that bill and it is completely law as well um and I will otherwise just say that I will be restarting my um office hours in September, but I am reachable um via uh my email address and phone number, which are on the City website.

A

Thanks and I, haven't listened to me talk for as long as I did without getting your comments in so thank you. Okay, we have local laws and resolutions. um You might be surprised to recognize the ones that we just discussed so the first one is I'm. Looking for a motion in a second up to a point, Heidi Harrison to the position of assistant Recreation director motion. Second, so that's Justice and Molly. Any discussion.

A

Again, I think we're making this from a part-time position to a full-time position. No Heidi is getting a.

B

A

B

Other is, is okay,.

A

Okay, so this is a promotion uh and her current role, title.

B

Is is Recreation assistant, which is the person that is next to be voted.

A

Would be filling that okay, so we're creating the position of assistant, Recreation director.

B

Second position, so this is essentially the same position as you have with Nate um and thank you and so Mark will have basically two two lieutenants one who deals with programs, uh the other who deals with facilities and ordering and procurement.

A

Description anything else comments.

L

I've worked with the recreation department a lot um in and outside of this role and I. Think Heidi is really wonderful, and this is well deserved and I'm very happy for her. Okay.

A

Any other comments, okay, so all in favor of appointing Heidi Harrison to the position of assistant Recreation director signify by saying aye aye. Anyone opposed so the second one is appointing Kira. Is it semino Le.

B

A

To the position of recreation assistant recently opened by the elevation of Heidi Harrison to assistant Recreation, director can I get a motion and a second motion second, so ran Injustice and any just anything. You want to add on that Chris that we didn't discuss a few minutes ago. No.

B

Just that we have this perfect candidate who's done almost everything to be done in Recreation, she's done after school programs and camp and we're just happy to hire her before someone else steals her away.

A

uh Without hearing hearing no further discussion, all in favor of reporting appointing Kira Seminole to the position of recreation assistants, say aye aye aye. Anyone opposed I.

O

Would just ask mayor vet as Paloma is attending virtually that you just we're out separately, so it is appropriately reported in the minutes. So.

A

Let me just check in the last two votes: um Paloma can I just I thought. I heard you say yes, but I just want to confirm that.

N

Yes, it was an enthusiastic eye for both of these positions.

A

N

You so much that Mark is getting support. All.

A

Right and and Nick, thank you for the reminder. The third one I'm looking for emotion in a second to appoint Sandro Cabrero to motor equipment operator.

G

Motion second, so.

A

I'll do Georgian Ren.

A

um You all are at the same time uh any discussion on those on that one.

A

Okay and you're. You promised to stop bringing meos to us for approval.

B

A

Them all now you're going to bring some more.

B

A

B

Is a very tight job market, so yeah.

A

B

They stop leaving I'll, stop bringing new candidates. Okay,.

A

Yeah I understand the.

G

Other option is to hire candidates, so we don't really like and no one else likes, but I appreciate the thing to bring in the best people we can.

K

G

A

Right um uh all right, then, all in favor of appointing Sandra Cabrera to the position of motor equipment operators signify by saying I I.

E

A

Specifically, uh ask for that from Paloma hi thank you uh and I will also vote I. Anyone opposed not hearing any of that one's approved. uh The next one is awarding a contract for 2023 accessible, curb ramps uh can I get a motion and a second on that motion. So that's Molly second and uh justice and Chris. Will you remind us uh just what we just discussed, but just for the record? Yes,.

B

What we're doing here so this is to award a bid to contact construction, Technology Incorporated in the amount of 189.

F

B

F

B

Install 30, Ada accessible, curb ramps, mostly in relation to streets, that we're going to be milling and Paving, and this is part of the funding requirement for this Federal funding. Is that as you go through, you have to start making your sidewalk system more accessible.

B

So this is for the re, the replacement of 30 curbs, and that is in the agenda packet. If you're wondering what curbs are being upgraded.

A

Okay, any further discussion all right. So all in favor of awarding this contract on curb ramps, say I.

C

A

Hi, thank you so much. Anyone opposed not hearing any that one's approved unanimously and then finally, we're looking for a motion. A second to authorize. The city administrator execute a supplemental Revenue agreement for the installation of pedestrian signal development motion.

K

A

um That was Molly and Paloma and Chris did you want to add anything on that authorization? No.

B

Just the the work has been done, um the the project has been built out. We had a short fall. We went back to the D.O.T asking for additional funds, we applied for carbon Reduction Program money and were granted um 80 of our shortfall. So this is basically just paperwork housekeeping at this point so that we can seek reimbursement for the 80 percent.

B

A

And then are you gonna have to come to council for the 20. No you've got funds for that in the capital funds got it yeah all right. Any further discussion on that, all right. All in favor of authorizing the city administrator to execute this supplemental Revenue agreement, say aye aye, Paloma,.

N

A

All right so I hear unanimous support. I didn't hear any Nays, um so that's also approved um it's now. 9 30.. It's taken us.

O

Near the next resolution was added to the agenda on consent by the council during the workshop and it's resolution, number 90, which I can read as I'm, not sure everyone has had a chance to see it updated in their link on the resolution. Reads: sending a public hearing from the hip lops and Studios concept plan being resolved at the city council. Hereby schedules of public hearing for September 11th 2023 at 7 pm for the hip, lock and Studios concept plan.

K

A

K

Do I have do we motion that in Nick.

A

So let me ask you: do we need to add it to the agenda, or is it okay to do it.

O

Directly, it's okay, it's okay, because during work session you all agree uh to add it to the agenda and Ben has quickly added it. Thank you. Ben very.

A

Good, so let's get a, can I get a motion in a second I think Molly, you were doing the motion. Second, all right and Rand is doing the second okay. So this is not a proving concept plan. It's saying that we had a discussion on a concept plan for the next phase of the hip Lofts and we're merely scheduling a public hearing to receive input. This we will reserve the right to have further discussions on our concept uh plan vote and whether we bring that forward is that okay.

E

A

Any further discussion on that- and this is for September 11th right, correct all right. um All in favor of that particular motion say aye.

A

Hearing any of that one carries unanimously now can we get to the minutes? Okay, yeah, all right! Thank you. Nick, uh so I need a motion, a second to prove the minutes of August 7th.

G

A

I will make a second the minutes, I'm so excited.

M

A

Subtractions deletions.

K

um Right at the end, I think we need to go into executive session before we come out of executive session I believe that's usually separate in the minutes. Nick. Can you confirm.

O

K

O

That is yes, and that is correct. It should be separately designated. Yes, okay,.

K

And I think we went in for a legal advice. I can't quite remember. Litigation.

G

That is correct, yes, yeah.

A

Okay, so um making that one change anything else and we get score points for Molly for both reading and providing a couple of changes, any others all right. So all in favor of approving the minutes of August 7, say aye aye.

N

A

Paloma aye, thank you so much. Anyone opposed hearing none they're approving unanimously. We have our second opportunity for public comments. Anyone who didn't speak at the first opportunity you're certainly welcome to speak now. uh There are two people in the public audience who may wish to speak if they like or not seeing head nods in the left and right as opposed to the up and down I'll. Take that as a no is there. Anyone in the online portion of the meeting Ben, who may wish to make a public comment.

A

Q

E

A

uh I will entertain a motion to adjourn I.

B

Just want to make a note that we don't have a meeting next week. Our next Workshop meeting will be September 5th, which is a Tuesday.

E

B

The Labor Day holiday all right, so you have off next week.

G

Motion to adjourn second ran.

A

And Molly all in favor anyone.

E

A

You and everyone have a very good evening. Thank.

E

You adjourning thank you good night you're welcome.

E