Woodstock Zoning Board of Appeals
45 Comeau Drive
May 9th, 2019
7:00 PM
MEETING MINUTES
ZBA Cases #’s in order of the preceding:
Public Hearing ZBA Case #19-11
(Re-Opening) Public Hearing #19-09
Decision and Order ZBA Case # 19-02
Decision and Order ZBA Case # 19-05
Decision and Order ZBA Case # 19-07
Decision and Order ZBA Case # 19-08
Chairwoman Mendoza called the meeting to
order at 7:00 pm. Members present:, Maria Mendoza, James Armstrong and Michael
Castiglione. Jeff Collins and Gordon Wemp were absent.
1.
ADMINISTRATIVE
MATTERS
CHANGES/ADDITIONS TO MEETING AGENDA – No
changes.
Move to accept April 25th, 2019 meeting
minutes by Chairwoman Mendoza seconded by Michael Castiglione.
All voted aye. Motion adopted.
2. PUBLIC HEARINGS SCHEDULED FOR May
9th, 2019
ZBA CASE # 19-11 Application of
Benjamin Atkins, as represented by Joe Greco at 3586 Marjorie Lane, Seaford NY
11783, for property located at 148 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY 12498, a 0.19 acre parcel located within a R
1.5 Zoning District, for variances from the Zoning Law of the Town of
Woodstock, Article IV, Area & Bulk Regulations, Modification of required
yards, Section 260-26 B (1) (b) for a 2.5 foot infringement into a minimum
required 15 foot side yard setback in order to extend the exiting entrance with
an ADA ramp and Section 260-26 (B) (1) (c) for a 22.5 foot infringement into a minimum
required 25 foot side yard setback in order to remove an existing shed and
replace it with a 10 foot by 16 foot wooden deck and pergola and for a 20.5
foot infringement into a minimum required 25 foot side yard setback in order to
construct a new stone patio.
NYSEQR
DETERMINATION
In accordance
with the guidelines set forth in 6NYCRR, Part 617, and Section 65-13 of the
TWEQR regulations, the Zoning Board of Appeals has determined that this
application for an area variance is classified as a Type II Action which, by
definition, does not have a significant effect on the environment and is exempt
from environmental review.
*** Gordon
Wemp arrived***
Joe Greco the
representative was present and started by showing the board the site plan. He
showed the members where the ADA ramp would be placed, he needs a side yard
setback of 12.6 inches since presently he has 8. His second request for
variance is a 10 by 16 foot shed in the same footprint. And the third request
is for a ground level stone patio in a rear yard setback and a 2 by 6 flat roof
EPDM roofing with two 8 by 8 supporting columns over the front door. Michael
Castiglione asked why the roofing was not included in the application. Mr.
Greco explained he thought he had put it in the application, it definitely was
on the site plan though. Michael Castiglione said they would go by whatever was
written in the application not the site plan. Mr. Greco looked over the
application and said it was missing a line where it should have said he was
requesting an area variance for a flat roof that would go straight over the
stone patio. The stone patio would make him 7.10 from the rear property
line. James Armstrong asked what kind of
stone would be used? Mr. Greco answered there is existing stone there so he is
just bringing in some limestone. There were no more questions from the board.
Chairwoman
Mendoza asked if there were any contiguous neighbors present. There were none.
Chairwoman
Mendoza made a motion to close the public hearing part of the case, seconded by
James Armstrong, all voted aye. Chairwoman Mendoza made a motion to recess ZBA
Case # 19-11, seconded by Michael Castiglione, all voted aye.
3. DECISION AND ORDERS AND
INTERPRETATIONS OUTSTANDING
ZBA CASE # 19-07 Application of Neil Schaffer.
Chairwoman Mendoza made a motion to reopen this case, seconded by James
Armstrong, all voted aye There were no questions or comments from the board
members. Chairwoman Mendoza made a motion to close the case, seconded by James
Armstrong, all voted aye.
RESOLUTION:
Based upon the
Standards for Consideration of Area Variances set forth in Section 260-103B of
the Zoning Law of the Town of Woodstock, an area variance from the Zoning Law
of the Town of Woodstock, Article IV, Area & Bulk Regulations, Section
260-16, Attachment 2, R3 Column (f), for a 18 foot infringement into a
minimum required 50 foot side yard set back in order to install a 10 foot by 20
foot prefabricated storage shed, is hereby GRANTED, subject to all requirements
of the Zoning Law of the Town of Woodstock, the New York State Real Property
Law and all other applicable laws, codes and regulations.
The vote was
announced as follows: Maria Mendoza:
(aye ),Michael Castiglione:(aye ), Gordon Wemp: (aye ), James Armstrong: (aye
), Jeff Collins: (absent ).
THE RESOLUTION WAS (ADOPTED) by a vote of ( 4 ) in favor, ( 0 ) opposed, ( 1 ) absent, and ( 0 ) abstaining.
*****
Chairwoman Mendoza mentioned the next case to be voted on was Robert
Whitcomb/Mountain Meadow Realty and hat she had recused herself from this
case, asked Michael Castiglione to take
over and she left the room. Vice Chair Castiglione re opened ZBA Case # 19-02,
seconded by Gordon Wemp, all voted aye. There were no further comments from the
board. Michael Castiglione made a motion to close the case, seconded by Gordon
Wemp, al voted aye. He read the following resolution.
RESOLUTION:
Based upon the
Standards for Consideration of Area Variances set forth in Section 260-103B of
the Zoning Law of the Town of Woodstock, area variances from the Zoning Law of
the Town of Woodstock, Article V, Supplementary Regulations, Section 260-31 B
(2), Sign Regulations, maximum surface area of the sign and Section 260-31 D
(2) b Sign Regulations, for the placement of two signs where only one sign is
permitted, is hereby DENIED.
The vote was
announced as follows: Michael Castiglione: ( aye), Gordon Wemp: (aye ), James
Armstrong: ( aye), Jeff Collins: (absent ). Maria Mendoza recused herself from
the vote.
THE RESOLUTION WAS (ADOPTED) by a vote of ( 3 ) in favor, ( 0 ) opposed, ( 1 ) absent, and ( 0 )
abstaining.
*****
Chairwoman Mendoza re entered the room.
She mentioned they had received a new case and James Armstrong would be in
charge of it.
ZBA
Case # 19-05, Thomas
Auringer c/o Elizabeth Auringer would remain recessed per the advice of
council.
ZBA CASE #19-08.
Application of Immacolata Mazzone, will
be recessed until the next meeting.
*****
ZBA CASE # 19-09 Application of James D. Cohen , as
represented by John W. Furst Esq., Catania, Mahon, Milligram & Rider, PLLC
was re opened to the call of the chair.
Vice Chair
Castiglione gave a brief description about why they re opened the public
hearing part for this case, it was to allow Mrs. Polidoro a chance to speak.
Mrs. Polidoro began by stating she was there on behalf of the owners and
operators of The Lodge. She thanked the board for letting her speak today. She
handed the board a letter for the file. She then told the board that she
realized that the applicant had appealed the issuance of two building permits to
MHS Worldwide Holdings, the applicant has not appealed the rescission of the stop work orders or notice of violations that were issued. Under
mistaken to believe that these last two were under effect. The ZEO provided a
letter saying that she did in fact repeal the stop work order and the notice of
violation. So once you take the issue of rescission of the table, at this point
that would be a separate appeal, a separate application, with a whole separate
set of facts and a separate statue of limitations. There is a 60 day time limit
on when someone can appeal a decision of the ZEO. They may be out of that time
frame but as a starter she would like to remind the board they are there to
talk about two building permits. The applicant has the burden of proof of
showing that the two building permits were erroneously issued, once you take
rescission of the NoV and SWO of the table, the applicant hasn’t offered any
evidence to support their arguments if the building permits were issued
erroneously, there is nothing in the file to support that. The applicant hasn’t
offered any evidence of the stop work order and the stop violation to be still
in effect, the only evidence is lack of a written letter and the Town of
Woodstock’s code doesn’t require that it be in writing, and the town software
actually makes putting something in writing difficult. It’s to their
understanding that the software simply asks the ZEO to check a box if the NoV
or SWO has been taken care of yes or no. The software doesn’t have an option to
generate a document it just allows the ZEO to move on to another screen. She
thinks this is why it has been to Towns policy or practice not to issue these
formal letters, because it would require the ZEO to sit down and manually type
the letter. If you look at the applicants submission from April 9th,
2019 they provided two documents to support their allegation that the SWO and
Order to Remedy are still in effect. Mrs. Polidro proceeded to read the
documents. She showed the board her earlier submission with a picture attached
of the Lodge sign. With this picture she wanted to demonstrate that the Order
to remedy Violation had been complied with. She also pointed out that the
applicant hasn’t offered any evidence that this hasn’t been taken care of. Mrs.
Polidoro proceeded to read the Stop Work Order that was issued. She stated
nothing written on that document requires The Lodge to submit a site plan it
simply states that they could not do any more landscaping or exterior work
until they had submitted or received a site plan approval. Nothing in that
document states they needed to take any remedial action, it simply said stop
work. By stopping work they complied with the ZEO’s order. There is no ongoing
violation once they stopped the exterior work. She doesn’t believe the
applicant has met their burden of proof by establishing that there is an
”ongoing” issue with regards to the exterior work. She believes the ZEO was
reasonable in determining that there is no on going violation on the property.
To her that was it, there was no violation and the record states that. The next
issue is the idea of the stay, the applicant submitted again today a document
requesting the ZBA to issue a stay preventing the new owners from doing any
interior work while this board is making its decision. Mrs. Polidoro reminded
the board the authority in the Town Law is not applicable to a third party
appeal because people could abuse it , projects would be held up because of an
appeal in front of the Zoning Board. She thinks this is very harsh and she asks
should this board consider issuing a stay, that they require the applicant to
put up one hundred thousand dollar performance guarantee, because by stopping
work her client will loose a significant amount of money, especially if the
board decides in the applicants favor. That is two wakes of interior work where
they cannot progress their project, they can’t rent the units out, hat is all
money lost. She doesn’t believe the ZBA has the authority to issue a stay and
the applicant hasn’t provided any case law where it states otherwise. She
presented the board with a printed copy of a case. Her last comment is, if the
board detemines the permits should be revoked, instead of simply revoking them
and causing a six month delay in the process, (they are in front of the
planning board to get site plan approval), she asks the ZBA issue an order that
can be complied with, so building permits are revoked until the following
remedial steps are taken. Whatever issue the board feels fit like the parking issue,
the gravel removal so they aren’t holding up the whole project for a
significant period of time. Chairwoman Mendoza thanked her for her comments and
there were no more questions from the board.
Gordon Wemp made a
statement regarding keeping the following comments from the public pertinent to
what Mrs. Polidoro just spoke about and not bring up ancient history about the
case. The comments should pertain to the two building permits in question.
Chairwoman Mendoza mentioned they had received some email correspondence from
the public, copies are in the case file.
Michael Castiglione
opened the public hearing portion of the meeting by reading the names of the
contagious neighbors. Michael Roth, Jesse Cullen-DuPont, Howard Rifkin, Paul
Van Wagenen was present and stated he has a big problem with the light The
Lodge has put up, he would like them to shield them, especially the ones around
the parking by the swimming pool, Chairwoman Mendoza interrupted him by saying
that issue was not their purview and Michael Castiglione said they are there to
listen to anything pertaining to the two building permits, he also recommended
he should talk to the Planning Board regarding the lights. Mr. Van Wagenen said
he heard a lot of pounding on the Lodge property weather or not it was inside
work or outside he did not know. Michael Castiglione continued reading the name
of the contiguous neighbors, Tamara Eichorn, Patricia Appel, jane Carlin/Maryha
Walker, Onteora Central School District and Andrew Kwasnicki/Amy Albert.
Mr. John Furst Mr.
Cohen’s representative was present and started by saying to address Mrs.
Polidoro’s comments this is about building permits because there was no paper
trail prior to the building permits. Mrs. Polidoro mentioned there it may be
more than 60 days more than when the BI revoked the building permit, no body
knows because here is no paper record of this. Under Town Law you have 60 days
from when the decision or determination is filed in the clerk’s office. His
client has been filing FOIL requests in the clerk’s office since last summer.
He thinks the BI in her mind thought everything was fine so never took any
action until she issued the building permits and in effect revoked the notice
of violation and the stop work order. So to make the applicant find out when
the BI flicked the switch as to when all this happened is unfair and illegal.
And maybe the BI never puts anything in writing but maybe she should because of
this very same reason. They have 60 days from when a decision id filed, nothing
was filed until the building permits were issued at the end of March. Regarding
the notice of violation for the sign and the second one which he submitted with
his application was regarding stopping exterior work and grading that was
completed. That is the one they are challenging not the sign violation. That is
the one with the argument with respect to the site plan review. Finally
regarding the stay, the provisions Mrs. Polidoro is referring to is for an
automatic stay takes effect, under the Town Law the Zoning Board does have the
ability to issue a stay if they feel it is necessary. It’s under their
discretion and as far as a bond, he feels the owners have unclean hands here
they started work with no permits and they specifically applied to do work back in 2016 where they ran into a
stone wall, they had many issues, they had non-conforming use issues, they
needed variances, they were violating restrictions. They pulled out of/withdrew
that application in 2017 and then in 2018 they tried to segment the work. No
bond should be posted in this case, they put themselves in this situation.
Between the last meeting and this one the BI filed two more papers, on May 1st
she filed a letter which basically put in writing what her history was, he
guesses this could be a revocation, if you want to say that is what revokes the
prior violation. He wants to amend the application tonight to challenge that
letter as well as the issuance of the building permit the BI issued on May 7th.
He isn’t quite sure when those building permits were actually issued, the BI
mentions in her letter she approved some additional construction and activity,
they haven’t obtained copies of the permits yet. He would like to put the Board
on notice that they are also challenging any permits issued within the last
week as well as the two original ones with the application. These new permits
were issued while this action was pending, while there is still a dispute to
whether The Lodge had any right to any permits. His letter supplements and amends
the original application because it is all under the same premise. The fact
that the violations were issued because they did exterior work without site
plan approval. The stop work order specifically says, no modifications before
site plan approval. They were granted a permit before they even filed a
planning board application, they certainly haven’t obtained site plan approval,
there should be no work on that site until site plan approval is granted by the
planning board if that even ever happens. The fact that the BI thinks that this
is going to happen quickly is extremely optimistic. There are too many issues
for this to happen overnight. The BI also issued a certificate of compliance
for the pool, which may have addressed the county health department issue, that
was highlighted in one of the violations, however it is unclear if the location
of pool was ever approved on any site plan. It was prematurely issued, issues
like this should be before the planning board before any type of certificate,
approvals or permits are issued.
Mrs. Polidoro
answered by saying that new information was given tonight and if the board is
going to let the application to be amended, the zoning board is going to have
to continue the hearing to give The Lodge an opportunity to state their case
regarding the new building permits and certificate of occupancy. If the board makes a decision to allow/accept
a verbal amendment and is this going to be something that is going to happen
every time there is a meeting. Every
time a building permit is issued are they just going to keep extending the
zoning board process for months and months? Mrs. Polidoro said regarding there
not being any rescindment to appeal at
the time the application was filed, that there was nothing in writing, she
disagrees with that. The applicants representative was advised by email by the
ZEO in April that she rescinded the notice of violation and stop work orders.
This application was made 5 days later and still it explicitly did not include
an appeal of the rescission of the NoV and the SWO. To say that they didn’t know that it had been rescinded,
she doesn’t find it credible. She also wanted to remind everybody that as of
March there is a new owner, so any prior bad acts or unclean hands cannot be
attributed to the new owner. They purchased a property and were told by the BI
there were no violations on the property, so they pulled their permits and they
are now faced with potential issues on the property. They were unaware of any
of the current issues. Assuming there are no violations on the property as it
is the ZEO’s perspective and her clients perspective, there is nothing stopping
additional interior work and repairs. She fully expects them to continue doing
interior work on the property.
Marcel Nagele
spoke and stated he doesn’t understand how such a huge project started with no
planning board approval. He presented
the board with more information/
documents where
it states that Ron Pordy the representative for the owners in 2016 had a list
of 11 necessary variances that were needed to complete the work on the
property. Nancy Schauffler spoke against what is going on at The Lodge. Jess
Walker, architect for The Lodge stated the work that is being done on the
buildings is not under the planning boards site plan jurisdiction. So when they
say exterior they really mean site plan review and you are allowed to replace a
window, enlarge a door or paint a building and all of that is allowed with out
planning board review and that is all that is being done right now. The
variances that were needed are still needed and they will be applying for them
and it is for additions to buildings which isn’t happening now. Angela Spinelli
wanted to encourage everyone to think about the long run, to make short term
mistakes for short term gain isn’t the way to go. David Han has done quite a
bit of work on the property, he was working with Michael Skurnick and now it
has changed hands in his professional opinion all the owners have done
everything the right way since the start. He said to his knowledge all the new
buildings are going on the original footprint while making improvements. There
were no more comments from the public or the board.
Chairwoman
Mendoza stated the public hearing portion of this case was closed, seconded by James
Armstrong. Motion adopted, All voted aye. Chairwoman Mendoza recessed ZBA Case
# 19-09 to the call of the Chair, seconded by Michael Castiglione, motion was
adopted . All voted aye.
Chairwoman
Mendoza made a motion to adjourn the meeting seconded by Michael Castiglione.
All voted aye.
Respectfully
submitted by,
Michele Sehwerert
