Proposed Shrub Oak Overlay District. In an item not on the agenda, Supervisor Lachterman announced that plans to create an overlay district for Shrub Oak in order to facilitate the development of a 150 unit housing development at Barger Street and Route 6 has been scrapped as there was no support on the Town Board for the project. (Councilwoman Siegel noted that there had never been a Board discussion about the project since she joined the Board last August.)
Later in the meeting, in response to a question from Councilwoman Siegel, John Tegeder, the town’s planning director, explained that the 10 acre site was not suitable for development under the town’s regular multi-family zone (R-3) because too much of the site consisted of wetlands. (See discussion below about FAR, aka floor area ratio.)
Navajo Fields, aka Hidden Valleys. In a 4-1 vote, the Board set July 1 for a public hearing on whether to include the 50 acre parcel in the existing Lake Osceola Overlay District.
Explaining her no vote, Councilwoman Siegel said she had two issues: Her repeated request that before the Board considered any overlay district, it first review how density was calculated in an overlay a district; second, that there wasn’t sufficient information about the project for either the public or Board members to ask substantive questions duing the hearing about the impact of the expansion.
Impact information
Councilwoman Siegel noted that Board members had received the applicant’s latest environmental impact submission only an hour before the meeting. The new submission replaced an earlier submission about two weeks ago. However, she noted that based on a quick review of the new submission, it appeared to consist only of larger sized maps but not explanatory text; one of the major problems with the earlier submission was that the text on the smaller maps, the bulk of the submission, was unreadable.
The latest submission should be available on the town clerk’s web page. As of June 11th, the day after the meeting, it is not clear if the earlier three volumes will also be uploaded to the web site. And although the planning director said at the meeting that the three volumes are now “obsolete,” a comparison of the new submission and the three volumes shows that some substantive text in the latter is not included in the former, e.g., comments from the town’s outside traffic consultant and also comments about the potential for future development in the East Main Street corridor.
Density calculation, aka FAR (floor area ratio)
Responding to Councilwoman Siegel’s May memo to the Board, Mr. Tegeder dismissed her concerns and said he had no problem with the existing regulations. In response, Councilwoman Siegel explained that as the resolution under discussion was setting a hearing date for the expansion of the Lake Osceola Overlay District and not a discussion about FAR, she would not respond to Mr. Tegeder’s comments and instead asked the Board to schedule a separate discussion on the issue. Both Supervisor Lachterman and Councilman Esposito appeared satisfied with Mr. Tegeder’s comments. (Note: Scroll to 1.18 on the meeting video for the FAR comments.)
Town payroll software. The comptroller recommended that the town purchase new software that would automate how the town’s multiple departments keep track of the biweekly payroll for the town’s 256 employees. The current manual system is timing consuming and involves multiple repetitive steps. While there will be an expense for the new software (the Board will have to adopt a resolution to purchase the software), she explained that the switch to a digital cloud based system will free up town staff to take on other more productive activities.
Community Center exterior repairs. After the first bid to repair the coping on the building’s exterior failed to generate any responses, the Board voted to rebid the project. In response to questions from Councilwoman Siegel, the supervisor said that staff was seeking feedback on possible reasons why there were no responses and whether any changes needed to be made in the readvertised bid.
Section 8 Housing Voucher program. The Board adopted the program’s revised Administrative Plan after closing the public hearing. The changes comply with recent and anticipated new HUD regulations. (For information about the program, check: https://www.yorktownny.gov/section8)
Yorktown Ambulance Corps. Correcting an oversight about an expired agreement, the Board belatedly passed a resolution to pay the Ambulance Corps $14,700 a year for 2025 and 2026 as rent for the town’s ability to park the two emergency medical flycars at the Corps’ Loretta Street facility.
Beer brewing/tasting facility. The Board gave its support for the Planning Department to draft needed changes to the Zoning Code to allow a beer company to rent space in a Front Street building.
A video of the meeting is available at: yorktownny.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1970