Before
THE TOBYHANNA TOWNSHIP PLANNING COMMISSION
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In Re: Regular Business Meeting
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Tobyhanna Township Government Center Building
State Avenue
Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania 18350
Thursday, September 10, 2009, beginning at 7 p.m.
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PRESENT: MARK SINCAVAGE, Chairperson
JOSEPH MILLER, Vice-Chairperson
ANNE LAMBERTON, Board Member
PATRICIA M. RINEHIMER, Board Member
ROBERT McHALE, P.E.,
Township Engineer
PATRICK ARMSTRONG, ESQUIRE, Solicitor
ALSO PRESENT: PHYLLIS HAASE, Zoning Officer
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Panko Reporting
537 Sarah Street, 2nd Floor
Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania 18360
(570) 421-3620
2
1 MR. SINCAVAGE: Call the
2 regularly scheduled meeting of the Tobyhanna
3 Township Planning Commission to order. Public
4 comment? Obviously approval of the July 2009
5 minutes. We received them electronically. Copies
6 are available.
7 MR. MILLER: Make a motion we
8 approve the minutes as received.
9 MRS. LAMBERTON: I second the
10 motion.
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: Motion and
12 second. All those in favor please say aye.
13 MR. MILLER: Aye.
14 MRS. LAMBERTON: Aye.
15 MS. RINEHIMER: Aye.
16 MR. SINCAVAGE: Aye.
17 Next item on our agenda, open
18 projects. I just discussed it with our solicitor,
19 I'd like to suggest to the board that we deny
20 Wee-Wons Day Care expansion only because it's been
21 on our agenda for over a year and the solicitor did
22 contact all of these applicants in June and
23 requested some sort of update or information.
24 Right, Pat?
25 MR. ARMSTRONG: Right.
3
1 MR. SINCAVAGE: We only got a
2 response from Locust Ridge. So in order to clear
3 these off and get some movement from them, Pat
4 suggested that we suggest denial to the board of
5 supervisors but put a condition that if they did
6 reapply within 10 days of today's date that the
7 application would be accepted -- would continue.
8 MRS. LAMBERTON: So we'll give
9 them notice.
10 MR. SINCAVAGE: We're going to
11 give them notice, public notice that it would be
12 denied.
13 MR. ARMSTRONG: And any
14 recommendation you would make would be along with
15 the fact that it's been dormant for sometime and
16 also based upon the latest engineering review
17 letter, which I believe had extensive comments, on
18 the Wee-Wons plans at least.
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: Any discussion
20 on that?
21 MRS. LAMBERTON: Just a
22 question. Will they incur additional cost if they
23 go to reapply?
24 MR. SINCAVAGE: If the
25 supervisors deny it.
4
1 MR. ARMSTRONG: It gets denied
2 by the township, yes.
3 MRS. LAMBERTON: You hate to see
4 that happen if a project is coming to the township,
5 but then if they were serious, they would follow
6 through.
7 MR. MILLER: But they should
8 tell us.
9 MRS. LAMBERTON: We are giving
10 them the option in ten days to let us know exactly
11 what their intentions are.
12 MR. SINCAVAGE: Since the board
13 of supervisors has to approve it within ten days,
14 the supervisors put on ten days from whatever date
15 they decide. It would probably be from their
16 meeting.
17 MRS. LAMBERTON: The formal
18 notification?
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right.
20 MR. MILLER: Will they be
21 notified prior to the supervisors' meeting.
22 MR. ARMSTRONG: Absolutely.
23 What I would do is I'd send out a letter letting
24 them know what your recommendation was tonight and
25 see what happens. The board won't be acting on
5
1 these until Monday.
2 MRS. LAMBERTON: Okay.
3 MR. SINCAVAGE: Pat, you want to
4 word a motion so we get it correctly?
5 MR. ARMSTRONG: Yes. We'll do
6 them one at a time.
7 For the Wee-Wons Day Care
8 expansion, you could consider a motion to recommend
9 the denial of the plan based upon the engineer's
10 latest review letter and the fact that the
11 applicant has not responded and has allowed the
12 plan to lay dormant for a significant amount of
13 time. That recommendation is conditional upon the
14 applicant providing a satisfactory response to the
15 township within the next 10 days or at least prior
16 to the next board of supervisors' meeting.
17 MR. MILLER: I'll make that
18 motion.
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: I have a motion.
20 Do I have a second?
21 MRS. LAMBERTON: I'll second it.
22 MR. SINCAVAGE: Motion and
23 second. All those in favor please say aye.
24 MR. MILLER: Aye.
25 MRS. LAMBERTON: Aye.
6
1 MS. RINEHIMER: Aye.
2 MR. SINCAVAGE: Aye.
3 Glorious Church, same thing.
4 MR. ARMSTRONG: The next
5 applicant would be Glorious Church land development
6 plan. If you were to entertain a motion, it would
7 most likely be to recommend the denial of the
8 Glorious Church land development plan based upon
9 the latest township engineer's review letter as
10 well as the applicant's failure to proceed with the
11 plan and allow the plan to remain dormant for an
12 extended period of time; and further, that that
13 recommendation for denial be conditional upon the
14 applicant not responding satisfactorily to the
15 township within a ten day period of time or within
16 a satisfactory period of time before the next board
17 of supervisors' meeting.
18 MR. SINCAVAGE: Someone make
19 that motion.
20 MRS. LAMBERTON: I'll make that
21 motion.
22 MR. SINCAVAGE: I have a motion.
23 Do I have a second to the motion?
24 MS. RINEHIMER: I'll second it.
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: Motion and
7
1 second. All those in favor please say aye.
2 MR. MILLER: Aye.
3 MRS. LAMBERTON: Aye.
4 MS. RINEHIMER: Aye.
5 MR. SINCAVAGE: Aye.
6 And Glorious Church conditional
7 use application.
8 MR. ARMSTRONG: Similar to the
9 previous. The Glorious Church conditional use
10 application, if you were to entertain a motion to
11 recommend the denial of the conditional use
12 application based upon the latest township
13 engineer's review letter as well as the applicant's
14 failure to proceed with the plan and allow the plan
15 to remain dormant for an extended period of time;
16 and further make that recommendation conditional
17 upon the applicant's failure to satisfactorily
18 respond to the recommendations this evening within
19 ten days or within a sufficient amount of time
20 prior to the next board of supervisors' meeting.
21 MR. SINCAVAGE: Do I have a
22 motion to that effect?
23 MRS. LAMBERTON: I'll make that
24 motion.
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: I have a motion.
8
1 Do I have a second to the motion?
2 MR. MILLER: I'll second.
3 MR. SINCAVAGE: Motion and
4 second. All those in favor please say aye.
5 MR. MILLER: Aye.
6 MRS. LAMBERTON: Aye.
7 MS. RINEHIMER: Aye.
8 MR. SINCAVAGE: Aye.
9 Locust Ridge Quarry, 940
10 Contractors Shop. They have sent in a letter to us
11 which I received a copy of, requesting an extension
12 of time to December 31st, 2009. They site economic
13 conditions as a reason for their delay to move
14 forward, which I think we can all understand.
15 Do we need to make the
16 recommendation to accept this?
17 MR. ARMSTRONG: No. For Locust
18 Ridge Quarry we do have an indefinite time
19 extension from them to act on the plan. Their
20 response is saying don't act on our plan yet. We
21 want to get our plans up to date. We are planning
22 on submitting them on or before December 31st,
23 2009. So you don't have to take any action on
24 this. If you're okay with not acting on this plan,
25 you don't have to.
9
1 MR. SINCAVAGE: We just table it
2 like we have been?
3 MR. ARMSTRONG: Right.
4 MR. SINCAVAGE: Entertain a
5 motion to table Locust Ridge Quarry 940 Contractor
6 Shop.
7 MR. MILLER: So moved.
8 MRS. LAMBERTON: Second.
9 MR. SINCAVAGE: All those in
10 favor please say aye.
11 MR. MILLER: Aye.
12 MRS. LAMBERTON: Aye.
13 MS. RINEHIMER: Aye.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: Aye.
15 Next item on our agenda is
16 Hannig Development, Keswick Pointe special
17 exception. Mr. Hannig.
18 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Good
19 evening. Thank you for putting me on the agenda.
20 Chuck Hannig.
21 By way of background, we
22 submitted a request for a special exception back on
23 August 25, 2009. Since then I visited the
24 supervisors on 9/8/09, their rescheduled workshop
25 due to the holiday, and sought guidance on another
10
1 issue which was the need to do the same thing for
2 our townhouse model as we would for our single
3 family. And on advice and discussion that we had
4 during the workshop, I was advised we should
5 probably amend, if you will, our application, which
6 we did and resubmit it on September 9th, refreshed
7 to include both application for single family model
8 and also the townhouses.
9 If I may, it's, of course, our
10 necessity to bring this before you and then to go
11 to the supervisors to seek support before having a
12 scheduled zoning hearing for the special exception.
13 I don't know how familiar you are with the total
14 lay out of our PRD, but on the screen you will see
15 Lot 19 highlighted, which is near the entryway and
16 across from where we now have a staging area which
17 will be the basis for a parking lot for our amenity
18 area, and we purposely selected that. As we move
19 forward we had additional parking across the
20 street. That particular lot, and as we'll go on in
21 the packet here -- before we move on, so we don't
22 have to jump around with you, you notice up here,
23 as we enter the townhouses in Phase I, we were
24 fortunate the first one we encounter is a three
25 plex and as Phyllis is so aptly circling there,
11
1 that met our needs because we are basically going
2 to have three different models of townhouses, one
3 which will be a, you know, one bedroom down master
4 sweet and then another one has another
5 configuration and then one slightly more flexible
6 to enlargement, up to three bedrooms, which we
7 doubt will be a big seller. I think most will be
8 two bedrooms, but they are pretty good size
9 townhouses. We are assuming, not to bore you, but
10 the choices here are really a life style decision.
11 It's not townhouse versus if you care to have --
12 you're not going to give up space. For example,
13 you can have -- these pretty much approach 2400
14 square feet, so they are not small townhouses by
15 any means. The intent is to have a different kind
16 of life style. If you want to pack up and go to
17 Arizona or wherever you go for a prolonged period
18 of time, you can do that and know that it's all
19 there. We all know single family homes are a
20 little more confined. For some of us we like a
21 little bit more elbow room.
22 So enough for the sales
23 presentation. I'll move to the meat of the matter.
24 Thanks to Maureen she was able to get us tax
25 numbers for these parcels that I couldn't get out
12
1 of the courthouse, so I appreciate her tenacity in
2 doing that. We now have tax numbers for all these
3 lots and for the clusters of townhouses. So we are
4 able to indicate that on our application.
5 The requirement in our
6 developer's agreement and as is required under the
7 zoning ordinances, that we are mandated to seek the
8 special exception. It's probably more unique
9 inside of a PRD because it probably influences a
10 lot less people than if we are building a
11 model/office out on 940, but nonetheless we made
12 some visuals here. I'm trying to find one that's
13 germane. We'll move on to the site plan, Lot 19.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: I'm sorry, I
15 just have a question before we move away from that
16 large overall map. This lot here and here, will
17 this road all be paved to get to the model homes?
18 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Eventually,
19 yes.
20 MR. SINCAVAGE: I mean, when the
21 model home is open?
22 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Right now
23 we'll probably -- we've kind of rearranged our
24 subdivision efforts and we are now doing Phase III,
25 which is the large area down here. So we have
13
1 Lexington Road that will take you this way and
2 maybe likely -- because that's how our utilities
3 had to get to that area to feed the water tank. So
4 that may be in advance of having Keswick Drive,
5 but, yes, we are hoping to have that -- I don't
6 know whether it will be paved opening day, but the
7 intent is that all traffic to our sales effort will
8 go to Lot 19. From there you will be taken to see
9 the townhouses.
10 MR. SINCAVAGE: Okay. So the
11 traffic will stop here and you will have your own
12 vehicles that will go out through here.
13 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Right. And
14 the whole purpose of the townhouse is they are just
15 static. We are not looking to have any commercial
16 operation there whatsoever. They are just lot spec
17 houses, if you will. On this one we are only going
18 to convert the garage area into, you know, the
19 sales environment with selections and things like
20 that, that you would normally see. And from the
21 road it wouldn't look any different than any other
22 house, except maybe something that says model or
23 something to that effect. But the whole appearance
24 is to look like a single family home.
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: And then this
14
1 space here, which would be the proposed bus stop
2 that you talked about earlier, that would be hard
3 surface in some manner, so additional traffic could
4 park there?
5 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Absolutely.
6 I mean, right now it's got, you know, base down on
7 it. We are using it as a staging area. We get
8 deliveries of valves and pipes, we've got a nice
9 high and dry spot to put all that. Hopefully all
10 that will soon be in the ground and we won't have
11 to lay it out on the tarmac, so to speak. But we
12 felt that was an area that we had additional
13 parking. I hope I have such a problem that two
14 spaces in the driveway are quickly overwhelmed.
15 But as luck would have it, I'm a realist, I know I
16 probably have to have an empty car in the driveway
17 or nobody will stop. But once you do have
18 additional people or if I want to have some of our
19 sales staff, because as you know, I have a
20 conventional real estate business as well, there
21 may be days that I bring them there in the morning
22 to go through with what we are offering, the extras
23 and things like that, so we have training. But
24 that area we just thought would work best, be the
25 least intrusive to anyone even as we start to
15
1 develop the project and other people are living
2 there, you know, it's not going to be in your face.
3 We want the people to have a quiet enjoyment if
4 they were to buy from us.
5 I put in the packets here. Did
6 I answer your question?
7 MR. SINCAVAGE: Yes. Any other
8 questions on the general map? Okay, Phyllis, you
9 can move on.
10 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Probably
11 the next visual, if you can find the site plan,
12 right after this maybe, the next one -- there we
13 go. This one depicts Lot 19, and as you can see,
14 we've laid it out on the lot. When we go to the
15 next thing you will see where we've honored the
16 buffers that are around the lot as much as we
17 could. We are setting it back and meeting all the
18 requirements of the setback and still trying to
19 maintain as much woods to the rear. There is going
20 to be some site leveling there in the backyard.
21 You can see where there is a change of grade. We
22 are anticipating to level off the backyard somewhat
23 and most beyond that will remain wooded. And there
24 will be, of course, a buffer strip across the
25 frontage as well. I think it's probably depicted
16
1 on the next slide. All these meet the setback
2 requirements of the residential ordinances. You
3 can see here, the lines that you see are the buffer
4 strip and some of them unfortunately have been
5 disturbed because of the slope of the road in that
6 area, but has been, you know reestablished and
7 stabilized. Out towards the front here I think
8 we'll do some landscaping as you enter the driveway
9 and we'll try to maintain as much of the woodedness
10 along the property line and again try to leave as
11 much wood standing around this to make up for the
12 part that had to be disturbed because of the slope
13 easements.
14 But the landscaping in the front
15 and side, you will notice to the right hand side
16 here there is a little walk that takes you to a
17 service door to this garage, and the purpose of
18 that is that's where we will entertain the folks
19 coming to visit our model. They really won't go to
20 the front door. That will be static unless the
21 sales people determine the best way to do it is to
22 leave one environment and walk in the front door
23 and present the product in such a manner.
24 Talk about changing times, this
25 is an elevation of what this house will look like.
17
1 We have already found that we have some issues with
2 these that we have to resolve. A number of these
3 plans that we think look good, no longer meet the
4 codes. So even though they look nice, all those
5 windows are too low from inside without having
6 safety glass and it has to be so many feet off the
7 floor in order to do that. And some of the others,
8 as you start to do that, you lose the size for
9 egress. So with all these combined things, we are
10 now straightening out some of those issues. And
11 I'm trying to maintain -- we are getting some bids.
12 To go square here and here or to do that is about a
13 four thousand dollar differential, and I don't want
14 to give it up, so I'm trying to work that in. But
15 when you are trying to hit price points, these are
16 pressures that are put on you. And I have a thing,
17 once I see something I like, I don't like to tinker
18 with it and lose the ingredients that I happen to
19 like about it. A little bit of porch on the front
20 to keep it a little bit more home spun. We are
21 using some of the new appearances. The garage
22 doors that give you a little bit more -- some call
23 it a craft manner or the cottage look. And we want
24 to maintain that, even to the effect of having
25 window boxes, and we'll use those to plant and
18
1 stuff.
2 It has really a nice working
3 floor plan. I took the floor plan and I had
4 everybody in the office, and everybody I could get
5 an opinion from weigh in on it and they all kind of
6 tested and we blew out about six plans. So I'm
7 almost to the point now this may be the only floor
8 plan in the world that you'd ever want to build
9 because people seem to like the flexibility of the
10 plan. It's a nice open plan inside. I think it's
11 a good place for us to start. We have two other
12 plans behind this that we may sell and we may sell
13 those off of, you know, art boards rather than
14 creating a whole model village. As we start
15 putting them up, we can always walk people through
16 those as we are building them.
17 This is the three foot print
18 that you recall and this actually sits up a rise,
19 so as you're coming up Keswick Drive or even if you
20 came up Lexington from down here and turned, you
21 will look up and see the back of these townhomes.
22 So it's the first complex that you will see. You
23 will pull in here and then we can demonstrate
24 those. And we are going to go right across those.
25 It will be three different models. We are jagging
19
1 them in and out a little bit, so that the roof line
2 doesn't go across like a freight train. And we are
3 trying to give the entire building some character
4 to look at, rather than looking like it's three of
5 the same thing glued together. So I have had our
6 architect play with that and we put this one, moved
7 it over here and then we started to look at the
8 cross section of the roof lines and we think we've
9 got a pretty good combination of product that we'll
10 be looking at. We got them all to fit in the
11 footprints. I think it will actually give us more
12 of an opportunity to do some things on the front as
13 well, and not to have the runway of the -- as we
14 depicted here, coming together on the sidewalk
15 runway there. They'll be individual and we'll have
16 planning areas out to the front that will afford us
17 the opportunity of ornamental trees and kind of
18 frame it into the unit. So if you look at the next
19 slide, that demonstrates a little bit more of the
20 individual character, and, you know, each will have
21 a little bit different appearance because we slid
22 them a little bit here and still have to maintain
23 our 20 foot here from the starting point, and
24 answer Bob's question he's thinking right now, this
25 one gets two foot more paving there, but we felt it
20
1 was better not to have a straight line. And we
2 tried to change the appearances of the entries, so
3 you don't feel like if you came home one night, you
4 wouldn't know which unit was yours. Unlike they do
5 in other parts of Europe, all these doors probably
6 would be the same color rather than all different
7 color doors. But I think you can see the trees we
8 put in the front here, those islands now give us
9 the opportunity to do that. We shorten up the
10 impervious areas of the sidewalks and also lessen
11 the amount of snow that we have to shovel and so
12 forth and try to keep things so that we can
13 maintain them. And we'll blend a lot of this back
14 into the natural setting, so we are not meant to
15 have acres of lawn around them as opposed to being
16 encased in a natural setting as much as possible.
17 On this side here we have a
18 little bit more restoration because we are coming
19 down off of a hill and we have to -- we know there
20 is going to be some slope easements that has to
21 work through.
22 So that is the pictorial. I
23 hope that's the last one. It's my last one. I
24 don't know whether I answered your questions, but
25 this really could be even considered us making
21
1 application for three spec homes, but the reality
2 is we are going to use them as models, so we felt
3 that we should approach it that way. We also have,
4 as a requirement of our developer's agreement, and
5 all those things are still in play, that we
6 will not seek occupancy of any of these until we
7 have completed sewer and fire flow, a whole list of
8 things that have to be in place before we request
9 occupancy. I'm hoping that before we would even
10 start framing on here, within 500 feet of this
11 location, the water tank is scheduled to arrive
12 next week, to start installation within the next
13 seven to ten days. The foundation is already in.
14 We may very well have water in the tank. If I
15 don't have a central water system, I may have a lot
16 of water that will be close by to this with a drain
17 valve that I can always turn it on and get it to
18 the higher end of the corner and provide at least
19 fire flow or water accessibility, should we need
20 it.
21 I don't know what else I can
22 tell you about this. It's probably more than you
23 wanted to hear.
24 MR. ARMSTRONG: Just
25 procedurally, so the commission knows in case you
22
1 aren't aware, like Mr. Hannig indicated, the
2 development agreement and the zoning ordinance
3 requires them to go through a special exception
4 application for model homes, and procedurally the
5 planning commission has the ability to review any
6 comments on the proposed special exception. The
7 actual hearing will be before the zoning hearing
8 board, but you have the opportunity to review what
9 he's proposing and provide any comments you may
10 have. The only thing that I would indicate for
11 your consideration is if you were to make a
12 recommendation tonight, obviously make the
13 applicant require to comply with all the zoning
14 ordinances as well as the already approved PRD.
15 Those are the only comments I have with respect to
16 the plan. And I think the applicant is well aware
17 of that, it's just a matter of getting --
18 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Believe me,
19 we have to discipline our own staff. They just
20 can't draw things without looking at other
21 documents, you know, because our architect doesn't
22 realize there are constraints, considers himself an
23 artist, so he keeps it out of the box. I say no,
24 you can't go out of the box.
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: Would you have
23
1 had sewer to the model home when it's opened?
2 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Have what?
3 MR. SINCAVAGE: Sewer.
4 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: We talked
5 about that. It will probably be all available and
6 probably the answer will be yes by the time the
7 unit is done. Whether or not we want to do that,
8 but I hate to take someone from point A and move
9 them to point B and find out somebody in the family
10 needs to use a restroom facility. So, to answer
11 your question, I think it would be practical,
12 somewhere in that complex to have one working
13 bathroom. So we would probably get one in for that
14 purpose.
15 MR. SINCAVAGE: At the model
16 home.
17 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: The model
18 home definitely, but even at this end, you don't
19 want to take somebody out here and say we have a
20 Job Johnny, but we'll have central sewer some day.
21 But, yes, from some of the questions you're asking
22 really Mark, the answer is yes, yes, yes, it's just
23 a case of how many of these things come together.
24 You know, it's like a perfect storm. We'll have
25 all these things, but the likelihood that all those
24
1 will be in place before we turn the key and open
2 them, is probably not going to happen because, you
3 know, we are anxious to try and ring the bell by
4 sometime next spring. It's been a long journey,
5 and we've got a lot of receipts, but they don't
6 help me.
7 MR. SINCAVAGE: I know the
8 feeling.
9 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: So we are
10 anxious to do something there that will just
11 rejuvenate all our energies to wanting to do more,
12 do all we can to make it attractive, not only in
13 our own community, but Tobyhanna Township.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: Any questions or
15 comments?
16 MRS. LAMBERTON: Do you have a
17 front elevation of the clusters?
18 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Not yet.
19 We are working on it as we speak. I tried to look
20 at what I had hanging on the board, but it didn't
21 have any -- they were just like roof lines, not
22 enough to really be demonstrative. You kind of
23 work from the inside out, so we've gotten the floor
24 plans pretty well through our shake down crews, if
25 you will. Then we had to play with jostling them
25
1 around to see how the roof lines -- because if you
2 don't move certain ones, the roof, the peak or
3 ridge line on each of these is at various places.
4 If you look at center from here to here, center
5 here to here and center here to here, they move
6 around. We want that. You want them to have some
7 variations so you don't wind up between the roofs
8 you also have a difference in elevation. So you
9 have a cheek down here, then you can add siding on,
10 rather than just having them worse yet, having them
11 six inches apart where you run a strip of trim
12 down. It's not enough separation. So all that's
13 been worked out. And the front, if I were to tell
14 you a style, we are looking at again at a
15 cottage -- a hybrid between a cottage look and a
16 craftsman or you know, putting in some posts,
17 things that are of that particular architecture.
18 You're going to see stone fronts used in the
19 vignettes. We're going to have probably a
20 split-shaped look. We are looking for low
21 maintenance. We are already making application to
22 be perhaps one of the first green communities in
23 Monroe County. We've already started a scoring
24 sheet to see how we might do, which may impose
25 other things on us that I hate to think that you
26
1 folks missed anything. There may be another
2 overlay that we may have to look at, but we'd like
3 to do that if it's possible. So we are evaluating
4 that. We're certainly going to come out with a
5 green product. We are going to have each of our
6 units scored and we'll attempt to meet those
7 requirements, which is a green requirement that
8 we'd like to meet with all our models.
9 Some of those things we can meet
10 and they can exceed. If the folks want to go
11 beyond that, we'll have options that they can do
12 upgrades, but we are trying to have a price point
13 rather than rock somebody's world before they
14 start. But there are certain things that we will
15 impose on them that we think are sensible as
16 basics, if you will, or standards.
17 MR. SINCAVAGE: Bob, do you have
18 any comments?
19 MR. McHALE: Just wanted to
20 mention that the criteria spelled out in the zoning
21 ordinance 155-79 lists the numbers of items,
22 guiding principals and such, and between the -- and
23 there is actually a footnote on the application and
24 it says that the request for this application is
25 subject to all information and requirements of the
27
1 recorded PRD for Keswick Pointe and its related
2 township developer agreement. So between the
3 approved Phase I plans and the development
4 agreement and those types of items, all this legal
5 data, natural features, utilities and such is all
6 comprised and is shown on those drawings. And I
7 believe Mr. Hannig was going to carry an extra set
8 with him to the zoning hearing board, so if any
9 question arises, he'd have something to show them
10 where all that data is, because these particular
11 illustrations don't necessarily contain that data.
12 MR. SINCAVAGE: So the procedure
13 is that we make any -- we can make any conditions
14 we wish on the --
15 MR. ARMSTRONG: Well, you can
16 review it and you can make recommendations to the
17 zoning hearing board with respect to certain
18 conditions if you have any in mind.
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: I'm not hearing
20 anything besides just the conditions that Pat
21 mentioned earlier with the zoning and SALDO
22 sections being met as well as the PRD which is on
23 the application any how.
24 MRS. LAMBERTON: We agree.
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: We see nothing
28
1 else that needs to be addressed.
2 MRS. LAMBERTON: I'm satisfied.
3 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Thank you.
4 There is one other issue that we have.
5 MR. SINCAVAGE: Chuck, before
6 you move on, do we need to make a formal
7 recommendation?
8 MR. ARMSTRONG: You can, yes.
9 MR. SINCAVAGE: Would it be in
10 the form of a motion?
11 MR. ARMSTRONG: Yes. Make a
12 motion to recommend to the zoning hearing board.
13 If you're recommending that the zoning hearing
14 board find in favor of the special exception
15 request, make it conditional upon the two zoning
16 ordinances as well as the PRD.
17 MR. SINCAVAGE: Do I have a
18 motion to that effect?
19 MRS. LAMBERTON: I'll make that
20 motion.
21 MR. SINCAVAGE: I have a motion.
22 Do I have a second to the motion?
23 MR. MILLER: Second.
24 MR. SINCAVAGE: Motion and
25 second. All those in favor, please say aye.
29
1 MRS. LAMBERTON: Aye.
2 MR. MILLER: Aye.
3 MS. RINEHIMER: Aye.
4 MR. SINCAVAGE: Aye.
5 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Thank you.
6 We'll be presenting again at the supervisors
7 meeting next week for their recommendation.
8 I think the one issue that I
9 believe Bob had sent you a communication on
10 regarding the dilemma that we had on the frontage
11 of road of Keswick Drive formally known as Water
12 Street, as we entered the development of Keswick
13 Pointe. It appears that when we started to probe
14 to do our grade there, we discovered the electric
15 line that's encased in concrete going to the
16 township treatment plant was A, not where it was
17 supposed to be, according to plans, and B, it
18 certainly wasn't at the depth that we thought that
19 it was. But, for whatever reasons, if we were to
20 contour the road, we literally would be stripping
21 it right down to the top of the concrete. So
22 that's one issue.
23 The other issue is the more we
24 take that entry down, I'm talking in simplistic
25 terms, the more we drop the grade. We are also
30
1 reducing some of the cover we have over the main
2 line down from Blakeslee Corners, turns into across
3 Water Street towards the treatment plant. So
4 additional cover there certainly would be
5 advisable. To that end, Bob is communicating with
6 Casey from Riley and he showed if we changed that
7 to a vertical profile, we come in and ask for a
8 waiver that we can make it work. We had to change
9 some drainage which we found a way to make work and
10 that right now is kind of holding us up from
11 getting our whole front end in order. And the
12 bottom line is it needs to be corrected. Bob has
13 come back with a very good recommendation that we
14 basically have the problem into two steps to make
15 that change rather than one. Am I saying that
16 correctly, doing two segments that we don't exceed
17 the length?
18 MR. McHALE: Yes. The major
19 concern is not the slight deviation off of the
20 vertical curve requirements in the ordinance, but
21 rather that's a smooth transition and that we don't
22 have two tangent slopes coming together. This is
23 going to be the main entrance, not only to the
24 development, but it's for the two out parcels and
25 to our plant. So you don't want people coming off
31
1 115 and feeling like there is a dip there or
2 something. So all we asked for their engineer to
3 do is take another look at it and make sure it's
4 transitioning. As far as slopes or grades of the
5 road, they are all in alignment with the ordinances
6 and such. So it's just a matter of if you all felt
7 comfortable with just -- if you wanted to make any
8 kind of recommendations, would be just simply that
9 the road profiles, they would be modified to take
10 into account those transitions as smoothly as they
11 could, especially in front of those out parcels,
12 because the board of supervisors are ultimately
13 going to have to approve or look to make a
14 recommendation -- we would make the recommendation
15 and they would approve any changes to this final
16 plan.
17 MR. SINCAVAGE: Is the map that
18 was submitted depicting the new or proposed slope?
19 MR. McHALE: Yes. The original
20 slope where the 4.98 percent is, the original slope
21 is about 3 percent and the 1.46 I believe is about
22 a 2. So they are trying to just get over that
23 concrete case, electrical service, and lifting that
24 up a little bit. It's also going to help where we
25 have a sewer crossing, the depths or different
32
1 clearance between the sewer now becomes a little
2 greater, which is very good.
3 MR. SINCAVAGE: Where is the
4 sewer crossing?
5 MR. McHALE: It's running
6 parallel to and under a ditch that's on the
7 opposite side of the road. So we wouldn't see it
8 actually coming through there.
9 MR. SINCAVAGE: But it has to
10 cross over Keswick at some point?
11 MR. McHALE: Yes. It says two
12 existing manholes. It's further up, around Station
13 4 I believe it is. But where the ditch is on what
14 would be the north side of the Keswick Drive is
15 where our concern was as far as clearance between
16 the sanitary line. Where it crosses under Keswick,
17 we didn't have concern.
18 MR. SINCAVAGE: Okay.
19 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: As luck
20 would have it, the location of that service
21 happened to be right where we were having to
22 excavate to put a culvert along the road, so it
23 compounded the issue, but we moved that back and we
24 can make all the drainage work. So, it's really
25 necessitated that or we'd have to actually move the
33
1 entire encased in concrete electric line.
2 MR. SINCAVAGE: Any comments or
3 questions?
4 MRS. LAMBERTON: I'm happy with
5 Bob's recommendations.
6 MR. SINCAVAGE: I need a motion.
7 MRS. LAMBERTON: I'll make a
8 motion to move forward with Bob's recommendations.
9 Is that fair enough?
10 MR. SINCAVAGE: That's fair
11 enough. I think he explained it.
12 Second to the motion?
13 MS. RINEHIMER: I'll second it.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: Motion and
15 second. All those in favor, please say aye.
16 MRS. LAMBERTON: Aye.
17 MR. MILLER: Aye.
18 MS. RINEHIMER: Aye.
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: Aye.
20 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Thank you.
21 MR. SINCAVAGE: Anything else?
22 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: No. That's
23 it. This allows us to bring it to the supervisors
24 for approval. We can get that going.
25 Just by way of update, we pretty
34
1 well stabilized most of our E and S. Some of you
2 have seen some of this. I won't belabor -- I don't
3 know whether this needs to be on record. In any
4 case, we've been making progress. We have a great
5 deal of water lines already ran. Like I said, we
6 have basically from near the well site all the way
7 up to the water tanks, in the ground. We are
8 reviewing some things with Bob right now and some
9 changes to some things on the sewer and when that's
10 resolved we are ready to start the sewer lines. We
11 talked to PPL and we are going to wait to get sewer
12 in. We'd rather do all the hard piping first
13 before we start running cable through the project.
14 It's a little easier to take cable around things
15 than to take pipes through wires. That's kind of
16 the order we are going in. All of Section 1 is
17 pretty well profiled to subgrade. Phase III is
18 pretty much the same. The upper townhouse part has
19 been cleared, and, you know, pretty much to grade
20 there. And we have stayed away from our neighbor,
21 Mrs. Brown intentionally. We kind of came this way
22 and this way and left her alone, because we don't
23 have to do anything in there. And that's a new
24 what we call 1B, so until we have to go in there,
25 there is no reason to disturb her privacy. So
35
1 that's worked out well. Things are moving along.
2 Not as fast as I'd like, but we are getting the job
3 done.
4 We've had a number of
5 inspections by the conversation district. One was
6 pure as ivory snow. The last one wasn't so good.
7 They found a couple things where we were getting a
8 little aggressive not stabilizing. That was
9 corrected. It wasn't going anywhere, but, you
10 know, we weren't following the spirit of --
11 MR. McHALE: One thing that the
12 conversation district brought up, that there is
13 more of a sequencing items, that the embankment
14 slopes and even around the model homes, they are
15 not stabilized yet, but when they go in and put in
16 the sewer and the water laterals as well as
17 telephone and cable, they've go to cut through
18 those. So if they put down this permanent mat and
19 then they've got to come back in with a backhoe and
20 cut through that, it's very difficult.
21 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: You got two
22 laterals going in. We got three, sewer, water,
23 electric, all that is going to cut through this and
24 you're doing like every -- feet, you know, it's
25 like, it would make it into mince meat. So we are
36
1 stabilizing it, you know, hay, straw, seeding.
2 Even that will have to be disturbed again and
3 again, but we are doing something. But the way we
4 were doing it was basically holding it all in the
5 street they were working on at the time and it was
6 not making it to the sed basins that were designed
7 to take that. We didn't want the silt in the sed
8 basins, so, but everyday they come in, they push it
9 all back in place and let it dry out in the road
10 bed, but it's not the best of management practice,
11 but it was working.
12 MR. McHALE: There has been no
13 discharge violations or anything like that into the
14 creek. The sed basins are operating properly.
15 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: One sed
16 basin wasn't holding well around the pipe and I
17 believe they have addressed that. They just had
18 some leakage around. We are watching that. The
19 rest, the grass is like this high. The good news
20 is the rainy season. We are very stable in that
21 regard. I have talked to the members of your
22 fishing club down there and everybody seems to be
23 pleased. We always made sure when we are done at
24 the end of the day there was a way to get in their
25 vehicle to go fishing and not deprive them in their
37
1 access until we get them formalized. So I think
2 all and all I have been pleased. Bob's had
3 dealings with Richie, who is the foreman there.
4 He's a very capable individual and he's always
5 thinking. He's good at what he does. That was
6 part of my deal. They got the contract. I wanted
7 somebody there that I knew I could trust in my
8 absence and make good decisions. So, so far, I
9 think that's been sound. He's been communicating
10 very well with Bob to make sure we are not always
11 going through our engineers and back and losing
12 time, there's been direct communications. I
13 appreciate Bob's willingness to talk to the field
14 people. We are pleased with things so far.
15 Hopefully we can keep going.
16 MR. SINCAVAGE: Well, good luck.
17 It's a very nice project.
18 MS. HAASE: With that being
19 said, I received a copy of the report from the
20 conversation district and I appreciate, within two
21 days, I received a response from you.
22 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Usually I
23 don't make two days.
24 MS. HAASE: And I do appreciate
25 you communicating with me.
38
1 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: I can tell
2 you you were the second communication. The first
3 was the people in the field because I wanted it
4 addressed immediately, when they are there, before
5 they leave. I have known the folks in the
6 conservation district for a long time, so for me
7 it's like a personal embarrassment to get a strike
8 for any reason. And I know their job isn't to come
9 out and give accolades. I think one time with
10 Craig Todd, I went to look at a project, he said
11 you're not under our jurisdiction. I said the guy
12 goes by everyday from your office, can you get him
13 to stop and kick some tires. They are doing a good
14 job. Can he stop and say hey, you're doing a good
15 job or find something that needs a critique. He
16 said, nobody calls me and asks to stop at their
17 site. I said I look at you guys as a resource, not
18 a police force.
19 MS. HAASE: I do appreciate it.
20 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: That goes
21 for anybody, if there is ever a problem, anybody
22 can pick up a phone and talk to me and we'll get on
23 it. We are not perfect. We try to be, but we'll
24 never get it there. If we do, we'll raise the bar.
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: You're doing a
39
1 good job of it. Thank you.
2 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Thank you.
3 Thank you for your support.
4 MR. SINCAVAGE: Next item on our
5 agenda is the Regional Comprehensive Plan.
6 MR. ARMSTRONG: The supervisors
7 have a public hearing scheduled for Monday. The
8 planning commission has been involved extensively
9 on this. I guess back when the township initially
10 adopted the regional comprehensive plan, it
11 excluded the future land use map. This would be
12 the future land use to be added to the regional
13 comp plan of Tobyhanna Township.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: I have a couple
15 comments I want to make, just to start the
16 conversation. Phyllis, if you could zoom in on the
17 Blakeslee area.
18 This is New Ventures Park, as
19 you know, and, Bob, this coloring here, is that the
20 industrial? I was having a hard time trying to
21 decipher it.
22 MR. McHALE: Yes.
23 MR. SINCAVAGE: I would like to
24 make the suggestion that these front lots here in
25 this area be rezoned or should be changed on this
40
1 map to business development, simply because in the
2 industrial district, it's not specifically allowed
3 to have a hotel and offices. The description of
4 each district is on the back of the map.
5 MRS. LAMBERTON: I wonder if I
6 have the most current.
7 MR. SINCAVAGE: No, we probably
8 don't have the most recent. This is the most
9 current.
10 MS. HAASE: The one on the
11 screen is the most current.
12 MR. SINCAVAGE: So I'd like to
13 suggest that that be business development out in
14 the front here because the hotel's here, state
15 police station is here, our offices are here. This
16 is proposed for a plex building, which could be
17 offices and maybe some light manufacturing. And
18 this would be -- this is actually an outdated --
19 MS. HAASE: Mark, are you
20 proposing Lot 1 as well?
21 MR. SINCAVAGE: Yes, because
22 they have always been looking for a service station
23 there or possibly -- even on this lot here they are
24 looking at doing a hotel, another hotel. That's
25 what we keep hearing. This would be a service
41
1 plaza.
2 MRS. LAMBERTON: That's north of
3 80?
4 MR. SINCAVAGE: North of 80.
5 MR. McHALE: That's Park or
6 Venture --
7 MR. SINCAVAGE: This is
8 commercial, this is Park, to be known as Park Side.
9 I'm saying that this whole front section here like
10 that, should be business development instead of the
11 commercial industrial.
12 MS. HAASE: So Lot 1 and Lot 2.
13 MR. SINCAVAGE: It's lots -- no.
14 It's actually -- yes. Lots 1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 14
15 and 15. This is an older map. We did a
16 resubdivision. This one has been eliminated. That
17 should actually be in the open space, rural is what
18 it's called on there. These lot lines aren't
19 correct right in this area.
20 MRS. LAMBERTON: Basically, just
21 pulling away the distribution use.
22 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right, across
23 the front. Obviously, in the back, that's what is
24 proposed. So that fits. And what's up in the back
25 here, this is Downs and Reeders, which does have a
42
1 manufacturing with their planers and stuff. Pocono
2 Mountain Dairy is here with the distribution
3 center. So that would meet the zoning, you know,
4 the future land use. So that's all I'm saying,
5 just this front part should be --
6 MRS. LAMBERTON: Frontage on
7 115.
8 MR. McHALE: So it would
9 continue from where the general commercial is shown
10 right there, it would continue and just expand out
11 slightly.
12 MR. SINCAVAGE: Well, no,
13 because this -- Bob, under the new mapping --
14 MR. McHALE: That's the open
15 space.
16 MR. SINCAVAGE: Yes. That is an
17 open space use. That became lot --
18 MR. McHALE: Then it would only
19 be that and then you open up again --
20 MR. SINCAVAGE: Then this would
21 become business development.
22 MS. HAASE: Mark, when you say
23 open space, from Streams Edge?
24 MR. SINCAVAGE: Yes. Streams
25 Edge actually comes out to 115 here. This lot line
43
1 was realigned.
2 MS. HAASE: Okay.
3 MR. SINCAVAGE: When we did the
4 subdivision -- and actually there is another lot
5 created here which is Lot 13. And it's a recorded
6 map.
7 MR. ARMSTRONG: Use that dot and
8 point -- I think there's seven lots you said.
9 Point them out so I have them in my head.
10 MR. SINCAVAGE: 1, 2, 10, 11,
11 12, 13 can stay as it is, 14 and 15. 1, 2, 10, 11,
12 12, 14, 15.
13 MR. ARMSTRONG: Those lots are
14 identified on that subdivision plan?
15 MR. SINCAVAGE: Yes. This was
16 the previous subdivision plan. It was just updated
17 because we created another lot in this area which
18 is Lot 13, which would be for our future operations
19 once we consummate the deal with Arcadia. And this
20 became an open space area here to act as a buffer
21 along the stream here. That became part of this
22 residential area.
23 MRS. LAMBERTON: Pretty much
24 it's the existing state police, Best Western and
25 all the ones that front 115, the vacant lots.
44
1 MR. SINCAVAGE: Yes. The vacant
2 lots. Then our office is here, improved plex
3 building. Then from what I read, Bob, the plex
4 building would fall under business development more
5 so than industrial, according to these definitions.
6 It talks about manufacturing warehouse, minor
7 railroad freight terminals, distribution centers,
8 research and testing laboratories, offices,
9 municipal.
10 MR. McHALE: Well, warehousing,
11 light manufacturing is all part of business
12 development. So it's almost like the business
13 development and industrial categories that the land
14 use map has. It's a cross over or contains most of
15 our CI.
16 MRS. LAMBERTON: Minus
17 distribution.
18 MR. McHALE: Correct.
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right. Then the
20 other one is over here. I notice that we brought
21 the industrial over here. I'm not sure why because
22 I think that lot would be kind of small for a
23 distribution center. I'm just wondering if that
24 should also be business development. That is
25 currently -- it was the old Sunoco station. It's
45
1 been abandoned for quite sometime on the other side
2 of 80 for warehouse distribution.
3 MRS. LAMBERTON: Perfect access
4 right there.
5 MR. SINCAVAGE: But under the
6 definition, if you look at the -- see, warehousing
7 is allowed under business development, but you're
8 given a little bit more flexibility under business
9 development. It's for hotels, motels, restaurant.
10 MRS. LAMBERTON: Okay. That's
11 true.
12 MR. SINCAVAGE: But you still
13 have your manufacturing, am I right? Yes, light
14 manufacturing and you still have warehouse.
15 MRS. LAMBERTON: Correct.
16 MR. SINCAVAGE: The industrial
17 is a little bit more restricted.
18 MRS. LAMBERTON: I see what
19 you're saying.
20 MR. SINCAVAGE: I'm not sure why
21 that occurred there. I can't remember.
22 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: If I could
23 add, that would not be a site that would be
24 condoned or, you know, lend itself to industrial or
25 distribution. It's nice with the ramp there, but I
46
1 don't think it would be real good for the
2 municipality. You need to stay consistent with the
3 stuff that's going down the highway there, and you
4 want to have things like hotels that are ratables,
5 quite frankly.
6 MRS. LAMBERTON: That is a good
7 point.
8 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: The
9 ratability of that site would be better commercial
10 and much more flexible for uses.
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: So that would be
12 my suggestion, that that be rezoned to business
13 development.
14 MR. McHALE: Phyllis, can you
15 slide the map down now so we can see further up
16 Blakeslee Corners.
17 There was an attempt to take an
18 overlay or superimpose the current zoning on top of
19 this land use map, so that CI piece there, correct,
20 is shown to be business development in the future.
21 And I think some of the discussion, as I recall,
22 was that rather than have an industrial setting
23 there -- even though it's kind of behind the
24 commercial enterprises out front, which are
25 fronting on 115 and 940, truck traffic and those
47
1 types of things. I believe we talked about it at
2 one of our previous meetings, so I just wanted to
3 highlight that that is in red and make sure
4 everybody is aware that that change had been made.
5 MR. SINCAVAGE: You wanted to
6 change that to business development instead of
7 general commercial?
8 MR. McHALE: No. Whatever it
9 is, to remain that red -- what is that red? It's
10 general commercial. To leave it as we are showing,
11 but the CI would not be a gray color, to show it as
12 industrial. I think we decided in a previous
13 meeting that it would be better to show it in
14 that --
15 MR. SINCAVAGE: Yes. I remember
16 having that conversation even at the regional comp
17 level. We didn't want to have an industrial use
18 right in the middle of town.
19 MR. McHALE: Correct.
20 MR. ARMSTRONG: The supervisors
21 discussed this a little bit at their work session
22 this past week. I think one of the confusing
23 issues was that we actually have the existing
24 zoning uses over -- however you want to -- overlaid
25 onto this map. And one of the suggestions of the
48
1 supervisors was to just get rid of that so there
2 was no confusion, because you look at the red
3 there, it says C and it says CI, when in fact this
4 future land use map is showing that the whole area
5 would be just general commercial. So that was one
6 of the discussions of the supervisors, for a
7 recommendation trying to get rid of those actual
8 zoning map uses overlaid.
9 MR. SINCAVAGE: And then the
10 other discussion I wanted to have, to bring to the
11 board's attention too is this future growth area.
12 The future growth area is identified in the
13 Blakeslee area as this area here. It comes down
14 through here and goes up through here. This whole
15 area here, correct, Bob?
16 MS. HAASE: I don't know if it
17 goes up to --
18 MR. SINCAVAGE: It goes up
19 further?
20 I'm sorry, you're correct. It
21 does. It's this one.
22 MR. ARMSTRONG: Just so the
23 commission is aware, the Monroe County Planning
24 Commission, they have provided a review letter and
25 I have actually spoken with someone from their
49
1 office and what's going to have to happen, if and
2 when Tobyhanna does decide to move forward and
3 adopt this as their future land use map under the
4 regional comp plan, the additional members of the
5 regional comp plan are going to have to, you know,
6 adopt it as well because it's a regional comp plan.
7 It's an amendment to one that's already been
8 adopted. So, in -- because, Mark, you just brought
9 that up, in the Monroe County Planning Commission's
10 review letter, they actually indicate that that --
11 what was the name of it?
12 MR. SINCAVAGE: Future growth
13 area.
14 MR. ARMSTRONG: Future growth
15 area was illegible on this map and that they
16 suggested to clarify it or you know detail it in
17 more detail. However, the problem is, I don't
18 think the township actually has an actual software
19 version that they can make changes to of this map.
20 So what is actually going to happen or what I
21 foresee happen, when the supervisors do review this
22 at their public meeting or public hearing next
23 week, that it's going to still have to go to, most
24 likely, this Monroe County Planning Commission to
25 revise the map accordingly, so that the entire
50
1 regional comp plan can be revised pursuant to a
2 public hearing down the road. This is -- this
3 public hearing coming up for Tobyhanna Township is
4 limited to Tobyhanna Township. It's basically
5 Tobyhanna Township looking at what's being proposed
6 and if the supervisors are on board with what is
7 being proposed, making a recommendation with the
8 applicable procedures to actually amend the
9 regional comp future land use.
10 MR. SINCAVAGE: I think that's a
11 good point. I did review the letter from Monroe
12 County.
13 So it is the dark line, I'm
14 sorry, does go out further -- I see it now that
15 Phyllis scrolled -- and picks up this area. I
16 mean, it has been talked about at the township
17 level that the sewer lines will continue out 940
18 this way.
19 Continuing on the same vein,
20 Phyllis, if you can go over to the Pocono Pines
21 area. Okay, is this a future growth area too?
22 MR. MILLER: Point to it.
23 MR. SINCAVAGE: I'm seeing it
24 right into here.
25 MR. MILLER: At the end of the
51
1 lake? I don't see that it continues.
2 MR. SINCAVAGE: I don't know if
3 I'm just imagining that it looks green to me up
4 there. Okay. To me it didn't show up on the map
5 and I'm wondering if it should show up on the map
6 as -- what is this one?
7 MR. McHALE: There is designated
8 growth area and there is a future growth area.
9 MR. SINCAVAGE: That's what I
10 mean. Blakeslee is the designated growth area.
11 I'm wondering if we should recommend that Pocono
12 Pines be a future growth area.
13 MR. ARMSTRONG: Well, this is a
14 future land use map.
15 MR. SINCAVAGE: I understand,
16 but for some reason on the diagram there is two
17 different designations. You see what I'm talking
18 about? If you look on the legend, there is a
19 future growth area and a designated growth area.
20 Blakeslee is a designated growth area and I'm
21 just -- in conversation, should we have Pocono
22 Pines be a future growth area?
23 MS. RINEHIMER: Is Pocono Pines
24 designated as either now?
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: No.
52
1 MRS. LAMBERTON: You're saying
2 should it be?
3 MR. SINCAVAGE: Yes, because the
4 other end of the township, as you can see on this
5 map is also a designated growth area, which is out
6 near Pocono Manor. It's better if we just forget
7 about it. Take that off the legend. I don't even
8 know why it's on there.
9 MRS. LAMBERTON: What is its
10 purpose?
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: I don't know
12 where that came from.
13 MRS. LAMBERTON: I know they are
14 talking village commercial and designating those
15 particular areas for that to keep the larger
16 warehouse industrial on the outskirts.
17 MR. MILLER: Are there other
18 townships surrounding us, and they are trying to
19 get similar --
20 MR. McHALE: I think they tried
21 to make a composite of everybody's current
22 ordinances and come up with this future land use
23 map that would work for everybody, but it doesn't
24 really match up.
25 MR. MILLER: Just because it's a
53
1 designated key doesn't mean we have it in our
2 township.
3 MR. McHALE: Correct.
4 MR. ARMSTRONG: Keep in mind
5 that the map as a whole, in the regional comp plan,
6 encompasses not only Tobyhanna township but the
7 other three municipalities that are members of the
8 regional comp. So those other municipalities may
9 use that particular --
10 MR. McHALE: That was one of the
11 comments by I believe the Monroe County Planning
12 Commission, that the map that we are looking at
13 here primarily focuses on our township with the
14 periphery of the other three municipalities. And
15 they were saying that the entire map needs to be
16 changed, not just our portion.
17 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right, because
18 if you continue out -- Phyllis, if you continue to
19 go out 380, you can see this future growth area
20 extends up into Coolbaugh. It goes up into the
21 industrial parks up here. And I think this is the
22 rail. The rail comes through here, right? Do you
23 know, Chuck?
24 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: The rail's
25 right there. The whole notion of Monroe 2020 was
54
1 to create small village centers and larger village
2 centers with the intent that you cluster heavier
3 uses in those areas and stop creating 611s that go
4 on forever. You know, then you cluster those uses
5 and you have interruptions of just open space, not
6 have it all strip development all along the
7 corridor.
8 MR. SINCAVAGE: Then, again, we
9 have this industrial use here again, the industrial
10 designation, and I'm not sure -- oh, that's where
11 the flour mill is.
12 MR. McHALE: It's gray and that
13 is primarily industrial area.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: You're right.
15 MR. McHALE: This piece right
16 here, if you recall, the planning commission had
17 recommended to change that from residential to what
18 Mr. Hannig just spoke about. The designation now
19 is borough village center with mixed use and
20 currently that's primarily residential except for
21 the body shop, which is in Coolbaugh Township.
22 When the rail or whatever future transportation
23 that occurs in that area, was to expand that piece
24 a little bit for our township as a future use.
25 MR. ARMSTRONG: And one of the
55
1 things that the supervisors talked about as well is
2 to clarify exactly where that line right there, the
3 southern tip of that village, borough village mixed
4 use is.
5 MR. McHALE: There is lots on
6 either side of a connector road that occurs from
7 314 to the north and west. There is a road right
8 in there, and the question I guess was, do you want
9 to keep the road as the defining line or do you
10 make those lots that are on the opposite side, they
11 are all residential for the most part in that area,
12 but do you also pick up the lots on the other side
13 of the road, which are smaller lots. Because this
14 map doesn't clearly show the -- like, your changes
15 that were made on your subdivision, they are not
16 showing up. So that was just one question that was
17 raised.
18 Phyllis, do you have that sketch
19 by chance?
20 MS. HAASE: No, I don't. I can
21 print one out if you like.
22 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Isn't there
23 already commercial use in that residential area.
24 Isn't that where Johnnies is?
25 MR. McHALE: Johnnies is across
56
1 the street.
2 MS. HAASE: Johnnies would be
3 here.
4 MR. McHALE: There is a body
5 shop or something.
6 MS. HAASE: The body shop is
7 right at this corner.
8 MR. SINCAVAGE: So, are we
9 saying this should be -- I think it may have been
10 a road.
11 MS. HAASE: Well, we had three
12 different opinions. One was Norton Prior
13 (phonetic), one was a lot to the left of Norton
14 Prior and the other one was to outline all of the
15 lots.
16 MR. SINCAVAGE: This currently
17 is business development. Why isn't this business
18 development just extended out there? Is that what
19 they are talking about or do they want to extend it
20 commercial or the industrial use?
21 MR. ARMSTRONG: I think the
22 concern was residential properties there.
23 MS. HAASE: I think that in all
24 of the options, commercial was discussed, whether
25 it would be business development, which had --
57
1 (Inaudible group discussion.)
2 MR. SINCAVAGE: But isn't the
3 train -- the train is on the other side of the
4 road, it's on the other side of 314?
5 MRS. LAMBERTON: That could all
6 be developed as a commercial spot. Look at Jim
7 Thorpe. That's what I picture when I'm talking of
8 village commercial.
9 MR. SINCAVAGE: So, again, you
10 want to take this business use out that way, out to
11 the road?
12 MR. McHALE: Well, I think one
13 of questions that was raised as to where the
14 defining line would be. Should it be on the road
15 or should it include those lots that are kind of
16 south and west.
17 MR. SINCAVAGE: Or just go right
18 up to the property line and make that whole area
19 business development. This blue is -- this color
20 here is business development.
21 MR. ARMSTRONG: I don't know if
22 that was necessarily discussed, not at the work
23 session anyway.
24 MR. MILLER: The June map, this
25 was added, whatever discussions we had.
58
1 MR. McHALE: These were the
2 notes that we had from our previous meeting, Joe is
3 saying. And that little green dot, which includes
4 the large tract, to convert that to business
5 development, which was done. And then these
6 smaller lots were the ones that are in question
7 right now that are borough village center mixed
8 use.
9 MR. SINCAVAGE: You can see it
10 on here. I don't know if you saw it Anne, you can
11 see this road better. This road right here. That
12 road that goes through there. So what our
13 discussion was that everything south of this would
14 be the business development, what the new map, the
15 map we are looking at shows, brings it up there.
16 See that line there? Again, the questions is, what
17 about these couple lots out here?
18 MR. McHALE: The new map is
19 showing the color correctly and the designation
20 correctly. The lines are so wide that it's hard to
21 tell whether it's a road or those lots that were
22 defined. It's just more clarification.
23 MR. SINCAVAGE: I think it
24 should be the road. I think that was the intent of
25 the original note.
59
1 MR. McHALE: But then you have
2 those small lots that are on the periphery right
3 next to the road. And if you're going to make that
4 a mixed use borough village -- otherwise you're
5 going to have to convert those into business
6 development, which you could do that too, I guess.
7 MR. SINCAVAGE: Under that pink
8 color, borough village center mixed use, which is
9 what? Single family, apartments, townhouses,
10 retail business, service establishment, offices,
11 transportation, community facility --
12 MR. McHALE: We are trying to
13 clarify. Are we going to stop at the road or
14 include those few lots that are south and west?
15 MR. SINCAVAGE: I say we stop at
16 the road, just like it's shown on the map.
17 MRS. LAMBERTON: Across the
18 street is residential?
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: No. It's
20 still --
21 MS. HAASE: It's the same as
22 Coolbaugh Township. It spills over, Coolbaugh into
23 Toby.
24 MS. RINEHIMER: I agree. I
25 think the road should be the --
60
1 MS. HAASE: So we'll take Norton
2 Prior --
3 MRS. LAMBERTON: What's Norton
4 Prior?
5 (Inaudible discussion.)
6 MR. McHALE: Under business
7 development, all of these uses, light
8 manufacturing, medical facilities, motels, hotels,
9 restaurant, warehousing, they are not going to fit
10 on those little biddy lots. Those little biddy
11 lots are going to have to convert or be
12 consolidated into larger tracts. That's all I'm
13 saying is that that's why if they -- if those lots
14 were included as borough village center then you
15 could utilize some of those uses.
16 MRS. LAMBERTON: You're saying
17 go on the other side of the road?
18 MR. McHALE: Well, I'm just
19 saying that --
20 MRS. LAMBERTON: No, that's
21 okay. We value your opinion.
22 MR. McHALE: They will need to
23 consolidate into a larger tract to make it
24 functional under business development. That would
25 be the understanding we would all have to have if
61
1 we make the road the defining line, that's all.
2 Otherwise you will have those large ones on the
3 other side of the road and it's not going to be
4 back dropped. As you drive down that road you will
5 have a light manufacturing building come right up
6 to it. Those lots consolidating into it, you're
7 not going to have, like you said, as you're driving
8 down the road, that corridor, what is it called,
9 Norton Prior. You're not going to have small
10 businesses on both sides.
11 MRS. LAMBERTON: I understand.
12 MR. McHALE: Both sides of the
13 road the lots are already small to begin with.
14 MS. RINEHIMER: The mixed use
15 maybe would be better?
16 MR. McHALE: It would appear
17 that way.
18 MR. ARMSTRONG: To include those
19 lots.
20 MS. RINEHIMER: So that
21 everything would be developed similarly.
22 MR. MILLER: In these cases, you
23 don't know what's best until somebody comes and
24 asks I want to build this.
25 MR. McHALE: And this is a wish
62
1 list kind of thing and it's a future land use,
2 here's what we like it to be, but it would have to
3 go through rezoning and a whole process to actually
4 make it happen.
5 MRS. LAMBERTON: It is just a
6 wish list.
7 MR. ARMSTRONG: This is not a
8 zoning map change. It's how you perceive it.
9 MRS. LAMBERTON: As long as they
10 understand it's really not changing this second,
11 it's just our vision of what the future could be.
12 I understand that. I get that word, Joe. But I
13 understand people are very sensitive because it's
14 their property we are speaking of.
15 MR. SINCAVAGE: So is it the
16 consensus -- if you look here you kind of see what
17 Bob is saying. Do we say go to the road or do we
18 pick up these couple little lots?
19 MRS. LAMBERTON: I say we pick
20 up the lots. After Bob explained it, it makes
21 sense.
22 MS. RINEHIMER: To keep it
23 consistent.
24 MR. SINCAVAGE: Pick up the
25 lots. That's the consensus.
63
1 MS. HAASE: Show me so I know
2 what you're talking about.
3 MR. SINCAVAGE: We are saying
4 all these lots should just go into the borough
5 mixed use, whatever the --
6 MR. McHALE: Village center.
7 MR. SINCAVAGE: Borough village
8 center mixed use.
9 MS. HAASE: Keep this large lot.
10 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right, in the
11 general business development.
12 MS. HAASE: These small lots
13 here.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right. That's
15 our recommendation, but no one has to listen to us.
16 MR. ARMSTRONG: There is one
17 other thing that I know the supervisors talked
18 about, is that -- actually, not too far from where
19 you were just discussing, you kind of go down to
20 the left area, to the gray.
21 MS. HAASE: This one here?
22 MR. ARMSTRONG: Yeah, the little
23 bit of purple. They indicated that they would
24 consider just making that all gray rather than that
25 little parcel being purple.
64
1 MR. MILLER: What's on that
2 property now?
3 MS. HAASE: You know where I
4 think that is, Joe, where Tokyo Tea House, the
5 front 200 feet of that lot is commercial and the
6 rest of that lot and the lot in back of it is
7 commercial industrial. So that's where 940 Station
8 is and Tokyo Tea House.
9 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right. This is
10 proposed under the Hoffman development that he's
11 talked about.
12 MS. HAASE: Yes. Just that
13 little --
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: For the
15 industrial park.
16 MR. McHALE: Phyllis, where you
17 had the little pointer, where Mark is pointing with
18 the red laser, that is all one lot, from there all
19 the way to the front, from 940. It's all one lot.
20 MS. HAASE: There is another lot
21 in back.
22 MR. McHALE: There is a little
23 strip behind it, but I mean --
24 MS. HAASE: Yes.
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: It is off the
65
1 road. How is he proposing to access that, off of
2 here? Yes. He's combining these lots together
3 right, Phyllis?
4 MS. HAASE: No, subdividing a
5 portion.
6 MR. McHALE: No. He's
7 partitioned off a portion of land to actually
8 consolidate into FedEx.
9 MR. SINCAVAGE: This is FedEx.
10 I'm sorry. So this would be the industrial area.
11 I'm sorry, this would be the Hoffman industrial
12 park.
13 MR. McHALE: Correct.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: He's proposing
15 coming in like this.
16 MR. McHALE: He has access
17 directly to 940. Just that one little piece like a
18 light purple color, that we convert to business,
19 general commercial, the red.
20 MR. ARMSTRONG: What did they
21 say, making that red?
22 MR. McHALE: Well, it's
23 splitting the lot in half if you make it gray or
24 any other color.
25 MRS. LAMBERTON: It should be
66
1 connected to the red section and front that border
2 of 940. That should be red.
3 MR. SINCAVAGE: That should be
4 red.
5 MRS. LAMBERTON: That makes
6 sense.
7 MS. HAASE: What about other
8 lots that front -- if your talking about that, the
9 other lot that fronts 940.
10 MRS. LAMBERTON: Keep them red.
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: Keep them red,
12 yeah.
13 MRS. LAMBERTON: That is part of
14 that little purple --
15 MR. SINCAVAGE: We are saying
16 this purple piece should be red.
17 MRS. LAMBERTON: The back part
18 of Tokyo Tea House, which is what, Totally Crafts
19 or something now?
20 MR. SINCAVAGE: Phyllis, if you
21 can go back to Blakeslee. I just have one more
22 comment I want to make.
23 Right here, I know why the
24 township did it, this is the township treatment
25 plant, but they marked it as public. It's right
67
1 there. That's the treatment plant. And I'm
2 wondering if that, and I don't know if it really
3 matters that much, but should that be zoned
4 differently. I'm thinking -- I'm looking under
5 like neighborhood commercial for community
6 facility. I'm wondering if that's a community
7 treatment plant, because what I'm thinking is what
8 if somebody took it over, what if Aqua Pennsylvania
9 took over the plant, would it still be public or
10 doesn't it matter?
11 MR. ARMSTRONG: I'm not looking
12 at a public utility like a --
13 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right. What's
14 kind of confusing, if you look at this map here, is
15 that they make the Blakeslee natural area that
16 color and the treatment plant is that color.
17 MS. HAASE: I see the point
18 you're making.
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: I don't know if
20 it matters.
21 MS. HAASE: It's still going to
22 be public use, though.
23 MR. MILLER: Serving the public.
24 MR. ARMSTRONG: Community system
25 is just for a specific community.
68
1 MR. SINCAVAGE: A private
2 system. I understand that.
3 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: If it's
4 public it's not ratable. If they sold it, it would
5 become ratable.
6 MR. SINCAVAGE: If you sold it
7 to Aqua Pennsylvania, wouldn't it become taxable,
8 because it's a private company?
9 MS. HAASE: I think so.
10 MR. SINCAVAGE: Tax it. I just
11 bring it up. I don't think it's a big issue.
12 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: The other
13 day I overheard a comment about having apartments
14 not being permitted in commercial districts. The
15 question I had was, where would you put them in the
16 stretch along there, if somebody came in with
17 apartments? Often times they are used in second
18 tier commercial to buffer between the strip
19 commercial and residential as a transition back
20 from the frontage. When I heard that, I said where
21 would you put it? And I'm not an advocate of like,
22 a 2, 300 unit project, but sometimes a little 24,
23 30 unit in-fill project is a nice way to utilize
24 land and create affordable housing for people that,
25 you know, need a small apartment, either starting
69
1 or, you know, retired. Whatever. And I don't know
2 where along in the village, if you're trying to get
3 them nearest where they could walk to get
4 groceries, things like that. If there is a
5 prohibition in commercial, then it would seem like
6 it would force them into R-2 areas or something and
7 usually they are not welcome there. Just some food
8 for thought. I'm not a big advocate of apartments,
9 but it's something that every village center needs
10 to talk about.
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: What's the
12 orange color. Commercial -- residential.
13 MR. ARMSTRONG: Residential.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: What's allowed
15 under residential?
16 MR. ARMSTRONG: Remember, this
17 is a future land use. These are all just
18 recommended land uses. It all comes down to that
19 what the township adopts in their zoning amendments
20 and zoning map.
21 MR. SINCAVAGE: And that's
22 something I think we have to seriously look at.
23 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: In all due
24 respect, my gray hair makes me think the things
25 people wished about years ago became reality,
70
1 because the next person picks it up and says this
2 is what they wanted to do. They think it's
3 inflexible. Right now you know it's just a dream
4 sheet of what we think the composition should be,
5 but some people pick it up and say it's gospel.
6 MS. HAASE: Mr. Hannig, you're
7 correct. It was discussed --
8 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: I heard a
9 sound bite.
10 MS. HAASE: It was discussed
11 Monday, but according to our ordinance, as it
12 stands right now, apartment buildings are only
13 allowed in commercial districts.
14 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: That's
15 usually where I find people putting them in. And
16 not out in the frontage. They usually put them in
17 those --
18 MR. SINCAVAGE: That was
19 changed. There was an ordinance change.
20 MS. HAASE: It's not allowed in
21 commercial industrial.
22 MR. SINCAVAGE: Okay. But it's
23 allowed in commercial.
24 MS. HAASE: Correct.
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: Okay. So under
71
1 this proposed use, any of this red could be used
2 for housing.
3 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Yeah. So
4 the CI there would work.
5 MR. SINCAVAGE: You have to
6 disregard the letters because they're the current
7 zone. That's the current zoning. And we just want
8 to try to look at both of them. So the red is what
9 we have to look at. So it would be allowed in any
10 of this red area. And, actually, under the
11 definitions that I just read on the back of this
12 sheet, it would even be allowed -- apartments are
13 allowed in the orange area too.
14 MR. ARMSTRONG: Well, wait. If
15 Phyllis, what you said, they are allowed in this
16 commercial but not the CI, they would be allowed
17 from that line over but not to the left.
18 MS. HAASE: Unless it was
19 rezoned commercial.
20 MR. SINCAVAGE: Now what I'm
21 saying too is not CI anymore, it's just C.
22 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: It's often
23 used as a buffer. If you think about places where
24 people put in small in-fill projects, it's usually
25 the buffer that protects your home. You're looking
72
1 at an apartment rather than a used car lot. It's
2 usually in that buffer. It's usually in the area
3 where you can walk to facilities, and at least
4 pockets that are provided somewhere around
5 Blakeslee Corners, I think it would be a good use
6 for people. Mrs. Brown made me think of it, that
7 this woman walks everywhere she goes.
8 MR. SINCAVAGE: That's why she
9 bought there so she could walk. There are a lot of
10 people walking around the Blakeslee area. That's
11 why I wanted to do sidewalks, but no one would go
12 along with me.
13 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: People ride
14 around the parking lot aimlessly looking for a
15 closer parking space to the building so they can go
16 into the gym and work out.
17 MS. HAASE: Between Greenwood
18 and the plaza, Dunkin Donuts, there is a lot of
19 pedestrian traffic on the shoulder of 940,
20 tremendous amount of pedestrian traffic.
21 MR. SINCAVAGE: Anything else
22 from the commission? Anymore comments on the
23 mapping. So you have our recommendations. I hope
24 the staff got it.
25 We'll move on to my favorite
73
1 subject, the Act 167. Bob, you want to go over
2 some things with us?
3 MR. McHALE: Yes, just briefly.
4 You each have a packet that we provided. This was
5 not intended for by any means reviewing in detail
6 because we've produced four pages on a single
7 sheet. If you open up your packet you'll see.
8 What the intent was was for Pat and I to give you
9 an overview of where we are at right now, some of
10 the adjustments or modifications that were made and
11 then we have some discussion to a direction to go
12 so we can make a recommendation to the board of
13 supervisors. But we were envisioning that based
14 upon the outcome of tonight's meeting, we would
15 then make the final modifications, take the
16 appendices and the text that Pat had put together,
17 merge them and send you one final electronic copy
18 next week. Then at our next planning commission
19 meeting we can then further discuss or make
20 recommendation, if you will, then to the board of
21 supervisors. So with that said, just to run
22 through a couple of the items.
23 One is related to -- well, let
24 me just mention, the buffers are as we had
25 discussed. So there are no -- we had a clause in
74
1 there with the buffers to allow for some buffer
2 averaging around lakes, ponds and streams, but it
3 was not around wetlands because we only had a 5
4 foot in or 5 foot out buffer around the wetlands.
5 Pat, I don't know if you want to address the waiver
6 component that was based upon recent board of
7 supervisors work session. There was consideration
8 of pulling that component out, but you've been kind
9 of looking at other ordinances.
10 MR. ARMSTRONG: Yeah. The last
11 work session, not this past, the month before, the
12 supervisors -- we discussed taking out the waiver
13 provision because it actually ended up being a
14 little bit more cumbersome than the board would
15 have liked. So we had taken that out and since
16 then we've put back the hardship option that the
17 county initially had, which provides an avenue for
18 an applicant to avoid some of the requirements if
19 they can meet that hardship option. Since that
20 time, I have looked at some of the other townships
21 and particularly Smithfield, I believe, may have a
22 waiver section that they adopted, and if it's a
23 little bit more simplified and there is a
24 possibility, after I take a look at it a little bit
25 more in detail, that we may add something like
75
1 that. But at the end of the day, there is
2 currently a hardship option as well as a no-harm
3 option in the current proposed Act 167 Ordinance.
4 But the previous waiver provision that was in it,
5 has been taken out. It was -- it was taken out,
6 like I said, after the latest work session. Not
7 last week but the month before.
8 MR. McHALE: The second portion
9 of the packet that you have before you is the
10 proposed appendices. The first Appendix A would be
11 this is what the county had provided to us. We
12 would really look to incorporate pax standard
13 format in here as far as the stormwater management
14 agreement for that section.
15 Appendix B is simply the
16 technical data, the coefficients, and, you know,
17 rainfall and those kind of things.
18 Appendix C we probably still
19 need to look at as far the extent that we want to
20 have a -- this is a sample drainage plan
21 application and fee schedule that's provided by the
22 county. We can prune this down and simplify it or
23 you can leave it as it is. We can opt not even to
24 use it if you wish. But the fee schedule needs to
25 be addressed.
76
1 Appendix D is just the storm
2 water management, district watershed map. It's
3 actually in color and it would depict all the
4 different watersheds for the subareas and the
5 restrictions that are on them as far as the runoff
6 and such.
7 Appendix E, the West Nile Virus
8 guidance.
9 And then Appendix F we were
10 going to kind of leave as a reserved area for
11 future use because that's a consumptive use
12 tracking report that was in the original county,
13 but there is no thresholds established as you may
14 recall and we said that, well, once they
15 established threshold, then we'll begin to
16 incorporate this tracking mechanism. But that
17 would be based upon that they established
18 thresholds and that's it's based upon sound
19 scientific data, not -- well, anyway.
20 Appendix G ties into the
21 exemption criteria. This Appendix is very similar
22 to what we already have in place in the Tobyhanna
23 Creek watershed where it allows larger tracts of
24 land to create a little bit more impervious area
25 and not be subject to preparing a drainage plan to
77
1 the extent that it is spelled out in the ordinance.
2 Right now anything up to five thousand square feet
3 of impervious cover, paved surface, roof area or
4 whatever, up to five thousand they are exempt not
5 from the criteria of the ordinance in implementing
6 it, but from a preparation of a plan to submit to
7 us for review. What this sliding scale does for us
8 or would for anyone else is if someone had a 100
9 acre tract, instead of them being restricted to
10 five thousand square feet, if that one hundred acre
11 tract that they were proposing their impervious
12 area kind of in the center of the tract and they
13 are a thousand feet away from a neighbor and they
14 are on a flat slope, all that kind of criteria
15 comes to play here, maybe they can go up to 20,000
16 or even 40,000 square feet impervious area before
17 they really need to prepare a plan. So it's trying
18 to help development to the point where we have some
19 reasonableness and not we stop at 5001 and submit
20 something.
21 The last item was existing
22 vacant lots and recorded subdivisions. In all
23 three of our current Act 167s, what we have now in
24 place is a separate one for the Brodhead, a
25 separate one for McMichaels and a separate
78
1 ordinance for the Tobyhanna Creek. This is
2 Appendix E, if you will. It's kind of a tool by
3 which the property owner, when they go in with a
4 2000 square foot home and a thousand feet of
5 driveway or whatever, they can go to this little
6 nomograph and they can pull off of here, 3000
7 square feet, I need 600 cubic feet of some kind of
8 surface retention, under ground infiltration
9 retention, whatever. It's simplified. If we don't
10 put that in and people have to comply with the
11 ordinance, the intent of the ordinance and not turn
12 in a drainage plan, my concern is that we are
13 giving them no tools. We are telling them build
14 everything per the ordinance, comply with it, but
15 we are not giving them an instrument or tool to
16 utilize. So the thought was that because it's
17 already included in our current ordinance, why not
18 allow that to continue. And it's food for thought.
19 Those are the kinds of items I want to throw out on
20 the table, if you will. We can either talk through
21 them some more now, you can email. I'm not sure
22 how you want to do that at this point.
23 MR. SINCAVAGE: I would like to
24 digest this a little bit, review it.
25 MR. McHALE: Okay. Well, maybe
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1 what we should do is take what we have already
2 completed, send it to you all in electronic format
3 and then maybe we can hash through it.
4 MR. SINCAVAGE: That's our
5 homework assignment.
6 MRS. LAMBERTON: It sounds like
7 everything we talked about is coming together. You
8 know, there is no thresholds, so how do you base
9 your facts on that. That has to be accomplished.
10 Informing lot owners, you know, what they need to
11 do for their stormwater is very important. We need
12 to be cost effective. You can't hammer these
13 people.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: Well, you know,
15 and that's the good thing about what Bob has come
16 up with.
17 MRS. LAMBERTON: Making them
18 aware.
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: Making them
20 aware, but all you have to do is a little rain
21 garden in your back yard.
22 MRS. LAMBERTON: When they
23 initially look at this, they say oh my God, there
24 goes another 12 grand.
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: But it's really
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1 important to have that requirement on these vacant
2 lots in these subdivisions because most of their
3 drainage system is not designed to handle the
4 ultimate build out or it's not -- if it was
5 designed, they've gotten silted shut over the years
6 that they are not able to handle the flow and they
7 are flooding. So I think it's important to have
8 control on those lots. And these diagrams show you
9 very clearly. It's not that complicated that it
10 can't been done easily and relatively
11 inexpensively.
12 MRS. LAMBERTON: Awareness.
13 MR. SINCAVAGE: Education.
14 MR. McHALE: Folks, was there a
15 component you wanted to discuss on that?
16 MS. HAASE: Actually, I need to
17 apologize to Pat. We had spoken a month ago and I
18 was supposed to get you a few changes that I felt
19 you needed to look at. I'll give that to you
20 tomorrow. It's really on the last page. It seems
21 to be a contradiction on the last page, C2, it says
22 a suspended permit shall be reinstated by the board
23 of supervisors of the municipality when, and it
24 gives examples. And then if you jump down to 4, it
25 says a permit may be revoked for any reason set
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1 forth in the section authorizing a suspension of a
2 permit. But then if you go onto the next area, it
3 says a revoked -- the permit that has been revoked
4 cannot be reinstated. So there seems to be a
5 contradiction.
6 MR. ARMSTRONG: What section?
7 I'm on Page 53.
8 MS. HAASE: 53 and then the top
9 of 54. It would be C2, 4 and then 4 spills over to
10 54.
11 MR. McHALE: We can incorporate
12 that into that electronic format.
13 MS. HAASE: I know we discussed
14 it before. I forgot to get that to you.
15 MR. SINCAVAGE: Anything else to
16 come before the board.
17 MS. HAASE: That's it for Act
18 167.
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: Okay. Anything
20 else on Act 167.
21 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Just a
22 public comment, if I may. I heard a few of your
23 meetings regarding this. I have heard some of the
24 thresholds that you're entertaining. They all seem
25 to be fair and reasonable. And the fact that they
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1 have grades and guidelines that help people comply,
2 it's a lot easier to make application when you know
3 up front what's expected of you.
4 MR. SINCAVAGE: Thank you.
5 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: Other
6 municipalities, they rush to judgement rather than
7 studying it a little bit.
8 MR. SINCAVAGE: We've been
9 studying it for quite sometime and hopefully we'll
10 have a good end product.
11 MR. CHARLES HANNIG: All the
12 snip its I've heard, I haven't looked at the whole
13 thing, I have not seen, as a developer, anything
14 that is offered, to be an unfair interpretation.
15 It's a real world vision. It's not something that
16 is unattainable.
17 MR. McHALE: Under open
18 discussion we had Brick City listed. Pat had also
19 asked about the status of that. Where they left
20 off was a PennDOT's review comment letter, February
21 26th of this past year and they have not responded
22 to the comments nor contacted us regarding it. So,
23 I mean, it's just kind of on hold. I sent an email
24 to Rob Keating (phonetic) and just gave them a copy
25 of the review comments and I believe they also went
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1 to his engineer. So it's still on hold. We have
2 not heard anything more. Just wanted to update you
3 on that.
4 MR. SINCAVAGE: Phyllis.
5 MS. HAASE: I just wanted to
6 give you some reading material. There is a house
7 bill, senate bill right now. The house bill speaks
8 to a real property development permit approval
9 extension act. And the senate bill is a
10 development permit extension act. It's just
11 something for you to read and just wanted you to be
12 aware of something that was brought to my
13 attention. Just something for you to read.
14 MR. McHALE: The house bill
15 seems to address more so focused on building
16 permits, but it does leave some open language to
17 clear and grubbing, disturbing the earth and land
18 in excess 5000 square feet. And then it also
19 leaves -- on Page 4, there is a provision there for
20 first class, city of first class, city of second
21 class or any other municipality that chooses to opt
22 into this act that pertains to land use. So it
23 kind of leaves that open.
24 The other one, the senate bill,
25 when Phyllis and I were looking over that earlier
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1 today, I think there was a couple points --
2 Phyllis, help me out here. This one seems to be --
3 this is the development permit extension act. This
4 one seems to be more directed towards subdivision
5 and land development and definitions and such in
6 here. But one thing to notice on Page 7, Item No.
7 6, it speaks to if an approval is based upon the
8 connection to a sanitary sewer system, water
9 distribution system, the application of the
10 extension period shall be contingent upon the
11 availability of sufficient capacity of the system
12 to accommodate the development that is the subject
13 of the extended approval.
14 Then it goes on to say, if
15 sufficient capacity is unavailable and -- you just
16 kind of have to read through that to see how you're
17 understanding that. But it would almost appear
18 that at some point in time, if the capacity was
19 used up and these land use or land development
20 approvals or subdivision approvals that were
21 granted these extensions, and they go into this
22 extension period up to 2013, if you run out of
23 sewer capacity, the way I'm reading it, is that at
24 the time that they are ready to build, then if the
25 sewer capacity now is created by other permits or
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1 whatever expansion of the plans, now you have to go
2 back to the chronological order in which these
3 developments were approved and that's how they will
4 be allocated new capacity. That's kind of the gist
5 of it. You will have to read through that.
6 The one, I think it's the house
7 bill, at the very back, I think it's the last page.
8 MS. HAASE: This may not pertain
9 to --
10 MR. McHALE: The last two pages,
11 5 and 6, at the very bottom of 5 and the top of 6,
12 under exception, it says the provisions of
13 Subsection A shall not apply to and it says any
14 permit approval issued for real property that
15 potentially impacts the waters of the Commonwealth
16 designated as high quality or exceptional value
17 watershed or wetland, well, all the waters in
18 Tobyhanna Township are stage HQ, so I don't know
19 how applicable that would be. That was just for a
20 quick reader's digest.
21 MR. SINCAVAGE: Anything else to
22 come before the board? If not, we stand adjourned.
23 (Hearing concluded at 8:40 p.m.)
24 ---
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7 I hereby certify that the
8 proceedings and evidence are contained fully and
9 accurately in the notes taken by me at the hearing
10 in the above matter, to the best of my ability; and
11 that the foregoing is a true and correct transcript
12 of the same.
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16 JOSEPHINE HOLLMAN, C.R.
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