by Kieron Kramer
The results of the November election in Grafton will be bring a lot of changes to the Town. One may be that the Grafton Planning Board will be completely reorganized. At its Organizational meeting on January 4 at 7 pm the Grafton Town Board is likely to appoint a new Planning Board Chair to replace the current Chairman, Tom Withcuskey. How many of the other current members will stay on the Planning Board is anybody’s guess. Planning Board Secretary Jessica Crandall does not know if she will be reappointed. And there is a question as to whether Sal Ferlazzo will remain as the attorney to the Town Board and the Planning Board.
One election issue was that Town employees should not occupy two offices; Withcuskey is the Town’s Code Enforcement Officer as well as Chairman of the Planning Board. Even so, the probable shake up of the Planning Board is a little surprising considering how effective the Board appears to be and in particular how fair and competent Withcuskey is. If the Town Board decides not to reappoint Withcuskey as Chairman of the Planning Board, the Town may be, as the old saying goes, cutting off its nose to spite its face. Actually, in this case it seems more like cutting off your face to spite your nose. When the Planning Board informed Terry Lamphere on Monday that his subdivision would be decided at the next month’s meeting, he asked Withcuskey, “Will you be here?” Withcuskey just shrugged. And Lamphere said, “I hope so.”
Town Supervisor-elect Ray Darling, Town Councilman-elect Rick Ungaro and re-elected Councilmember Barb Messenger attended the meeting of the Grafton Planning Board on Monday, December 19, and witnessed first hand how the Board works. This was its busiest night of the year, starting with the first of four public hearings at 6 pm and dealing with four items on the agenda as new business during the regular meeting, which began shortly after 7 pm.
The topic of the first public hearing at 6 pm was the minor subdivision of Terry Lamphere’s property on Taconic Lake Road in Grafton. The subdivision application proposed separating a parcel of about 114 acres into three new lots. One lot of 8.5 acres will be sold to a neighbor; the second lot of 80.6 acres will be conveyed to his daughter, and the third lot of 25.2 acres will be kept by Lamphere. The Petersburgh Town line is the boundary line of one of the new parcels. Since Lamphere’s property lies across the border with Petersburgh, a fourth lot will exist in Petersburgh. Since the Planning Board decided that the property on the Petersburgh side is not to be considered as part of this subdivision application, there was no objection from the Board to the subdivision last month.
But things have changed during the month since these decisions were made. Petersburgh Planning Board Chairman David Miller was contacted in the meantime by both Withcuskey and Lamphere and some complications with the subdivision arose. The problem is that the proposed subdivision leaves two parcels on the Petersburgh side of the town line; one is very small, and the other is about 6.3 acres. According to Lamphere, Miller suggested that the two parcels be permanently attached to the abutting parcel in Grafton with the owner agreeing that these parcels would never be sold. Alternatively, these parcels could be part of the subdivision overseen by Grafton. The problem with this, according to Withcuskey, is that the subdivision would then create five parcels, making it a major subdivision, which is an extremely complicated process and which Withcuskey strongly suggests should be avoided. Neither of these solutions simplifies the assessing by the taxing authorities in each town the way having parcels located completely in one town would. Withcuskey favors such simplification. Another solution would be for Lamphere to go through a subdivision process in Petersburgh for the two parcels located there.
So the Planning Board decided that they cannot approve Lamphere’s subdivision until the issue of the parcels in Petersburgh is resolved. It was decided to keep the Hearing open, and, during the regular meeting, the Board voted to table its decision until the January meeting.
At 6:15 a public hearing on Rynard Gundrum’s application for a 2-lot subdivision on Stuffle Street began. Gundrum will separate a parcel of a little over 3 acres with an existing house and all the amenities to give to his daughter, Ingrid. He will keep the remaining parcel of about 275 acres. There were no complications with this subdivision, and no one spoke at the Hearing. During the regular meeting the Board voted to approve the Gundrum subdivision 4-0, Planning Board Member Arthur Surprise being absent.
A Hearing on the subdivision application by Bob and Anna Moon for a 2-lot subdivision, also on Stuffle Street, was scheduled for 6:30. However, the Moons withdrew their application before Monday’s meeting. There were complications with the subdivision besides the fact that one corner of the Moons’ garage extends maybe a foot or so onto the property of a neighbor.
Area Of Confusion
Several speakers addressed the Board during the Public Hearing at 6:45 on the Boyce subdivision application for a 2-lot subdivision of their property on Benker School Way. They propose to keep a lot of 9.2 acres on which their dwelling is located and to convey the second lot of 62.9 acres to the Rensselaer Land Trust to be held as a forever wild area.
The first speaker at this hearing was David Hunt, who lives on Jay Hakes Road and who strongly supports this subdivision. An ecologist, Hunt studies important environmental issues locally, on the Rensselaer Plateau and throughout Rensselaer County. He presented a document to the Board listing the significant environmental features of the forever wild acreage. There are two natural resources at this location, Hunt said, Cranberry Pond and Long Swamp, which are privately owned. He thanked the Kileys, the Munns and the Boyces for allowing study of these “wetland complexes.” He said he was grateful to the Boyces for creating this forever wild area which will ensure the perennial preservation of the area and allow for more study of the flora there. Dwarf mistletoe, hare’s tail and yellow-eyed grass are some of the plants that exist on the Boyces’ property and which are seen in only one or two other locations in the County, according to Hunt. He added that in the early 1980s the US Department of the Interior identified the Cranberry Bog site as a national landmark.
Owners of the abutting property, Craig Alexander and his wife Betsy Colvin, spoke second, and they had two major issues with the Boyce subdivision. Their first point was that they share the boundary line, about 2/3rds of a mile long, from the Cranberry Pond dam to the lot that the Boyces are keeping with their house on it. There is some dispute as to where the property line is since it appears in two different places in two different surveys. Rod Michaels, representing Bill and Elsa Boyce, has included the very long, thin, disputed piece as a shaded area on the map labeled “area of confusion.” Alexander/Colvin’s point is that this “area of confusion” is about 3.7 acres, not an insubstantial acreage, and they would like the boundary line resolved before the forever wild area is transferred to the Rensselaer Land Trust. Withcuskey replied that he had met with the attorney for the Planning Board, Sal Ferlazzo, who, he said can provide options to resolve the “area of confusion.” Alexander/Colvin said they would like the resolution in writing. Ferlazzo suggested that the surveyors should get together and see if they can agree on a property line. He said that the subdivision can be approved by the Planning Board because the boundary line dispute is a civil matter that is not the concern of the Board. The parcel can then be conveyed, and the parties’ title companies can fight it out and go to court. Ferlazzo suggested that the Planning Board give the owners time to see if they can resolve the issue between them and then the Board can reach a determination at next month’s meeting.
The Alexander/Colvin’s second concern was that people following the hiking trails in the forever wild area, which they said are used in the summer sometimes by people on ATVs and motorcycles, would cross over onto their property. They wanted some assurance that signage would be put up on the trails indicating where the public access ends. Withcuskey said that the Rensselaer Land Trust would have to be contacted to see what signage they would put up.
Withcuskey also announced that the Boyces are giving an easement to the Town so that the sharp turn from South Long Pond Road onto Benker School Way can be straightened out somewhat.
Because of the “area of confusion” and the signage issue the Board voted in the regular meeting to leave the Hearing open and to table their decision on the Boyce subdivision until the January meeting.
The Regular Meeting
The ubiquitous surveyor Bill Darling when told that he had placed one of the pins in the “area of confusion” said, “Could be; I put a lot of rods in the ground.” He was at the meeting to represent Betty Dykstra. Dykstra had subdivided a parcel in 2006 into a 3 and a 5 acre lot. She sold the 3 acre lot to the Dufours and now wants to sell the five acre lot. She wants to add 4.6 acres to the 5 acre lot to expand it to 9.6 acres. The Board accepted the application to expand the 5 acre lot and scheduled a public hearing on the matter for 6:30 before the next regular Board meeting.
Paper Roads At Babcock Lake
Tom Grant’s application for a lot line adjustment on his property on Babcock Lake Road was considered next by the Board. According to Withcuskey, the EA White Corp. bought Babcock Lake acreage in the 1930s and mapped out hundreds of small lots there. The lot maps included rights of way and rambles, and when these lots were purchased at a later date the access roads and trails were left on the survey maps. Withcuskey called them “paper roads” since they are not used and cannot be used – they exist only on paper. One land owner has a well in the middle of her paper road. Another has a paper road that goes right through the middle of the dwelling. Withcuskey said that Grant has a 12 foot wide “paper ramble” that passes within 5 feet of his house and he wants to move the ramble to the edge of his property. He said that it is not a usable ramble and never could be and moving it will have no effect on abutting properties. Withcuskey added that the Babcock Lake Estates has given permission to move the ramble. The Board accepted Grant’s application and set a public hearing on the matter for 6:45 before the next regular meeting.
The Board’s consideration of Gamesa Energy’s application to develop a wind energy project in the wilderness at the end of Stuffle Street was postponed until January. Withcuskey said that he thought the possibility of a wind energy plant would be good for the Town, and it would be good for the nation to develop alternate sources of energy. The location of the proposed development will have access to the power grid.
The next item on the agenda was an application by Stephen and Eileen Billings to adjust their lot line on Agan Way off of Shaver Pond Road. Four land owners, John and Patrice Nash, Leo and Marie Carroll, Thomas Pascucci and the Billings, have agreed in court to settle property line disputes. The disputed land will be divided equally between the abutters. Attorney Ferlazzo referred to this as a “subdivision/boundary line adjustment” because new parcels of different sizes will result. The Board accepted the Billings application and scheduled a public hearing on it for 6:15 before the next regular meeting.
Geo-Engineering
Before the Board considered the Billings application there was a pause in the proceedings while the attorneys for the land owners conferred in the hall to confirm that they were all on the same page regarding the agreement filed with the court. During this time Michael Roots, who owns 233 acres on Babcock Lake Road, addressed the assembly on geo-engineering, which he defined as the spraying of barium, aluminum and strontium in the air over Grafton, and nationally, causing severe health problems and polluting the water, air and soil. In an impassioned plea he asked everyone to become informed about geo-engineering by Google-ing it on the web.
Next Meeting
The regular Town Board meeting is moving to Monday, January 23, because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, so the next regular Planning Board meeting moves to Monday, January 30, at 7 pm with public hearings scheduled to begin at 6:15 pm.