10 Polk Road
Queensbury Town Supervisor John Strough opened a discussion of the development at 10 Polk Road on Lake George's Assembly Point by saying, "We're not going to act on this tonight, but we do want to listen to what the public says at this time."
The public said a lot. Very little of it good.
At issue is a two-building subdivision that sought a variance to move a wastewater system 30 feet closer to Lake George than allowed, from 100 to 70 feet. The applicant is Chris Abele of Rockhurst LLC.
The town board listened as people blasted the plan, and almost all of them referenced the Lake George algal bloom that rose in Harris Bay earlier this month, saying this was a terrible time, given the potential threat to the lake, to shorten the distance between a wastewater system and the lake.
Carol Collins, who lives on Assembly Point, asked why the town had codes at all if they were just going to ignore them. Seventy feet "is not the precedent we want for a soil absorbtion field," she sid. "One hundred feet is recommended and we should keep it at that."
John Caffry of Caffry and Flower, attorneys, asked the town board to look at their own code: no proof of hardship and no proof of special circumstances were shown in the application. Both are requirements for the variance.
The town will take this up again, though they did not know if there would be another public hearing or discussion.
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Sewer Laterals
On a different sewer note: the town board approved a code change that would make owners of property pay to have their buildings attached to the town sewer system.
"Where a new building is constructed and there's no Town service from the main to the property line, the installation of this main and the tapping of the sewer line will be the responsibility of the property owner," the code change reads in part. The cost to dig trenches, cut the road, attach the pipes and repair any site disturbance is the sole responsibility of the property owner, the code says.
Chris Harrington, the town's wastewater and water superintendent, said the change was aimed much more at cleaning up the code to match what already was happening.
"We have never been involved in establishing a house connection," he said.
The code change passed unanimously.