PB Minutes 9-26-06

Minutes

Regular Session of the Planning Board

Village/Town of Mount Kisco

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Meeting called to order at 7:50 pm Tuesday September 26, 2006 at the Municipal Building Mount Kisco, New York.

Members Present: Joseph Cosentino

Anthony Sturniolo

Doug Hertz

Stanley Bernstein

Ralph Vigliotti

Sol Gibbons

Members Absent: Joseph Morreale

Staff Present: Nanette Bourne

Whitney Singleton

Michael Stein

Chairman Cosentino: This is Tuesday, September 26, 2006. This is the Planning Board, and this is a Regular/Work Session. Is there a motion to approve the minutes of July 11, 2006?

Stanley Bernstein: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes.

Doug Hertz: With the following changes: Page 11, change the spelling of the name to Sandolo, and on page 29, line number 5 and 6; it should read why would you think that it is something, insert the word it, and on line number 6, after the word faced, insert the word with so it reads faced with down the immediate road, and those are my only two changes.

Chairman Cosentino: With those two changes, again, all in favor?

Stanley Bernstein: Motion - Aye

Doug Hertz: Second - Aye

Sol Gibbons: Aye

Ralph Vigliotti: Aye

Vice Chairman Sturniolo: Aye

Chairman Cosentino: Aye

Continuing Review: Louis DiLisio

486 Lexington Avenue

Application No. PB2005-12

Bob Scopelliti, representing the applicant

Chairman Cosentino: Okay. Louis DiLisio. Identify yourselves for the record, please?

Bob Scopelliti: I'm here actually on behalf of the DiLisios. They are both on business out of the country, actually, and I'm a good friend of the family so I volunteered my evening to come down and talk about whatever is necessary.

Nanette Bourne: This is an applicant that has already received a variance, so it's progressively on its journey. It requires several permits. One, site plan approval from the Planning Board, and second a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Permit from New York City DEP. There is a short environmental assessment form that is included in this, it's time to declare your intention to become lead agency, and this will be circulated to other agencies, primarily DEP. The Village Attorney has a memo which outlines the basic issues that DEP will be interested in, and issues that I tried to communicate to the applicant's attorney will be required for site plan approval. Primarily, and it has nothing to do with the merits of the project, it's wonderful to see the trailers and sheds being replaced by this building, but it still requires that it be engineered, that there be another storm water system and those as well as the site lighting plan and erosion control outlining the village attorneys memo.

Whitney Singleton: By the way, I'm billing for that even though it was written by the Village Engineer. It's Michael's letter, not mine. I think if I could just jump in because of the issues that came up at the last meeting. The application had been submitted previously without an environmental assessment form, and quite frankly, I don't know how it got through Zoning Board of Appeals but it did. But in any event, the EAF has now been submitted, and there is more than one involved agency, more than just your board, and we need to circulate a Notice of Intent to be Lead Agency, and we also need to confirm the public hearing date that was set at your board's last meeting. October 10 is the public hearing, and your board had indicated that they wanted to set at its last meeting in September.

Chairman Cosentino: Alright we need to vote on that.

Whitney Singleton: I'm sorry the public hearing was for was the wetlands permit.

Nanette Bourne: We've already set the public hearing, so that's going forward. You just need to vote on your intent to be lead agency.

Chairman Cosentino: Okay do we have a motion?

Vice-chairman Sturniolo: Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that Mount Kisco Planning Board intends to declare themselves lead agency on the DiLisio application at 486 Lexington.

Chairman Cosentino: We have a motion by Vice-chairman Sturniolo, do we have a second?

Ralph Vigliotti: I'll second it.

Chairman Cosentino: Second by Mr. Vigliotti.

Motion: Vice-chairman Sturniolo: Aye

Second: Ralph Vigliotti: Aye

Sol Gibbons: Aye

Stanley Bernstein: Aye

Doug Hertz: Aye

Chairman Cosentino: Aye

Chairman Cosentino: Okay, that's it, right Nannette? You're on your way.

Continuing Review: 333 North Bedford Road

Application No. PB2005-21

Present: Michael Gallin, Architect

James Diamond

Neil Alexander, Attorney at Law

David Stolman

Lester Steinman

Chairman Cosentino: Okay, 333 North Bedford Road.

Doug Hertz: Mr. Chairman, it has come to my attention that I may have a conflict of interest with regards to this matter. After consulting with house counsel and special counsel, I am, for the time being until I get a more thorough look at this, going to be excusing myself from the discussion.

Chairman Cosentino: Alright, you can just sit if you want. Would you come up and identify yourselves for the record, please?

Michael Gallin: Yes. Hello. My name is Michael Gallin. I am the architect working on this application.

Jim Diamond: Jim Diamond.

Michael Gallin: Mr. Chairman, if I'm not mistaken, our first item on the agenda tonight is going over the memorandum that we submitted covering the additional information that you had requested as conditions to the issuance of the building permit under the initial site plan approval. I don't know how you'd like to handle this. I can go through item by item if you'd like and walk you through each of them. If not, the specific ones that you have questions about.

Chairman Cosentino: I don't think we have to go item by item.

David Stollman: It seems to me that these are things that would be submitted in order for the applicant to tend to get a building permit, so a number of these things are to be received and checked off as received. Several of these things need to be looked at, like the lighting plan to see what was actually conformed to, what the intention was, what was specified in the resolution, and I would think that Austin might be the appropriate person to serve as quarterback and corral this thing, and I could interact with him and review the things that need to be reviewed by my office. I don't think there is anything thing that Les needs; but I could work with Austin to make sure these things -.

Lester Steinman: I would point out that items 2 and 4, the legal documents are required to be recorded.

Michael Gallin: That is in process. We haven't been able to get confirmation yet that it has officially been completed.

Chairman Cosentino: Also, two; one and two; two and four. And you will follow that through, right?

Michael Gallin: Yes. Item 17, basically states that they need to be recorded and we say submission is pending and we are awaiting results of that. That's the only open item from our standpoint.

Chairman Cosentino: Okay. Is there anything else on this?

David Stolman: Not on this portion.

Chairman Cosentino: Let's go to the second, then.

Michael Gallin: Do you want to jump forward to Grand Prix New York?

Chairman Cosentino: Yes. Go ahead. I assume the board read all these letters that are before us.

Michael Gallin: Are those public records at this point?

David Stolman: We haven't received copies of those neighbors' letters yet.

Michael Gallin: It might be useful for us just to have the opportunity -

Chairman Cosentino: We'll get copies to you.

Michael Gallin: Since we've met last, Austin Cassidy has reviewed the submission and has asked a series of questions of which we answered presumably to his satisfaction. He has submitted a letter which I know you guys have been copied on stating his determination that this use is permitted within the zone, under special permits, presuming that the board finds it to be appropriate, per the requirements in the zoning code. We've just received a letter tonight from David Stolman, which I believe the board has also seen, outlining a series of requirements. I quickly reviewed the letter and felt that the information he was looking for was certainly reasonable, and we had no concern about providing that. We will work diligently to put that together. I guess we'd like to hear from the board if there is any additional information that the board would like to see. Obviously, I presume you haven't had an opportunity to review David's letter.

David Stolman: Shall I go over that? It's not very long.

Chairman Cosentino: Why don't you go over it?

David Stolman: To sort of paraphrase through this, we first listed the documents that we reviewed specifically the two documents that came in bound entitled Grand Prix New York, Mount Kisco Planning Board Application, July 17, and the supplemental document that is thinner but has the same kind of cover on it, and also the letter from Jim Diamond dated the 17^th of July. As Michael just said, we received a copy of the memo from Austin that is good reading, and on a preliminary basis he said that this would qualify as a membership club but there needs to be additional information submitted, and it would have to meet certain tests in order for him to say that it really doesn't comply as a special permit use of the zone. I didn't want to paraphrase his memo in my memo; I think its best just to read it to see what he actually says himself. So if I didn't characterize that entirely correctly, it's worth reading his. So as of the writing of his memo there had not yet been an application for special permit approval submitted to the Planning Board, which I guess was submitted.

Michael Gallin: That was submitted today; special permit application along with the full -------.

David Stolman: As we mentioned at the bottom of our page, the application should meet the basic requirements for such an applicant as enumerated in the code and should also address the general criteria for special permit uses enumerated in Section 11046, and the specific criteria for membership clubs enumerated in 110 24P 2A of the zoning law. So what we actually meant was, it needs to be more than just the application forms submitted, and what's been submitted today was the application form, plus the EAF, which really doesn't contain that much information. I know this is to supplement what you've already submitted.

Michael Gallin: If I can just say, the material that was submitted previously was submitted under the auspices of an amended site plan approval. It's our belief that all of that material is also applicable to the special permit application, and we ask that that be reviewed as part of the special permit application as well and not re-submitted in identical form. We understand that David has asked for some supplemental information that we'd be happy to put together.

Lester Steinman: I don't know if we have an objection to that, but I think what is necessary is a narrative that addresses specifically both the general conditions and the special conditions and how your application meets it.

Michael Gallin: We'll do that as a response to David's memo.

Chairman Cosentino: I don't know when the proper time is. This was a special use permit, and this is all given to the zoning by the village board itself. And I think we need either a meeting or some dialogue between the village board and ourselves. I don't know if this is what Bedford envisioned either. I think Bedford has to be involved in this.

Lester Steinman: That certainly at a latter point is something that I discussed with the applicant's counsel that maybe they could get a determination from Bedford whether any permits are required there that will affect other things, how this application is processed from SEQRA's standpoint; so that issue has been raised.

Chairman Cosentino: Has it? Okay.

Neil Alexander: ------ when you look at the code for Bedford, obviously it's Bedford's decision, when you look at the code for Bedford, personal services uses are permitted in the zoning which is classified in Bedford, and expressly under the accessory uses in Bedford are dining facilities, recreation facilities, as accessory to personal service facility. And that's really what Sy is doing here.

Chairman Cosentino: It's good but I don't want the Bedford board saying, hey Mount Kisco, it's on our borders, you didn't consult with us, and I think we want to be neighborly.

Neil Alexander: Also when we circulate notice of your intent to be lead agency the full EAF will have a lot of information.

Chairman Cosentino: We're going to need to know what goes on at that meeting also.

Lester Steinman: We're going to have to make a formal referral to the Town of Bedford in any event, so they will clearly be informed, but I think to have this issue addressed sooner rather than later in Bedford is a good idea, if there are any obstacles in Bedford that they need to overcome.

Chairman Cosentino: And right now I'm reserving some comments. On this booklet you gave me it tells me that we're dealing with two different things. We're dealing with racing cars and leagues and schools, and this is not my writing, this is your writing, and then we're dealing with a conference center. So I see it not as a blend, but I see it as two different things happening. And I've got to be convinced that that's not what it is. And right now I'm not convinced.

Jim Diamond: They way its set up is the conference facility is only there just to support the actual racing; the actual track usage, and in fact it is mandatory that all conferences have to be there for the racing. That's really the business driver. If corporations are looking for a place to just have a general conference, there are a lot of places that would do it that are substantially less expensive.

Chairman Cosentino: So we are seeing this as two different things, and I'm not wrong by saying that - that I'm seeing two different aspects of what is going to be there. I'm seeing racing cars, where clubs are going to get involved, and them I'm seeing a conference center where, as the gentleman here says, companies like Goldman Sachs may get involved, so I see two things. And I've got to separate that or they've got to blend together. I don't know what it is. I'm very confused on it right now. I need more time to study is what I need.

Jim Diamond: Of course, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Cosentino: I will be taking a ride to Boston also.

Jim Diamond: Terrific.

Neil Alexander: I think it may help, if I may, it's really more the use of the track is the gatekeeper. You're not allowed to do any kind of breakout meeting aspects unless you're using the track. And it may also be sort of a little bit of a dead time issue. Which is, you're not going to be racing all day long, and it is a team building aspect, and therefore you're going to come there for that use, the track use; the fact that there may be the ability to have a breakout meeting that may go beyond the scope of just how to drive your cart better. Your gatekeeper is you have to be coming there.

Chairman Cosentino: But then, in the same token, we're reading a restaurant, 5,000 square feet.

Sy Aryeh: It's not.

Chairman Cosentino: Well you said it was. I'm only quoting what you said.

Sy Aryeh: It was an incorrect number from a long time ago.

Chairman Cosentino: As a matter of fact, the number was 5,100 square feet.

Sy Aryeh: The submission that we gave you as part of the July 17 was revised substantially down from that.

Chairman Cosentino: I only can go by what I was told. So these are the things that this board has to deal with, and I just want you to know. It needs to really be studied more, because I read this, and I got this feeling, and it confused the hell out of me, I've got to be honest with you. And I really have to sit down with you and go over this.

Ralph Vigliotti: If you can spend two or three minutes, we have residents of the community that are here that may not have some of the documentation we have. Spend three or four minutes with us and please go through this use. Why race car versus mini golf? Versus anything else that may draw people to a conference center. I want to know more. Paper is one thing. I want to hear for the minutes what you're envisioning. I'm hearing pieces here and there, and I've read through this. I just want to hear the concept for four or five minutes, and I want our neighbors in that area to also hear it.

Chairman Cosentino: Are there any neighbors here?

Ralph Vigliotti: Yes, and they need to hear this.

Chairman Cosentino: Good I'm glad. Do you want to come forward more?

Ralph Vigliotti: So, Jim, there's a long process here, and if somebody could just in three or four minutes capsulate what you're envisioning here in some kind of formal dialogue.

Michael Gallin: Sy Aryeh is with us, and he is the managing director - is that it? He's the leader of this, and I think he'd be the best person to speak to that vision.

Vice-chairman Sturniolo: Would you also add in your presentation what you're not going to do?

Sy Aryeh: Yes. Absolutely. Grand Prix New York is a racing facility that caters to a very high end, generally speaking adult male clientele that are motor sport enthusiasts. These are guys that like expensive cars, they like to watch racing, they like to race, and they want to come to a place that generally speaking year round experience this racing --------. It's a very safe, well-known concept and it is something that generally uses small go-karts that go around the race track. As part of this facility, this is built in as a very high-end, indoor, Class A type of office space. It's a very high tech looking space. As part of this facility, they have amenities in there. We have conference rooms, and this serves also the second part of our business which is the corporate facility. Companies that come to our facility during business hours and they have their events there. It's sort of an alternative to going to having to take a bunch of their clients to a golf outing, or to taking some of their employees for a day for a thank you event. They can bring their people to the facility; they go around and maybe do what they call time ------ team building exercises. It is a very sort of high end, entertainment/business educational experience on the corporate side. And for the just adult people that come after business hours and on weekends, it's a sporting event for their personal use. It's not a spectator facility at all. It's very expensive for the most part for people to come. They spend an average of about one to two hours there, and they spend from $100 to $200 each on the racing. It's very quiet; it has very low traffic generation. There are no trucks that come in and out of the facility, it's generally speaking, again, people that come in low volumes with cars and they stay for a considerable period of time and it's a - what else can I explain about it?

Jim Diamond: I think you should talk about why it's low volumes, what the eliminating factors are.

Sy Aryeh: Basically, the business is centered around the race tracks. We have one to two race tracks; this will be two race tracks and only a certain amount of capacity. If you look here, there are two different racetracks and each one can have around ten people on it at any one time. Generally speaking you don't have very many races that go on in the day, and you can only generate a certain number of -----, and it takes time to take them in and out, and it's a process. It's a whole experience. People come, they sit down, we talk to them about how to drive the go-karts, they get educated on it, they watch videos and talk about the different techniques to use, it's an educational experience in that sense. They get their racing suits, they wear helmets, and then they go through the whole procedure. It's a league fun sort of male bonding sports experience. And that in itself, that time that it takes for somebody to go through the process and the limited number - you really can't have that many people within, even what is a very large space that limit sort of generates a very low volume, and we do not have a big turnover. Why does that make sense for us? It does make sense for us to have this low volume here because it's very expensive per person to do it. Again, this is something that has already been done in the country, very successfully so we know it can be done. We have existing management here that has been doing it. We know the business well, and again it's very complimentary to the town, I think. I live here as well, so I'm concerned in that it really does - it's a complete offset to the truck traffic, and it's a complete offset in terms of the sort of peak hours that you all are concerned about. They are generally speaking corporate hours during business hours are very, very mild, sort of like nine to five or eight to six. That is our mildest period of time with traffic, because we have small groups of companies that come in and stay for a very long period of time, on average three hours, and there is very little turnover. So that's very good in terms of, again, counter to your traffic issues. In the other hours, we don't generate that much traffic anyway.

Michael Gallin: If I could just add one thing. When we were first introduced to this use we were - it took us awhile from a learning curve standpoint to understand how the use worked. When Jim Diamond and Sy first approached me as the architect saying we want to do go-karting, the first thing I thought of was a side of the road facility, I guess, Playland doesn't have go-karting, but something for little kids, driving around go-karts with no rules, no structure. This is the exact opposite of that. They took us up to a facility that has some parallels to this facility, and in essence, it's all about structure. When you arrive, you need to check in; you need to certify that you are of age and that you can drive. You need to pay an entry fee or get a driver's license so to speak to drive these cars, there is an instructional video, there's a whole series of rules that need to be followed. You need to dress up in a big leather racing suit, a helmet, you get a series of instruction courses available at an instruction session about how you drive, and then the races are very structured, and then during the race there are computer printouts showing performance, and the like. So, I think part of the concern of this may be a misunderstanding based on the majority of low end go-kart facilities that people may be familiar with. These cars are not for children, the facility is - it's really adult recreation. Sy I think you should also speak about some of the things that this won't be in terms of entertainment, and Jim I think you should also add, from an ownership standpoint, why you see it so advantageous.

Sy Aryeh: I think that it's very important that we express that this business really does not want nor is it sort of targeted to what would be considered night time entertainment at all. The concept here is for it not to be a bar scene. Not to be an entertainment facility for the public to come and to drink or to hang out. It's not for that at all. This facility is not, number one, a spectator facility, people don't want to come and watch racing it's just boring. The second issue is that we have controls. We don't want people to come in and drink and/or eat if they're not racing. We don't allow them, we don't want them there. And you won't have things like music events where people can just come in; that is just not what we do. Other facilities have done it, but that's now our thing at all. This is really targeted specifically toward the racing as the core having very, very adamant enthusiasts come towards this, and for the corporate business that comes and I think it's really very placid as a use in terms of that regard, and --------- to the community. We're not here at all to make noise, to make traffic and to make it something that's going to be a detriment to the community, actually its to the contrary.

Jim Diamond: And from our perspective, Diamond Properties, our interest was really; number one was really the traffic generation. I mean that's really been our biggest focus with this property is controlling the trip generation that comes out of it. What we really liked about this use when Sy came to us with it as a potential is that a: it's extremely large, it's 120,000 square feet, so its around 20%, a little bit larger than 20% of the overall facility. As part of our approval with Mount Kisco, we agreed to limit our total trips to and from the facility at 300 turn's peak hour, which is a relatively tight threshold. So Sy's ------ that is, would be approximately 63, 64, 65 trips, and our analysis shows that he only even approaches that rarely - there is only a couple of hours throughout the week where he is even in that range. Most of the time, he is substantially lower than that. The reason being that the majority of the facility is occupied by these two tracks which have a maximum capacity of ten to twelve racers each maximum but typically are going to have like 6, 8, 9 people each. So you've really only got like 16, 18 people potentially racing at any one time, and typically people are going to be racing for over an hour for three or four races and then they're going to stay for a little while, so there is relatively low turn over for the facility. So, there is a natural limiting factor to the way the facility is structured, such that it is really impossible for this type of use to exceed its limitations because business wise it just doesn't work. Beyond that we can add protections into our lease with Sy and the Planning Board would add protections in any approval resolution limiting his operation. But we really like the fact that structurally it's limited. We also spent a lot of time looking at things like noise. We hired our own consultant to really analyze the way these cars work, and he determined that within five feet of the building, the noise would be less than that generated by a typical refrigerator. So it's essentially inaudible outside the confines of the building, especially since the way we've laid it out the tracks are actually behind a number of other tenants. The only portion - this is all the entry and office space and the only portion the tracks would be along an exterior surface would actually be along the railroad tracks.

Chairman Cosentino: Just, very briefly in your booklet, which I would like some of these people to get because it's interesting, you talk about, and you've been good to the village, but I need to bring this up. You talk about adult leagues and schools. You talk about junior leagues and schools. You talk about adult and junior leagues more details. You talk about adult leagues and championship racing programs. What does this do? Tell me about the school programs. What does this do? See, I'm hearing something else again.

Sy Aryeh: The adult leagues and the junior leagues in the schools for both of them are really just sort of an extension of what our regular…

Chairman Cosentino: What schools are they? Is this all schools throughout the county?

Sy Aryeh: No, no, no. I'm sorry. Okay. Alright. What these schools are are basically advanced driving clinics.

Chairman Cosentino: Schools within?

Sy Aryeh: They are within the same program. Exactly. So what it is if we have members that are coming, and they really enjoy it and they want to get better at driving, whether it's a father who wants his son to become a better kart driver; to learn how to kart; to become a better driver, we have schools. It's our school. It's a clinic, is really what it is. We have an instructor that's there. We have staff that are trained for this, and they come and they spend on average about an hour - two hours for a clinic, and they come and we train them. We have classroom sessions about driving technique, physics, and vehicular dynamics. We talk about all the different things that are part of racing. And then they go out and they drive, and we show them what they're doing wrong. It's educational as well as part of a fun of it.

Chairman Cosentino: And this is within a conference room?

Sy Aryeh: No. Part of it is within our conference rooms, and most of it is on the track. So when I say schools, it doesn't mean anything other than it's just a clinic to learn how to drive better in our facility.

Ralph Vigliotti: What is the age group that we are talking about here?

Sy Aryeh: For the juniors or the adults?

Ralph Vigliotti: Well, juniors.

Sy Aryeh: Juniors can vary from 8 years old to 16 years old. I think it's basically the curve is 16.

Ralph Vigliotti: So, you could - if you're very popular you could have quite a lot of these leagues being serviced.

Sy Aryeh: The leagues for the juniors are only on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and they are early in the morning. Very early in the morning. Outside of that there are no junior programs.

Ralph Vigliotti: There is just so much here that we need to take a peek at. I don't truly know the connection with the conference center and the go-karts; whether the go-karts can happen without conferencing, or whether the conferencing, as a conference center, can be used without the go-karts. So, are we saying we're going to have a conference center, but we don't need to use the go-karts?

Sy Aryeh: No.

Ralph Vigliotti: Is there a connection?

Sy Aryeh: Yes.

Ralph Vigliotti: One hundred percent connection?

Sy Aryeh: Yes.

Ralph Vigliotti: Anyone that's using, leasing the conference center must be connected to the go-karts.

Sy Aryeh: Yes.

Ralph Vigliotti: Okay.

Sy Aryeh: The conference centers are primarily, to every extent except for in a situation where we are in a classroom session for a clinic, are used for corporate outings, corporate team building exercises. Those conferencing facilities are strictly there to supplement the racetracks and the usage of the racetracks. They are in addition to and a sort of facilitation of the racing part of it. The company will come to us to use the race tracks primarily.

Ralph Vigliotti: So if I'm a CEO and I want a conference, I have to check off both; I will be using the track and I will be using the conference centers. Correct?

Sy Aryeh: Practically speaking, yes.

Ralph Vigliotti: Aah -

Michael Gallin: More than that, you need to pay for both. You need to rent the track.

Ralph Vigliotti: But I could check off both, and say, you know what, I just want the conference center; we don't need the track.

Jim Diamond: But it's approximately $2,000 an hour. What you're doing when you're reserving a corporate conference is you're reserving one of the two tracks, plus some conference facilities, and its $2,000 an hour. So if you're really just looking for a room to meet----

Ralph Vigliotti: For example, we'll use Goldman Sachs. $2,000 for an hour is absolutely a drop in the bucket. We don't have - I want to be careful in saying this - if the facility opens we don't have a lot of control of what goes on inside, so we have to be very careful about the establishment.

Chairman Cosentino: Oh, but we can control.

Ralph Vigliotti: But, you know what? Weeks and months can go by before we can get in to find out what's going on, so we, very carefully up front have to put in lots of lots of pieces. I have a problem with the alcohol. Will this be alcohol free, or are we saying you're going to serve alcohol and there's going to be a lounge with a bar situation with a bar that you can sit at?

Chairman Cosentino: It's a complete restaurant bar.

Ralph Vigliotti: That's why I need to - there are lots of pieces still missing here.

Jim Diamond: I think it's important to highlight that its not - the café is only for people who are racing. This is not a facility that's opened to the general public where people say; hey it's Thursday night I want to go out drinking here.

Chairman Cosentino: But you do have outside membership if I'm not mistaken.

Jim Diamond: Yes, outside people -

Chairman Cosentino: Anybody can come in.

Jim Diamond: But they have to pay, they have to be racing.

Chairman Cosentino: Right. But anybody can come in from the outside.

Jim Diamond: If they're racing.

Ralph Vigliotti: If I come in and pay my $150 for two hours, I'm not allowed to bring a couple of guests to watch? That's prohibited, totally?

Sy Aryeh: No, you are allowed to bring guests.

Ralph Vigliotti: You are? So you do have spectators, then? And you do have use of the lounge and of the bar. I want to spell all of this out. There's a lot of pieces missing here, and that's why this conversation is very, very important to everyone on the board and in the audience. So I'm envisioning, I've been to a lot of conferences in my day, and I'm envisioning the conference center, if I'm done with the conference I can go to the lounge and sit with the guys or gals, and have two or three drinks, and perhaps watch my friend who is going to race, and then I'm done for the evening, or I could stay the entire evening. There's a lot going on here. There's just a lot going on that we really need to dig deeper. There's a lot. There's not just the race cars. That's one little piece, and that may be the easiest piece to all of them, but then you're adding on as I just asked, a lounge, a bar situation. I understand now there is a restaurant to some degree.

Chairman Cosentino: How many square feet was it downsized?

Sy Aryeh: Michael, what are we at now?

Michael Gallin: I don't have the exact measurements.

Sy Aryeh: I'll draw up a ------- and call that it's now 2,400 square feet.

Ralph Vigliotti: Conference center or restaurant?

Sy Aryeh: Restaurant.

Chairman Cosentino: Combination restaurant/bar.

David Stolman: Two different spaces; on this plan, anyway.

Michael Gallin: Yes. We've been discussing combining the bar into the restaurant. We will make that modification.

Lester Steinman: I don't think you have to answer this question now, but just following up on some valid points. I guess the village's worst case scenario is an affluent group of people decide they are going to have the racetrack as the theme for a bachelor party. They use the track, they then have their party, and they then spill out late at night onto the roads of Mount Kisco.

Chairman Cosentino: And that's the problem. That's what we don't need, that's what we don't want.

Ralph Vigliotti: And that's one of several scenarios.

Neil Alexander: That gives us a great opportunity to understand where you're coming from, distills it for us in a very clear way as we go back to the ----- with more information and sort of hone our plan as to what works financially. Understanding your fears is better.

Jim Diamond: And I think it's clear that it's not what the business is. I think we need to find a way to encapsulate that in some restrictions because that's really not - this is really about the racing.

Ralph Vigliotti: As one person I always say that every time we have a meeting - as one person there is a total misdirection on this entire application with the bar lounge. Take that out of the ballgame and I think we have something that's pretty reasonable. But the bar lounge creates something that you can't control - we can't control, down in that little valley we have a difficult time controlling a bar or restaurant situation. That bar lounge is I think a potential problem.

Jim Diamond: I think the problem is as you know any corporate outing that you have there's always a food and drink component - so it's hard to -

Ralph Vigliotti: I understand that.

Jim Diamond: Otherwise, I'm not sure how you -------

Ralph Vigliotti: I understand, but excuse the pun, it sounds like the bar is stirring the drink to this whole application, so please be careful.

Jim Diamond: I understand.

Michael Gallin: We appreciate that.

Chairman Cosentino: Is there anybody else that would like to add anything to this?

Lester Steinman: The only thing I would add in addition, I took a very quick look at the EAF but it describes the use of a quasi public recreational facility. That's a defined term in the Mount Kisco code, and I'm not sure you meet that, so you want to re-visit that.

Neil Alexander: In view of Austin's letter, we're probably going to re-define it to the private membership club definition in Subsection 24.

Chairman Cosentino: Is there anything else anybody wants to add to this?

Neil Alexander: Can I bring up one procedural issue? Do you want to declare your Notice of Intent to be lead agency, that way at least stir this up with Bedford a little bit, let them know you're going to - there's something else that's going on, and get that moving forward?

Lester Steinman: I think we haven't had a chance to review the EAF, so we are not really in a position to do that. We just got it tonight.

Stanley Bernstein: I have a little procedural problem with that. We've already declared Lead Agency to the entire project, and we are now talking about a tenant. We never have to step back and go through a rigmarole like this for a tenant. So, this really disturbs me quite a bit.

Chairman Cosentino: It's a change of use, though.

Lester Steinman: It's for a special permit, so it's a different approval.

Stanley Bernstein: Because of the special permit?

David Stolman: It's a different use than you had entertained previously.