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HomeMy WebLinkAbout20250907 75 Clinton St Area Variance Zoning_Board_Hearing_Bakcground_SummaryZONING BOARD HEARING Prepared Statement & Talk Track Van Dam Street Sound Barrier City of Saratoga Springs Historic District Residential Property Confidential — Attorney-Client Privileged PURPOSE Oppose enforcement action requiring removal of residential sound barrier PROPERTY Federally protected historic district — Van Dam Street intersection POSITION Barrier is legally justified, medically necessary, and city-created OPENING STATEMENT Frame the Central Paradox “Members of the board, I want to begin with the central paradox you are being asked to resolve today: the City of Saratoga Springs is seeking to compel me to remove a sound barrier from my privately owned, historically preserved home — while simultaneously allowing over 700 heavy commercial trucks per day — approximately one every two minutes — to use the residential city street directly behind it.” “I am not the problem before this board. I am the consequence of a problem this city created, acknowledged, voted to fix, and then chose not to enforce. Everything you will hear today flows from that fact.” PART I This Situation Has No Comparable Precedent “Before applying any residential fence standard to my property, I ask this board to honestly consider whether any comparable residential situation exists anywhere in this city.” Our backyard is the only property on Van Dam Street where a residential yard directly faces the road at an active signalized intersection — the single highest-volume commercial truck shortcut in the entire city. We are not near a truck route. We are at its epicenter. Trucks brake with engine compression brakes at our light, idle their diesels directly into our yard, then accelerate through four to five gears shaking our home. “This board cannot apply a standard written for a neighbor who wants a taller privacy fence from a passing car. That situation and mine share nothing in common but the word 'fence.'” PART II Every Level of Government Agrees — the Trucks Should Not Be Here This is not a disputed position. The institutional record of agreement that these trucks do not belong on this road is extensive and unambiguous. Consider the full breadth of who has said so: • City Council, 2023: Voted 5-0 to weight-restrict Van Dam Street. That law was passed. It remains on the books today. It has never been repealed. • NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (SHPO): Written support for removing commercial trucks from this city-owned historic neighborhood. • Saratoga Preservation Foundation: Has formally called for the removal of heavy commercial traffic from the historic district. • Sustainable Saratoga: On record calling for truck removal from residential Van Dam Street. • Complete Streets: Has added its institutional voice to the same call. “This is not a neighbor dispute. This is a documented, multi-institutional, bipartisan recognition that heavy commercial traffic on a residential road inside a federally protected historic district is wrong — wrong for the neighborhood, wrong for preservation, and wrong for public health. The only entity that has not acted on that consensus is this city's own administration. And today, rather than enforce its own law, the city is here asking me to dismantle my family's only protection from the consequences of that inaction.” PART III The City's Legal Position Contradicts Itself The city's enforcement posture here is legally incoherent, and I want this board to sit with that carefully. “When it is convenient, the city says Van Dam Street is a federal access highway beyond its control — and uses that to justify not enforcing its own weight restriction law, even after its own legal counsel was presented with documented home rule authority confirming it could act.” “When it is convenient, the city treats my property as a standard residential location — subject to residential fence height codes written for quiet neighborhood streets.” You cannot have both. Either this is a residential street — in which case the trucks must go and my barrier is unnecessary — or it functions as a truck highway, in which case the city has no standing to hold me to residential standards while subjecting me to highway conditions. The city must choose one. PART IV The City's Own Tax Record Settles the Question If there is any doubt about whether my property can fairly be treated as a standard residential location, the city's own legal record removes it. “In 2023, the city attempted to raise my property taxes by assessing my home against comparable stately properties in Saratoga's finest residential neighborhoods. We contested that assessment. The case went to county arbitration — and the city lost. The arbitration ruling specifically found that my property's location on what functions as a commercial truck corridor makes it not comparable to a normal residential setting.” The city's own tax assessors argued I lived in a normal neighborhood. An independent arbitrator disagreed — because of the trucks. If this board moves to take enforcement action and this matter proceeds to court, we welcome that. Because the city will find itself arguing that my property is a standard residence in one courtroom, while its own arbitration record in another establishes the opposite. We are prepared for that conversation. PART V The Height Was Not Arbitrary — It Is the Minimum That Works The height of this barrier is not random, and it was not chosen provocatively. It is the minimum height required to do two specific things simultaneously: • Intercept the direct line of diesel exhaust from truck stack exhausts before it enters the yard at ground level. • Attenuate engine noise at its source — the top of the truck cab and exhaust stack — before it reaches my family. Below this height, exhaust clears the barrier and enters the yard. The acoustics of engine noise from a vehicle of this height require a barrier of this height to be effective. This was an engineering necessity, not a preference. “Critically: this height is not invented. It is the same standard used by the Department of Transportation when it installs acoustic barriers along interstate highways to protect residential communities from exactly this class of noise and emissions. DOT acknowledges — through its own infrastructure spending — that a barrier of this height is the appropriate response when heavy commercial traffic is adjacent to homes.” I have done at my own expense, on my own property, what the government does with public funds when it acknowledges the problem. The difference is that DOT's barriers are built when government admits responsibility. Mine was built because this government has not. PART VI The Science: What My Family Is Actually Exposed To The following documented, citable facts establish the medical and acoustic reality of what my family experiences at this intersection every day. These are not estimates or opinions. They are findings from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the World Health Organization, the EPA, and peer-reviewed research. Truck Noise vs. Passenger Cars “Trucks are on average 8 decibels louder than automobiles. The noise level on a typical city street with automobile traffic averages 60-65 dB; larger vehicles like heavy trucks and diesel buses cause noise peaks ranging up to about 90 dB. One diesel bus or heavy truck produces the noise equivalent of over 32 automobiles.” Source: U.S. Dept. of Transportation / Transportation Research Board (TRID); Trolley Coalition Noise Reference Jake Brake Noise at Our Intersection “The sound from an unmuffled Jake brake can exceed 100 decibels, comparable to a jackhammer. Even in a properly maintained rig, the manufacturer — Jacobs Vehicle Systems — acknowledges noise of 80-83 dB, with straight-stack exhaust systems producing sounds 16-22 dB higher. A typical six-cylinder diesel engine produces up to 2,000 compression events per minute during engine braking.” Source: Jacobs Vehicle Systems (via HowStuffWorks); ZetaCDL; Jake Brake research compendium Children's Hearing Thresholds — WHO Guidelines “The World Health Organization recommends children not be exposed to sound levels above 75 decibels over extended periods — lower than the 80 dB adult limit, because children's smaller ear canals generate higher sound pressure against the inner ear. At 91 dB, safe exposure drops to 2 hours. At 100 dB, damage can begin in under 15 minutes. The 85 dB threshold is recognized by the WHO, ASHA, and audiologists worldwide as the critical point above which permanent hearing damage begins.” Source: WHO Safe Listening Initiative; American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA); Bollsen Hearing Protection Research Diesel Exhaust and Children's Respiratory Health “The World Health Organization classifies diesel exhaust as carcinogenic to humans. Ultrafine particulates make up 80-95% of diesel soot and are small enough to penetrate the cells of the lungs. Children exposed to diesel emissions have been shown to experience slowed lung development. The California Air Resources Board, citing EPA data, identifies children with still-developing lungs as among the most vulnerable, with documented effects including decreased lung function, increased respiratory symptoms, and emergency asthma visits.” Source: Union of Concerned Scientists / WHO Diesel Classification; California Air Resources Board / EPA; Indiana Dept. of Environmental Management Combined Noise and Pollution: Stress and Cardiovascular Impact “Research published in Circulation Research (American Heart Association) found that noise-induced activation of the body's stress systems triggers release of cortisol and stress hormones. The WHO reports at least 1.6 million healthy life years are lost annually from traffic-related noise in Western Europe. Robust evidence from meta-analyses links transportation noise to ischemic heart disease, heart failure, stroke, and hypertension.” Source: Circulation Research, American Heart Association; WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines 2018; Nature Medicine, 2024 PART VII On Neighbor Complaints — Context Is Everything “I understand there have been some complaints about this structure from a small number of neighbors, and I want to address that directly and honestly.” The majority of our neighbors support this barrier — because they live with the same trucks, the same noise, and the same exhaust. Many have said so directly and several are here today or have submitted written support. This neighborhood has been registering complaints about truck traffic on Van Dam Street for over 40 years. The number of complaints received about this fence does not approach a fraction of the documented outcry the city has received — and ignored — about the trucks. If complaint volume triggers city enforcement, the threshold for acting on the trucks was crossed decades ago. “If the city is now responsive to a handful of fence complaints but remained unresponsive to forty years of truck complaints, then this board should acknowledge that asymmetry openly — because it is the context in which everything happening here today must be understood.” PART VIII What We Have Done — and What We Are Offering I want this board to understand who we are in this community and what we have contributed: • We have invested approximately $3.5 million to purchase and restore this home within Saratoga Springs' federally protected historic district — under strict preservation standards, at our own expense, including being barred from installing modern windows that would themselves reduce the noise I am describing. • This city awarded us a preservation commendation for that work. The same city is now prosecuting us for trying to make the home livable. • We have at our own time and expense worked to identify an alternative truck routing solution that would benefit not just our property but the entire city's downtown. We are trying to solve this for everyone. • We are prepared to further invest in encasing the barrier in climbing ivy and integrated plantings — creating in practical terms a living green wall consistent with the mature landscaping already on our property. • Under current code, we could plant trees of unlimited height with no restriction. But a sound barrier of the same height used by the DOT on highway corridors — built at our expense, supported by neighbors, protecting children from a problem the city created — has brought us here today. Our Position: We make the greenery offer in good faith and take neighbor concerns seriously. But we are not offering a compromise on whether this barrier remains. It stays. The alternative is returning our children to direct, daily exposure to noise and diesel exhaust at levels that exceed every established health threshold — on a road the city itself voted should be free of this traffic. CLOSING Summation “Members of the board, I am asking you to see this situation for what it actually is.” This is not a zoning violation. This is a family that did everything right — preserved a historic home, engaged the democratic process, hired lawyers, documented the health impacts, proposed alternative solutions, and invested deeply in this city — now being asked to remove the only thing standing between their children and a public health hazard that every relevant institution has agreed should not exist. • The trucks are illegal under city law — a law passed unanimously and never repealed. • The city's own arbitration record confirms this property cannot be treated as a normal residence. • The DOT uses this exact barrier height on highways for this exact reason. • SHPO, the Saratoga Preservation Foundation, Sustainable Saratoga, and Complete Streets all agree the trucks should not be here. • The health science on what our children are being exposed to is not ambiguous. “We are not asking for a favor. We are asking this board not to enforce a residential standard against a situation that — by the city's own admissions, in its own records, across its own institutions — is not residential. If the city wishes to take this to court, we are ready. We suspect the city is not.” “If this were your backyard, your children, your lungs—would you take it down?” PRE-HEARING CHECKLIST Exhibits and Preparation The following materials, if presented as formal exhibits, will significantly strengthen your position before and during the hearing. 3 City Council Vote Minutes The 5-0 weight restriction vote — entered as a formal exhibit establishing unanimous legislative intent. 3 DOT Letter + Home Rule Legal Analysis Both the DOT's letter and your attorneys' documented home rule authority response — entered together to show the legal landscape the city chose to ignore. 3 County Tax Arbitration Ruling Your single strongest document. Have it highlighted to the specific finding that your property is not comparable to a normal residential setting due to truck traffic. Enter it as an exhibit. 3 Institutional Support Letters SHPO, Saratoga Preservation Foundation, Sustainable Saratoga, and Complete Streets letters — entered collectively as a unified exhibit demonstrating multi-institutional consensus. 3 DOT Acoustic Barrier Specifications Spec sheets showing your barrier matches the same height and material standards used by DOT on highway corridors. Establishes your structure as conforming to the professional standard. 3 Neighbor Support Letters Submitted in advance of the hearing. The more, the better — establishes the complaint asymmetry argument concretely. 3 Greenery / Mitigation Proposal A written proposal outlining your offer to encase the barrier in ivy and plantings, demonstrating good faith without conceding the core position. Prepared for private use only. Contains legal strategy and privileged communications. Do not distribute.