Outdoor Storage at Armonk Warehouse No Go for Planning Board

North Castle Planning Board members directed representatives for a newly-built warehouse to revise their plan because outdoor storage containers from an incoming PODS facility could cause disturbance on Business Park Drive in Armonk.

Despite an acoustical expert for the property owner presenting testimony at the board’s last meeting on July 11 that stacking 90 containers up to 24 feet high would not produce problematic sound, planners listened to the pleas from two other Business Park Drive property owners and a representative from The Bristal assisted living facility nearby who argued that outside storage has no place at the site.

The warehouse had already received site plan approval, but outdoor storage is not a permitted use. The applicant is seeking an outdoor storage permit for 94 Business Park Drive, the same parcel where La Quinta Inn had been located. The lodging facility was torn down and a 71,000-square-foot warehouse has taken its place on the 5.5-acre lot.

Dean Brown, director of business development at The Bristal, said he can hear current activity from the property when he is outside, whether it be at the pool or on the shuffleboard court. Frequent activity would make it unbearable.

“This isn’t a hotel. People don’t stay for a week at a time and leave,” Brown said. “This is their home. Would you want to hear that noise across the street from your home?”

Planning Board Chairman Christopher Carthy told Anthony Veneziano, the attorney for the property owners, that had the facility been slated for more traditional warehouse use, with inside-only storage, there likely would not have been the strenuous opposition. During the original site plan approval, PODS had not yet been identified as a tenant.

“You’re hearing from the neighbors that if the units were inside the building and if you were acting like a loading dock, effectively loading and unloading them with the trucks parallel parked to the building, then I think there’d be less objection,” Carthy said.

Acoustical expert Benjamin Mueller, of Ostergaard Acoustics in Woodbridge, N.J., said given the anticipated truck delivery schedule – about 18 full-size tractor-trailers and 30 to 36 smaller trucks a week – and virtually no nighttime hours of operation, it would have little impact on the neighboring properties.

PODS is scheduled to be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday.

The Bristal, its closest neighbor, is measured to be about 175 feet at its closest point. The site’s proximity to I-684 keeps a constant din of traffic in the background, he said.

“We think that this use for this location is terrific for an acoustical standpoint because of that,” Mueller said. “The other thing that makes this site unique from an acoustical standpoint is its operational hours is during the daytime.”

Forklifts would be used to bring the containers into and out of the building. Mueller explained that noise from a forklift’s back-up alarm would not be problematic despite the 82- to 102-decibel level from one foot away because it is equipped with a feature that makes it only as loud as is required. A typical conversation between two people standing three feet away is about 65 decibels, he explained.

“I expect the backup alarms will be operating at their lowest self-regulated level for the majority of their use here,” Mueller said.

In a letter last month addressed to Carthy, Veneziano stated that PODS’ use would be less intense than a conventional warehouse because the current permitted use would call for 16 loading docks 24 hours a day. There would be no more than 10 employees at one time, he added.

“Of import, (PODS) clarified that a forklift will leave the building, travel down one of two ramps as reflected on the site plan, receive filled Pod containers and bring such containers inside the building,” Veneziano wrote. “All of that is currently permitted, all of that can happen, 24 hours for seven days per week.”

One of the two property owners who spoke at the last meeting, Michael Fareri, argued that in addition to noise, aesthetics is a factor as well. He said he and other Business Park Drive property owners take great pride in maintaining their parcels in impeccable condition and outside storage of containers would ruin that.

“I don’t think the outside pods should be allowed to be stored there, nor should the inside pods be allowed to be unloaded outside,” Fareri said.

Fareri added that by allowing 90 containers outside, it would effectively increase the floor-area ratio, which is currently at its maximum. There would be room inside for 800 containers.

Property owner Ed Lashins said exterior storage is not an appropriate use.

“Once you let outdoor storage in, even if it’s one square foot, it opens up the door where you’re going to have pods all over the place,” he said.

Veneziano said the applicant is expected to return to the board after he consults with his client.