[0:01] this meeting is being recorded all right it's all yours mayor

[0:05] all right thank you um so folks uh this is the january 3rd uh village board

[0:11] of trustees meeting for the village of flower hill thank you for joining

[0:14] apologies for uh those who are stuck in the waiting room we're having some

[0:17] technical difficulties uh we now have everybody out of the

[0:20] waiting room and we will start the meeting

[0:22] i'm going to start with the pledge of allegiance i'll just lead the pledge

[0:27] i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america

[0:31] and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god in the liberty and

[0:36] justice for all

[0:39] all right um

[0:41] so today's meeting is going to start with

[0:46] uh public hearings uh the first one is for a lot line adjustment hearing from

[0:50] 50 uh for 50 and 60 walnut um this is a carryover of a hearing from

[0:56] the last meeting

[1:00] so let's start there

[1:02] before we get started i know

[1:06] we have who do we have from the applicant here

[1:10] so we have the applicant and i think we have your attorney as well john farrell

[1:14] yes okay

[1:16] and now um jeff we had discussed i think prior to

[1:21] this uh just before this meeting um jeff blinkoff our village attorney

[1:25] we had some new information from you today john i think it was submitted uh

[1:29] this morning um and we also received some additional

[1:33] commentary from the public just before this meeting mayor don't you need to

[1:37] make a motion to open the public hearing thank you randall uh make a motion to

[1:42] open the public hearing and then we'll revisit my comments i'll second it

[1:46] all in favor all right

[1:54] all right

[1:56] so john i think um based off the fact that we've just gotten some additional

[2:01] information um and uh from both you and the public uh i

[2:06] think we'd like to start off with uh getting your consent to carry this

[2:09] hearing over till the next month uh so the board can review that information

[2:14] and uh i guess address any questions we can after the meeting

[2:18] is that possible

[2:21] um i i didn't have this kind of took me by surprise i didn't have a chance to

[2:24] consult with my client well just just to be clear mr phil they're not

[2:29] i don't think the mayor is saying that they're not going to let people be heard

[2:32] tonight uh just that they'll then want people to be able to review everything

[2:35] that's been submitted correct okay okay

[2:41] yeah that i mean that's acceptable yeah john we'd like i guess you uh on

[2:46] behalf of the applicant to walk us through the information you submitted

[2:49] we'll ask any questions uh how we're just getting this today i think we'd

[2:52] like a chance to look it over sure i understand

[2:56] okay so then i'll hand it over to you uh for okay representation

[3:01] sure um for the applicant my name is john farrow i'm with the firm son ward

[3:06] braf and koblins our offices are at 333 hovington boulevard street 601 uniondale

[3:12] new york um on the line tonight are my client dan

[3:17] bombach um the architect on the project trisha o'neil she designed the house

[3:21] that's currently under construction and

[3:25] you know as you said we we submitted some additional information but before i

[3:29] walk you through that i'd like to you know open the floor to my client to

[3:33] give um his point of view on why they entered into contract to buy

[3:39] the adjoining property and what they they seek to achieve by doing so

[3:44] so at this point i just asked dan to unmute himself and and walk and walk you

[3:50] guys through that

[3:53] sure so hello and thank you for the opportunity to speak before the board

[3:57] my name is dan baumbach and my family has lived in manhasset for almost 10

[4:01] years my wife and i have been active community community members since that

[4:04] time whether through volunteering our time on the munzee park tree committee

[4:09] various school committees a non-profit board community groups as a cub scout

[4:13] den leader or as a coach we love our community and are looking forward to

[4:16] moving to our new home being built in flower hill as a reminder the home we

[4:21] are currently building at 60 walnut was already approved by the architectural

[4:24] review committee and the board of trustees earlier in 2021 and meets

[4:28] village code we did not need nor do we ever seek a variance for this build as

[4:33] it conforms with village code when the owner of 51 elaine informed us

[4:38] of their decision to move we were disappointed to lose such nice and

[4:41] welcoming neighbors the seller mentioned that their ranch would most likely be

[4:45] bought by a builder to be replaced with a new home

[4:48] as they discussed selling their home to a builder we were also approached to see

[4:52] if we had any interest in their property when my wife and i thought about the new

[4:56] home that could be built at their address we calculated that a new code

[4:59] conforming house could be placed 13 feet closer to our home and still meet the

[5:04] minimum size setback as we thought about how to prevent this

[5:07] section of walnut lane from becoming denser we realized that if we owned both

[5:11] properties we could request a lot line shift in order to increase the green

[5:15] space between both homes further our young family would benefit

[5:19] from having the additional grass to play on

[5:21] knowing that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity we made an offer to

[5:24] the seller and are currently in contract to purchase 50 walnut

[5:29] as incoming residents of the village we care deeply about our new neighbors the

[5:32] character of the village and the high standards put in place by the village

[5:35] code the architectural review committee and the board of trustees deciding on

[5:40] how many feet to move the property line took a considerable amount of time

[5:44] we chose 21 feet based on researching village code and at the separate

[5:48] meetings with our architect attorney and a village inspector we could have

[5:52] requested to move the property line 34 feet which would still leave behind a

[5:56] conforming lot that would be larger than 40

[5:59] of the lots on walnut lane however we decided on 21 feet as this

[6:03] would leave behind a lot that is 114.64 feet resulting in a lot that is

[6:08] larger than approximately half of the remaining lots on walnut

[6:12] this lot would allow a new code-conforming home to be built similar

[6:15] in size to our home without the need for a variance

[6:18] the purpose of our application is to request a 21 foot lot line shift we

[6:23] understand that any subsequent build at 50 walnut lane is a separate matter that

[6:27] would be subject to the village's code and review by the architectural review

[6:30] committee we'd like to thank the many neighbors on

[6:33] walnut lane and in flower hill who have offered their support to this

[6:37] application these letters of support were provided to the village earlier

[6:40] again our intention with this application is to ensure there is

[6:43] additional green space between our home and a new home built at 50 walnut

[6:48] as the owner of 60 walnut and contract vendi for 50 we respectfully request

[6:52] approval of our application to ship the lot line 21 feet resulting in two lots

[6:57] each of which exceeds minimum code thank you for your consideration

[7:04] thank you mr brownback

[7:07] so i think that go ahead

[7:10] as you say i think that about sums up the the reason um and the thought

[7:14] process that went into it this wasn't something my client is doing

[7:18] you know off the cuff he did he took a lot of time to think about this and and

[7:22] really you know mapped this whole process out

[7:25] before he he started on this endeavor if you recall at the last hearing the

[7:30] board had asked us to prepare like a tax map exhibit showing the lots on walnut

[7:36] lane um we did prepare that exhibit and i provided it to the uh

[7:42] to the village clerk and i i don't i don't know if i i don't

[7:47] think i have the ability to screen share i don't know if she can screen share it

[7:51] i know she's on the line i see her down there um

[7:56] but you know just to walk you through it since the board members have it in front

[8:00] of them what i did was i highlighted the lots

[8:03] that are the subject of this application they're highlighted in red

[8:08] so and i highlighted them in their current configuration not post

[8:13] not post lot line adjustment because this is based on the existing conditions

[8:17] so if you look at the properties that are highlighted in yellow

[8:22] there's the uh there's the exhibit properties that are

[8:26] highlighted in yellow all have lot frontage on walnut lane that is less

[8:32] than 114.64 feet in width

[8:36] so uh

[8:38] it's out of the there are 31 lots excluding

[8:42] the two lots that are the subject of this application

[8:45] and 14 of them have less than 114.64 feet of lot width

[8:53] there are two additional lots that have uh addresses on crabapple lane

[8:58] and boulder road both of those lots also have frontage of

[9:02] less than 100 feet on walnut so i highlighted those just to show you that

[9:09] you know this this area this this particular

[9:12] street is very uh it's not cookie cutter every

[9:16] lot is is is a little bit different there

[9:19] many different widths uh but at the end of the day

[9:23] this lot the the smaller of the two locks which would be 114.64

[9:28] feet would be roughly

[9:32] if you don't count the two locks on one on

[9:37] close to 50 of the lots would be smaller than the

[9:40] lot we're proposing the smaller lot if you include those it's more than 50

[9:44] percent it would be 17 out of 33 lots would be less than would be smaller than

[9:50] the lot that we would be leaving behind on the other side

[9:54] the lot that we would be

[9:57] creating at at 60 walnut lane would be 156.64 feet in in width along walnut

[10:04] lane i've highlighted the properties in blue

[10:07] on on walnut lane that have more frontage than 150 feet

[10:13] so if you look at the letter that i submitted i created a

[10:19] a chart that shows

[10:25] um it shows you the register a lot with

[10:27] from hold on i'd ask anybody that's not

[10:37] all right john try it again now okay

[10:41] um so i highlighted the properties that are highlighted in blue on this map are

[10:45] or lots that have 150 feet or more a lot with a long

[10:50] walnut lane and the lot at five walnut which is uh

[10:55] the corner of boulder and walnut lane is 175 feet in width

[11:01] the lot at uh 120

[11:05] for our i'm sorry uh

[11:10] a lot 124 walnut lane which is the property at the corner of

[11:16] uh dogwood and walnut

[11:19] that lot is also approximately 175 feet in width

[11:24] and then there are larger similar lot sizes

[11:29] at uh 15 walnut and i'm sorry just give me one second

[11:38] 15 walnut is approximately 150 feet and 150 walnut is

[11:45] 156.16 feet so even

[11:49] even after we create the subdivision these lots will be

[11:53] similar in size to other parcels there aren't they won't stand out for their

[11:58] for their largeness or their smallness uh once the lot line adjustment is

[12:04] is granted another issue that was raised at the at

[12:08] the hearing was the possibility of building a bigger home on walmart

[12:13] a bigger home at my clients property at 60 walmart

[12:16] so with the additional square footage we calculated that my client could

[12:22] theoretically add another 1500 plus square feet

[12:26] to that house based on the lot size for gfa and still

[12:31] be conforming so that would bring the house to about 6

[12:35] 500 square feet my client has no desire to do that

[12:40] the house is under construction it's a brand new home there's no reason to add

[12:44] uh an additional 1500 square feet but even if they did add that 1500

[12:50] square feet it would still be approximately

[12:55] 2 000 square feet smaller than the home at 20 walnut lane which is

[13:01] almost 8 500 square feet so

[13:07] you know you have to take it all in context the code is there for a reason

[13:11] and what we're leaving behind are not

[13:14] substantial substandard lots we're talking about we're not increasing

[13:18] density we're not increasing traffic we're talking about two new homes on the

[13:22] street which are only going to increase property values in the community

[13:26] and i think there's going to be a benefit once this is once this is

[13:30] granted so and this the lot line adjustment also

[13:34] achieves my clients goal of you know creating more separation

[13:38] between him and the adjoining property uh to the to the west

[13:44] we should i should also note that my client submitted some letters of support

[13:49] from neighbors along walnut i believe there are nine letters from neighbors on

[13:54] walnut that are in favor of this application

[13:57] including the two that are most affected that those are the property owners on

[14:02] either side of this subdivision at 40 and 70 walnut lane they're all in favor

[14:08] of it and the property owner across the street at 65 walnut lane is also in

[14:13] favor of the application so the three people that would be most impacted by

[14:18] the subdivision are all in favor of this application

[14:24] um you know i think that's that's important i think if the neighbors on

[14:28] the street don't have an issue with it and it's not going to deter from the

[14:33] character of the community and it's with the code i don't really see

[14:38] a reason why this application should be denied

[14:42] so with that i'll open the i'll ask the board if they have any questions

[14:48] uh thank you mr farrell uh so i'll open it up to the board for

[14:53] questions to the applicant

[14:57] um i guess while everybody's coming off me mr farrell uh do you know what the

[15:02] if the lot line change is approved what would the square footage be for the home

[15:06] on 50 walnut what would be the max there um i can i have to look at it um

[15:12] i have been i just got a text from my client

[15:16] uh it was 13 letters from people on walnut that are in favor of the

[15:19] application so

[15:22] um just so you know those were emailed over i think this afternoon so we we

[15:27] have those our possession now yeah with them to the record um

[15:31] hi mr phil this is frank janiece uh trusty can you zoom in on this uh

[15:35] particularly at the red uh the red highlighted watts oh that would have

[15:40] ronnie would have to take care of that she's controlling the uh

[15:44] it's made from i'm getting there randolph randall because something's

[15:48] wrong with something's wrong with the scale

[15:50] the the 50 looks bigger than 60.

[15:54] the uh that's the way the county the county's tax maps are not all the same

[16:00] scale so i tried my best to

[16:03] to map this out so if you look at the the lower right section um between

[16:08] dogwood and uh and crab apple

[16:12] that those lots look significantly bigger but they're not it's just the

[16:17] it's just the way the county scales the tax map it's not there's no consistency

[16:22] to it right because this graphic then really doesn't doesn't help us because

[16:26] it's not to the proper scale so it looks like the

[16:30] the smaller lot like 50 is now bigger than lot 60.

[16:35] well i think you can should be the other way around and and that lot 50 i was

[16:39] there today will be significantly smaller than the way it's depicted in

[16:43] that image well in this image again i didn't crea i

[16:47] didn't make this the size that it would be because we were i didn't make this

[16:52] i split them the way they are currently configured i did not split them the way

[16:56] they will be after the lot line adjustment is made this was really to

[17:00] the point of this map was to illustrate that there are other lots in the area

[17:05] that are comparably sized now you know the one thing i would point out

[17:11] is you can look at this map it's a little

[17:13] blurry online because it's been scanned and and

[17:17] you know it's you know obviously the you lose a little bit of resolution when

[17:21] it's a screen share but if you look at the numbers on the

[17:25] lots the each lot you can see the lot with the the numbers represent the width

[17:29] of the lot so if you if you look at the the actual image on that you can see the

[17:34] lot widths are what i'm portraying them to be

[17:37] um what i've said they are in my letter uh in support of the application

[17:42] um if i look on that front john just so i because i

[17:46] know there's people online uh trying to look at the screen probably right now um

[17:51] as well as we have some people on the phone so

[17:54] uh this information is at village hall people can review it um frank i'd let

[17:59] you know it's i think it's in your email too because i think it was emailed to

[18:02] all of us it's a little easier to see uh when it's not in this powerpoint format

[18:06] it's getting pixelated on our screen so you know again this is one of the

[18:10] reasons i think i want to give people a chance to uh to to view this after the

[18:15] meeting

[18:18] um i have a question for peter um with respect to what a statement that was

[18:23] made by mr farrell um i i think you you stated

[18:29] that the maximum you could do with the revised lot size would be something like

[18:35] 7 500 square feet did i hear that right

[18:41] hundred sixty five hundred sixty four ninety seven okay so right um but are

[18:46] isn't there um an upper limit on

[18:55] i think that factors in the upper limit that was the number oh

[19:01] what what lot size are we talking about what are we proposing on the larger lot

[19:06] if what would be the largest house we could build

[19:13] what's the maximum size you can build out to

[19:17] what's the square footage of the proposed lot

[19:19] it's 23 000 um 23 000 and change

[19:26] i'll give you great so gary i think i know where you're going

[19:29] so let me let me ask this a different way and see if that's what you're asking

[19:33] so peter is there a maximum to that someone can build to in r4

[19:38] zoning sounds like you're saying it depends on the square footage of the lot

[19:42] and so if someone put 10 lots together the maximum will be determined by the

[19:47] square footage of those 10 lots versus one smaller lot well we also have

[19:53] break points where above a certain uh a certain square footage you can't do

[19:58] more so now if you're over 22 000 square feet you're just governed

[20:02] by the the far so this is an r4 if you can give me that i could do the math if

[20:07] you can give me that lot size again 23 496.

[20:14] and our far is 0.28 for an r4 current correct

[20:21] so that's 6578 square feet

[20:24] so we're not you're above the 22 000 the next cap is is is an acre so

[20:31] uh only the far would apply on this not the not our breakpoint cap points

[20:37] okay regardless i i think the the point is

[20:41] that it would still be smaller than the lot that uh the house that's at lot 20.

[20:45] i i just wanted to be sure we had accurate information that's all of

[20:48] course of course uh by those calculations i believe

[20:53] on the other on the other lot after the lot line adjustment we can they could

[20:57] build a house that's around a little over 4 000 square feet

[21:05] that's for 50 walnut you're 450 walnut right after the lot line adjustment that

[21:11] would be what you could build on 50 walmart

[21:16] and peter any idea of the square footage on the home on 40 walnut the one that

[21:20] was just constructed

[21:23] if you don't have that handy we can i don't have that with me

[21:27] okay thank you

[21:32] i mean i can answer that if it's okay

[21:38] sure go ahead i mean i believe it's 5056 same as what we're building a 60 walnut

[21:43] right around that that number that 5050.

[21:48] all right thank you that would that would have met the cap at uh less than

[21:52] 22 if it's less than 22 000 then you go to a cap of

[21:56] uh 5060.

[22:02] all right other questions from the board

[22:09] i guess the only other question i have is you referenced active space

[22:14] um i know we have encouraged people uh and promoted some some green scaping and

[22:20] and uh use of patios and porches so peter is there any limitations on

[22:27] i guess pool or patio space on uh on 60 that would be impacted by this

[22:35] well you know we have we have percentages of

[22:38] lot coverage um we have percentages at maximum for uh pools in the back um

[22:45] you know far also includes any accessory structures so

[22:50] if the lot size increases you could you know you could you could increase up up

[22:54] to those those numbers as a percentage of the growth slot area

[22:59] so is 60 walnut currently at its maximum uh i guess lot coverage percentage

[23:06] i i don't know that information i i don't i don't believe so

[23:10] but but i don't have the file in front of me

[23:12] uh i'll i'll open that up to the applicants then dude are you aware of if

[23:16] you're current uh

[23:18] the architect would know that that would be on the zoning submission

[23:23] i i believe that i don't think the house

[23:26] is is at the limit i think it's less than 5 000 if i'm not mistaken i thought

[23:30] i want to say it was like i don't know i can't remember but

[23:34] i all right do you know

[23:39] patricia o'neill is our architect i don't know if she's hi i'm i'm just

[23:43] pulling that up i want to be accurate thank you

[23:50] so the maximum lot coverage is 25 percent

[24:11] because i think i just while we're waiting you know that was another

[24:15] concern that was raised was the amount of outdoor space as well so

[24:20] um obviously if you're not at your maximum or you are

[24:24] that could alleviate or address some concerns

[24:29] or raise concerns

[24:33] the the the bambach's house the the house that's being built um

[24:37] that's that's currently under construction the floor area of that

[24:41] house they're allowed 5060 square foot max floor area and the house being built

[24:47] is 5056 square feet

[24:54] pat do you have the lot coverage the lot coverage um

[24:59] we're allowed 25 percent um and we are at 19

[25:06] lot coverage for their house that's under construction right now

[25:10] okay so even without uh this lot line

[25:13] approval you the the applicant has six percent more uh space to use

[25:20] on that property correct and and that you know just to um

[25:25] you know that that lot coverage that 19 um that includes

[25:32] um you know the house of course the garage

[25:35] the mudroom porch the rear porch the pool the outdoor kitchen space and um we

[25:42] have sort of a a a a walk going to the mudroom so you know that includes

[25:48] you know all the improvements on the property

[25:51] um i i just want to i just want to add um when

[25:55] when we were designing the house you know when i was designing the house with

[25:59] the bound backs um you know we we did you know consider

[26:04] making the the covered porch larger and you know we certainly we we can do that

[26:10] we have um a lot of coverage available um but you know they they felt strongly

[26:16] that they they didn't want to um you know encroach on the backyard and

[26:22] they really wanted to try to preserve as much green space

[26:26] um and uh you know as possible again for

[26:31] um you know just

[26:33] they they really um you know having outdoor space and and

[26:39] you know just quote open space so you know we did

[26:42] um pull that covered porch um and the patio you know we did we did pull them

[26:47] sort of you know way back um

[26:50] again just to um preserve green space on the property

[26:55] all right thank you very much um any other questions from the board

[27:00] um i have a quick question and maybe for a follow-up um

[27:03] i would be curious to know what information the

[27:08] residents i think it was 13 the 13 residents um

[27:12] that signed this um letter of support were given were they shown this map

[27:18] which is not to scale were they shown the shading

[27:23] where the larger properties are all corner properties i would just like to

[27:27] know the level of detail that the residents that were signed

[27:32] or was it just a generalization of what the average size was that we originally

[27:38] had before we got new information so i i would be curious

[27:42] sure so i could take that so my wife and i went around to the neighbors on our

[27:46] street the new street and for the most part the majority of them

[27:50] had a lot of questions they were very curious about the lot sizes on

[27:55] the street itself and i would say the overwhelming feedback we

[27:59] received was they were looking forward to having more green

[28:03] space and they were very supportive of that we did tell them that the resulting

[28:08] lot would go from 135 and change feet wide to about 114

[28:14] feet wide and change and they asked what type of house could be built there what

[28:19] size so we answered that question and um i also mentioned that the lot would be

[28:24] bigger than about half the lots on walnut lane and

[28:28] it was we had great support so that those were

[28:32] the questions i didn't have the lot map with me to show

[28:36] um each resident but they received the certified uh letter with the information

[28:41] um and you know no one asked me specifically

[28:45] like what is the size of this address or what is the size of that address they

[28:47] were just um happy to get more green space

[28:53] thank you

[28:57] all right any other questions from the board

[29:02] all right um seeing none i guess we'll turn it over to the public for public

[29:07] comment at this point

[29:10] i i'd say we just please for everybody participating

[29:14] um comments uh should be

[29:18] limited to uh the application for the lot line

[29:21] adjustment on 50 and 60 walnut lane um randall do they just come off mute they

[29:28] can just come off of you and for the record please give your name and address

[29:33] yes we need everyone's name and address for the stenographer if you're

[29:36] commenting

[29:44] any additional comments i'll give everybody one more minute here to come

[29:48] off mute

[29:56] all right um

[29:58] and if for uh some reason anybody has a follow-up comment after they can email

[30:04] us uh at village hall um

[30:08] the uh one email that we got um this

[30:12] afternoon we'll submit that to

[30:16] the um stenographer for the record

[30:20] jeff do we need to read that into the record or ronnie are you there

[30:26] or can we just give it all right it doesn't need to be read into the

[30:29] record but um i don't know if mr farrell received a

[30:34] copy so maybe we can make arrangements to share that with the applicant in

[30:37] between as well and i would just ask that it be made a

[30:40] part of the record by reference uh let's do that it looks like it was

[30:47] signed email has 23 people on it and um

[30:53] uh the letter is signed by two four six eight ten people so uh we'll provide

[30:58] that to you uh mr farrell and mr bomback um and uh if there's no further

[31:05] questions or comments from the board we will uh adjourn this hearing and

[31:09] carry it over till next month so i'd ask if there's a motion to

[31:12] adjourn and carry it over to the next

[31:16] month i'll make that motion gary lewandowski

[31:20] is there a second

[31:24] i'll second it it's the mayor and if i could um ask for

[31:30] the trustee collins your vote uh uh aye sorry trustee dorfman

[31:38] aye trustee janice

[31:40] hi trustee lewandowski

[31:43] hi um i forgot someone trustee

[31:50] hi thank you um

[31:53] deputy mayor hi mayor

[31:56] hi um and the motion carries and just to

[32:00] confirm uh i'm asking the applicant's counsel and this is with your consent

[32:04] sir yes

[32:06] thank you

[32:09] thank you appreciate everybody's patience here um

[32:13] so that will complete the hearing for the lot line

[32:17] adjustment we'll move now to the hearing on the public laws

[32:21] so everyone is welcome to stay and listen in

[32:26] but uh if it's time for you to go you can go uh all

[32:30] right so do we need to yeah we need to motion in

[32:34] to the public hearing for these laws or can we just continue on

[32:39] i believe we yes i think you had opened it for the

[32:43] public hearing portion ronnie are you back on the call i am i'm here oh good

[32:47] you take over i'm done being village administrator

[32:50] oh okay and i thought jeff was doing such a good job too

[32:54] hey it's teamwork here it makes the dream work

[32:58] okay so uh next on next on the agenda uh for public hearings is proposed local

[33:03] law f of 2021 um fee for cancellation of an inspection appointment um and that is

[33:10] for a cancellation without any notice

[33:15] this was introduced at last month's meeting

[33:18] um there was some discussion among the board

[33:21] uh you've all received the the local law in your packets there have

[33:26] been no changes um i'll leave it to the board for any further discussion

[33:33] all right anybody from the board have a comment or question otherwise i'll open

[33:36] it up to the public for comment

[33:41] all right seeing none uh let's open it up to the public

[33:45] say the same thing as i said before if you're on the call for this

[33:50] i'd ask that you uh just unmute yourself give your name an address and

[33:55] uh make a comment

[34:03] give everybody another second here

[34:08] one last time any comments questions from the public

[34:12] all right uh seeing none

[34:16] uh any comments or questions from the board

[34:18] seems pretty straight forward to me we've talked about it a bunch

[34:22] um i'd say i think um will you keep it open for one more

[34:26] meeting see if there's any further public

[34:28] comment or questions and if not look to potentially adopt this next

[34:32] month sound good

[34:37] i think we can move on to the next public hearing again this is also the

[34:41] second hearing proposed local law g of 2021 regarding rental demonstration

[34:48] again there have been you have been notified of some

[34:53] minor changes in the law it was on the trustees desks well in advance of the

[34:58] statutory requirement it's also been posted on our website well in advance of

[35:02] the statutory requirement um that being said i will uh turn it over

[35:08] to the board okay

[35:12] one thing that uh that is not included in this language that i do want to

[35:15] update based off conversations with ronnie and jeff

[35:19] previously as part of our food establishment

[35:22] license we talked about adding a requirement that they submit an annual

[35:26] extermination inspection that was one of the other issues so i'd

[35:31] like to have that added in as well ensuring that those businesses don't uh

[35:37] contribute to any sort of public health issues based off the issues that came up

[35:42] this year um so uh

[35:47] with that i guess i'll just turn over to the board for any questions or comments

[35:51] and uh or actually first jeff do you want to just highlight what the updates

[35:55] were because you talked about in the last meeting just refresh everyone's

[35:58] memory

[36:01] um in terms of what what this um

[36:05] local law would control yeah yeah i think what it would

[36:09] do some updates around the um the

[36:12] short-term rent sure so essentially um

[36:16] the the key provision that deals with the time frame uh i think is section one

[36:23] seventy

[36:33] 13 which talks about short-term rentals and essentially what this breaks down to

[36:37] is to say that if a person is going if an owner

[36:42] is going to rent out a property they can do so

[36:46] for 90 days or more really without

[36:51] requiring going before the board of trustees or seeking any particular

[36:55] permission the only time that somebody needs to come before the board of

[36:58] trustees or seek any kind of exemption is if the following happens suppose

[37:03] somebody is going to attempt to rent out the property for

[37:08] more than two 90-day periods within a one-year period

[37:12] then that person would need to seek an exemption from the board

[37:15] uh the second would be if if a person is desirous of renting out a property for

[37:21] less than 90 days um and

[37:25] the intent of this from from the reading of the code would be that what

[37:29] the board is hoping to stave off would be continuous

[37:34] and regular short-term rentals um i know that there was some discussion on

[37:39] the last date about

[37:41] what's mentioned in the code that if someone were to come before the board

[37:46] what they could ask for in terms of an exemption of what i just mentioned would

[37:50] be uh based upon if they could show that

[37:53] there was a severe and substantial financial hardship

[37:56] i just wanted to explain how that at least from my reading of the intent

[38:00] behind that would be and i think the easiest way to consider it is if you you

[38:04] think of some examples of what might come up

[38:07] um you know and one such example might be

[38:11] that if uh perhaps somebody had rented out their

[38:14] property uh for a 90-day period and as well as for a second 90-day period and

[38:20] then there was an unfortunate circumstance in which perhaps the the

[38:24] structure became unusable for a brief time so the ranchers were no fault of

[38:28] the renter left but was unable to remain the

[38:31] homeowner then repairs the home um and let's assume also the homeowner

[38:36] isn't on site isn't in state lives out of state

[38:39] and wants to be able to to rent that property out again um

[38:44] i could see the the homeowner coming before the board and explaining look

[38:48] this isn't something where i'm in the you know continuous short-term rental

[38:51] business this is a circumstance in which i don't i don't i'm not on site

[38:56] i fix the property i should be able to use my property i should be able to

[39:00] allow somebody to live there so i could see somebody coming

[39:04] before the board for that purpose on the flip side you could see somebody

[39:09] if perhaps they're looking toward a sale of their property

[39:13] but there there's not going to be anybody taking over the property or

[39:17] taking possession for say 60 days or so

[39:22] and again they're living outside of the of the confines of the state

[39:26] i could see somebody coming before the board perhaps to say look we're on the

[39:30] under 90 day rental uh we would ask to be able to rent our property for say you

[39:36] know 60 days um it's going to be somebody's going to

[39:39] be taking possession of it after that time and we'd ask for permission of the

[39:43] board and they would

[39:45] i can't speak for them but their argument would be because i i can't live

[39:49] there i live elsewhere i'm paying rent or a mortgage elsewhere i'd like to

[39:53] be able to have this property used for that purpose so i did just want to

[39:56] clarify where i think that particular provision comes from

[40:00] but that provision the 176-13 is the provision that talks about the

[40:07] time frame of rentals so i hope that clarifies

[40:11] thank you any questions from the board

[40:16] uh all right before we open it to public comment there was a um

[40:20] a resident who is on last time uh commented had sent some follow-up

[40:25] questions i just want to address them uh briefly if i can

[40:29] um the first one related to uh how many other villages in nassau

[40:34] county were doing this um you know first i'd say state that um we're not the

[40:38] first to do it um i certainly don't think we'll be the last

[40:42] uh and i think we're trying to be proactive and head off any issues and

[40:47] you know i don't want to sit around and wait for something horrible to happen

[40:50] before we put something in place we shouldn't just wait around and be

[40:55] reactive to every issue in the village so i think there's enough documented

[40:59] cases of bad things happening with short-term rentals that

[41:04] provides a need for this type of oversight and not just short-term

[41:08] rentals we're talking about standards for long-term rentals here

[41:11] uh so as far as the number of villages went um we had surveyed uh about 24

[41:17] villages most of them in our surrounding area uh eight of them had a rental

[41:22] registry um and 13 of them had actually uh limited or

[41:27] banned short-term rentals um so ronnie's going to continue to

[41:31] reach out to villages there are um approximately 64-ish

[41:38] i think in nassau county obviously thousands across the state um but we've

[41:42] reached out to try and get more information

[41:44] but that's a sampling of of the villages that we were able to get in touch with

[41:48] and respond to so again we're not the first

[41:52] to do this um the second was around crime and do we

[41:56] have problems with uh existing rentals and specifically uh commenting i think

[42:03] towards or questioning the need for this around the rodent problem

[42:06] uh and i think holistically here we're trying to ensure that any rentals that

[42:10] are operating in the village have proper uh safety protocols in place

[42:15] whether it be fire alarms smoke detectors

[42:18] that they're meeting certain quality

[42:21] standards and then

[42:24] also making sure that there are exterminator reviews in place

[42:29] so that any rodent or pest problems are dealt with

[42:32] specifically the rodent problem over the summer

[42:34] if one property was a rental property the other property in question was a

[42:41] was the food establishment so it's kind of a chicken or the egg issue as to what

[42:44] created the problem the rodents were living on the rental property

[42:48] but they were getting food from the food establishment so

[42:51] uh in these cases we'd be uh potentially addressing both problems to ensure

[42:55] there's proper oversight um

[42:58] uh in addition we can do inspections to ensure that alterations aren't illegally

[43:03] made uh that could promote safety hazard fire you know lack of fire egresses

[43:08] uh things like that uh as well uh finally the third one related uh to

[43:15] go uh this went back to uh have we had any disturbances and when

[43:19] i checked in with ronnie and our code enforcer robert rockline um no we

[43:23] haven't had uh occurrences of large parties or issues like that with rentals

[43:29] uh however again i don't want to sit around and wait for a problem to happen

[43:33] and be reactive let's be proactive here so i think those were the questions

[43:37] submitted to the board tried to address them as best i could um

[43:41] i think we'll open it up to a public comment now

[43:44] so if there's anybody on the line who'd like to comment on this public law

[43:48] uh please do so now just take yourself off mute

[44:07] uh wrote a backer i assume this is for

[44:11] the rental of the entire property i just want to make sure that you have

[44:18] some garages with rooms up above them

[44:23] although they're not necessarily permitted in certain areas

[44:30] they do exist i therefore assume that this is not

[44:35] rental of a garage area or a separate

[44:41] section of our house

[44:45] my understanding was this would if you were renting a room of your house this

[44:49] would cover that as well but

[44:52] i'll defer to jeff here jeff uh would if someone was just renting out

[44:58] a garage apartment or part of the house would it be covered by this

[45:03] um it would because the dwelling unit is defined as a building within the village

[45:08] or part of such building occupied or to be occupied by one or more persons as a

[45:12] residence and this covers

[45:15] um single family dwelling units so if

[45:20] somebody uh the short answer is yes it will cover

[45:23] it okay thank you thank you

[45:28] thank you rhoda uh anybody else uh have a comment from

[45:33] the public

[45:40] all right uh thank you very much um board any other comments questions

[45:46] discussion around this law

[45:50] um i think i it's maybe a

[45:53] well it's a little bit off the track but maybe it's something we need to think

[45:56] about um [Music]

[45:59] and i maybe that's what rota was alluding to a little bit was

[46:04] you know this idea of accessory dwelling unit which typically is like a granny

[46:08] flat kind of thing um

[46:11] is this covered i mean in other words what's what is

[46:15] there are there like family relationship things that that

[46:19] can not be covered on this law or

[46:23] how's that dealt with jeff help me out here but my

[46:27] understanding is um in new york state a family unit is pretty broad here so

[46:32] um if someone was just allowing their daughter or their son

[46:37] their niece nephew to live with them um or

[46:42] you know again it's pretty broad in new york broader than that

[46:46] without compensation i think is would be part of it you know they could be

[46:50] contributing to the bills together uh but if you weren't renting to them

[46:53] for profit i think uh i think you'd be covered as a single family dwelling okay

[46:58] i i yeah i am i muted no um i agree um the

[47:03] definition of family is included here um so it can be somebody that's related

[47:08] but it doesn't have to be somebody that's

[47:10] not related um by blood or marriage but who together constitute the functional

[47:16] equivalent of a natural family and the trigger of when this does

[47:21] uh go into effect is really when there's an exchange of funds in order for the

[47:25] rentals

[47:28] i just want to add that our village um just basically does not permit two

[47:33] family dwellings or mother-daughter apartments um there are a few mother

[47:38] daughter apartments i think definitely less than 10 that were granted um

[47:43] through variances uh

[47:46] that are you know pre-existing but other than the apartment house um

[47:51] the uh we i know of one illegal um

[47:56] two-family home and um other than that uh there's

[48:01] no single dwelling that has uh living space for more than one family other

[48:06] than these like eight to ten homes

[48:13] all right thank you any other comments or questions from the

[48:17] board

[48:20] all right um then uh say same thing for this law

[48:25] let's keep it uh or law proposal let's keep it open another month and uh look

[48:29] to potentially take action based off public feedback next month

[48:36] okay so the next hearing is a proposed local law h2021

[48:41] amend the property maintenance code to prohibit unsecured ladders

[48:50] all right any comments or questions from the board on this one

[48:55] i think we're pretty clear last month the intent of the law

[49:01] all right i'll open it up to the public anybody who would like to make a comment

[49:04] please come off mute state your name and address for the stenographer

[49:08] and keep your comment to three minutes

[49:17] all right seeing no comments um i think that uh concludes our public

[49:22] hearing portion um or the official public hearing

[49:26] portion for this meeting um however i'm going to

[49:31] ask for a motion to close the public hearing portion of the meeting

[49:35] i'll make the motion do you hear a second

[49:39] uh trustee janiece yeah i'll make all

[49:42] seconded okay all the favor

[49:48] hi okay thank you

[49:50] and he opposed any abstentions none okay

[49:55] um so

[49:57] uh let me see i see a bunch of names on here i think for the parking hearing uh

[50:02] parking restriction hearing um so

[50:06] uh i think maybe we move to that right now

[50:10] um and just give people a chance to comment on that and then they can stay

[50:14] for the rest of the meeting if they'd like but i see that we have a few people

[50:17] on for that so i first i apologize to everybody the

[50:21] newspapers did not print last week so that prevents this from being a formal

[50:26] public hearing but we will take comments at today's meeting and submit them for

[50:30] the record at next month's uh first public hearing on uh the proposed law

[50:36] ronnie you just want to give an overview on what we're proposing for next month

[50:40] yeah absolutely so um based on some of the comments that we've

[50:45] gotten by mail and email on uh the kind of parking situation that

[50:50] we'd like to see on ridge drive east we are proposing to create a no parking um

[50:57] for certain hours zone on ridge drive east starting from

[51:02] northern boulevard i'm sorry ridge drive west forgive me was drug bridge drug

[51:07] west starting from northern boulevard and extending

[51:12] um all the way to

[51:15] terrywood i'm sorry i don't have to go in front of me i am digging through my

[51:19] papers because i'm giving you wrong information

[51:40] and it's the one piece of paper that i don't seem to have here okay it is

[51:45] ridge drive east from northern boulevard

[51:48] hold

[51:59] ridge drive right west from northern boulevard

[52:04] 165 feet north of northern boulevard to peachtree 8 a.m to 10 a.m and 4 p.m to 6

[52:10] p.m

[52:13] and uh before we open it to the public we had

[52:17] it was two years ago now um taken public comment on no parking um

[52:24] during that entire period um

[52:27] part of this issue is being driven by um

[52:32] uh commercial parking in the area um i know we had uh residents submit a

[52:36] petition uh opposed to any charges and changes in the parking code uh for the

[52:41] area um i think this was an attempt at a compromise and to solicit public

[52:46] feedback um the board hasn't committed to doing anything and is looking to get

[52:50] public feedback on this so um at this time we'll open it up well i

[52:56] just i guess sorry pause board of trustees any questions or comments at

[52:59] this time brian for the record we're actually more of a question for ronnie

[53:04] where are we on the

[53:07] reassignment of middle neck road to the village

[53:11] uh we have not turned any further from the planning commission the hearings are

[53:16] over now it is being sent to the legislature for uh approval what with

[53:21] the changes in the makeup of the legislature i have no idea how long

[53:25] that's going to take okay but it has passed through the

[53:28] planning board that was one of the hurdles that needed to happen there

[53:31] wasn't any objections so at least we passed that one hurdle no his random

[53:36] planning board was in favor excellent

[53:40] um thank you randall all right so we're going to open it up

[53:44] to public comment at this point i know we have several people to

[53:48] comment on this so please uh be patient with us here

[53:52] you can take yourself off mute state your name and address for the

[53:56] record and

[53:59] we'll start taking public comments so anybody from the public who would like

[54:02] to comment

[54:12] um is the public off-mute can they unmute themselves i don't know suzanne

[54:16] maybe can you give us a test i'll start actually uh my name is stacey

[54:19] messer i live on 19 ridge drive west i wasn't able to make the the last meeting

[54:25] um i think i guess you said it was two years ago now

[54:28] i'm trying to understand i okay so you're putting the um signs to

[54:34] peachtree and then where do you think that these cars at that point will then

[54:38] disperse because what they'll do is they'll go up peachtree up east drive

[54:45] west and east

[54:47] they'll go through the cutthroat middle neck road they'll park on ridge drive

[54:51] west at overhill they'll find all these other places i actually don't

[54:55] necessarily think that my house will be affected because it's so deep in but all

[55:01] the cut-throughs that are around flower hill

[55:04] will have a problem and

[55:07] quite candidly when i moved into my house

[55:10] i saw these big lights from an apartment building that shine into

[55:16] my house

[55:18] and tried to talk to the town to get higher fencing

[55:22] i went by rules there was not allowed to be higher fencing and i abide by those

[55:27] rules so i'm not exactly sure and and i moved out of queens for a

[55:31] reason right to not to be able to live in a in a neighborhood

[55:36] that does not resemble queens that doesn't have signs on property that

[55:40] doesn't take the um parking from stores and brings it

[55:45] into the neighborhood so i'm actually quite concerned as to why

[55:50] we would agree to now have an entire neighborhood get

[55:54] impacted um

[55:57] by store traffic store parking and change the whole dynamic of what

[56:03] flower hill is because it will go out through rosslyn through manhasset and

[56:08] through port when people are looking for homes

[56:12] so it is a concern of mine and i'm not really understanding the thought behind

[56:16] it okay thank you stacy appreciate that um

[56:21] uh so i'd say definitely not looking to push any of the commercial traffic into

[56:26] any other parts of the neighborhood um so

[56:30] uh i think what we're trying to figure out is is there a balance here

[56:34] uh to maybe push that commercial parking more into the commercial area

[56:39] i'd say too i think the long-term fix and i've said this at past meetings is

[56:43] middle neck road we think there's the opportunity to open

[56:47] parking on middle neck road in front of the apartment complex

[56:51] and we'll be discussing an rfp later in the meeting

[56:56] so i really do believe that's the long-term solution we'll see what the

[56:59] traffic engineers have to say about it but um just from some initial comments

[57:03] from uh from other meetings uh or other projects that we've done uh soliciting

[57:08] feedback from them uh they think that could help and move the commercial

[57:12] traffic out of the residential area unfortunately this this area of ridge

[57:17] drive is uh being impacted by it and i think we're trying to

[57:22] listen to the public for potential solutions

[57:25] and ensure that they don't impact the rest of the community so

[57:29] that's something we'll be listening to and considering as we as we move forward

[57:33] these public hearing public meetings all right is there uh anybody else who'd

[57:39] like to comment publicly

[57:46] yeah it is six rich dry west

[57:50] uh just like to ask a question

[57:54] is this the traffic law

[57:58] been changed is the sport for temporary or is going

[58:02] to be more for permanent

[58:06] uh as the way this is proposed it does not have a an end date so uh it would be

[58:11] permanent so um if uh the residents would like

[58:16] something that would only be for a short period of time uh that's something the

[58:20] board can consider um uh but as proposed right now it doesn't

[58:25] uh it doesn't have an end point i see

[58:29] is that something you would be in favor of or opposed to

[58:33] actually what i'm concerned about is that

[58:37] whether this is this is the solution this is going to be the solution for the

[58:42] problem that we've been having um

[58:45] [Music] and as the lady i want

[58:48] just one of our neighbors just share her opinion

[58:53] and i'm not sure whether this would just disperse the traffic elsewhere in our

[58:58] neighborhood and other neighbor neighbors in our

[59:02] neighborhood is going to be impacted and then i think that this is going to

[59:06] be a constantly on the table for discussion then travel there may not be

[59:11] going to be the best interest of uh of our neighbors as well as uh you

[59:17] know mayor and and trustees of our village

[59:22] yeah

[59:24] all right thank you i appreciate that that is one of the things that the board

[59:28] is wrestling with um you know state law does not allow us to

[59:32] just allow residents to park on our streets

[59:35] um and i know other villages have talked about it it's been covered in the news

[59:40] but that takes an act of state law to do it and it is uh not uh something that

[59:46] happens uh very frequently so um unfortunately we we can't do that at

[59:50] this time so that's what we're trying to listen to

[59:53] the community as to what what uh you know what other options there

[59:58] are the our business owners uh in our neighborhood uh have impacted

[1:00:07] with with the situation uh are they

[1:00:11] are they aware of the uh seriousness of this uh

[1:00:15] issue that we've been having

[1:00:19] uh i don't know i we've met with them several times we call them when uh when

[1:00:24] we get complaints from you i think we've made it abundantly clear to them that

[1:00:27] it's an issue they've told their employees not to park

[1:00:31] over there but unfortunately it seems like it

[1:00:34] continues to occur so um you know all we can do is can keep

[1:00:38] doing that uh while we while we go through this process

[1:00:43] okay just just one more comment i'm sorry

[1:00:46] and then uh we've been

[1:00:48] the my my myself and my wife as well as a few of our neighbor neighbors

[1:00:55] uh spoke to someone an employee of a steakhouse

[1:01:01] who constantly parking in our neighborhood

[1:01:04] and we expressed our concern the safety concern

[1:01:10] and some of the concerns that we have we have had but

[1:01:14] the response was uh the derogatory

[1:01:18] words and

[1:01:20] and it was a very disrespectful

[1:01:24] um [Music]

[1:01:26] so actually i i sent out a letter to the owner of the steakhouse just for this

[1:01:32] matter um so i'm not i'm not sure

[1:01:36] if there may be a better uh solution

[1:01:40] uh without uh impacting our current traffic law uh in our neighborhood and

[1:01:46] that's that's what i want to say all right thank you and please share the

[1:01:50] letter that you sent the business owner to with us as well i'd like a copy of it

[1:01:56] and follow up with the business owner as well um and i just uh mentioned as well

[1:02:00] we have asked the police to please try and monitor the area too

[1:02:04] because of the speeding and other issues that the residents there have raised

[1:02:08] right all right all right

[1:02:10] thank you mayor you're welcome thank you for joining are

[1:02:13] there other comments from the public anybody else

[1:02:18] again just state your name and address for the stenographer when you come off

[1:02:21] mute hi this is carrie o'callahan ridge drive

[1:02:25] west hi carrie go ahead hey brian

[1:02:29] so i agree with everything everybody has been saying for these past i think we're

[1:02:34] going on two and a half years now what we have been asking is that the

[1:02:39] businesses not be able to park here and i know you've gone through a whole bunch

[1:02:44] of different scenarios and trying to figure out what that is

[1:02:49] you know the problem has only become really egregious

[1:02:53] over the course of the past few years uh say three years prior to that these

[1:02:58] businesses were able to control where their employees parked so there has to

[1:03:02] have been some way

[1:03:05] that that was accomplished you know my my

[1:03:09] underlying request to you for all of this time has always been we just want

[1:03:14] them to stop parking here in ideally a way that doesn't impact any

[1:03:18] resident at all it's not good for the neighborhood to

[1:03:21] have them parking here so we just really want to do what's best for all of us but

[1:03:26] the answer can't be you know we went out the other day and

[1:03:29] we counted there were 27 cars parked between a two block radius between ridge

[1:03:35] drive east and ridge drive west and only three of those cars were resident

[1:03:40] related that that's a huge amount yeah that's

[1:03:44] that's a lot of volume so i i just you know i understand people's concerns

[1:03:49] about it spreading further it is already spreading further it has spread spread

[1:03:53] down ridge drive east we've now been seeing them on peachtree so it's already

[1:03:58] happening experience has taught us here after all

[1:04:01] this time we keep giving them spaces they keep bringing more cars so we're

[1:04:06] just really desperately looking for a way to

[1:04:10] maintain the suburban quality of life that we have all become accustomed to

[1:04:15] and as mr chung had just said in his email

[1:04:18] these people are really aggressive and nasty you know if you try to say to them

[1:04:22] hey i have a delivery coming can you please not park the front of my in front

[1:04:26] of my house um

[1:04:28] it's not like you get a polite response um and and for some of us like me who

[1:04:33] don't have a driveway in the front of our house it's really problematic

[1:04:40] all right thank you for those comments

[1:04:46] anybody else from the public want to comment

[1:04:56] okay one last ask here anybody else from the public

[1:04:59] um i guess uh just before i close it out here so again uh we will um or actually

[1:05:06] we have to do a resolution to hold a public hearing on this

[1:05:10] uh parking proposal correct ronnie

[1:05:16] yes so uh at this point i would like to ask one of the members of the board to

[1:05:21] offer a resolution to hold a public hearing on proposed local law of 2020

[1:05:28] limiting parking on ridge drive west at the next meeting

[1:05:33] february

[1:05:37] so i'll make that motion and i just say again to everybody you know we're trying

[1:05:41] to come up with a solution that does not impact uh any of the neighborhood there

[1:05:46] so please ask everybody to bear with us as

[1:05:49] we take public comment and as we work with uh traffic engineer

[1:05:54] and the county to take over middle neck road too

[1:05:57] so we'll keep this open and continue the dialogue going here before we make any

[1:06:01] decisions yes we have a resolution um

[1:06:04] on the floor do i hear a second

[1:06:09] i'll make the second max

[1:06:17] trustee franco okay i'll pull the board uh trustee

[1:06:22] frankel

[1:06:24] trustee dorfman

[1:06:28] you can just raise your hand okay um our trustee lewandowski

[1:06:33] hi trustee collins

[1:06:35] aye mr denise aye

[1:06:38] deputy mayor aye mayor and mayor

[1:06:41] hi all rights on for uh official public hearing in february okay

[1:06:47] uh and ronnie i think we still have the stenographer on um

[1:06:50] uh so stay uh sorry with madeline i i think madeline if you want to go now no

[1:06:56] no no no mayor mayor um according to the executive order uh that allows these

[1:07:02] meetings we have to have a transcript of the entire meeting

[1:07:06] okay so well then we'll we'll keep going on it the i think

[1:07:10] that will be unless it's recorded and then it would later be transcribed so

[1:07:13] it's up to the to the point well i'm not transcribing it later

[1:07:19] all right so let's see what we've done then i apologize madeline please stay on

[1:07:23] okay

[1:07:26] um all right um i'm just looking uh through

[1:07:30] the agenda here and i see uh mr clemency in the middle of my screen and uh he's

[1:07:35] been very patient i appreciate that um i want to move one uh one that item up to

[1:07:41] uh the front here um north shore cable commission has requested uh additional

[1:07:46] funding uh for uh attorneys um wanted him to come in and just give

[1:07:52] us an update on where negotiations stand north north uh shore cable commission

[1:07:58] negotiates with um altis um

[1:08:02] for cable service in the area so bill why don't you just give a little quick

[1:08:06] history and uh and give an update to the board as to where we stand and why this

[1:08:09] additional funding is needed sure the the cable commission represents the

[1:08:14] incorporated villages of manhasset and great neck

[1:08:18] in our negotiations for the franchises of the various cable

[1:08:22] companies obviously cablevision is now all tease

[1:08:27] optimum as they're marketed and verizon

[1:08:32] we have

[1:08:35] been negotiating with them for the past couple of years now

[1:08:38] our present franchises have expired and we're trying to get new franchises

[1:08:45] to replace them unfortunately this has been a very

[1:08:48] prolonged process and they have not been terribly accommodating or

[1:08:53] forthright up till now although that being said we do appear to be finally

[1:08:57] making some progress with them uh towards that end we have an attorney

[1:09:03] that we have engaged to represent the commission in these

[1:09:07] negotiations and we are coming to the various villages

[1:09:12] with a request to provide funds for us to continue

[1:09:17] the process our hope is to have these negotiations wrapped up by the end of

[1:09:21] this coming calendar year uh however

[1:09:25] we've pretty much exhausted the funds that we

[1:09:29] obtained from you earlier

[1:09:34] our expectation is we'll probably need about another thirty thousand dollars

[1:09:38] to wrap this all up and what we've done is we've asked each of the villages to

[1:09:41] contribute on a pro-rated basis uh

[1:09:46] calculated using the number of subscribers for the individual villages

[1:09:51] uh as a percentage of the overall users

[1:09:57] for the the commission um

[1:10:02] i believe ronnie has a an invoice that was sent to you back

[1:10:08] in december and

[1:10:11] essentially that's where we are right now

[1:10:15] the goal is to finalize the franchises it looks like

[1:10:19] we're trying to get a 10-year franchise with

[1:10:22] both companies although verizon at this point is only willing

[1:10:26] to negotiate a five-year has been their position and that's been one of the big

[1:10:30] stumbling blocks in the process

[1:10:33] we'd still like to hold out for the 10 years though

[1:10:38] primarily based on the concern that there probably is a finite life for

[1:10:44] these cable companies the move is to go to streaming

[1:10:49] and more and more of the residents are starting to go that course

[1:10:55] we're seeing a small but a notable downtick in the number of subscribers

[1:11:01] across the board and

[1:11:04] my own personal expectation is by the end of this present 10-year franchise

[1:11:10] that we're trying to go that will probably be represent the end

[1:11:14] of cable television as we know it so it's it's imperative that we try and

[1:11:18] maximize the return on the franchise that we're going for right now

[1:11:24] and that's essentially where we are it's it's a long process it took five

[1:11:28] years last time to get the

[1:11:32] uh agreements that have now just expired so

[1:11:36] i'm not shocked that it's taking as long as it is but it's a frustrating

[1:11:40] prolonged process but it's important that we get this thing

[1:11:44] squared away

[1:11:47] all right thank you bill i'd be happy to answer any questions any

[1:11:51] of the board may have i know this is kind of an out of the

[1:11:54] blue thing for a lot of you you're really not familiar

[1:11:57] with the cable commission the other hand there is a trustee for

[1:12:03] north shore television which is the public access

[1:12:06] channel which is where much of the funding that

[1:12:09] we're trying to negotiate goes to so

[1:12:13] that's really where we're at at this point and as i say i'd be happy to

[1:12:17] entertain any questions that you may have so bill i have a couple of

[1:12:20] questions um this is only for the television

[1:12:25] portion of the service not for the phone and not

[1:12:28] for the interrupt not for the internet that that's all governed by the psc

[1:12:34] right it is only strictly the cable television

[1:12:38] component that the franchises uh

[1:12:42] fund right so you're asking so you're asking

[1:12:46] for three about three thousand dollars if i if i read this properly yeah so

[1:12:50] what is the what is the annual payback that we

[1:12:55] currently get and what we're hoping to get going forward to show that this

[1:12:59] three thousand dollars is well spent you know what i'm embarrassed to say i i

[1:13:03] don't know that off top in my head ronnie can probably know

[1:13:06] it's three percent of the gross for

[1:13:10] the uh television portion franchise right so for every hundred dollars that

[1:13:16] they build the village gets three dollars

[1:13:20] hey so yeah um

[1:13:25] 2019 actual was uh 71 000 2020 actual for franchise fees was 79 000 okay

[1:13:34] all right so spending three thousand seven dollars about right in fact it's

[1:13:37] ten percent of the public access budget yeah so all right

[1:13:41] so three thousand dollars is a pretty good investment as far as i'm concerned

[1:13:45] i would hope so i mean that's the reason we're doing it um and it's also the

[1:13:50] reason that the commission was created because

[1:13:52] you know 16 villages combining their

[1:13:58] negotiations hopefully would yield a much much

[1:14:01] stronger position than what any one single village can hope to

[1:14:06] accomplish and and i think that's been true bill

[1:14:09] and i know uh at uh some other villages have been uh i

[1:14:14] should say i appreciate your participation in active uh uh your

[1:14:20] activity in this you are our village's representative uh you're also i know the

[1:14:24] chair um and um i know in some other villages they're not getting the same

[1:14:29] type of engagement and um uh sometimes i'm answering questions uh

[1:14:34] before they before they have the information from their folks so uh

[1:14:38] appreciate your leadership over there and volunteering to move this along um i

[1:14:41] agree with randall i don't know and board any other questions on this

[1:14:47] i just want i just want you to note that it's 2950.

[1:14:52] you forgot to do your paperwork okay so the invoices for two thousand nine

[1:14:56] hundred and fifty dollars i'll make it a motion to authorize the payment of that

[1:15:00] invoice all right thank you just have sucker

[1:15:06] at 160 chestnut road having been on the commission

[1:15:14] uh many many years ago

[1:15:18] who's the attorney who's handling it the fellow's name is

[1:15:22] dan cohen he's a media attorney located in pennsylvania phil in

[1:15:29] pittsburgh i'm sorry pittsburgh pennsylvania

[1:15:32] he handles these negotiations for commissions all over the country

[1:15:38] yes okay

[1:15:40] thank you all right thanks

[1:15:43] we have a motion already uh on the table

[1:15:48] i made a motion i'll second it

[1:15:51] all right

[1:15:54] uh all those in favor raise your hand say aye aye

[1:15:57] [Music] answer opposed abstentions none

[1:16:02] unanimously approved all right thank you very much

[1:16:05] thank you bill really appreciate your time

[1:16:08] good night good night um we're gonna go uh back to

[1:16:14] the regular schedule here um so i'll look for a motion to approve the

[1:16:19] minutes for the meeting

[1:16:24] from the distribution thank you mary jo

[1:16:28] do we have a second second

[1:16:31] claire thank you second from claire all those in favor say aye hi hi

[1:16:38] thank you any opposition abstentions

[1:16:43] seeing none proved unanimously

[1:16:47] all right we'll move to the claims

[1:16:51] i'll look for a motion to approve the claims

[1:16:55] any questions i should say first on the claims

[1:17:01] none

[1:17:03] seeing none i'll make uh is there a motion i'll make a motion to approve the

[1:17:07] claims is there a second i'll second it

[1:17:11] okay

[1:17:14] all those in favor

[1:17:19] abstentions max do you have to abstain from anything on here i don't think so

[1:17:23] or no he um

[1:17:27] has his blank ascension for the art of landscaping and i think i'm forever

[1:17:31] blanking from that there you are perfect all right

[1:17:38] claims are approved

[1:17:42] all right uh rich uh i know you talked about the snow before any updates

[1:17:50] um yeah no we actually got lucky today um right now we're just tracking

[1:17:56] something for friday uh i know they're talking if obviously again like today if

[1:18:01] this tracks a little bit more north we'll get more

[1:18:05] more snow but you know we got a couple of days before

[1:18:09] before we actually have an idea what's gonna happen but you know whatever comes

[1:18:12] you know we're ready for it just like today

[1:18:17] all right thank you no problem

[1:18:21] all right oh one thing i'm sorry i just forgot one thing i know frank

[1:18:26] we've been talking about that that uh pothole slash

[1:18:31] problem we're still having over there uh me and ronnie and heather were

[1:18:34] actually we've been working with this contractor to get him to fix it and

[1:18:39] nothing has nothing has been done so i believe now ronnie right we're going to

[1:18:45] uh get the bond

[1:18:47] on on this contractor

[1:18:52] that's correct uh we're gonna go against bond um you know not right now since we

[1:18:56] can't you know this is not the time to fix the road yeah yeah yeah

[1:19:01] yeah we're gonna do it you know in the early spring

[1:19:04] okay good i just wanted to update you frank just because i know the last two

[1:19:07] months you were you were asking for it so i know i don't want you to think i

[1:19:09] forgot about you i i i i'm

[1:19:13] sure that you did not forget about it richie

[1:19:18] rich has been actively uh started this year's road assessment too so

[1:19:24] 2022 yep feel free to send him any uh comments or

[1:19:28] pictures as he uh moves through the village uh to

[1:19:32] to score the roads and just for the record rich told me

[1:19:36] that he can't stripe the streets until the weather's like 70 degrees

[1:19:41] if anyone was coming by i mean

[1:19:44] if we get lucky on a day we can get like 60s you know we'll put down the material

[1:19:50] um i mean it's happened before we've had some we've had some warm weather in

[1:19:53] january february believe it or not yeah so if we get if we do get lucky i you

[1:19:58] know i have no problem putting it down just took the material forever to get to

[1:20:02] us and by that time it got pretty cold so

[1:20:05] but if we get lucky with the warm warm day we'll definitely put it

[1:20:10] all right thank you um quick sorry quick question for rich um just any quick

[1:20:15] update on stoningtown road on the landslide waiting to happen

[1:20:22] uh i'm i'm not sure which we don't have the latest on that don't worry so um

[1:20:28] peter uh and jeff uh because i know some of this

[1:20:31] was dealt with in court um there's some emails on it um

[1:20:36] so uh the noles lane property owner was in

[1:20:39] court uh took some says uh she

[1:20:42] stated that he took some steps or the steps that the village recommended

[1:20:47] um and uh we're waiting for verification on

[1:20:51] that there was a map that he was supposed to provide with

[1:20:54] i think [Music]

[1:20:57] marking out where some of the different drains were on the property too as part

[1:21:00] of that work so it sounds like knowles lane

[1:21:03] has done most of their work and then peter

[1:21:06] just give an update on the stoney town property please

[1:21:12] well their engineer has been in contact um we were waiting the the first thing

[1:21:16] we were waiting for them which we stressed that was important was the

[1:21:19] existing wall at the top of the hill the stability of that

[1:21:23] uh they had to get a i guess a separate structural engineer to do that uh we

[1:21:28] haven't gotten that yet um

[1:21:31] and again we wanted to coordinate both the plan from knowles and and theirs

[1:21:35] together to see how it worked together to to mitigate any future work so it's

[1:21:40] been slow and coming we gotta apply a little pressure here because frankly

[1:21:44] it's taking taking too long from everybody

[1:21:47] so um they have both been in court correct

[1:21:50] jeff so where do their cases stand in court

[1:21:54] they've both been adjourned over the knolls property was put over to next

[1:21:59] month in order to allow for them to meet with

[1:22:02] mr obinski and robert rockline

[1:22:06] the stoneytown property had also been

[1:22:09] adjourned over but the concern i have is that

[1:22:12] um as mr obinski is mentioning

[1:22:16] and and as mr lanazek i think would echo they've been reaching out to get this

[1:22:20] report uh the main issue is that report on the

[1:22:23] status of the wall the safety of the wall

[1:22:26] okay so and mary jo i'll follow up with you

[1:22:30] separately um i'll follow up with the rest of the board separately

[1:22:34] um we will uh let me consult with jeff peter and robert on next steps but

[1:22:40] we'll be taking further action we've already cited them once and that's why

[1:22:44] they're in court and so i want to evaluate our options okay

[1:22:52] um

[1:22:55] also uh just from the village engineer's perspective ronnie i saw the emails on

[1:22:59] the cardinal road property um they are going to dig on their

[1:23:03] property uh folks may remember this is the one with the septic tank issues

[1:23:08] so they've offered to dig on their property and they wanted

[1:23:12] observers from the village county and town there

[1:23:16] to help establish whether a pipe exists and see if they can help determine who

[1:23:21] that pipe is owned by um so that should be occurring on january 12th

[1:23:26] and i know mr einbender said the earlier the better so

[1:23:30] you know ronnie i'd say let's shoot for 9 a.m and try and confirm that with

[1:23:34] steve uh peter and the rest of the folks that are supposed to be involved because

[1:23:37] that's next week okay yeah i i wrote back because i don't

[1:23:41] think he was clear that that's was you know what was supposed to happen

[1:23:45] i think he he believes that we're just having a you know a meeting um so i'm

[1:23:50] hoping to clear that up with him by tomorrow

[1:23:52] okay yeah there's no purpose to i think have a a group meeting again

[1:23:57] this to death so um

[1:23:59] the next meeting we have will be to observe them actually digging on the

[1:24:03] property okay uh what do we have next and polling

[1:24:08] place resolution yeah so um

[1:24:13] i'm looking for someone to offer this resolution announcing the polling place

[1:24:17] in time for the march 15 2022 general election

[1:24:21] um uh the

[1:24:23] this resolution must be adopted at least 60 days prior to the election

[1:24:27] and um we are resolving that the election be

[1:24:31] held at village hall the hours will be from 6am to 9pm

[1:24:35] um that certain notices will be provided at

[1:24:40] least 10 days prior to the election uh notice that you in the polling place

[1:24:44] the hours the polls and the names and addresses of all those who are nominated

[1:24:48] for for office and um these notices will also be posted

[1:24:53] in at least six places throughout the village

[1:24:58] we still need to have we still need to have a meeting first week in

[1:25:02] [Music] wednesday yeah you're ready you have

[1:25:05] that february 3rd at 7 00 pm we will have a special meet to appoint the

[1:25:10] election inspectors

[1:25:15] all right i'll make a motion for that resolution

[1:25:23] thank you claire those in favor say aye aye

[1:25:28] aye opposed abstentions

[1:25:31] again seeing none passes unanimously all right jeff uh your report uh i don't

[1:25:36] think there's any external uh updates but uh bza

[1:25:41] bga i circulated a written report

[1:25:46] um while most is self-explanatory i do want to follow up on

[1:25:50] item number one um

[1:25:53] because at first

[1:25:55] reading that'll appear like it's a very large uh request that the applicant's

[1:25:59] seeking to increase the floor area ratio to 10

[1:26:03] 593.96 square feet where the maximum permitted is 5068.

[1:26:08] um just to clarify this was before the board

[1:26:13] before but when this house was built

[1:26:18] the size of the structure above 10 000 square feet was permitted

[1:26:24] um the code was changed after that house was constructed

[1:26:28] um they're now requesting a variance but the house was already built at that

[1:26:32] about now you know large

[1:26:35] number what they're actually requesting in the end the variance they're seeking

[1:26:39] will actually reduce um

[1:26:42] their floor area their floor area ratio so

[1:26:45] um i'm just looking at mr obinski what essentially happened was they came

[1:26:48] before zba they were making some changes and they

[1:26:53] made some modifications even to their proposal

[1:26:56] which would lessen the impact of of the existing structure such as

[1:27:00] removing roofs from proposed

[1:27:04] upper decks and things of that nature that makes the volume

[1:27:08] uh appear to be less impactful to those

[1:27:11] surrounding so i'm just looking at mr obinski if you can share some thoughts

[1:27:15] on that but that's i think the summary of where that application stands and why

[1:27:19] the board of zoning felt that after the number of changes that the applicant

[1:27:23] made that it made sense to grant it because the benefits off by the

[1:27:27] applicant would outweigh any detriment to the

[1:27:30] surrounding community yeah so i mean the proposal was it's

[1:27:36] basically alterations but there was some pushing and pulling of some of the areas

[1:27:40] creating balconies taking away in other areas when they first came in they were

[1:27:45] i think they were they increased the area by several hundred square feet so i

[1:27:50] think the the direction of the of the zoning board

[1:27:53] was they wanted it reduced so that there was no more than the existing they were

[1:27:58] doing some again pushing and pulling at some of the different corners of the

[1:28:01] house and balconies and in the end we we got

[1:28:06] uh got them to go under what their their square footage was

[1:28:10] and historically i looked at this and it seems that as soon as this application

[1:28:14] was submitted that's what tipped off the whole far

[1:28:19] requirement of the village code it followed like almost within a month

[1:28:23] uh of this after a couple months of this application being filed

[1:28:28] i guess at the time never realized people could take it it was only a

[1:28:31] coverage uh requirement

[1:28:35] uh but not an far so i think this was the test case to

[1:28:39] that created that

[1:28:45] and other than that i have nothing further to report unless there are

[1:28:48] questions all right

[1:28:50] any questions for jeff

[1:28:54] all right um i do not have uh any updates uh for this

[1:29:00] meeting uh so um

[1:29:03] claire do you want to talk about the food drive and the amazing drive from

[1:29:08] thanksgiving through christmas and the end of the year was it was phenomenal no

[1:29:12] happy too i guess this is my monthly shout out to the vincent smith school

[1:29:16] who once again um came out really strong um

[1:29:20] they collected so much food that they again earned

[1:29:23] another week without a uniform we had a great ceremony with resident

[1:29:27] milan doshi the mayor came to thank the children and just educate

[1:29:32] them a little bit on the impact that they're having in the community uh it

[1:29:35] was a great event all around um again they collected a

[1:29:39] huge amount of food really proud of them and just hope to

[1:29:42] continue this momentum into the new year for sure

[1:29:46] and uh i gotta tell you it was a great

[1:29:49] experience the kids were so happy um understanding how they were impacting

[1:29:54] people's lives it was a great civics lesson um

[1:29:58] and i think a great example for the community so i know there were a couple

[1:30:01] ideas uh things that the the school wanted to follow up on and potentially

[1:30:04] partner with the village on so let's let's definitely do that

[1:30:08] thank you for uh all the work around that

[1:30:11] that's that's really great that's really great to hear and we should get this out

[1:30:16] published in some way because this is a really good story like you know we

[1:30:20] should build on this one i don't know um if the do we have a

[1:30:24] reporter even in our midst here but uh let's get the story out there

[1:30:30] were there any photos from the event yeah we have photos it's up on facebook

[1:30:35] uh and we will put something out yeah and we should talk about a little bit

[1:30:39] further gary just there there are some privacy concerns with some of the

[1:30:42] children you know that can't be fulfilled sure no

[1:30:44] but um i totally agree it's a it's a real feel-good event for sure good

[1:30:52] all right um [Music]

[1:30:57] rfp for village auditor is next okay so um the village went out to

[1:31:04] bid for our um annual ordered services for the village as well as for the

[1:31:08] justice court um we received four responses um

[1:31:14] two of them were quite high we interviewed the two low uh look two low

[1:31:20] responses and uh that was by the the mayor the deputy mayor suzanne and

[1:31:25] myself and we were really impressed by the firm

[1:31:29] called skin in faber they do

[1:31:32] many other villages in our area including north hills and

[1:31:37] the staff at north hills has been very happy with them and found them very easy

[1:31:40] to work with again as i said they were with a little

[1:31:44] bit so um i'd like to ask for a resolution uh

[1:31:48] uh authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement

[1:31:51] to um sign up with skinning in favor as our

[1:31:55] auditor for a three-year period and also for the record this this uh

[1:32:00] accounting firm does a lot of municipal audits that's what they specialize in

[1:32:06] they don't yeah they don't do much of anything else they do schools villages

[1:32:11] um just special districts and they do have a lot of government

[1:32:16] accounting and they do a lot of villages that's our size as well so they have a

[1:32:20] lot of experience they've got to put the right people on the team and i think

[1:32:24] it's a good choice to go with these people

[1:32:28] yeah and i just add to that based on our conversation uh with them and the others

[1:32:32] i felt like this was the best firm uh for the reasons you've all stated um

[1:32:37] also um just

[1:32:40] they're not overwhelming themselves like you're saying they do a lot of municipal

[1:32:43] accounts but i mean when we talk about these contracts and services right this

[1:32:47] has come up with paving it's not only just about the lowest bidder it's making

[1:32:51] sure you're getting somebody who's going to do the work do quality work and

[1:32:55] that the staff is going to have a good rapport with we have them walk us

[1:32:58] through what their process is uh when they come to village hall how

[1:33:02] they will communicate with the staff and so i think they have a really good

[1:33:06] plan in place that will uh achieve the goals of the village ensuring that

[1:33:11] you know we can make sure that our finances are in order uh so i'll just

[1:33:15] add that to the comments uh to this point and

[1:33:18] uh are there any questions from the board on this uh on this rfp the it's a

[1:33:23] skin in skinning and far favor sorry is the firm

[1:33:27] that we're talking about going with

[1:33:32] um if there's no questions i'll make a motion to um

[1:33:37] enter well i have to enter into the contract right so i'll see if somebody

[1:33:40] else will make the motion i'll make the motion

[1:33:44] thank you second

[1:33:47] all right um all those in favor aye aye

[1:33:52] opposed extension seeing none passes unanimously

[1:33:57] all right um

[1:34:00] sorry just going through making sure i checked off everything i was supposed to

[1:34:03] i think the last thing we have is the middle neck rfp is that the last thing

[1:34:07] on the agenda ronnie yes it is so again we put out an rfp for an

[1:34:13] engineering firm to design the parking on middle neck road

[1:34:18] um we've got three responses we've got two very high responses uh vhb who is um

[1:34:26] bob eschbacker's firm was by far the low bid for uh basically all similar

[1:34:31] services um i had sent you the entire all the

[1:34:36] packets uh that were part of the responses

[1:34:39] um if you're ready to make a commitment now we could test the resolution uh and

[1:34:44] get started ronnie did you say that ashbaca was the lowest bid

[1:34:49] yes by far so this is a no-brainer basically because they're the best

[1:34:54] i know that's what i i said well when the mayor asked me about them i said you

[1:34:57] know

[1:35:01] they're the best traffic and parking consultants

[1:35:03] agreed i stuff accountability i know did a lot of work with them too back when i

[1:35:07] was with the county so i know they got great

[1:35:09] tons of experience they're real pros they really are

[1:35:13] yeah all right

[1:35:15] any questions from the board oh wait did ronnie say can we vote to

[1:35:19] move that or that has to sure no if we can

[1:35:23] get them on board and get this going what's the scope what's the scope again

[1:35:28] um you know it's basically um

[1:35:33] so measurements and design and watch the

[1:35:37] traffic flow and figure out where we should put the traffic so this is a

[1:35:41] study this is for a study or is this foreign

[1:35:45] i'll read it to you they're going to prepare a conceptual plan

[1:35:48] uh for the total number of parking stalls that may be obtained by modifying

[1:35:52] striping middle neck road from

[1:35:55] northern boulevard towards greenway um so they're gonna look at that area

[1:36:00] and look at how we can adjust the road to provide for parking um layout uh

[1:36:05] pavement markings and signage that we would need along the road

[1:36:08] um look at potential sight distance impacts on adjacent driveways because

[1:36:12] that was one of the things we heard from the community was they didn't want if

[1:36:16] parking was being supplied on the road they didn't want their driveway access

[1:36:20] there impacted and itemized construction cost estimates

[1:36:24] for proposed work i think that was all of it

[1:36:34] all right uh anybody want to make a motion

[1:36:37] i'll make the motion uh to approve

[1:36:40] uh vhp as our traffic and parking consultant

[1:36:46] yeah

[1:36:49] i'll say okay trustee frankful is the second all in

[1:36:52] favor aye aye aye

[1:36:56] all right that's everything on the agenda

[1:37:00] the history report has been submitted uh we're not gonna have a presentation

[1:37:03] tonight uh but it's been submitted for the record

[1:37:06] anything else from the board or the staff at this time

[1:37:11] if not we'll move to public comment

[1:37:16] all right let's move to public comment we'll open

[1:37:20] it up to anybody from the public who has comments for the board

[1:37:23] i would say to anybody wishing to comment please

[1:37:27] state your name address and you have three minutes to speak

[1:37:32] just take yourself off mute

[1:37:38] anybody all right

[1:37:42] with seeing nope uh nobody wanting to participate in public comment uh i'll

[1:37:46] look for a motion to adjourn the meeting i'll make the motion

[1:37:52] i'll second it all right all those in favor say hi

[1:37:56] hi close detention classes unanimously

[1:37:59] everybody have a good night thank you bye

[1:38:03] good night everyone

Village of Flower Hill January 3, 2022 Board of Trustees Meeting

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