East Rockaway village board forms committee to review code

The Village of East Rockaway board of trustees voted on Dec. 11 to create a committee comprised of board members, the village attorney and building superintendent to review the village’s code.

The code was adopted in 1955 and was last updated in 1986. According to Village Clerk Patty Renner, changes were made since it was adopted as the board saw fit, but now village officials want to do a full review of the code. “Since there needs to be a public hearing in order to change the code, the board wants to review by committee and hold one or two public hearings, rather than one for each change,” she wrote in an e-mail.

To begin the process, the committee would hire a planner to examine current building uses in the village and listen to the board’s concerns. The planner would then make recommendations to the board, which officials would consider when they examined the village code to see which areas should be updated.

Village attorney John Ryan said he thought it was a good idea to form the committee. “I think the whole zoning code needs to be looked at,” he said. “Things have changed over the many years since they’ve looked at the village code.”

The committee is to meet for the first time later this month, but a date was not set as of press time.