Moratorium

, after Deputy Mayor Wayne Lipton approached the Board of Trustees with changes he felt needed to be made to the legislation at the Feb. 8 board briefing session. The board was split on Lipton's suggested changes, so it will discuss the moratorium further at its next briefing session.
The moratorium would prevent new construction and the reconstruction or renovation of multifamily homes in commercial districts in which square footage would be increased by more than 25 percent, as well as of single- and two-family homes anywhere in the village. It would also prohibit the knockdown of most residential buildings.
The vote on the legislation was to have been held Jan. 29, but Mayor Eugene Murray was absent, so it was postponed until Feb. 12. Because the Nassau County Planning Commission (NCPC) made recommendations of changes to the proposed law, a super-majority of at least four board members is needed to pass it.
Lipton said he believes the legislation needs to include a grandfather clause. The bill as written allows those who have already been issued building permits or who have already done substantial construction on their property to go forward with their projects. But Lipton said that the bill should be amended to include people in the process of applying for building permits. He said this would make the law more fair to people who have spent significant time going through the process of obtaining building permits but have not yet received them. He also said this would avoid suits against the village from people in the application process who would feel they were unjustly prohibited. "I will not support [this legislation] without sufficient grandfathering," Lipton said.
Residents' Voice Party Trustees Jeanne Mulry, Andrew Karamouzis and Suzanne Sullivan all spoke out against such a change to the proposed law. "I'm against any grandfather clause," Mulry said. "Projects shouldn't be permitted to be snuck in."
Lipton also said that the wording of the bill actually allows multifamily homes to be built in the village's commercial and business districts. Knockdowns in those areas would still be permitted, he said, as would the construction of a multifamily dwelling on property where there was a knockdown, as long as the new building was built on the footprint of the old one. "The moratorium proposed is entirely defective," Lipton said. "It allows multifamily anywhere in the downtown as long as it fits the zoning code and is the size of the footprint."
He added, "This would allow multifamily homes on Maple, up and down Sunrise and all over the village."
Mulry accused Lipton of grandstanding and making a political argument. Karamouzis and Sullivan claimed that he was nit-picking, and reading too much into the law's wording. But A. Thomas Levin, the village's acting attorney, agreed with Lipton's reasoning and said the wording of the legislation left the village vulnerable to litigation.
Mulry said there was nothing wrong with the way the law was written, since the NCPC had read it the same way she had: as preventing multifamily construction downtown. The NCPC had proposed changes to the law because its members felt it was too restrictive regarding multifamily construction.
Residents' Voice board members were eager to see the legislation passed, and they suggested that the board vote to approve the law and later amend it with Lipton's suggestions. Murray and Lipton, however, would not vote for the legislation as written, and without their votes there would not be the sufficient super-majority to pass it.
The issue will be discussed again at the next briefing session on March 1.
Several residents spoke during Monday's public comment section. All expressed their concern with the lack of a grandfather clause, and the fact that no procedures have been set for the application for hardship exemptions, leaving decisions about whether or not to grant them to the discretion of the board.
Comments? Contact TRazzano@ liherald.com or call (516) 569-4000 ext. 221.