Full Transcript
Thank you. Thank you. Arise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Councilwoman Merrifield. Thank you, Supervisor. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Councilwoman.
Okay, first item we have... Actually, I guess I'll do announcements for the next few minutes. First, we have quite a few announcements here. Sunday, November 22nd, the Riverhead Recreation has their family turkey trot. It's a one-mile run-slash-walk from Meermorg Park to George Young Community Center. On-site registration begins at 8.30, and the run starts at 9.00. Again, that's Saturday, November 22nd. Next week, November 27th, is Thanksgiving. Town Hall will be closed, for Thursday and also for Friday, for Black Friday, for the holiday. Saturday, September 6th, and this is really exciting. Justin, can you maybe get a shot of this in the middle of the table?
It's the Riverhead Holiday Extravaganza. This has been a true collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce, the Lions, the BIDMA, East End Arts, Townscape, and WLNG will live broadcast, along with music, music groups, and more. The event starts at 3 o'clock, and there'll be free hot chocolate. There'll be a bonfire. At 3.30, there's a puppet show and crafts. At 4.30, the holiday parade will start on Ostrander Avenue. Now, pay attention, because this is reverse how we normally do parades. Start on Ostrander, and it will go west, on Main Street, to Griffin Avenue, and it ends up on Railroad Avenue, because the parking lot here at Town Hall will have all the vendors and all the events going on, along with the Second Street side of Town Hall, where the tree lighting will take place. So, at 4.30 is the parade, and of course, it ends with Santa and Mrs. Claus, and the tree lighting will be approximately 5.30 on the other side of the building here, on the Second Street side. All events will be around Town Hall this year, the bonfire, the merry market, photos with Santa and other characters. So, make sure you bring the whole family. It's a free event. There will be vendors for alcohol and for food for purchase. And bring the family. Come on down. They've put a lot of work into this. And if you look at the flyer up here, and this flyer is on the town website also, there's a QR code on that. If you scan that QR code, it will give you all the details and probably a little bit more than what I just said. So, make sure you do that. And again, that is Saturday, December 6th. So, in lieu of our regular holiday parade that has been done for years, this is being done a little different. And it will end up here at the Town Hall, where all the festivities will take place. Okay, that's what I have on announcements. Does anybody else have anything? I could just add to that. There are a few vendor spots left. So, if you are a vendor and interested in joining the Merry Market, use that QR code, and you'll be able to get more information. Excellent. I'll just add one thing that, though our highway superintendent put out the leaf pickup, but as a motorcycle enthusiast, please do not put the leaves in the road. They are extremely dangerous and potentially deadly to motorcyclists. So, please be conscientious that from now until it's actually picked up, that you keep them neatly piled off to the road. So, just keep that roadway clear for a motorcyclist. Thank you. And don't blow your leaves out into the road. That's a code violation. You can get a ticket for that. I see a lot of landscapers just blowing everything out into the road. That's dangerous and it's illegal. So, bag them or put them in a pile and wait for a highway to come by and pick them up. But do not blow your debris out into the roadway. Okay, first item we have on open session. This will be with Kevin Wood and it's matters surrounding a proposed parking plan for downtown. And it will be with Denise Merrifield and Dawn Thomas. Kevin, come on up, please. Hi, everyone. How are you? Good to see you again. Okay, I'm going to use this trusty PC here. Okay. I'm Justin. Already I messed it up because I'm a Mac user. Kevin, by way of background, do you want to let everybody know your credentials, please? Absolutely. Yeah, so the name of my company is Parking and Mobility Consultants. We met obviously last year when I started as a consultant to the great town of Riverhead. My background is nine years now in parking. I served as the administrator for the village of Port Jefferson from a professional municipality point of view. I currently do consulting for this town, city of Long Beach, city of Hudson, many different municipalities. I've seen a lot of different environments. So I think I'm very, very qualified to get in and on the street to give you what you need here. And that is the goal. Today what I'd like to do is for the benefit of all council people and the public is to really just go over an overview, observations, and what I like to call low hanging fruit, let's take action now kind of things. So I have about 110 slides here. So if you see me going through things faster, don't worry. It's going to be on the website, riverheadparking.com. And it can be reviewed. I'm always available for questions. Routinely I participate in meetings. I'm a member of the chamber, the Riverhead Chamber. I collaborate with Riverhead Now. I certainly attend the parking advisory committee meetings. There's constant communications going on as well as surveys. I think for the first time we've been able to do some residential surveys which are quite revealing and good for us. So I'll be the first to say it's time for the town of Riverhead to act in terms of the business district. And we'll be able to do that. If you'll have me, I think this is a good way and a good plan here. Today being the first report and educate work session. And as I said, recommendations for the low hanging fruit that we can improve right now. Again, if you'll have me, three more work sessions. Number two being bringing forward specific recommendations and reasons and identifying costs related to those recommendations. Work session three, invoking actions, talking budgets, personnel and technology, and then work session four addressing. And we might be able to combine these. Addressing the future of the parking district itself, addressing parking district advisory, committee concerns, finances, a deep dive into the proposed multi-deck. But I'll also defer to Dawn on that at your speed and what you're up with. So I've often heard, and you've probably heard, that Riverhead doesn't have a parking problem. In fact, you almost always have parking. But my response is you really want Riverhead to have a parking problem. If you notice, the most robust downtowns have parking problems. It's not a bad thing. We just need to manage that problem. So I want to solve that or help solve that before it becomes a problem. What you mean by have a, that you want a problem? Meaning you want customers. Your merchants want a parking problem. They want to see such robust visitation that add up to sales. That's a good thing. You don't want a vacant downtown. I'm not implying that. I'm just saying when you have a parking problem, that's usually a good thing for business. So let's rewind a bit. This is certainly interesting. The Riverhead Parking District was formed in the 60s. It is a bit mysterious. I haven't actually seen the document that formed it. Maybe you have. But the downtown district was created in order to establish operate public parking lots in the downtown area. In the 60s, it was designed specifically for stores. We've changed a lot Riverhead since specifically apartments and a lot of residential buildings. So we're not going to go into that. So we're not going to go into that. We're going to go into that. So we ask ourselves going forward, what is the purpose of collecting the special district tax and how will the funds be used in the future? Not something I'm going to get into, nor is it my place to get into, but it's something to think about in terms of evolving to the best plan possible. Three of you I think were here in place in 2020 in terms of council people when you had an initial 41 page, strategic parking plan by the town of Riverhead. Here are some key findings. You have sufficient supply, as I said. You did have uneven demand that continues today. That means that, you know, things are spread out. Parking is spread out. Again, I'm not going to read every word here. The dominant use of parking is in the parking district. You had limited enforcement capacity back then in terms of employees. I think we'll go over that a little bit today. I think it still persists today. Continuing with those key, key findings seasonal demand peaks. That's pretty obvious living here in New York, right? We're about to hit the low, the low months. You have a lack of alternative transportation use. Most people, you don't see a lot of bikes here. You see a lot of walking other than cars. And then we have now we're in the midst of residential development pressure. At that time there were 287 new residential units of plan. I understand you're capped at 500. So you're approaching that in some way, shape, or form. And I think that some of the new residential projects do have parking built in. Listed here again going back to 2020, over 600 private spaces were unused during peak demand, highlighting a major opportunity for shared parking agreements. A little more on that later. So recommendations, stakeholders are open to reinstalling meters. I thought this was interesting. In 2020, if the demand is high and enforcement is effective. And on page 24, we talked about developing a pile-up plan. What I think is interesting, and I support the notion of a pile-up plan, but look at the dollars. Fee in lieu of parking seems about right still at 10 to 12. Five per space and pile-up. And we can go into details on that if you plan that later. The point is that costs have risen significantly since 2020 on everything. This is just showing you at no time that you overextend the demand for the system. The matter. You know, which of the lots were used back in 2020. You had an update, five pages from Sam Schwartz in 2022. Key findings there were total parking spaces 2153, new parking demand 2800. So hey, we need 647 new spaces. But that was based on some things that not, they haven't happened yet. The TOD transformation hasn't happened yet. I understand the Suffolk Theater renovation hasn't happened yet. So this was a little bit before, but they were foreseeing what possibly was needed. And they're the three of the council members that were around at that time. So what's happened since? It's 2025. You have more apartments, some without built-in parking. There's more traffic, more events. Cost of everything is up. And temporarily now you have less parking from the Heatherwood project construction. What came out of the study? Well, in 2020, we didn't know there was going to be this giant pandemic. Let's face it, it slowed things down. It actually stopped. It stopped things, let's be honest, right? But out of that, I believe it was your parking advisory committee. You can stop me if I'm wrong there. It came up with a zoned parking plan. That's really what came out of action items. And what you're seeing here is it's correct in its thought process that from the center of town outwards, you would allow for more parking. So right in the center of town, you would limit it in the pink to an hour, which you've done on Main Street, and I agree with. And I think it's working well. Then you did some lots or spaces that were closer to Main Street at a three-hour limit. That's what you know as the green zone. And then in the darker green there, I wish I could point, but I can't, right? Towards the end points of the parking district, you could park forever. And that makes sense normally to do things like this. The issue has been, this has never, in my mind, and in my talks, and in my surveys, and in my meetings, and in my meetings, and in my interviews, it's never been properly enforced. Fast forward 2025, and I'm going to go through this rather quickly, but it's going to show you the challenge that I have as a consultant and every one of us has. Who should a good managed parking system serve and please? A managed parking system must balance the needs of several stakeholders, often in conflict. Successful systems focus on access, turnover, fairness, safety, and economic viability and vitality. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Sale uses. Public safety, police, fire, EMS, access, transit agencies, mobility providers, coming up with the LIRR, but also buses and also drop-offs and all kinds of things. Downtown property owners, you're dealing with a lot of them on a month-to-month basis. They have to be part of the conversation. The environmental and sustainable community has to be part of the conversation. So in a nutshell, the purpose of a good plan is to support the downtown economic viability and vitality, maintain safe, orderly, and fair curb use, and ensure equitable access for all user types. That's a big, big mouthful. And that's why you've probably seen through the years, even before my time, stagnation, because it's a lot to take in. And when you make a decision, there's always going to be somebody unhappy on the other side. That's just the way parking is. That's kind of why I love it. Current parking mobility situation, Riverhead is having a renaissance. That will impact the city. That will impact all town services. And that's a great thing. I feel really good about Riverhead in the future, personally. Existing convenient parking availability is growing tighter. We have redevelopment. So that is true. That's happening. That being said, you're very, very lucky to have some of these shared parking, including this lot right out here, which has been magnificent for events. There's certainly a desire for town government and its leaders, being the Chamber, this new group, Riverhead Now, the bid to provide high levels of public service and solve parking issues. As I said, walking is the primary option right now, other than driving into town. Suffolk buses go through, but they don't usually serve within. And businesses are dealing with less space for their customers. We're hearing that. And they're concerned for overall business or lack thereof. I'm hearing that as well. This might be the first time you're seeing something like this. We're developing an interactive map, but this is a stagnant map, and for the first time, you're seeing clearly dark blue and black. So, we're going to be looking at that. So, we're going to be looking at the parking district, the parking district being the parking district, S being the shared locations. And again, I wish I had a pointer, but you can see. Is that the east end or the west end? It's the west end, right? Yeah, the west end is the yellow. Right. So, you're seeing the Long Island Railroad there. You're seeing this lot. You're seeing the court lot. You're seeing some private spaces with the aquarium. And you're seeing, interesting, I pointed this out, and I've been talking to this property owner off Maple. There is an ambiguous lot. There's a lot there that is being used, sometimes by some people. So, we're going to be looking at that. So, we're going to be looking at the parking district, the shared location, and the parking district. And you're seeing, interesting, I pointed this out, and I've been talking to this property owner, off Maple, there is an ambiguous lot. There's a lot there that is being used, sometimes by some people, but it's ambiguous. It's an empty lot. It's privately owned. I consider this to be something that we should look further into, shared parking opportunities, especially when they're this close to Main Street. I could talk for an hour on this slide. I want to get to the bottom line here. I think that everybody involved in the project of parking should recognize that these are assets, and they're valuable assets. Each and every parking space has a value to it. You can argue about what that value is, but if you go through the math here, you can see that there is supported spending of $135,000 to $197,000 per space. The cost to build a new space today is roughly $50,000, depending on what type of facility you're building. The point is, everybody that's involved in this. Projects should take these spaces very seriously, just as you would at your home, when you're upgrading your home and you're taking care of it and maintaining it. These are valuable assets. Again, I consider Riverhead pretty lucky. You have some really valuable assets in place already. You don't have to be digging right now for more space, with the exception of the multi-deck, of course, which is replacing Riverside parking. Key takeaway here, I've just talked about, and the good news I just talked about. We've done it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. Right in the stores, talking face-to-face, over the counter, again and again, and here, Main Street parkers stay much longer than the one-hour maximum. That's been a problem. Main Street businesses would like to see strict enforcement. That's their words, not mine. Many businesses have economic and foot traffic concern preceding parking. Right? So we have to recognize that even before we get into the conversation of parking, they're concerned about their business. Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? world is changing and Main Streets are changing. We enacted surveys. We did both. Business surveys are easy, right? We have the addresses. Residential surveys were a little bit hard. You know, went to the facilities. You can talk to some people, but it's better to mail, and we did that. We mailed directly to them, and we had some great collaboration with some of the property owners. The five properties that were involved in the surveys you see right here, two of them which have provided zero spaces for their facilities, and so what you're seeing is a net gain of need for parking spaces because of that. Apartment residents in downtown Riverhead generally find parking to be a significant challenge, especially evening. They express strong support for new parking structure and emphasize the importance of safety and proximity when parking. We hear that constantly. They're concerned about safety. I don't know if you can see this. I'm not going to read every word here, but you can see percentages here when you review this. Number one concern was security and safety. Secondly, proximity and destination to where they're going, time limits involved on these parking spaces, sidewalk conditions, and weather conditions, which of course we can't control. Parking is a major pain point for downtown residents. These are some takeaways. Safety, sidewalks, and lighting are just as important as the number of spaces available. Support exists for a structured parking deck, but location and resident priority access matter. All right, so let's be honest. If we're interviewing a resident, they're going to say that their points matter. If I interview a business owner, they're going to say their points matter. It's just the nature of human beings. We know about the flooding at Riverfront, and we know what we're doing about that. Residents want a permit system or reserve zones to reduce competition with restaurant and bar traffic. We'll get into that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. system does nothing. It doesn't help parking adjusting during downtown events because the time limit is too generous. We haven't even gotten into enforcement. They're saying the three hours is too generous. Others may argue. Then downtown residents get punished with tickets for leaving cars in green zones overnight after events end.
Here's somebody talking about having a private parking. That's not Riverhead's fault. The apartment complex that they live in didn't have private parking Gerald Davis. Big paragraph here. I want to get the takeaway here. I do not want to go into reading this whole thing but again this will be up for you. Just talking about some of their challenges. Really important to listen to some of these folks that live here day to day. Somebody talking about a necessary park. They think they get more parking there. We share parking a lot with the gym. There never is any parking but we park in an area where we aren't even supposed to park but otherwise there would be no parking. All apartment buildings should have their own designated parking spots. There should be no surprises there. People who live in their apartments should get parking stickers for spots in the public parking areas. Again this is complicated because we only have so much space. Dedicated parking spaces for handicapped. I think this is important. Having to wait two hours for an open space and handicap to become available to be able to park close to an apartment and walk up your apartment with your bag of groceries. Given specific addresses you know what projects these are. We'll go to. We'll go to now the business results and just the encapsulated survey mix of Main Street retailers and restaurants services and offices. We you know sent surveys to everybody. Strong representation from businesses directly affected by parking turnover or lack thereof. These are all the businesses that we've spoke to or surveyed.
You recognize all of them. All right let's encapsulate this. How often business owners find convenient parking. OK. Not terrible. Sometimes. Most of the time. That's the majority. Majority say convenient parking is inconsistent or difficult. Where business owners park them. Four different places where they park. Employees often need to park further away to preserve. Spaces for customers. That's OK. OK. When we get into this system we're going to want that. We're going to want employees to park further away. The key element of safety for those employees. We talk about Main Street parking abuse businesses. Do businesses on Main Street notice cars parking too long on Main Street. Sixteen out of the twenty one said yes. So they think it's affecting their business and turnover. I asked what do you think who's parking here. They said yes. They said yes. They said yes. They said yes. They said yes. They thought courthouse municipal employees long term local residents from apartments workers from other businesses and commuters people parking for the full day. Most people thought the same cars in our park overnight. That's a good thing. Here's the perception of parking enforcement again through the eyes of businesses on Main Street. Inconsistent parking enforcement some blocks ticketed heavily others barely at all. People know which streets don't get patrolled and so they act accordingly. Lack of parking. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Dedicated employee parking areas, more spaces near Main Street, better lighting, wayfinding, and maintenance. I'm going to talk more about that as we get into this. These businesses were asked, would businesses support limited paid parking near Main Street? This was without being educated, and I would say we're about halfway there because the maybes are not educated, so it's 10-10, and more people are requesting more information. That has not been actualized yet. Of course, if you read that bottom sentence, there's concerns on impact on customers. I'll just say this, and this session is not about paid parking, but I will say that if it's priced correctly, we have not seen in other areas any impact on business. When it's not priced correctly, and this just happened in Port Jefferson, they tripled the rates, and you can tell me the reasons why because I still don't understand it. Yesterday, they just changed that to free parking. Yesterday's board meeting, so they listened to the business owners.
Overwhelming support from the businesses to replace the lost spaces that are eventually coming from Town Square. Clearer, wider communication. My background is communications. I have specific recommendations on this going forward. General sentiment from businesses, parking is not yet a managed system, and enforcement is predictable, encouraging abuse. Businesses are not yet a managed system, and enforcement is predictable, encouraging abuse. Businesses are not yet a managed system, and enforcement is predictable, encouraging abuse. Businesses fear customers are frustrated and avoid downtown. Many feel progress is possible with better structure, clarity, and enforcement consistency. It's all good news. This is stuff we can change. I gave you so much information. I'm going to skip through past it as you can read it and go into it. A couple of open comments. Most part good flow. We need paid or limited-time parking. This is a business saying this on their own. Parking enforcement and police presence. While the parking on Main Street clients don't feel safe walking behind my buildings in the alleys at night. So we can talk about lighting. We can talk about police presence and things like that. I'd love to see a parking garage. I think it would help out a lot, but I really think we need also to focus on panhandling in Riverhead. This is a huge issue with downtown Riverhead. Also safety concerned. Please don't make residents and business owners with parking stickers pay for parking. Sunday should be free. So we're getting into things again before us, but it's good to have these historical comments. I spoke directly to EDA right there on Roanoke, I believe it is, right? On the corner. Great conversation. Their concern is just to put at bay parking anxiety. They're very collaborative, and we're going to make sure that they're part of the conversation. Yeah. This was somewhat of a – because you didn't actually directly manage this or install this. So I did a deep dive with the EV chargers. I think it's fantastic you have them. They're level three chargers. They're fast chargers. Not a lot of municipalities have these, so congratulations on that. A little bit of a history here. Operational on September 23rd, 2022. They are, again, DC fast chargers, capable of charging most EVs 80% in about 20 minutes. No cost to Riverhead, no revenue to Riverhead. There's your owner, and there's some details on that cost. Your kilowatt range is very typical of Long Island fees. Here's what I have to say about it. I think promoting and charging – the charging and shopping is paramount. I think the BIDMA and I think Riverhead now, and I think everybody that does anything promoting events should be using a graphic like this and promoting these, because people have no choice but to go and shop when they're charging their cars. So I'm happy to work with these groups to basically put the message chargers equals visits. And I don't think that's coming out enough right now. It's pretty interesting. Your two biggest events seem to be the Live at 25 events, or at least two of the larger ones. I don't know if I'll play this whole thing, but we did some drone footage. And there's a takeaway here.
Okay. Okay, your lots at 5 p.m. are available. Okay, the court lots. That's a parking district lot. That's a parking district lot. That's a parking district lot. This is your big lot. Plenty of space at 5 o'clock. Getting ready for the event. This is the second of the two alive on 25. Your first event had more traffic. So no guesswork here, right? So people, you know, talk about 20,000 cars. There were probably 2,000 to 3,000 cars that came into town. But you accommodated them very nicely, I might add. And then we'll get into when it became 7 o'clock. And that, there's a big difference. Right? So everybody can find a spot, go eat dinner. Now we start to see things fill up. We see circles. We see people circling. We see looking for space. But the court and Long Island Railroad lots still remained available. The lots closer to Main Street became full.
Okay. So you can watch that video when you like. When I'm out in the field, I notice a few things. We talked about the green zone, one-hour parking only. I think there's a three-hour parking zone too. Great idea. I'm sure. We just need to keep up on enforcement. If, in fact, we want to keep at it. I think on our next work session I'm going to have some alternatives to this system. I do notice that some of the signs are very old. And again, I just want to put it out there. Parking policy without enforcement can never be successful. Because people catch on quickly. And then they know how to get around the system. Shared parking benefits. So what is shared parking? That's when we. as a town do a deal or a lease with a private or another lot in the case of the Long Island Railroad I don't think you have an implied you have an implied or a formal relationship with the line railroad lot okay good all right so we'll change the designation on that I didn't realize that you know on the court lot though right half of the court law excellent okay going forward if there are lots that are available rather than building a lot that's the idea of shared parking and the benefits fantastic it's a great thing to do rapid increase of available parking without building new lots because they can be expensive cost-effective solution for taxpayers support economic development and downtown vitality vitality gotta get that word right strengthens community partnerships and efficient land use so we love shared parking deals whenever they can happen next for a section I will also concentrate on street parking but I'll say this for now on Street which I've said before the main reason I'm here today is because I'm a community partner and I'm a community partner and I'm a community partner and I'm a street policy of one hour I agree with I think the 15-minute zones seem just right the policy just needs to be strictly enforced in my opinion side streets are concerned they've been told and I've seen they've filled with multiple tenant and cars so shoppers and visitors can't park on side streets what I'm showing you here is inconsistency in the signage specifically accessible science there's at least five or six different types of signs some are 35 years plus old too this is low-hanging fruit we can fix this um you have a New York City New York State mandate and you have a fed mandate on accessible spots I'm just going to tell you that they'd like you to follow the more stricter of the two that's the point of these slides uh things that make you go right I saw this and I was like all right well there's your green spots who would know not to park in front of that when those gates are closed so that that's interesting I mean little fixes like that are going to be a little bit of a challenge for them it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it great i'd like to see them continued with that theme and design fantastic um i think they need to be input in other lots specifically that lot we spoke about that i think we're going to start work on i can't emphasize enough why safety was a concern um a lot of people scratch their heads right when they come into town we're all used to riverhead because we live we work here a lot of people that visit riverhead for the first time what they don't they don't see the policy in the parking lot they don't know where they're going so i'm very very much for another piece of low hanging fruit develop a um a wayfinder a digital wayfinder people don't tend to use paper anymore even though this guy's got paper so you want to answer where am i going where can i park and i hope i can do this we started some work on a wayfinder a digital wayfinder which is mobile compliant where somebody could use a legend for example if they just wanted to see an idea it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it they're doing. I'll just show you one other example is the chargers because that's part of parking and mobility too. Zoom to there, street view, and you'll see your chargers. Right, nice and easy. Works across the board, all devices, laptops, iPads, mobile devices. Hopefully I can get back into this. A second. Good. Enforcement data, and I think you have Chief Frost coming here later. This is, and by no means any judgment on the system or what he commands and what he oversees, but what he has told me directly is 3,500 citations were written town-wide January through October. 534 of those were downtown Riverhead. That's 14%. As far as I can see, zero were written for a lot of the city. So, I think that's a good thing. Overtime parking. So, we have a zone that's three hours and one hour. We have Main Street that one hour. We know people are breaking that zone. We need to start enforcing.
I have a slide here on how parking should actually create compliance. That's part of this.
Dawn, we talked about the, and you enacted a reverse shared parking opportunity where we had a lot and we lent it out for lack of a better word. Dawn, we talked about the, and you enacted a reverse shared parking opportunity where we had a lot and we lent it out for lack of a better word. So, we have a slide here on how parking should actually create compliance. That's part of this. So, we have a slide here on how parking should actually create compliance. That's part of this. Suffolk Theater doing one or both of the alive on 25. Worked out just beautiful. And that's Gary's words. So, we want to see more of that. This is a concept only. Many of the businesses have communicated to me they feel challenged during this construction period. We want to get people in and around town. To me, this is a beautiful sentiment. This is such a possibility here to have a trolley that it promotes Riverhead if nothing else. And then people that rider can get back safely to their parking lot from other parking lots or downtown establishments we will be talking in depth about this next work session but i wanted you to see this in this concept we've worked it out in other communities i'd like us to take the intangibles of parking into account parking administration and leadership when it's everybody's responsibility it's no one's responsibility this is just a human thing the administration of a vision program is going to be paramount going forward i'll say this too the riverhead parking experience is really a precursor to the downtown experience if you like what you've done when you park you generally feel good about where you're going the other intangible is what is the future of main street not only in riverhead but in america things are changing very quickly and i think you're already starting to see experiential based businesses that are coming aboard rather than just some of the things you used to see the five and dimes and all those businesses are probably going to go away this is what i'd like to address in future work sessions i talked about that at the beginning there's so much good technology out there there's so many great places to to go for this and and you know just build an excellent system a very efficient system the parking advisory committee has concerns and at some point uh i think they should be brought in um listing a few of those right here it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it We should aggressively seek striping bids to restripe these lots. Obviously coming into the winter we can't do that, but it should be the first thing we do in the spring before the big traffic comes in. Evaluate and reconfigure lots. I talked a little bit about that before. Do we have needless islands? Do we have places? I mean, I think we have some places that have 10 handicap accessible spaces and you only need four. And we'll talk about how the permit could make that person automatically park anywhere and be legal for handicap parking. Clearly state that policy. You can do that on the Wayfinder. You can do that on changeable riders. So you have these wonderful welcome signs, but things change during the season. So put a rider at the bottom, change that. And you're constantly updating people. I think you should have a text to help number, all questions 24 hours, 24 seven can be answered whether or not municipal employees are on duty. Dedicated downtown parking website. We can absolutely provide that. We've started some of that. When you see the documents from this meeting, you'll see that. Possibly provide the loop free transportation that I showed you. Real time digital communication of parking changes can happen as those riders can be duplicated digitally. Continuing that, seek and secure more shared parking agreements both ways. Like to go further into securing more space for us, but also the other way around, which Dawn has exemplified with Suffolk Theater as an example. Digitized these lot assets. These are huge, very valuable assets. So let's provide a Wayfinder for visitors. Pile up, I'll skip for now. I do support it. Strictly enforce Main Street. We talked about that. Develop a positive parking campaign. I do think that the BIDMA, Riverhead Now, all those that are involved with the task of inviting visitors here and keeping them here to spend money, they need to be educated on parking. If they're too long, they're scratching their heads. They know nothing about parking. Zero. Just to mention, Kevin, too, so in case people are curious, okay, you're mentioning these things. Where's this money coming from? Parking district has a fund. Correct. So the different things that we're talking about can come from the parking district fund. Absolutely. Even before we get into the question of paid parking, there's money. And that's not for me to say where it's spent. For striping or for signage, the low- Got to reinvest in that. You're calling it low-hanging fruit. I just want the public to know this is a very important issue. I think it's a very important issue. Thank you. I think it's a very important issue. And it's not an added expense right now. There is a fund where these things can come from. Correct. Absolutely. 100%. I'd just like to say thank you so much for the amazing amount of work you've done and the thoroughness of it. Because when we started evaluating parking in 2020 and then moved forward to 22, we knew we needed to understand it. But when we had to get down and really untie the knots, it was Kevin's work that took that information and the public and the stakeholders and the parking district advisory committee into- Right. ... consideration and really came up with what's the right program. So that was something we really needed help with. And boy, we got the right guy. And I appreciate very much all your interaction with all the businesses. Yeah. I think that's- I know they're very happy with the Chamber. I think you know that too, Bob. Kevin is speaking with many of the Chamber members all the time. And the Riverhead- I lost them a bit. And I do appreciate that, that you're going down there because it was one of my concerns. Okay. Are they parking for free? Are they paying? You know, all that kind of stuff. But that's what I've heard. So you're addressing it, which is great. It's definitely an ongoing thing. Nothing ... You know, Sam Schwarz did a great job. You know, they kind of came. And they left. They left. They left you guys with a lot. And you just scratch your head a lot. And there's inaction. And we don't want that anymore. I think it's important for the businesses to know we care. And we want ... During all this construction for them to know we're going to help their businesses thrive through all of this. all of this like that trolley system of some type to help ferry people from one spot to another and that's your next presentation I know you're going to talk about the handheld devices make it very easy for the police to enforce the tickets and the payment is all online so this is this will be a very big improvement for revenue again revenue for the town absolutely absolutely turnover and revenue what's the acronym to that system is it FBS what is that you know when they they give tickets they just scan the plate the ticket comes out what is the you're currently using FBS for infractions but there are systems out there that are cloud-based that are more because I understand you're looking for beach permits systems and I would advise you not to go with two or three systems for this I would go with one town-wide system so it would be my job to put three entities in front of you that do this best I think you'd be shooting yourself in the foot if you did just a parking permit system for the beach and that Main Street was on a completely different system yeah it's got to be and we have a few of these you go out to sit different areas and it's it's very easy it's a whole program on what type of ticket you're involved this is just to give you an idea the systems today and and if we agree that enforcement should should be stricter more strict you could take eight up to eight pictures of a car and you know you get this ticket on your window it's not in an envelope and it's got a QR code like I'm caught here it's just easy for me just pay right there with the QR code right just pay right there right then it's revenue and it's it's efficient and it works right it saves court the event having to handle absolutely just for collections that's a good thing right you use right FBS for a number of years but that's that was the extent of what they did and it also saves this system these cloud-based systems also help in you know being an attorney I know this that people try to fight the ticket oh you didn't write this right you put the wrong section in case dismissed oh yeah yeah you can't yeah it's it's foolproof yeah there's no issue one whether the tickets jurisdictionally defective or not it's all right there so I know I know next work session is December but I'll come back as soon as you need to and I'll see you in a couple years. me to to go to the next phase but please keep these low-hanging fruits are very very yeah but I'd like to meet up on you wreck and PD because wreck is looking into a gate system and two of their we had two of their beaches so there are the towns that have that and you said there were three companies and I totally agree should be one so at some point I'll contact you and then you know the most important thing is how these systems talk to each other you're going to have a separate hardware company for the gate right but that gate everything is Internet of everything so that gate has to talk to the system the cloud system by the way that means every administrator anybody has access to that and it all ties together that's important
we will have all this information that we can sort through and read through also what I just said will be on the website by one o'clock good can you you might email me a copy that so that because the website is still not where it needs to be thanks everybody thank you Kevin parking all right next up we have matters surrounding the monthly police report with Lieutenant Devereaux good morning Lieutenant before you get started and this ties into what we all just listened to about safety downtown yesterday my wife was in a business after dark and one of your officers stopped in that business which he does all the time here she does all the time and just said hey folks how's everything going any issues, any concerns. And the lady who's running the business was like, no, everything's good. He goes, okay, I'll be in. And this business was on West Main Street, just west of Roanoke Avenue. And the officer said, okay, you know, I know what time you close, and I'll be in the rear parking lot, which is where they all park, and I'll be there, you know, when you close your doors. And they were, after the officer left, my wife entered into a conversation with them, and they are thrilled to death the way things are going downtown. So Kevin mentioned safety several times. And I know you know it, and I know I know it, but the public needs to know that downtown is so much better off with the new system you put in, with the officers, walking foot patrols. They check in with all the businesses. And from what I understand, they have to document that, and they turn that into probably you as patrol lieutenant. But it's just such a – Every day. Yes. The businesses, they check in how often, and, well, you know, any citations at things that are issued downtown. And, again, we've gotten an overwhelmingly positive response. Oh, incredible. It's night and day downtown what it was. So if anybody's fearful of Main Street, don't be. There's no reason to. And the fact that they know the businesses in their sector, they know the openings and closing times, and especially with, you know, daylight savings time, you know, everybody's going home in the dark now. So especially the women. They're really, really happy that this is going on. So I just wanted to make sure you're aware of that. But the public needs to know that also. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Okay. For the month of October. We had 2,931 total incidents. Sixty-six domestic incidents, which is actually the same exact number as September. One hundred and sixty-seven criminal incidents. August, September, and October have been – have remained right around the same number for the most part. Like you said about downtown, there were no violent crimes in the downtown area. And I think that's basically it. Any questions or anything in the report? No. We love hearing that crime is not going up. And again, but it's by these things that the PD has done. And instead of being reactive, you're being proactive. And it really makes a big difference. It makes a big difference. From 209 in this time last year down to 167. That's fantastic. It does. The presence of the police scares a lot of the – to have the amount of – Omnipresence, right? Omnipresence. The amount of personnel we have. All those things really help. Well, that's also why our taxes go up. But you know what? That's a good thing. And most people are not complaining about paying more taxes because of public safety reasons. Glad to hear it. Thanks for the work, sir. Sure. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. and they're back out in the afternoon so doing the same thing thank you governor hoku crime control unit's been instrumental in that they spent a good majority of their time just investigating those misdemeanor larcenies um but they they stay busy has that increased with the with the burglaries what the da's office was looking to do if you have you charge them eventually at berg 3 yes oh you mean charging the burglary third with that yes um yeah i'm just thinking now with this season with all the you know the holidays and black friday it's pretty steady all year long you know it it definitely will see a spike this time of year but it's pretty consistently consistent yeah have you had any arrests for the burke threes for the shop um i couldn't tell you the exact number we've definitely had a few that's great though that is a good thing i'd love that they're allowing that to happen that's a great idea yeah so the public understands right you have somebody who got court shoplifting they're told you can't go back to that store again there's a trespass it's a trespass person so if you go back and you commit another shoplifting in the store you are violent entering into the premises that you are not unlawfully that you're not permitted to enter into and committing a crime they're in burke three perfect so it qualifies for the books there it wasn't something that was regularly prosecuted several years ago but as they saw the uh serial repeat offenders of this um we obviously got the year of the da's office and we were all on the same board and now there's a little more teeth to that to that prosecution which has come in very you know coming very handy with with especially with those regular offenders and they're all the same people quite often and honestly shoplifting does vary with the economy when the economy is bad there's a lot more shoplifting i mean it's just a yeah people have to steal the eat apparently as part of the problem and we see a lot of people who are you know regular offenders for the west and then those store owners managers employees get to know those people so then they say oh we'll come out here and you know again in the beginning we may not know them but we get to know them pretty quickly so it's been um you know it's part of the with having that retail corridor it's so unfortunately it's part of that it also makes the price of goods uh cost more because every store puts on a shrinkage fee every single year and they calculate it by based on what's stolen so everybody has to pay more and every day every store is a different policy some some stores are very proactive in prosecution some of them just want them trespassed out of the store to never come back and they're some of them really are very hands-off they don't want the liability of their employees you know partaking in the prosecution so it all depends on the store too okay great job thank you
okay next up we have matters surrounding the monthly justice court report with counselor pilo
i'm going to leave my phone here because sometimes it interferes with the uh little plate in my head yes something all right does everyone have a copy yes i have some extras here so we had some pretty good numbers for october um you'll see the blight mitigation and fire marshals are um at the top a lot of the blight mitigation was um uh neglected structures things like that that i was kind of parallel tracking with the 251 uh cleanups so what i'll do is uh code will issue the notice of violation the tickets and then a 251 cleanup action will be started by um by you all and then i'll hold the case open until i see that the property's been cleaned up and then really the only fallout left from that would be the unregistered vehicles which i put pressure on the property owner to do while everything else is happening. So that's been a highlight of October I've seen. Just going off of PD's reports about downtown, as you can see part of it is because it's getting colder out, but the human services proportion, that's your open alcohol, your public urination, your panhandling, things like that, it is going down a bit. Panhandling is a little bit tougher to enforce because if someone's thinking about asking someone for money and they see the presence of PD, they're obviously not going to do that. So I believe that they're down a little bit because PD is the presence there. We do get some in and we've been dealing with those as they come in. Parking, we mentioned before earlier in this work session, a lot of it is the kind of struggle between apartment renters and the business owners. So I do see a lot of that, a lot of people parking in handicapped homes. I think that's a big part of it. I think that's a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think it's also a big part of it. I think and the striping is also you know an issue people will get the ticket take a photo of their car show that the striping was confusing a lot less of that has been happening now that we've been able to get these businesses to clean up their parking lots but that certainly um is something i see a lot so when we get the striping better this will make it easier for the tickets it's a more cut and dry case it's an easier trial believe it or not a lot of these parking cases do go to trial so they all have phones yeah um so uh fire marshal the reason why uh those totals are a little bit uh higher is a the increase in fines that we were working on through all of uh this year and uh also there's um you know when you make it clear in court that this is a life safety issue and this is a concern um that you know thank god the fire marshals went there and noticed that there were illegal fireworks being stored improperly something like that thank god they were there on their um routine inspection and they caught it before you know something really tragic happened so that um making that point makes it a lot clearer to the court and to the defendant that you know you're almost lucky that you're paying this hefty fine rather than what could have happened if fire marshals weren't on top of this um so that's something that i noticed more significantly in october and i know there was uh some questions about transient rentals so moving forward if i have a question i'll be happy to answer it um but i think it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it compiling them anyway, so. It's just good to know if there's a parking rack or something, we need picnic tables or something to put some money in there. There's a good amount of money, we're just hoping that it actually gets collected. I was going to say, maybe we should have a column where actually paid versus default judgments. Yes, which is in the, you know, that's within the Justice Court staff control to see who's coming in and making those payments whether it be online or in person. Good job. I've heard more than one person comment on where Staples parking lot is. I know it's not there, so but people have noticed that. Great. I'm very glad I was able to get done. Thank you. And so did Mr. Downs. Yes, I couldn't have done that without him, for sure. Very good. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Okay, next up we have matters surrounding the town clerk report, and that will be with the town clerk, Jim Wooten.
Good morning. Good morning.
Town clerk moved right along in October. Foils were up, but we got that new system now, the next request, which is really working out well. The public is navigating through that. They're able to make their request right to the direct, and they can make their request right to the department that they like. We do monitor everything that comes through to make sure it got routed correctly, and if it needs to be adjusted, we do that for them. But for the most part, it's a self-serving system. It's a quick response, so it's really working out well. So we're happy with that. So we thank you for moving forward with that for us. What else? That's about it. Desk tickets were up, unfortunately. It's always the holiday season. So we're going to have to get that back. So we're going to have to get that back. So we're going to have to get that back. So we're going to have to get that back. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. association of towns and also the association of clerks too because there's a authority law that the town that the state put in that notices have to be on a secure website.gov which we have on our website so all public notices are published on our website as well as local laws we publish everything um and they're saying what this whole story was was about how print newspaper really isn't it's kind of a passe thing a lot of people and here you have the taxpayer paying i think my budget's 20 000 so we probably use a lot of that for publications um so not only do they pay for these publications to go with the newspaper but then they got to go buy a newspaper to look at the publication so they're saying it's kind of a passe that it really is time to move forward maybe to do websites and to enable that so right now the law is uh requires that it requires that local government's published on the website um so now it's time for the state to codify that so if they codify that then i think we can get away with it's just very expensive it's just a way to maybe you know get away from doing and i'm sure there will be a lobby with the newspaper prints and all that so i mean i'll let the state deal with that on their level but um i think the day of going to uh going to a newspaper and having to publish these uh is really passing about 20 years late yeah i and and i'll be honest i look at them every week because i saved them to make sure that they got in and all that so i clarify all that but you know and i see pages and pages and pages from other municipalities or school districts and all that is just the money is just unbelievable and i think that's probably most sustaining most papers to be honest with you perfect example is the griffin avenue house that we own that we put up right of course a thousand dollars to put that in a news day and get a people in it yeah i i know you're trying to throw that in that but nobody looks at that everything's online every even nobody who goes even goes to newspaper to look at one ads anymore or uh one you know they go to indeed or they go to these different websites to look for jobs or right you know so i mean i hate to say it but um it's just the way that we're looking to go so i'm looking i'm looking looking at that right now i'm gonna have jody looking to it and i'm gonna see if we can codify that in the next you know sometime there you know that would be great there's one publication i'm not gonna name who they're a newspaper they do about 2 000 2500 copies their impressions online are 30 000. so to give you an idea i mean this has been good look at the new york times it used to be this thick now it's like you know a few pages well even even the local medias whether it's really local or even news review or even patch i mean people get that it's instant which is not good for me i think the story should be more researched and i think it's a good thing i think it's a good thing i think it's a good thing before it's printed but it's it's instant you know people put stuff right up right away so that has it but it's it's i just think it's a way for the future and we're just looking to save money as a government that's that's just one way we can do that so um and that's it thank you very much
next up we have matters surrounding monthly code enforcement report with senior investigator rich hounds
good morning how's everybody today good all right let's hop into it everybody have the report yeah okay thank you okay october report we opened up 60 new complaint investigations uh this total excludes all the fire marshal complaints so i just wanted to make note of that it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it permits, there were six vehicles and parking violations and unregistered vehicles. We had three lighting and sign violations, we had two transient rentals, occupancy type issues, we had four. Other miscellaneous categories include trespass, wetlands, sidewalks, noise, we had 13. Now Rich, just to reiterate this, these are just new cases on each one of these that you opened up in the month of October. Yes. You've got open cases from probably a lot of these that are still in the process. So it's not like you just have six overcrowding or four overcrowding. No, no, no. A lot more than that. These are just new cases you picked up last month alone. Correct. Yep. And so the next. So at that point, the next bullet point is total open complaints as of October 31st, we have 153. And that number's very low because we try to close them out and once we close them out, they go to justice court and it gets satisfied in justice court, either by paying a fine or dismissed or a CD or something like that. So, yeah. That's between actually four officers. Okay. So, 153 complaints still open. That's pretty good. Yeah. Considerable. Good. Tickets. We'll jump into that. We issued a total of 47 tickets and I have the breakdown on the ticket types. And those are no CO, eight, no building permits, six unsafe structures. We had four. Rubbish weeds. We had five. No rental permits. We had seven. Unregistered vehicles. We had three. Zoning and use violations. We had six. Lighting and signage. We had two. And some of those other categories. The stop work orders. And general maintenance. Categories. We had six. Can I just ask you. What is the fee for the violation for no rental? Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. Sale. permit I would have to check but I think it starts off first offense 500 to 1500 for the first offense and then at 1500 to 2500 and then it goes up to 3000 to 3500 or somewhere along those lines yeah it could be more on the first offense I'd have to look at it but we did change that and you also you won't give a rental permit to people who are repeat offenders isn't there a provision there that you know if you do it so many times we're not gonna let you have rental permits well no I don't think that's that's exactly written in the law like that I mean once you satisfy the violation in justice court then you potentially can't get a rental permit after that okay yeah how much is the rental permit depends on how many bedrooms are in the house so you're routine on an average it's about three hundred and twenty five dollars $275 to $325. And that's your typical, your two-bedroom house would be $275 or $225. However it works, it's $75 per bedroom after that. And that's each year? Each year, yeah, annually. And we inspect annually, too. So we change that. We don't do the biannual inspections anymore. The fine is a set fee regardless of one-bedroom or three-bedroom? Yeah, the fine for no rental permit is a set fee, and the penalties, provisions, and the code, yeah. So we kind of look at if it's a three-bedroom home, it should be three times the price of the permit, you know, so that if you were going to be paying $300 for a rental permit, you should be paying $9 when you're caught. Oh, without one? Yeah, based on the size. Because that's what they're doing. They're looking at what the cost of the permit is, and then that's what they're trying to decide on whether or not I'm going to get it. Yeah. If the violation is the same as almost the cost of the permit, then why get the current permit? Why not gamble and see if I get caught? This is a thought process. Yeah, sure. Good point. That's a good point to look at. Yeah. All right. And in that same vein, maybe there's a provision we can work on that. If you're a repeat offender and you do this a couple times a year, which is not going to give you a rental permit at all. Yeah, I would probably have to defer to Eric on that to maybe comment on whether that's legal to do, you know. It's out of my wheelhouse. Okay. All right. Rental properties, since we're spinning off into it. Here's Eric now. He's sort of a... I thought that we had something in the code so that we're working on that. It had to do, I think, with building permits. You're just prohibited from getting it. I was wondering if we had a similar situation with if you're a repeat offender on this allowing rentals. No rental permit. Is there a provision in the code? It states that they can't get a rental permit if they're a repeat offender. There's a certain number of them. I don't believe so. Can we do something like that? I would have to look into that. Yeah. I'm not sure. I'm not sure that we can. Because I know we do something with the building permits, right? I would assume there's some kind of constitutional implications to doing that and sort of like your right to use your property in a way that is generally permissible to everyone else. Okay. So we can look into that. Okay. It's never really been contemplated before because of those constitutional implications. But I'll certainly look into that. Okay. Yeah.
Rental properties. We'll jump right into it. Okay. No problem. Inspections, we had 71. Permits, we issued 89. New applications. That were submitted, we had 53. And revenue collected for the month of October was $26,625. Year to date revenue is 287, 750. My question now is we have to go into every home every year for the rental permits. Yeah. How are we on course for that? So as we're now running towards the end of the year, are we hitting every single rental permit? Every single rental home this year? We're doing the best we can because we have to rely also on the owner requesting the inspection and being there at the time that we're inspecting. So we do have some issues with owners that get the three-month registration, fail to call for their permit for their inspection. So we're, you know, it's a constant tug of war, you know, to get that inspection done. But we're doing our best. We're doing the best we can to keep up with what we have. But the permit wouldn't be given until the inspection is completed, right? The permit wouldn't be given. So what we do right now is we issue a three-month registration, giving them three months to get the inspection. If they fail to get the inspection within three months, they got to start all over again. Yeah. So, but, you know, it's a tug of war though. Application fee? Yes. A whole other application fee, you got to start over. Yeah. I just want to make sure. We get three months. Three months, yeah. Yeah. So I want to make sure we're getting in these houses every year. Yeah. We're getting in as best we can. We lost a couple of people, as you know. We're trying to rehire some people. We got to retrain some people. So there's a little bit of a lag right now, but we're getting there. So where are those job opportunities posted, in other words? So we're looking to hire code enforcement? So, yeah, we had two part-time code enforcement officers we're looking to hire in place of Kyle. They will be probably specifically doing rental inspections, and I'll cover a big bunch of our backlog. Are they on our website or something? How will people know that? It's on the website. It's available. It's on the website. Ashley's already taken in a bunch of applications, and I think we're trying to set up interviews for next week. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. All right. So just notes, several active interviews. Several active investigations are being monitored for potential Supreme Court action. We're in coordination with the town attorney's office on that. Additional training and internal review sessions held routinely with the town attorney's office for enforcement procedures. Code enforcement staff continued work in collaboratively on multi-violation properties and compliance monitoring. And that's about it. If you guys need any further details, I'm available. I just want to ask you about something that Councilman Rothwell was talking to me about the other day. At Diggers, with the garbage bins in the back there, it's really getting out of hand. Is there a way we can have more code enforcement watching that situation? Well, so me and Councilman Rothwell talked about this yesterday. I did have Hernan Morales go out there yesterday and assess the situation. And he did talk to some of the business owners in there. This problem has been going on a very long time. It's been going on for at least 25 years. I think Supervisor Hubbard can attest to that. Absolutely. I have emails dating back to early 2000s that this problem ... And it's constantly happening. So we got to look at some other methods to control the situation, I think. And I'm open to ideas. I have some ideas. I've been talking to Councilman Rothwell about them. And maybe we can address it that way. Cameras are a great solution. But I think there's other things that we can do to tighten it up. The reason I'm mentioning it is because I think you were mentioning also about increase in furniture. Because of the apartments, people are leaving and they're just dumping their unwanted furniture. So it's getting worse with the apartments. A dozen mattresses in there. It's constant. So we used to have Love Em Shelter there a long time ago. I think you remember Love Em. And they had the apartments upstairs. And so they would always ... They wouldn't have a dumpster, but they would just throw ... If they had an eviction or somebody was leaving, all the furniture, all the mattresses, the dressers, they would all just end up in that corral. And it's a nightmare. And then you don't know who did it because you get there too late unless you're digging through garbage to find an outlet. You want to use it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. You want it. that are down there that are not participating in the cost of those individual dumpsters, but still just putting their stuff in there. And they're just putting it in anybody's dumpsters available or often just putting it right in front. Yeah. And the garbage companies, they don't pick it up. So they pick up their dumpster, and then when they're done, they just slide it all in the back. And it's becoming a health problem now. Absolutely. I agree. Yeah. It's part of a really bigger problem, and I think we could probably discuss it at another town board meeting. And just really drill down into it. I've talked about the sanitation district, but I think it's time to go that route to take a closer look at it and to see and get the opinions of others. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But cameras, like I said, a great idea. And PD has done it before. We actually almost had somebody, but the camera sort of didn't pick up the entire plate the way that the vehicle pulled in. So we didn't get it. But cameras are a great idea. Just if you position them correctly, you can get a plate. You can get a plate number. Or even a body, somebody coming out of one of the buildings, and you can identify them to be the one that dumped the debris there. Or maybe, yes, the police maybe patrol certain hours at nighttime, just kind of every now and then go past it. Because they're not going to do it in broad daylight with everybody seeing them. And at the end of the day, this is our parking lot. That's right. You know, these dumpsters are private dumpsters. They're rented by the businesses down there. We're giving them our parking lot. And it just becomes an enforcement nightmare. And it's not fair to the businesses that are paying to utilize the dumpsters. And I know that they've tried all kinds of things with different kinds of locks and, you know, trying to secure the area. It's just not working. Not working. So, yeah, we've got to explore, dive down, and get other solutions to this issue, I think. When you see car parts and tires, there's no businesses down there. With that kind of garbage? No. No. No. That's like legalities of two where there's, I think in that currently there's eight dumpsters in there. And so they go three deep. So when one carter comes to pick up their dumpster, and they're pulling out other people's dumpsters, moving them over to get to theirs. And then that causes conflicts about, well, my dumpster's damaged or broken. Or that's because another carter's picking it up and moving it. Because behind that dumpster is full of debris. Mm-hmm. So I'm going to comment in advance. I know that Kentester and his staff are determined they're going to be working on it next week, cleaning out the whole corral. But, I mean, it's a cost that we're going to have to get payloaders in there and dump trucks to remove it to clean it all up. But we've got to see what we can do in the future. Yeah. And this is not the first time they've done it because they've probably done it at least 30 times. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, you've been talking about trash compactors. Yeah. And I think that's a viable option. That's a great idea. And, yeah, that's what we were talking about yesterday. So maybe we can have a meeting about that and just kind of lay it out how that would work. Maybe do a pilot program just for one area, one problem area, and try to address it. Actually, that area is by far the worst. It is. There are the other corrals that are around. Yeah. And the corrals that are around generally don't have that issue. Well, on the south side, I don't know if you remember. You probably do remember. They had corrals over there. Yeah. Yeah, over by East End Arts. They were a big issue. And the supervisor at the time decided that we were going to remove the enclosures and let everybody put their dumpsters on their own private property. The problem with that is if you're on the south side, those businesses don't have any property. So now where are the dumpsters? They're on the sidewalks. And they're scattered all throughout. So that's not really a solution either. So really, yeah, we do have to really mean about this and kind of drill down into it. All right. All right. Thank you, guys. Thanks, sir. Okay. And the last item we have on for open session is matters surrounding amendment to Chapter 217, accessory dwelling units. All right. And that will be with Howard, Thomas, and Downs also.
All right, so this is amendment to our old accessory apartment permits, which were under Chapter 105. And so they used to be under the commissions and board sections, and we no longer have an accessory apartment committee. I think that was abolished. When was that? It kind of dissolved around not long after the original legislation was adopted, which was about 25 years ago probably. Yeah, so in light of that, we had a lot of other things that we needed to do to kind of bring us up to speed with respect to accessory dwelling units. So Dawn had worked on something, and she sent it over to me, and I looked at it, and I kind of just – she had a lot of great ideas and a lot of good points, and I just kind of – what I did is I just kind of reorganized them a little bit, and I separated it. I put it out of the Chapter 105, and I put it into our Chapter 217, which is our permits section of the code. So with that being said, we can move on in through the code and the purposes of each section so that the board gets an idea of what this is. Just globally speaking, there were just a few big points. One was we had a cap at 250. We also had a three-year. We had a three-year CO requirement before that you needed to have a CO for three years, and there were just a lot of practical things that we needed to address, and we have ADU grant money coming our way too. So we worked – as Rich said, we worked together to bring this up to speed and address some of the issues that needed to get handled. So just looking at – and I just pulled up how many accessory apartments. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. Actually it's only about 50. But the cap was originally 250 and I that was really just put in place because the town board at that time Was anxious that this would be overwhelming. They'd have an overwhelming response, which clearly was not the case. So that's why we Not really that concerned about it because 20 plus years later. It's only 122 How does that work this throughout the entire town So when you hit for example the 500 mark somebody else comes in and the answer is no Well, I think I think it's a kind of see how you go situation You know because when we first started this code back in the day it was You know for a bunch of different reasons to help with affordability to help people with a maybe had a family member They wanted to be able to live close to and that that has been More and more needed over time and so The cap we bumped from 250 to 500 I I would say if you get close to that and you look at these stats and you could kind of like Regulate and see where it goes But the the other side of it is if you had an overwhelming amount of them If everybody had an ad you and they have to be an owner-occupied Dwelling then you have a lot of other impacts of traffic and parking and you know There's a lot of other things school district other things that go with that So I think what we tried to do is like simplify the code so it makes it a little more user-friendly Look at the things that we had been kind of Using to regulate it worried about what might happen down the road and realizing that those weren't needed And made those changes and then rich did the technical end of it too because he's does the day-to-day Enforcement operations and the permitting stuff and so that was really a critical piece to make it simple I didn't have a chance to review this but That's a good point. I understand the cap All right, because I think what do we have like 16,000 plus, you know residential Whatever. Yeah, but but what's the parking? Is there a parking requirement to your points? In other words if somebody on 2nd Street has Some room in the back and we know there's no parking there What is there anything in this code that addresses the need for parking? Yeah, we have we have some parking Okay, I just have to have a chance to I you know I mean I can go through it if you like What each section is So to 1719 we established a town's objective for safe code compliance a to use we replace the old board system with the building department administration and 21719 supports lawful affordable housing options while preserving the neighborhood character. That's just the purpose section We've added some definitions It provides uniform definitions for ad use owner occupants floor plans, etc We support lawful affordable housing options while preserving the neighborhood character to 17121 is our permits and standards section Adu permits is you know separate from a CEO or building permit a valid CEO Or certificate of compliance is required before the issuance the five-year permit term as Dawn's stated the cap is 500 owner occupancy required This is an important one. So want and one ad you per lot no 80 use on any two-family or multi-family parcels would be allowed under this code units allowed within the attached To the home or in a lawful accessory structure So you would be allowed per middle permitted to have an accessory apartment or an ad you in a lawful existing garage or accessory structure size limitations are 400 square feet minimum 40% of the home or a thousand square feet and it must be one bedroom units. I'm just going to point out. How there charge I asked he did a little research in planning and feels that maybe we could eliminate the minimum square footage and keep that maximum because it it could limit homes that are like a thousand square foot from getting an ad you so it was and it's not it's The comp plan sort of recommended getting rid of that. It was great. She pointed out out texted me or emailed me this morning I think it's a good point so we were gonna and I didn't get to talk to rich about it before this but I think we'll take a look at that yeah that's fine but the pre-existing units will still be able to maintain their you know whatever the square footage was at the time of the adoption of the laws I think it was like three three hundred or 350 was the minimum or something exteriors must maintain the single family appearance one headed paid off street parking space so that's in there and this is like the meat and potatoes of it 217 122 is our you know application requirements so a complete application must include proof of owner occupancy and so we add in the code so that they would have to provide the proof that they that they live there so three months of consecutive utility bills that are tied to the service address government issue ID matching the address form of a driver's license or anything that has your address on it that's government issued these requirements ensure that the applicant actually lives on site and prevents the adu program from being used to mask unpermitted to family homes that's the key component of just trying to prevent people from going in and buying a house it's now registered in my name I include electric water heat or services you know within the rent they're all put in my name bills are sent there you know I pay it whatever maybe but that's what I just want to be certain and moving forward that there's a absolute proof that the owner is physically living in there so I see prior to this it says you're looking at like a five-year long permit which I think is a pretty long time yeah you know I can set up shop get the house already rent it out then I move out rent my other second place with you know and I just I want to make certain that this doesn't become a business that it becomes a way to really enhance the ability for especially young homebuyers trying to get by you know and you want to create what we used to always call mother-daughter residences you know and and I agree with that concept I just my concerns is how do we proving that these owners are staying in these structures and continuous living especially for walking away for five years yeah well I mean that's I think what we're doing here I know the five years is when you have to reapply for a permit but they if they are renting it we will also be inside the house so we can also rental permits are annual so we're going to be inspecting it annually in addition to the five-year renewal that they have to do for the ADU are you gonna expect a permit for both places no so well if I'm asking if I'm asking for a permit for an ADU I just built beautiful small house in the back are you gonna come into my home as well to make sure that I'm living in that home and that I'm renting to the back of property I think the entire property needs to be inspected as a whole where is the occupant living well I know your headquarters and show me where you're renting I think that we can only really inspect and correct me from Roy's hair would have to if somebody's applying and if they're looking for a rental permit I think the boundaries of the rest of the the occupancy is the only portion of the structure that we can access I don't think they better think we're going to the the owner occupied area I did premises of a rental inspection but if we're requiring that the owner occupied be there then that should be part of the actual permit process you should be able to go into both facilities and say I need to see the residency that's not an office or something else or just it's it's two other rented family homes so I think it should be part of the whole process every five year ADU renewal and that's where the home ownership is essential so we checking and double checking that if after let's say five years or three years somebody's no longer living that they can transfer these permits to if they transfer property and the new resident is an owner also that works but they have to provide the same proof of owner occupancy is the prior owner after the five year they would if they couldn't do that then the ADU permit would be not issued and they would not have a permit and then you know it would be gone and so you know it was trying to cut a balance and I and I completely understand what you're saying you're absolutely wrong it's just you know between the people who are legitimately doing this and being invasive to their lifestyle versus the people who are illegitimately doing it which we usually find about out about in other ways also and then you know we can go investigate write a ticket if the neighbors are complaining you know for sure there's ways to do that and how do we address homes that are purchased under business names LLC's and so forth how are we going to confirm that they are in fact living on those premises this is where we get into the proof of ownership the three months of consecutive utility bills tied to the average addressing in some individuals name is going to be done with a business with an LLC if I set that up them I'm gonna be all inclusive it this rent includes electric and key yes so now I have a driver's license with an LLC on yeah that's what I'm saying so is it going to be in the driver's license gonna be tied to the president of the LLC in a corporation I know maybe one of those rebuttable presumptions again that fits to an LLC yeah I was gonna spin it that we have presumptive evidence in here to scope I'm stepping ahead of you I'll let you explain sorry if I'm jumping ahead question we have a presumptive evidence section as Mary Phil just said so we can you can get into that after go through the inspection so the inspection process what we did here is so we authorized inspections for issuance renewal and reasonable cause follow-ups and like I said a rental a recent rental inspection already covers if it already covers the safety items that may be used for the EDU renewal to avoid duplicate visits you know unless the staff believes the new inspection is necessary so this was kind of an important thing because we didn't want double inspections happening in one year so if somebody applied for a permit building department would do the inspection and they get the rental permit and we do the inspection and then three years later we get the same kind of scenario and sometimes it's off years and I do the inspection and building department does the inspection if we're both if we only really need one CEO to do the inspection and I think that's covered under our rental permit so we do the kind of same sort of inspection that the building department would do and so we eliminated that so that an inspection by us by the code enforcement division the auspices of a rental permit would satisfy the inspection for an ADU so renewals requires up and if you're going to renew a property you're you're back into requiring a proof of residency so you're back into that showing us your license showing us your utility bills whatever proof we need to do that for a for a Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale down here because otherwise this is going to become a business yeah they are and and they're going to be purchased under llc's and corporate names and the electric will be under llc's and corporate names yeah that's me i own that business i live there no you don't so i really think that there has to be very specific criteria to prove that the owner is living there so like you say a specific driver's license many people have driving licenses peel boxes on it that's not helpful in any way so then you have to say if your driver's license has a po box or a business address you are no longer eligible right it doesn't work because a deed could be 20 years old it doesn't help at all it's got to be something current something official like as rich said a government uh issued document whatever is necessary to show you know uh that a person actually lives there yeah and we i want to spin off that because also in proof of residency and i didn't mention it here but we also have uh properties with separate meters so there's there's an also provision in here where a property you know contains a separate separate meter the ownership has to provide bills for both and show us that he's in one and the other one's being utilized by you know their tenant the other tenant have to be the meter have to be in a different name yeah it would obviously yeah it would definitely have to be in a different name because if somebody's renting and renting the accessory apartment unit um that would be under the tenant's uh name for the meter yeah is that written in here that's what i'm saying it's well the the presumption that two meters indicate some kind of rental option is uh in the code already and we are now building is now not allowing two meters this had been happening for a while with rational explanations that that is not happening anymore because of this exact situation with people getting multiple meters from properties and claiming that they were residential properties when indeed there was either a commercial rental or a residential rental happening and uh you know people were fibbing about it the owner of the property is the one that's going to be residing in the accessory so and then they're renting out their main space like how does that how does that work where you're showing it it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's 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to avoid every loophole. Yeah. We try to consider everything and you pointed out some very good ones. It's just hard to get drilled down and get to every single loophole and of course we got to also rely on our investigative techniques and to try to determine if actually there is a person living there and we do that on the back end of things. So I can I can own a home here and now I'm retiring and so I'm gonna go down to Florida. So I buy a condo down in Florida and Riverhead is my official address and I have a driver's license that says there and I'm keeping that as my official address. Then if I go to Florida and I live my life down there and meantime I'm now renting my house to one individual the main house and now I'm doing a secondary you know accessory unit and I'm renting more so I'm doubling my income. I'm doing pretty well while I'm living full-time down. We're gonna catch it. Yeah absolutely. 100%. And that's what I want. I want to know how you're gonna catch me. And that's what I want to see. David's gonna rat you out first. Absolutely. As Rich said and Eric and Victoria deal with it all the time. You know there are people who say things and they're easily disproven and code is very good at making sure that they they do not get away with those things. Are any of the other surrounding towns doing this? Yes. I think I know South Hold is doing it. We've been doing it. I think you know Riverhead was a little pioneering in this back in the day for sure. People were very frightened of it at first which is why that 250 cap got imposed because I was there at that time. I know most of the West End towns do it and it's now being viewed as a very helpful thing to address affordability and keeping you know families and families safe. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think it's also important for Sale. Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for Sale uses it for with it in it, which wasn't allowed before. I think the fear was that people would, this three year requirement came into existence because people were fearful that you would build a house with an ADU and everybody would be doing this and everything would become a two family. You know, legitimate concern for sure, but it didn't happen that way. And so this situation with the funding could provide a good opportunity for families who want to keep their young grandchildren here or keep the parents here from going to Florida all the time. And people can live comfortably in a legal way and get some financial assistance to get there. Can I just ask a question with regard to the definition of the dwelling unit? Is there a language that expressly states that this has to be for, this basically can't be an Airbnb? Do we have language anywhere that this has got to be for over 30 days? I don't see that anywhere in here. Otherwise someone could just say, yeah, I've got an accessory, I've got, you know, subordinate unit attached to a single family dwelling. It's not specifically in this code. Can you add that? No, it's not specifically in here. No, I'm asking, can we put that in there so it's in big bold print? I think a dwelling unit and a transient use are two very separate zoning classifications. We do not consider a transient rental a dwelling unit.
It is a, you know. I agree with the Councilwoman in the fact that, again, you know, you have some properties that are on magnificent locations. And so you have a beautiful backyard, a beautiful setting, and you say, I'm going to put a small little session unit in the backyard and I'm going to make money on it. Then it does become an Airbnb project. So if they're applying for the ADU, I do agree with her, that then it has to be a long-term rental, year-long rental. So if you read the definition, you're saying, yeah, it's a, if you read the definition of accessory dwelling unit, at the very, it says, including permanent provisions for living, sleeping, eating, cooking, and sanitation. So it's intended to be a dwelling unit, not a transient rental. Well, I just. We can tweak it if you want. That's no problem. They're not staying permanent if they're renting. They're never, that's not permanent to begin with. So that's why I just like the language. Maybe somewhere in bold letters that, because I think Airbnb, I just mean even for clarification for people that want to do Airbnbs. They're going to think, oh, this says I can do it. Yep. That's exactly what I want. But I think we have them on the hook under our existing ordinance for you can't rent under 29 days. So I mean, it's in the rental code. But it's not in here. I'm just saying. I'm just, yeah, I just thought it'd be good for it to be But still, is the ADU unit being built for 29-day rentals? Or is it being built for long-term residents that are living in the after-residence? And we can just add to that definition and say, you know, not for, and not for transient or short-term rental. And I think that would cover that. Because people rent six months to a year, usually, or one-year, two-year leases. So that's not permanent. That's what I mean about, I just want to tweak that better. You could say that an ADU unit cannot be rented for less than six months or something like that. It becomes more of a permanent. So in case it's a seasonal thing where somebody comes up every summer and stays. But that's it. You're not going to find that. And this definition, dwelling unit, is defined in the state code. And the latter part of this definition is exactly from the state code. And there's plenty of determinations and technical bulletins on what permanent provisions for eating, sleeping are in the state code. So that's why. So the council mentioned permanent prison. You put that in there. And ADU is not permissible for a 29-day rental permit. And then all of a sudden, that ADU shows up on Airbnb. You have an open and shut case. They signed off on that, on when they got that permit, that they were not going to be renting it for a long time. They were going to be renting it for less than, I'm thinking, a six month period. Yeah, we can put it under presumptions and revoke it in the law. Yeah. So similar to what we did with rental inspections, the same thing. So yeah, we'll tweak it. OK, moving on. Presumptive transfer of ownership. ADU permits do not tr- that's 217.125. ADU permits do not transfer automatically. Transfers are not allowed. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is, if you're not a permanent, you're not going to be able to get a permanent permit. So that's the first thing. And then the third thing is, if you're not a permanent, you're not going to be able to get a permanent permit. So that's the first thing. ADU permits do not tr- that's 217.125. ADU permits do not transfer automatically. A new owner must apply to prove residency again and pass the inspection process. So this prevents inheriting illegal ADUs. 217.126, that's the presumptive evidence section. You know, the standards that code enforcement follows to maintain the lawful continuity of this law. And, you know, they include objective indicators of violations, unpermitted units, no owner occupancy, unauthorized transfers, and continued use after revocation. So 217.126. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. accessory dwelling unit, public advertisement, online listing. Well, how would these people advertise that they have an IDU then if they can't do public advertisements online? I'm just kind of confused about that. It could be any one of those. Right, but they're not permitted to do that, right? No, they are permitted to do it, but if the advertisement says accessory dwelling unit for rent, it doesn't say 29 days or it's not on Airbnb and we don't catch it there. You could advertise it for rent. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm just confused by that because people want to advertise that they have an ADU, right? Yeah. So we're going to tweak that about that you must have it that it's renting six months or more. Otherwise, how are these people going to rent these things out without putting it in advertising? Do you want it six months or more for ADUs? Or do you? Would you prefer just the 29-day? I'd like six months. I don't know about anybody else yet. So this has got to be long-term stuff. Yeah, I would say over a year. Yeah, six over a year. Me too, honestly. So we can start. We can cap it. I personally would like a year. Yeah, I mean, we could say that the rental has to be for a minimum period of a year, and then if something happens and somebody passes away in three months. Then they have to end the lease. Yeah, and then they have to re-rent it. But other than that, they have a death certificate that the person actually died. Yeah, why would we penalize them for not? Why would we penalize them for dying? Or if they move out. I mean. If they move out before the lease is over. If they terminate the lease, I guess. He makes money. He must be going to the hospital center. In some cases, though, there are some cases out there where they are true mother-daughters and they're not rental permits. Right. In those cases, you wouldn't need a rental permit. Right. Yeah. You would just. They're not paying rent. They're just sharing the quarters. They just have a separate quarter. An ADU has to be a full-time resident that's in there. Renting it, you know, on a yearly basis is fine. It takes Airbnb right out of the equation. Define full-time resident of an ADU and just make that whatever. Yeah. You know, you want it. You want the threshold to be six months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Once a year, whatever. And then we can just use that. You know? Yeah. When you update this, if you don't mind, if you can like put it in red lettering or something to change. Yeah. Show us the changes that you made based on the discussion today. We made so many changes in this. We just rewrote the entire thing so you can see that. We just hacked. We did. I started working on it and then I was like, that's it. We're just going to start all over again. From today's version, just show us some things that we can do. Absolutely. I think, too, if you're not renting it, you may not know. not have a lease that person's just gonna be a family member that's living there it would still get inspected but you know through the five-year program but I think if you go from my point is if you if it shows up on Airbnb your court let's make it simple we did yeah we did that but those are first but now this for an ADU unit it would be different you put it on the rent in a deal for 30 days you're an automatic violation because you it can't be rented for less than a year so it takes Airbnb completely out of the equation if it's truly a second source of income and you're looking for a longtime person to live yeah that makes logical sense you want that's another category of presumptive evidence six months no good I'm just thinking about the seasonal you know the person who's going to live there and they're going to live there right so I went six months for somebody that goes down to Florida for six months comes back or this one person comes back in the summer and they're only renting for six months and then they go back to Florida but that doesn't really work because we just said we don't want these people they have to live there well go down to Florida I think as long as it's an owner occupied property that's the most important thing so if you're the ADU occupant and you're that let's say the young family owns the home the parent lives in the ADU they go to Florida for the winter they come back I get it I go somewhere or you know a person in that situation so they have the same they probably would want to do a longer-term lease anyway so that they have it for multiple seasons in a row but the owners got a stay coming back every year it's still a year long yeah 100% they're not gonna rent it in the other on the winter and they probably this hands down we agree the owner should live in one of the units on the property that's that's right I'm not gonna tolerate any nonsense it's gotta be the case the owner can't go down to Florida for six months that's the point so we also I think the owner could go to Florida as long as nobody's renting their house you know you're oh no I meant I meant if they have it of course yeah I meant if they have an ADU they just can't say see you in six months they've got to stick around yeah they're still owning it right now like I said there's loopholes everywhere yeah down to Florida and then somebody's gonna fly around trying to fix something on the door they say no that that's my friends who are there you know trying to like you know the person who's legitimately actually trying to it to get it done I think good pretty good at getting those who are not complying I'd like to think so we have though there's another there's two thresholds to the presumptive evidence section and I don't know if you'd take a closer look at it it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's To your hypothetical, Councilman Rothwell. I am not going to Florida. If we get a complaint, it's in here that, you know, we can move off of that as presumptive evidence also. And the penalties are pretty stiff for violations. Councilman Kern, you're going to be happy, I think. I looked at them already. They're okay. They're okay? They're okay. I mean, they're not. They're okay. And they're going to go up next year, like everything else. If you're violating, you know, they can administratively revoke your permit. Yeah. Yeah, so enforcement section, we'll get to the end. The building department and code enforcement have the authority to enforce this code. Building department, of course, because they're issuing the permits and code enforcement because that's what we do. Officials may request proof of residency at any time. So at any time during their ADU permit process. We can request that they provide new documentation. So, and if they do not provide it, we can revoke the permit. So it's in there. How does that work in terms of eviction or anything else when you revoke the permit? It's just defined? Well, I'll get to that because now we have also civil penalties here. We can institute civil penalties in Supreme Court, do a TRO, and get them out. It takes a while. It takes a while, but I mean, these are, you can't just kick everybody out. You have to. And I think you've seen through code and town attorney's office that the Supreme Court actions are pretty effective because you do a few of those and then people get the message. So not every single one do you have to do. It's just people are less likely to fail to comply when they know when, you know, it's publicized that you're bringing multiple Supreme Court actions and these are the things that you're doing. They're just. It calms that all down a little bit. It doesn't get rid of it completely, but it definitely impacts it. I have an example, and this is how we're doing in Wading River with that house that had 30,000 people living in it. It's vacated. It is a vacated. Yes. Great job. It is. It's vacated and they legalized the basement space. That was a great collaboration between code and building and town attorney's office. What I like too is DSS stopped the checks going to the individuals going to the house. That was the key. Always. That was the key. That was the key. Yeah. It was very helpful. That was what. So yeah, civil penalties are in there. We can get into that. You can see conjunctions. Can I just ask a question about the revoking or suspending the permit? Mm-hmm. So now that unit is just going to sit vacant. The assessment of the property has gone up. Your taxes have gone up. They were probably relying on that income to be able to pay the new taxes on it. Can they sue you for not allowing them to? I think that's a great point. I think, Joanne, I think it's a great point that it's in, we could put that in the code that you can't recoup this money from the town because your own. Misdeed. Yeah, but then you're going into foreclosure possibly. That's an argument that we would make in court if they tried to. Go for reassessment. Bring the election against us. I mean, the general principle in any litigation is that you can't come to court with unclean hands. Right. So if you had your permit revoked because you were violating the town code, it would be difficult for you to bring a case against us saying I'm paying this level of taxes on the property. You're not allowing me to rent it the way that it's being assessed. But then we turn around and say, well, but you did that to yourself. You violated the town code. What are the consequences? Signature when you made the application that said you were going to comply with the code and then you didn't. So, you know, I think that would be a sufficient barrier against something like that. And if you are a recipient of a grant from New York State, you can bet that they're going to make you sign all kinds of affidavit and documentation that it is owner occupied. And that if you do not comply. You wind up getting your permit revoked that your grant is going to be recaptured. So those that's generally how those work, too. So there's going to be a little bit of another backup in there for those that to use that funding. And if this code does pass, let's just say and you eventually years down the road, it's never touched again by a town board and you max amount, you know, your aid user 500. And that creates a waiting list. And if a property is sold, this is the new owner. And if you're not able to apply and complete and continue as an ADU, what do you then say? No good. We go over to the waiting list and we take the first person waiting on the waiting list. So if you're saying it's not transferable, you know, if I'm buying a house and somebody's telling me, hey, this is a great house to buy because you got a house and an ADU and you're going to make money. And then you buy it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's transferable. Just not in the terms that you just described. I mean, if you sold it and somebody else bought it, they could, you could get, the new owner could get a new house. They could get an ADU permit. It's just not in the other owner's name anymore. Okay. So, but they would also have to live. But it doesn't help somebody on the waiting list that's waiting. Well, the waiting list, yeah, I know. The cap was 500. I just, I just thought that that was probably appropriate because we only have 100 and it's been since 2000 and when? Since we adopted this law. I would be fine, 2000. We only have 122 right now. Yeah. I think if, I think if you, if the, if the home is sold, then I think you, you go back onto the waiting list. So typically with land use things, the permits run with the land, not with the owner. So you can't tag an approval on a property to the private, the person, the identity of the person owning it runs with the land. So that's why we provided the transfer opportunity. If they can't show that they live there, no permit, no transfer. You understand though, those become more valuable properties. Yeah. Somebody else that's on the waiting list that needs the help never gets the shot at them doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. sort of a cross that bridge when you get to it determination based on what's happening at that time in the town what everything else looks like and whether you even think that's appropriate but certainly not a you know guaranteed right to have it you're going to get a permit for it uh if you comply and if there's a cap uh and the board wants to evaluate you know removing the cap or increasing the cap then at that time you can do that i as as richie said you know and i i think this was early 2000s that we did this yeah i think so uh 121 units it's it's not been a prolific thing people were afraid of well just based upon the comments that came up just with regard to what you're doing with the other code eric and everybody wanting to keep talking about 14 day rentals or less i think this is really going to start exploding i think you i just want to make sure people don't take advantage of that trying to turn it into airbnb i agree with you i totally agree with both of you on that yes and i agree that it shouldn't be um short-term rentals adu is that's not the purpose of an adu an adu is for permanent living percent no i totally agree with you i agree with you yes definitely yeah if i'm buying a home and and you have the land available part of the purchase it makes mathematical and financial sense to say okay if i'm buying a home for a million dollars in revan and if i can get an additional two hundred thousand dollars on my mortgage and build an adu on my property and i know i'm going to turn around and i'm going to collect twenty five hundred to three thousand dollars a month renting that out because that's what the going rates are i mean i think that it's going to become a common practice people are going to just simply do the math and go you need to put one in right away that's going to be the new trend of home buying is to get those revenue generated incomes on your property and you're foolish not to do it you know but i do think those in the higher income brackets are less likely to do it they don't want to deal with the headaches the person that's buying the million plus house doesn't want to deal with the headaches of having to collect rent or have a tenant on the property you know that's something i think we've seen these are going to be more of a the average price home or the lower end home where they're trying to really as joanne said like really make ends meet where are the lower end homes i was going to say that's a good question well you could do it in any property downtown you could do it in polishtown area those are sort of organically affordable there's organically affordable stuff in the western section of aquabog and then or even some in the eastern section and here and there throughout the entire town waiting river and james fort you could find something that would work but those that are you know if you're buying a three million dollar waterfront house in aquabog you're probably not putting an adun yeah you have to grant you know grant availability too i mean you know we can double the size of this code trying to close every loophole and it's still there's still going to be bad actors who try to capitalize on the math that councilman rothwell brings up um and that's that's what code enforcement ultimately is for uh i think you have to look at the underlying intent of this which is to ease uh the what has practical practical considerations for families but then also practical considerations for your residents who are grappling with higher taxes and how they can generate additional income to mitigate that impact and that's really what this is designed to do and that's why it was brought up at the state level and has sort of filtered down to us and included in the comp plan so uh you know no matter how we adopt this if we adopt this we can always come up with enforcement techniques to knock out the bad actors and go after them and take them to supreme court or keep them in justice court that can always be done um yeah i just i don't want to i don't want to lose sight of the of the sort of primary purpose of this by focusing on what we anticipate bad actors will do which they're going to do anyway and probably already are doing well i just want to say that because the whole goal of this is to help homeowners right right well the other side of this is i don't want to see homeowners turn into homeowners i don't want to see homeowners turn into homeowners hoteliers and me and just make profits left and right buy a home just for the purpose of generating a whole lot of extra income for themselves the idea is to help someone who's in trouble to keep themselves afloat and not end up in foreclosure and help other people get some housing when it's not readily available i just want to try to make sure you know because i'm thinking about the rest of the neighborhood that wants safety and security and wants to make sure that this is not turning over and they don't know who the heck you know what's going on and i think that's a really important is living next door from month to month so i want to try to nail this down as tight as possible i agree with you i just want to say one thing to what eric said and i just want to let you know this is not a new law we already have an accessory apartment law into under chapter 105 it's already going the programs have been going on yeah but the three-year occupancy is what yeah it was changing we went from three to five yeah yeah used to have a must to do that? No, we just were trying to simplify the process so they didn't have to get a rental permit every year and then get a, you know, we're just trying to clear the deck a little bit and we felt pretty comfortable with a rental inspection that you would pick up a change in occupancy, you know, code's going to know that it's an ADU when they go there, they're going to be able to see you know, where's Mr. Jones, oh well, you know, no longer or there's another family living in that other unit. I don't believe I'm changing the subject but from you overseeing the building department and doing an ADU, how does the septic system play a role? We're gearing this towards these small houses but, you know, to help people like you say with income, where are you going to put these additional septic systems? That's a great question. The county of Suffolk, Suffolk County Department of Health is dealing with that issue. That is a very important thing that they know they have to deal with because of this because they're promoting ADUs widely and if you speak to County Executive Romaine it's been one of their top priorities to deal with so they're going to try to go back to adding the grant for the IA systems so that people can get additional funding to create the septic that they need but there could be limitations to that depending on how big the property is, how big the home is, how many bedrooms it has already. You know, you have a limitation on four bedrooms to start with. If you're going to five or six, you're going to, you are absolutely going to the health department, you are absolutely getting a health department permit and you're absolutely upgrading to an IA system. So that could be a cost prohibitive thing and I know the county's, you know, keenly aware of that. When you talk about like, you know, the homes here in Polishtown, some of those lots are pretty narrow and you say, okay, I'm going to take that back garage, I'm going to make it an ADU but I don't see where you're going to put your, your it's going to depend. If you're on the sewer, if you're in the sewer district, like if you're on, you know, second and third street, that's, that's a different situation than if you're in Polishtown off the septic, off the sewer system. So, you know, those are additional things. There's, I think the state realizes that there is a, you know, plethora of regulation that makes things complicated for people to get these things done. They're like, oh yeah, we're going to do ADUs, it's going to solve everybody's problem. Yeah. And it was like, wait a second, great question, Suffolk County Health Department, great, great question. You know, three-year CO, there's all these little spider webs of, you know, intersecting regulation that complicated if you're in a coastal area and you're doing a 50% addition, you know, renovation, you're going to need to lift the house up. So, you know, where this works isn't going to be 100% available to everybody in the town. It's just not going to be. But that's, but that's why I feel that it's going to enhance. Yeah. Those that have the larger properties and the higher value properties, because I think those in the lower income may not be able to afford to build this or simply have the site plan to do it anyways. And in turn, we're going to end up enhancing the wealthier properties than being able to help those that are great need. But there's money available for the low rent. There's money available to help those people. To help those people. If they're brave enough to enter the process. You know, it's very, you know, it's a lot. It's a lot because the location of the septic system, you know, surveys, construction drawings, if you're not using an existing, you know, building on the property, if you're adding, all of those things are a lot. And just the fact that the idea sounds great. I'll rent out this other dwelling on my property. You have to make sure if that tenant doesn't pay your rent, you've still got to furnish all the water, the electric. Yeah. And you have to. You have to evict them. You have to bring the eviction proceeding. And that can take a year or so. So hopefully this is more inter-family oriented that where, you know, an older parent or a young family want to team up and work the house together so that everybody can get a little help with each other. Then that would be fantastic. I think that's really the goal of this. And then for those who have, you know, want to stay in place, can rent that, get that extra income. But as you say, it's not a simple process. So we're trying to make it as easy as we can here. So during my time on the board, we have had discussion about having people come into compliance because they already have these, you know, finished basements, finished upstairs over garages. I think that there's probably over 5%. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. come back and revisit. I mean, I love this idea. I've spoken with everybody here in the past. I have an 88-year-old mother-in-law that's by herself at home. I'd love to have her be able to have a spot. Yeah, and they don't always want to live in the house with the family, and sometimes the family doesn't always want, like I'm a mother-in-law, I don't think my son and his family would want me living in their house necessarily. We don't want to live there now, not with those three babies. My kids don't see this because they're going to think that they're going to build a place for me and my husband in our backyard so that they can have the house. Yeah, it's a rock and shower on the porch for me. Where do people go for the grant application? So we are going to be able to launch that in the beginning of this year. Our Lawyown Housing Partnership is our partner with that. They came and did a presentation. It was about a year ago, so it's taken us a while to kind of push through the process. We're going to do this, but we'll be ready to kick it off in the beginning of this year. It goes through the town? Who's the decision maker on the grants? The Lawyown Housing Partnership is going to do the administrative work for us. They're working with New York State Homes and Community Renewal, who is the source of the funding, and those will get done all through them, and we'll find out when we... Do they make the decision? Do you make the decision? They're going to be... No, no, no, I do not. When the application is submitted, we're speaking to them. Is this made through the town or the Lawyown Housing Partnership? No, the Lawyown Housing Partnership. They do this for multiple other towns, and it's required by the grant that we partner with a not-for-profit to do the administration of the funding. What's the grant for? $125,000. $125,000? Up to... Pretty good? Yeah, it's not bad. I really feel like you're going to take all of that for a lot of people to get to where they need to go with all the things that we were discussing. Yeah. I do also want to say to Councilman Waski, because I know there are a ton of them out there, and some of them are in basements, and some of them are in garages and things and such. This application itself doesn't just give you the permission to go ahead and just rent your space. You have to first get a CO and a building permit before you can get this. So the building department has to get a building permit application first, and then it has to be inspected. It has to be inspected to be in conformance with the state building code before for egress and ingress. Right. I was just saying that if we granted that amnesty that has been discussed to get people to come and not be penalized for getting the COs, how many will actually come out and do it? Because in some cases, the people that have these basements, they're unsafe in most cases. They don't have the egress windows, and then they just don't want to come in and do it. Because it's going to put them out because they have to cut into the foundation to create a window or cut into the foundation and create stairs to get in and out of it. So those particular individuals are still going to be unlawful, and they probably will never come forward. Yeah. But you go, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you go after those people. Yes. If you don't respond to the amnesty program and you're like triple the fines, what's cheaper? Right? So whatever that length of time for the amnesty program is, it's an opportunity to come into compliance. It can't be a $100 fine if you don't. Because you're already going after those same people. Yeah. I'd rather have a safe structure. Yeah. It's inspected. Absolutely. It has the egress than one that isn't. Yeah.
Especially if nobody wants to see you. When you're coming down the street on your horse, it's like, oh, I'm sorry, Richard. All right. We beat this up enough? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So I'll make the changes that the board requested, and I'll get you copies. Okay. So you can see them. Great. Reading. Reading. All right. Thank you, guys. Thank you. All right. That concludes everything we have for open session. In a moment, we're going to close open session and go into executive session to discuss under personnel matters surrounding committee appointments. Under contractual, we have matters surrounding possible license agreement between the Town of Riverhead and the USGA. That will be with Hurley. And we have matters surrounding an intermunicipal agreement with Howard and Hurley. And we have possible agreement with the Town of Riverhead and the CSEA with Hubbard. So I would like to make a motion to close open session and go into executive session. Second. Second. So moved. So moved. He shouted out second before first. So I'll go first. Second. You made the motion. Normally you, you know. All in favor of closing open session and going into executive session? Aye. All opposed? Okay. Open session is closed. We won't see the public again before Thanksgiving. So happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Enjoy. Don't spend your Christmas with the people of the community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. paycheck on Black Friday but spend some money locally for sure and have a great holiday have a great weekend thank you everybody
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