by Alex Brooks
With a full complement of Trustees attending the Hoosick Falls Village Board meeting this month, they again took up the question of the new zoning law, which has been about three years in preparation and is now ready for a vote. [private]Mayor Borge introduced the topic by saying that the zoning laws in Hoosick Falls haven’t been updated since 1977, and a revision of the zoning code is overdue.
Once again the discussion of the new zoning law focused only on the issue of whether keeping chickens in back yards should be allowed or not, but this time several advocates for banning chickens were present.
The section of the law about chickens contains extensive prescription of how they are to be kept, and how far from property lines, and bans practices which might cause problems for neighbors. The full text of it was read last month by Ted Kolankowski of Barton and Loguidice, who has been helping the Village to develop the new zoning law. Those who spoke against allowing chickens focused not so much on whether the law contained adequate restrictions as on the problem of enforcing those restrictions. They were concerned that those who keep chickens may not strictly follow the rules, and thereby become a nuisance to their neighbors.
Joe Shaw said back yards are very small in much of the Village, and if chicken feed or chicken waste are not handled well, it could easily cause problems for the neighbors, from attracting rodents to contaminated runoff crossing property lines, to stinky conditions on humid days in the summer. Such conditions would require Village personnel to spend time getting chicken owners to clean up their act.
Kevin Allard asked, “Who’s going to be the chicken checker?” He said the Codes Enforcement Officer has his hands full already, and said he didn’t think it is a good idea to give him another headache to deal with.
Joe Shaw said he had a problem with one of his neighbors whose dog’s waste in the back yard was making Shaw’s back yard so stinky that he couldn’t use it, and he said it took seven to eight months to get the problem resolved. Shaw felt that it would be wiser to eliminate the potential for such problems in relation to chickens by simply disallowing the keeping of chickens in the Village.
Trustee Kevin O’Malley had made inquiries over the last month of other towns and villages which allowed backyard chicken keeping to find out what their experience had been. The answer seemed to be that a significant enforcement effort was needed to regulate it. He said the Town of Colonie had two to three calls a day on chicken issues, and the administration felt is was a burden responding to the calls.
A resident of Abbott Street named Gary Keegan also spoke against allowing chickens.
The Board then discussed among themselves where they stood on allowing chickens. There seemed to be a consensus that allowing chickens is a bad idea. Trustee Karen Sprague said she had a lot of people telling her not to vote for allowing chickens. Several Trustees said they had not heard from anyone advocating in favor of chickens (although Mayor Borge reminded them that three people spoke in favor of chickens at last month’s meeting).
Village Attorney John Patterson said if the Board is going to significantly change the part of the law about chickens, it could not vote on the law at this meeting. A revised law would have to be put forward, and a Public Hearing held on the revised law. And with that, the matter was tabled until next month.
Water Expansion Rich DeGuida from MRB Engineering spoke to the Board about the plans his company has developed for expansion of the Water system. The plan now contains 22 potential new service areas, and the estimate for serving them all is close to $30 million. Since this is a sum of money the Village can’t hope to gather, the project has been broken down into six phases, each somewhere around $5 million. DeGuida explained that since the maximum grant a municipality can get from the Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC) is $3 million, and that grant can only pay for 60% of the project, a project of about $5 million maximizes the possible grant funding from EFC.
Phase I involves running a water main along Route 22, south to the Central School and north to Route 67. These mains would serve 199 properties. The cost estimate for Phase 1, including replacing the Rensselaer Street booster station, is $5.4 million.
MRB submitted a grant request at the end of August, and DeGuida said he expects to have some indication from EFC by the end of September of what the chances are of getting funding.
Mayor Borge said he had received the money from New York State to pay for the study that MRB is doing, which was $46,000. He told the Trustees that since he had the money, he went ahead and paid MRB’s invoice from June and July, which amounted to $18,800.
New Water Mayor Borge said the effort to find a new water source is moving forward. He said DEC had identified four potential sites for a new well. Three of them were found to have insufficient capacity, so ongoing testing is now focused on a single site. Borge could not say yet where it is.
Borge also said New York State had volunteered to refurbish the Village’s existing Well #3, and that project is moving forward also.
Borge said the filtration units for the full-capacity filtration plant are being manufactured right now and are expected to be delivered by the end of September. He expects the new filtration system to be operational by mid-December.
New Truck The Village received bids for a one-ton pickup truck for the Highway Department. Carmody Ford offered one for $36,567, and DePaula Chevrolet offered one for $37,071. Trustee Bob Ryan said the Chevrolet more fully met the specifications in the bid request, and for that reason Highway Superintendent Niel Stowell recommended that the Village accept the DePaula bid even though it was $504 dollars more. Village Attorney John Patterson said it was OK to accept the higher bid as long as the reason was specified and the difference in responsiveness to the bid specifications was clear, which in this case he said it was. The Board approved acceptance of the DePaula bid.
LED Lighting The Board was supposed to have presentations from two different companies about a project to replace light fixtures in all of the Village’s buildings in order to save money by using less electricity. But at the start of the meeting only one of them was there, so James Buono from Potentia Management made his pitch. He said after the project was completed, the Village would pay $36 a month more than it is paying now for the first two years, which would take care of the cost of installation (a significant portion of the cost of installation is covered by a subsidy from the electric company). After two years, the Village would be paying $534 less than it is paying now. In addition, Buono said the LED bulbs last about 15 years (they are guaranteed for 10 years), so there is a lot less expense changing lightbulbs.
The trustees liked the sound of this, and agreed to have Buono’s company draw up a contract with all the details of their offer and send it to Village Attorney Patterson for review. After the Board had agreed to go forward with Buono’s company, Clark Howe showed up representing Integra, another company that does LED replacements. He said he had been stuck in traffic. The Mayor told him he was sorry but the Board had already agreed to pursue a deal with Potentia.
The Board also approved a liquor license for Yucel Erdogan for his building on John Street, and approved renewal of a liquor license for Gregory Zora for the Back Street Saloon.[/private]