Farmingdale Village residents who may be remiss in trimming their lawns or cleaning up their yard may soon find themselves hit with fines a bit faster then they may have expected going forward.
At the July Board of Trustees meeting, the village unanimously voted to pass a measure that would amend local code to allow officials a significant amount of leeway when it comes to enforcing property maintenance, according to Mayor Ralph Ekstrand. Essentially, this will remove a great deal of red tape and tighten up timelines for compliance before fines are doled out, he said.
“This is more of a cleanup procedure than anything else…we used to have a timetable, especially with ‘zombie properties’…you would tell the property owner that they had to maintain their property and that they would have ‘X’ amount of time to do it, and if they didn’t we would hit them with a summons,” he said. “Now, we want to cut to the chase and say, ‘Look, if you don’t mow your lawn, if you don’t maintain the property, we’re going to “zap” you with a fine right away.’ ”
Ekstrand said that previously, code dictated that warnings had to be given in each instance, regardless of the past behavior of the property owner; now, he noted, the village has the ability to levy fines immediately upon repeat offenders who refuse to comply with local ordinances, and actually step in and conduct maintenance themselves if a resident—who would be billed for the work—proves unwilling to cooperate.
“For example, if we give you a week and you clean your property up, and then three weeks later the grass is growing again and you haven’t cut it and you keep doing it, this gives us the right to say that we’re going to ‘zap’ you,” he said. “If they don’t clean up the property, our public works department goes in under our current code and cleans up the property, and then we’ll charge the resident for it. If they don’t pay the bill, we have the legal right to apply it to their taxes, to actually put a tax lien on them if they don’t maintain the property.”
This new law affects all properties in the village, residential and commercial, as well as vacant lots and so-called zombie properties—abandoned homes normally left by their previous owners in an unsightly state of disrepair.
“The village has approximately a dozen zombie houses left, which is actually pretty good for a village with all the problems that have occurred since the mortgage fiasco of 2007,” Ekstrand said. “We are currently maintaining all of the zombie properties in the village, and billing their owners appropriately. That includes vacant commercial property as well.”
However, Ekstrand pointed out that this new measure isn’t simply about cracking down on people who don’t mow their lawns or pick up their garbage; it also allows the village the flexibility to take into consideration times when a resident may have a legitimate issue impeding their ability to maintain the upkeep of their land as well.
“We understand sometimes there are extenuating circumstances, which is why we have the discretion to delay the fine,” he said. “The way the law is written, it gives the Superintendent of Buildings the discretion to handle this on a case-by-case basis…we don’t want to hit the 80-year-old widow who has no money to maintain their property… we can work with them to maintain the property and help them if we can.”
Mobile Food Trucks
The board also revisited a previous public hearing regarding allowing mobile food vending trucks to operate within the village. At the May 2 meeting, the board voted to allow food trucks owned by Main Street-based restaurants to operate off of Main Street for expanded evening hours on weekends. The proposal was then sent to Nassau County officials, who asked for a minor few changes to the measure before it was enacted.
“Nassau County owns Main Street, the village does not, and anything within 500 feet of a Nassau County-owned [roadway] has to go past Nassau County Planning. So, we are we redoing this public hearing because Nassau County Planning required that we be a little more specific in regards to the placement of the vehicles,” he said. “We’re changing the local law in two different ways…one, we are only allowing food trucks on Main Street when Main Street is closed for fairs and festivals, and two, we are taking each individual truck on a case-by-case basis as to the placement for safety reasons and to protect the residents in terms of residential noise. For example, we would never put a food truck in Parking Lot Number 2. That would not be a suitable place to the proximity of houses there.”
The Mayor also announced that Municipal Parking Lots 3 and 7 will be getting facelifts soon. Ekstrand announced that bids—not to exceed $35,000—will be going out to engineering firms to help design the much-needed upgrades.
“These parking lots really, really need to be redone,” he said. “The $35,000 is for engineering company to make plans and designs and yes there will be foliage and street lights…there will be trees in all of the parking lots.”
