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YORKTOWN, N.Y. The Town of Yorktown announced Tuesday night that it may vote to extend the moratorium on building any and all accessory structures, after continuous re-drafting of its accessory structure law.
The moratorium, which was originally intended to last three months and was voted into action on Aug. 2, restricts residents from building and obtaining permits for an accessory structure unless they ask for a public hearing before the board and can prove a hardship as to why their building has to be built during the moratorium.
The issue arose after the board planned to advertise the accessory structure law for an earlier date, but there was confusion made with the law and they were not permitted to advertise it last week. A motion was then made to advertise the accessory structure law for a date at Tuesdays board meeting. This accessory structure law is the reason the board sanctioned the moratorium in the first place.
At a previous board meeting in August, Supervisor Susan Siegel said the moratorium was necessary to revisit any ambiguous language in the accessory structure law. Siegel said the town board realized last year that some of the regulations in the zoning ordinance, enacted many years ago, were vague and ambiguous resulting in a lawsuit.
So we decided that we need to revise several sections of the zoning ordinance dealing with the size of accessory buildings, she said. There are many different questions that touch on many different aspects of this issue and because this all surfaced at a time when our building inspector, Bill Gregory, was retiring, we didn't have an opportunity to really get involved in and discuss the different possibilities."
Check back with The Daily Yorktown for an update on the proposed accessory structure law, as well as the potential moratorium dates. In order for the moratorium to be extended the town has to advertise it, which the board voted to do Tuesday night. Then, the town is required to hold a public hearing. The Daily Yorktown will post those dates as they become available.
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