Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutAnimals SOUTHOLD TOWN BOARD PUBLIC HEARING October 9,2007 4:40 PM COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN there has been presented to the Town Board of the Town of South old, Suffolk County, New York, on the I Ith day of September, 2007 a Local Law entitled "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl!: to Animals" AND NOTICE IS HEREBY FURTHER GIVEN that the Town Board of the Town of Southold will hold a public hearing on the aforesaid Local Law at the Southold Town Hall, 53095 Main Road, Southold, New York, on the 9th day of October, 2007 at 4:40 p.m. at which time all interested persons will be given an opportunity to be heard. The proposed Local Law entitled, "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl!: to Animals" reads as follows: LOCAL LAW NO. 2007 A Local Law entitled, "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl!: to Animals". BE IT ENACTED by the Town Board of the Town of South old as follows: I. PURPOSE - To update the regulations concerning the keeping of animals in the Town of South old, and requiring that a property owner harboring peacocks be located on at least ten acres of property. II. CODE AMENDMENTS. Chapter 280 of the Code of the Town of South old is hereby amended as follows: S 280-13. Use regulations. In A-C, R-80, R-120, R-200 and R-400 Districts, no building or premises shall be used and no building or part of a building shall be erected or altered which is arranged, intended or designed to be used, in whole or in part, for any uses except the following: C. Accessory uses, limited to the following uses and subject to the conditions listed in 9280-15 herein: (8) Housing for and harboring of horses. livestock including sheep and goats, and domestic animals other than household !lets dogs and cats, provided that such Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 2 housing shall not be constructed within 40 feet of any lot line. The housing or harboring of such animals shall be conducted for the use and eniovment of the residents of the primary residence only. (a) Peacocks may be housed or harbored in the A-C zoning district only, on parcels no less than ten (] 0) acres in size. (b) Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any line. Chapter 83 of the Code of the Town of South old is hereby amended as follows: Chapter 83, ANIMALS DEFINITIONS UNREASONABLE NOISE - Anv excessive or unusually loud sound or any sound that either annoys, disturbs, iniures or endangers the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of a reasonable person of normal sensitivities or which causes iniurv to animal life or damage to property or business, except the sound from agricultural operations. Standards to be considered in determining whether "unreasonable noise" exists in a given situation include, but are not limited to, the following: (]) The volume of the noise. (2) The intensity of the noise. (3) Whether the nature of the noise is usual or unusual. (4) Whether the ori gin of the noise is usual or unusual. (5) The volume and intensity of the background noise, if any. (6) The proximity of the noise to residential sleeping facilities. (7) The nature and zoning district of the areas within which the noise emanates. (8) The time of day or night the noise occurs. (9) The time duration of the noise. (10) Whether the sound source is temporary. (11) Whether the noise is continuous or impulsive. ~ 83 5. Penalties f-or offenses. [:'.mended 7 31 1973 BY L.L. No.1 1973] ,^.. ,'.frY person committiRg an offense agaiRst any pfo'/ision oftais article saall, llj'lOR cOR'/iction taereof, Be gllilty of a viEllatiElR Pllnishallle by a fiRe Rot exceeding $250 or BY imprisonment for a term nElt exeeeding 15 days, or BY both saca fiRe and ill'ljlrisElnment. The cElntinllatiElR of an Elffense against tae pfEl'iisions Elf this article shall cElnstitllte, fer eaca day tae offense is cElntinlled, a separate and distinet offensc aercllRder. B. In addition to tae allElye prElyided pcnalties, the To"yn BElard may alsElmaiRtain an actiEln Elr pfElcceding in the name Elf tae TElv.-n in a CElllr! Elf cElll'ljletent jurisdictiEln to cElll'ljlel compliance ','lith or to rcstrain by injllnction the 'iiolatiEln Elf this article. ~ 83 13. Pcnalties for offenses. Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 3 f.ny person committing an offense against aay provision efthis article shall, apon conviction thereof, 13e gailty of a violation Pllnishable 13y a fine not exceeding $250 or 13y imprisonment for a tcrm not exceeding 15 days, or 13y 130tk sach fine aad imprisonment. ARTICLE IV. General Regulations for Keeping of Animals other than Dogs and Cats. &83-19. No manure shall be kept onsite, other than as permitted pursuant to &280-12. &83-20. The disposal of animal wastes shall be provided for in such a manner as to prevent anv nuisance or sanitarv problem. 983-21. No accessorv building or structure or part thereof used for the housing of livestock or domestic animals, other than dogs or cats, shall be less than 40 feet from anv lot line, per &280-13. Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of anv lot line, per &280-13. &83-22. No person shall keep, raise, house or maintain anv animal that shall constitute a nuisance or create a hazard to public health, or in anv manner that shall annov, iniure, disturb, or endanger the comfort, repose, health, peace or safetv of other persons or the public. &83-23. Noise No person shall keep, permit or maintain anv animal, including a bird, under his control which frequentlv or for continued duration of at least fifteen (15) minutes makes sounds which create unreasonable noise across a residential real propertv boundarv. &83-24 No person shall allow anv animal including livestock and fowl, to run at large elsewhere than upon the premises of the owner or custodian unless said animal shall be on a leash or accompanied 13'1 a person at least 12 vears of age, having adequate control of such animal, or unless it be upon the premises of another person with the knowledge and consent of such person. &83-25. Burial of animals. A. No burial of anv animal in a front 'lard shall be permitted. B. No burial of anv horses or livestock (including sheep and goats) on propertv less than five (5) acres, excluding propertv where the principal use is agricultural. Article VI Enforcement. &83-24. Penalties for offenses. A. Anv person committing an offense against anv provision of this article shall, upon conviction thereof. be guiltv of a violation punishable 13'1 a fine not exceeding $500 or 13'1 imprisonment for a term not exceeding 15 davs, or 13'1 both such fine and imprisonment. Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 4 The continuation of an offense against the provisions of this article shall constitute, for each day the offense is continued, a separate and distinct offense hereunder. B. In addition to the above-provided penalties, the Town Board may also maintain an action or proceeding in the name of the Town in a court of competent iurisdiction to compel compliance with or to restrain by iniunction the violation of this article, III. SEVERABILITY If any clause, sentence, paragraph, section, or part of this Local Law shall be adjudged by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the judgment shall not affect the validity of this law as a whole or any part thereof other than the part so decided to be unconstitutional or invalid. IV. EFFECTIVE DATE This Local Law shall take effect immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State as provided by law. We have several notices, but first it has been officially put in the local newspaper as a legal, it has also appeared on the Town Clerk's bulletin board outside as a noticed meeting. I have in the file a short environmental assessment form for unlisted actions that shows that this has passed the SEQRA test and I have a note from Mark Terry, LWRP coordinator. "Regarding a Local Law in Relation to Amendments to the Town Code relating to Animals. Based upon information provided to me, it is my determination that the proposed action is consistent with the policy standards and therefore is consistent with the L WRP," Let's see, what else do I have. I believe those are the only official letters that are in the file on this particular public hearing. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay. Pat? TOWN ATTORNEY FINNEGAN: I just have two comments, the reference to manure which is 83-19, that reference was from an earlier draft that had been taken out by, so that line 83-19 should be deleted. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay. That is the section to refers to no storage of manure on site. We struck that from the law in that, in the value, sitting down with the Horseman's Association and horse owners outside of the association, their concerns about being able to store manure on site, We listened to their concerns, we talked to code enforcement and other people that have been involved on the front line of this for years and they felt like that didn't present a problem, so that we could remove that from the reference. Another one, go ahead. TOWN ATTORNEY FINNEGAN: One other comment was, this also applies to R-40. the R-40 zone references the accessory uses here. So it is all those districts that are listed and the R -40 district. Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9, 2007 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Another issue was, there was a reference made to harboring for enjoyment for the property owners, that was not meant to say that you couldn't sell eggs if you had chickens. That was speaking to the issue of boarding and these de facto boarding operations in resident zones. We again, that was an issue that was raised strongly by the Horseman's and Livestock Association and subsequent horse owners that I met with. We discussed the issue and again, that was an issue that didn't make sense in that it is probably practical for someone who has the facilities there to offer housing and boarding to someone else who have a horse and doesn't, you know, want to pay the cost of that. We struck that. This was all the result, again, this has been coming up and then it has been tabled several times. We have tabled it so I could sit down with the different groups and listen to these different suggestions. There was no, I think there was a misconception that this is somehow trying to restrict and prohibit animals and chickens on properties in Southold Town. That is not the case. There was supposed to be a two- fold effort here, to have a law that says that we recognize your right to have animals, livestock and such but that there should be at least broad operating procedures so that the owner that is put out by that rare occasion or someone who isn't a good steward of the land or a good caretaker of the animals, we have redress at the Town level. Someone mentioned earlier of the cost of all these years of having to deal with the Town on this issue. I would submit that that is the result of a bad code. Because it didn't really offer clear indications from what she could do and what the owners could complain about. That's what this law should do. It should look at the issue from both sides of the fence and be fair to everybody. That is what a good law would do. It would be fair to both sides of the equation. Again, we want to hear the comments because if any of these are problematic, we want to know so we can sit down and revise them like we have been doing and I have been doing on and on with the Horseman and Livestock Association and the other horse owners from Southold Town that I have met with. We don't want to create something that is arduous and I think because it is the silly season, I know a candidate was out recently saying that we are looking to prohibit livestock and horses from properties. That is not true either and also this had no reference to farm operations. There was another reference made in the Suffolk Life last week about prohibition and farm livestock operations. That is not true. These are for accessory uses, accessory uses of residential property. They have no relationship to agricultural operations. That being said, I would welcome anybody to come on up and please outline the concerns that you have. 5 COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: And please, we have a big crowd tonight so, you have to come up to the microphone and identify yourself so we have a clear record so we can get your information and please, let's all be neighborly here. UNIDENTIFIED: Why don't those people come and sit in here? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yeah, we have got a perfectly good jury box with 12 or so seats. You are welcome to sit in, I am sorry, this is classic Town Hall, we don't have enough room but by all means come in. And you are certainly welcome to stand along the edges if the seating is not available. Also please remember to state your name and hamlet for the record. Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 STEPHEN HUSAK: My name is Stephen Husak from Mattituck. My family goes back to the 1920's in this Town. Eleven years ago, I moved into my grandparents house, purchased it from my father. I am a member of the Mattituck Fire Department, I am assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 39 Mattituck and I am very upset with what I am seeing in this Town. It seems that we just keep kowtowing to the Lexus and the Mercedes drivers and I think you guys have forgotten this is a middle class town. It is people who put the time into this town that deserve to have what they have. My son rides. My horse right now is on Shelter Island. It is coming back to Mattituck next year somehow. I can't afford $800 a month for a full board. I can afford somebody's house where I do half the work and I am just, I am tired. I feel like I give so much back to this community and they come in here with their Mercedes and their Lexus' and they throw $2,000,000 down on a house and the next thing you know, our way of life has disappeared. I left Nassau county II years ago, the town where my father lives, you can no longer keep a boat on a trailer in your driveway. This is a town with 200 years of waterfront commercial and recreational history. What is next for us out here? Ten years ago the Cochran administration tried to take trucks away from us. No 10,000 pound trucks with commercial plates on it until they realized that everybody on the Town Board had a pickup that disqualified it and that went down the road. But had that passed, that would have cost me probably another $500 a month storage fee for my truck somewhere. Remember who gives to this town, remember who busts their butt. My day started at 2 AM responding to a car accident. I spent the last eight hours doing fire education for the kids at Cutchogue East. I am now going to work. I am a business owner in town and I am now going to work until midnight. Allow me to have my horse, allow my son to live the rural lifestyle that I came here for. I don't want Mercedes and Lexus' and people telling me what I can and cannot do. Everybody deserves to have something, there is property rights in this town. You know. Maybe there is a bad person but maybe some city people need to learn the facts of life. Yeah, the guy up the block has pigs. He is going to shoot them in January. I hear so many stories of what they have to tell these kids around town of where these pigs are going on vacation for the winter. It is fact of life. It is the cycle oflife. You know, it is horse owners, it is pets, it's farms, it's livestock. This is what Southold Town was and should stay. This shouldn't become the Southampton of the north fork. 6 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I appreciate your comments. Actually nothing in the law would have prohibited you from having the horse. Nothing would have prohibited you from having the horse on your property or anything else. You know, again, there are aspects of this law, if they are troubling I would like to know what they are so that we can sit down and revise them and make them more accommodating. MR. HUSAK: The biggest problem in this town is we are now down to a one newspaper town and what they print is what they want to print and there is no choice and there is no real media in this town. Unfortunately they sold out one of the oldest papers in New York state and then became a throwaway rag that we could probably line some of our pens with. And the other one prints what they want to print and does a disservice to the town. Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay. 7 MR. HUSAK: Thank you for your time. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Would anybody else like to come up and address the Town Board? RICHARD W. GRATHWOHL: Mr. Supervisor, Richard W. Grathwohl from Cutchogue. My family has had horses on our property for 50 years. In the last 20 years I have let people keep horses on my property without any charge. I have two acres of property. Now from what I hear, from what you just said, which I want to clarify is that you took that provision that you do not have to be a horse owner to have horses on your property. Is that true? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: That is right. just so you understand, again, we put original draft on the table. At every step of the way, I have included the input from the East End Horsemen's and Equestrian Association. And then other horse owners who have said, well, I am not really active there, I have my own concerns. I just met Saturday night two weeks ago with local horse owners to listen to their concerns. This is a work in progress. I looked to the horse owners for guidance in crafting this. Because like I said earlier, we know 99.9% of the horse owners and the chicken owners, they are good people. They understand that fundamental obligation to be good stewards and caretakers and at the same time, enjoy their animals. So we were looking for that input. MR. GRATHWOHL: Thank you very much. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. Ma'am. CARLA ROSEN: Hi, Carla Rosen, Peconic. And I do very much appreciate you including me in this conversation. Indeed, he sought out conversation from someone who wasn't a member of the local association. I have been a horse owner for 20 years. I haven't lived here for all those 20 years but I have been a horse owner else where on Long Island and chose to live here because of the environment. And I don't own a Lexus or whatever. But I am concerned about this gentleman who spoke prior to me at this location because if he is planning on bringing a horse here and doesn't currently have a horse on its property and if it is not a large piece of property, your stipulation saying that it has to house this horse 40 feet from the end of the property could indeed mean that he might not be able to have a barbecue or a patio in his backyard or a pool or whatever else he might need because of the restrictions of the way in which the property is laid out. You weren't requiring X numbers of acreage but you are stipulating by this requirement that obviously it has to be large enough so that you can keep your animal at least 40 feet from the property line but still in all, most people that have horses and love them don't want to have to necessarily have to have them in their house with them. My husband is allergic. So that being said, I had sent a number of letters to the group, I think you had probably all seen them in the past and I won't rehash areas that you have been wise enough to have deleted from your proposal but there are still some issues that I find still Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 8 need to have a second look and that is regarding the noise issue. My horses are very quiet. So I don't have to worry about hopefully long discourses between them unless it is mating season. But your proposal would put me into a position where I would have to defend myself should someone come to me or come to you and say there have been lots of noise coming from that farm over there. those horses are making so much noise. So your proposal is putting me in a position to have to defend myself. I don't appreciate that. You are spreading a very wide blanket and no one should have to defend themselves against an errant suggestion of impropriety. The other thing I wanted to mention of course, is your suggestion that you need to have 10 acres for a peacock. I don't own birds but a horse can live on a Y. acre and a peacock has to live on 10 acres? Am I missing something? I must be missing something. Regarding the sound issue, I live next door to a vineyard and I knew when I made that purchase, that I was going to have to hear the sounds of a farm. I actually love the sounds of a farm but I don't appreciate the sounds of gunshot this morning at 6:30 in the morning. Somehow they are firing rifles on a regular basis. I don't appreciate the sound of missiles flying over my head. I somehow think I must be listening to the evening news and they are replaying the earlier tapes from the other side of the world. I hear farm vehicles regularly very early in the morning and later on in the day and when they are harvesting it goes on and on. And I have come to appreciate. My next door neighbor also has a catering facility and the noise from there is unreasonable. But they and I have come to an agreement and they end their parties at 10:00. and I bought myself a pair of earplugs. So we now get along quite well. I think in general what happens is it is easy to create laws. It is very difficult to enforce them. Very difficult. And if someone were to come to you and make a complaint against their neighbor, honestly, you would never be able to resolve it. All you would do was to create more hostility. What I would like to see this group do is make a Board, give a Board some ombudsmanship if you are familiar with the term, ombudsmanship, make people into good neighbors. Rather than creating a punitive system, let people become good neighbors. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Before you go, this is a good time to clarify, this is a good opportunity to clarify some of the misunderstanding. We are not proposing a 40 feet setback. That is actually part of the existing code. It has been part of the code since 1983. that is not new. What happens is, when you draft additions to existing law, the whole law comes forward, so it includes those things but we didn't put that on the table, that was passed when I was... MS. ROSEN: Well, if you are revisiting this law, maybe that is something that needs to be looked at. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: It has worked well for the 30 some odd years, how long have I been out of high school? Twenty five years. MS. ROSEN: Who would have loved to have had horses but couldn't because of the 40 foot setback. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Go ahead. Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9, 2007 ED STANLEY: My name is Ed Stanley and I am here with my wife and my neighbor Marie Aldi. I am the gentleman who lives on Hyatt Road East, Marie lives on Lighthouse Road adjacent to Ms. Summers who has chosen to leave. Many years ago, a resolution to regulate animals in residential areas came before the Town Board. Vocal opposition was so organized and so vehement, that the Board chose not to pass the resolution. The subject became a political hot potato and has not been revisited in the ensuing years. We hope that history does not repeat itself. We hope the Board will consider and pass Supervisor Russell's new proposals. Those opposed to any regulations have an easy rallying point. A ready pool of supporters on whom to call and a commonality of purpose. But there is another group of people who do not have that benefit. They are people who presently own homes in residential areas and have no protection whatsoever from a neighbor who chooses to house multiple animals on minimal land in a manner that infringes on their rights and jeopardizes their quality of life. I am speaking about the adjoining homeowners. Since 1999, myself and my adjoining neighbors have endured horrendous intrusions to our quality of life. We live with the stench of urine soaked ground, not the smell of horses, hay and leather. We live with peacocks screaming at all hours. Not the sound of barn owls or the crowing of one rooster at dawn. We look out not on horses placidly grazing in a field or munching hay in a dirt paddock but on piles of manure, loaded onto trailers; horses struggling to walk in muddy water up to their knees huge metal cages built as high as the roof to house birds. We are bitten by mosquitoes breeding in kiddy pools used as duck ponds. And we have even witnessed backhoes dragging animals into graves in the front yards. Weare not against animals, we too love the rural character of Southold Town. We are confident that the majority of horse and livestock owners tend to their animals appropriately and maintain their properties for their animals well-being, their own pleasure and with respect for their neighbors. Unfortunately that is not always the case and it is incumbent on all of us out of respect to us all, to protect all of us. Most particularly, it is incumbent on this Board. It may be that this resolution should not go before the Board right before election, since the timing may influence the vote. It is respectfully requested therefore that this issue be put on the agenda for the first meeting after elections so that the vote reflects true consideration on the merits, not the timing of the resolution. If this resolution is tabled with no future date for reconsideration, history will indeed repeat itself. It is time for an equitable, fair and reasonable solution to this long existing problem. Thank you. 9 RON CHIV ALAS: I am Ron Chivalas of Riverhead and I am here as vice president on behalf of the East End Livestock and Horsemen's Association and its 250 plus members, a vast majority who live in the Town of Southold. Some 15 months ago, the members of our Board asked and received a meeting with Supervisor Russell after a disturbing article was published concerning possible animal control legislation to be proposed. During this meeting our Board found that the root to this article was due to abuse of a couple of individuals using animals as a form of punishment towards neighbors and Supervisor Russell stating that the Town needed a tool to stop such behavior. We as a Board agreed that this behavior was unacceptable and part of our mission was for individuals to be good neighbors. But was legislation the answer? At the time we discussed a livestock license, such as for dogs, why the police or code enforcement could not handle the issues and that this was a rural community and how do we not disrupt that fact? The meeting Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 10 was closed with the Supervisor stating we could come up, he would come up with a draft and would work with the EELHA for its input on anything proposed. Almost a year passed and a rough draft of this present proposed town code was presented to us to get our views and suggestions. We as a Board asked for the time to review and do research for the proposed code since this was far from anything we had discussed at our first meeting. after doing a fact finding survey to get accurate information from our members as how this could affect our quality of life, investigating into criminal and civil laws which were presently on the books in the County of Suffolk and the State of New York and how they could apply to the few problems that had propagated this issue and asking questions of individuals to find out who and why these actions were occurring, a series of Board meetings were held to draft our proposals. We met twice with the Supervisor. On the final meeting August the 7th, our Board presented a written proposal of items we felt needed to be admitted or revised if a town code was to be enacted that the majority of the Board could support. At the September 11, 2007 Town Board meeting resolution 2007-739 was presented to the Town Board members and with limited discussion, was adopted. The EELHA board members present at that meeting were given a copy of the resolution 20 minutes before the discussion and in our haste we said it looked good and the problem areas we asked to be admitted were removed. But certain language we asked to be added was not and was overlooked. This brought about further examination of the document and found additional problems in article 4, section 83-19 of the code. On September 29t\ our president met with Supervisor Russell to iron out these issues so we could bring this whole matter to a close. The issues in question, according to the way they are written here and if we can say the items that we had in question are going to be stricken have been resolved and we continue to look forward, to support this Board in helping to bring this resolution to conclusion. Since this matter was debated some 24 years ago, to almost this exact date, Southold has grown far bigger and faster especially in the past 10 years than anyone thought or imagined and additional growth is just around the comer. We as an organization with deep roots in the community realize this. That is why we educate our members to be good neighbors. Do we really want to make new laws and codes that only affect a few bad ones or citizens who make decisions without thinking them through, especially in time of grief? What we are talking about is the lifestyle that has weaved the fabric not only for this Town but also for the entire north fork. What happens here this evening and we were strongly going to urge you to bring this matter to a close but you have decided not to, impacts the rural life this Town's older families grew here with and represents the lifestyle most newcomers come here for. This is a way of life we want our children and grandchildren to experience. For those Board members who grew up here, remember what it was like. And for the members of the Board who moved here, ask yourself why you came. Please don't start to swing the gate closed on this environment. Once you do and let it go, it is hard to catch it and bring it back. Our organization thanks you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I had reached out to his group several times for input and then I had a bunch of horse owners contact me and say well, we are not really active there, so we would like to have some time to speak with you. I have accepted every recommendation they have made. We are not trying to be unreasonable. There was a person who spoke earlier that talked about how the Town has been, she has been forced Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 II to defend herself so often. I think that is again, a problem with a bad code. In that particular case, I want to remind everybody, that the only reason the yard got cleaned up was because we had to constantly send the code enforcement out there to issue an order to remedy. Because there are certain property maintenance obligations that people have. I am trying to avoid, I am trying to put an end to the civil disputes. I am trying to put an end to police officers showing up in driveways because neighbors can't get along. I think a good set of rules would protect your rights to have animals so that when someone new that moves in and says I don't like them, we have a code that says too bad, we allow them but with certain parameters to say, enough is enough in certain extreme cases. That is all that this was an effort to address and if I or anybody did a poor job at not considering all the aspects, we are happy to revisit it. Also, I want to make a comment on something that was mentioned earlier about this appeasing the Lexus drivers. The fact of the matter is, eight years ago when I was an Assessor, I had a whole community coming in looking for a tax reduction because of the way one neighbor kept their yard. The people that were asking for tax reductions spent their lives down there. they are not new people. In fact, one of the homeowners was someone who subdivided that property back in the 1920's. their family did. So it is not like it is an us versus them approach. It is just about the basic understanding, respecting someone's right to have animals and someone's understanding their respect to maintain that yard in a proper fashion. Who is next? DEBBIE SLACK: Hi, my name is Debbie Slack, I live in Cutchogue and as the gentleman before me had mentioned, we do all have to try to be good neighbors to each other without it coming to any of this. Without sounding repetitive, I am just going to read what I wrote. I am here because I am concerned about the precedence that any change in code for animals will set. Once you begin restricting one type of animal, you will surely have the next complaint come in from someone else about another type of wild lifestyle. Once the proverbial noose is placed around our neck, it can never be removed and from there will almost certainly get tighter. What makes Southold so beautiful and unique is the fact that it has remained untouched by all the laws and restrictions that have stripped the rest of those on Long Island of their right to own and care for their own livestock. I have lived out here for five years and I still get a smile on my face and feel joy in my heart when it see chickens or guinea hens free ranging in someone's front yard. I understand people's rights for peace where they live but by living out here in Southold you have to realize that peace and quiet are two different things. I find peace in the clucking of chickens, the neighing of horses, the honking of geese and yes the gobble and shrieking of guinea hens and peacocks. I certainly did not move out here next to old McDonald to then turn around and complain about the farm. Most of here are only asking to continue the traditions that have been practiced out here for hundreds of years. You may think that I am blowing this situation out of proportion but we must protect our rights for tomorrow by standing up for them today. Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. GABBY SPIELMANN: Hello. My name is Gabby Spielmann and I just wanted to ask you why did we bring this code up for change to begin with? Why not leave it alone? Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9, 2007 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Because it didn't help us resolve issues in Southold and we had a petition with over 100 names and I have to be honest and I think the Town Attorney will attest to the numbers, the sheer number of complaints that were generated from that. 12 MS. SPIELMANN: You are saying a petition oflOO people, SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yeah, that... MS. SPIELMANN: What percentage is that of the population? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: In that particular area? A pretty large one. MS. SPIELMANN: Not the area. I am talking about, we are voting for the whole town, this law... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Mmmhmm. Right. MS. SPIELMANN: This law applies to the Town. What percentage of the Town's population is 100 people? Is that less than Yz a percent? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: You know what? I think that is a specious question. Let me tell you why. I have a problem with a very noisy bar our in East Marion right now. The people that are inconvenienced by that is a very, very tiny fraction, it is a very tiny fraction of this community yet they have a very legitimate point because they are entitled to peace and quiet. You can't just run around and pass legislation only because it affects the majority. Weare here to protect everybody, equally. MS. SPIELMANN: I understand that and we do have protection for those people that would like to live in a cemetery. We have neighborhoods with covenants and restrictions that do not chickens, children, dogs. Anything you want you can have here in Southold. Why do we have to change a code that changes the entire, that affects the entire population of the Town of Southold? We moved out here 10 years ago because we like the countryside. The smells, the manure, the chickens, the guinea hens, the crows, the tractor sounds. We love to go tractor watching, I mean that is the whole enviromnent. And I just don't understand why we have to address it. You have 100 complaints. What is the population in Southold? Does anybody know? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: It fluctuates, about 21 to 23,000. MS. SPIELMANN: 21,000. So, I don't know. I think that is an important point. I don't know about you. But I think it is an important point. Another thing, this is going to cost us a lot of money. We have town lawyers doing all this research, rewriting the code. Why don't you just leave well enough alone? These people can move to these areas where none of this is allowed. They do have a choice, I respect their wishes and I hope they stay in town but I want to stay in town too and I want to stay in town for the reasons I moved here. And one of the reasons is so that I can be in the farmland. What else, Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 there is nothing. I mean, there is no farmland left. You are just opening the door to developers. Come, come and develop this land. This is the message that you are sending out. We will restrict and restrict so you can build and build. What about, do you think that the people come from the western part of Long Island to see suburbia. Oh, look, new development. Let's go development watching. I think they come out here to see the chickens. I think that they are grateful that they don't have to go to the Bronx Zoo to see a peacock. And what about the people that owns peacocks? What are they supposed to do? They own a peacock and now the code has changed. What do we do, roast the peacocks? And what about the people that can't afford 10 acres? I mean, what is it $80,000 an acre now for farmland? So that would be $800,000 so we can keep our peacocks. Peacocks live for a very long time. So now you are going to be the boogie man. Children, we have to get rid of our peacocks because now the town doesn't allow us to have grandma's peacock anymore. Oh, by the way, I don't own peacocks. But we do have retirement communities, we have developments with covenants and restrictions, so those people that are bothered by the smells and the noises and I don't know, maybe they get rid of the crows there and the deer and everything to make it nice for them and I don't know. I am totally against this. I say leave well enough alone. Don't even look at it. I urge the Board to stand what we voted you in for. Farmland is not just farmland in a mason jar. We want farmland and farmers and farm life and Polish women that can cauliflower. 13 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: This law has nothing to do with farmland. This law has nothing to do with farmland, it is accessory uses in residential zones. MS. SPIELMANN: Farm life. The life style. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Look, I would certainly fight for your right to have guinea hens but if your neighbor doesn't want them on his property, isn't that his right to tell you to keep them off his property? INAUDIBLE COMMENTS FROM AUDIENCE SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: No, we are talking about a general concept. Are we supposed to be here to regulate.... COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Wait a second. If you want to speak, you have to the microphone, ma'am. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: We have to find a reasonable balance here. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: To keep it orderly. The Supervisor was pretty clear on the reason this legislation has come up for a public hearing tonight. And I know he has worked a long time and he has worked very hard with a lot of different groups and this is how, there is a problem obviously because he receives the brunt of all the calls and complaints. So it is not something imaginary, I don't think, that he made up. So, in attempt to address the problem, this is how far we have gotten and we appreciate Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 14 everyone's comments tonight because we, you are not going to do anything productive unless you do get comments from people who anything we do is going to affect. So, we can continue on here. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you, Albert. KARL SPIELMANN: My name is Karl Spielmann, I live in Cutchogue also. I am over 40 so I have got to wear these things also. My question really is to the noise components of this regulation and really, as far as I can tell and by my research, this noise component to the regulation with all the specific restrictions, was copied word for word from Riverhead Town and is also the same noise component also in Babylon and North Hempstead, North Hempstead being a town in Nassau County. And my question is, within those towns, it is the noise regulation for all noises and all noise sources. So why is it in Southold you have chosen to single out animal owners and apply that noise component only to the noises animals make and not to the noises throughout the entire town. Because I would certainly believe that the noises generated from leaf blowers, lawnmowers and all the other machinery in Southold Town generate by volume and decibels much more noise and sound than any animals you would encounter here. So that is the first question that I have and the first fault that I believe is within this regulation. And you did speak to the fact that you looked to eliminate the bad parts of this legislation but I think when you get down to it, you are going to eliminate all of this legislation because the real core components here are already addressed within Southold Town code. And that is to the setbacks and the keeping of animals, which is repetitive in some respects within the proposed code that you had. But the noise component really I think, singles out one small group of Southolders for political expediency. I think because it is the easy group to affect change and once that change is effected within the realm of animal owners it is going to be looked to be expanded to every other aspect of Southold Town and all the other noises that exist here. And that is the one issue that I do have with it. Secondly, if there is a problem that exists with people who aren't as you described, good neighbors with the noises and peacocks and the manure and all the other issues that people have to deal with, there already exists a process by which you can settle those differences and that is civil litigation law, in which people that have differences can settle them through that process. It is not in the requirement or the town's place to settle these disputes. Nor should the weight of town govermnent be misused to harass individuals. Because call the police on someone enough and they will move is not the mantra that should be present in Southold ToWil. It shouldn't be the atmosphere that we exist within, that if you call the town police enough, if you call code enforcement enough, that that person is going to be harassed and they are going to eventually and fortunately move or be entailed and the whole process of having to come to Town Hall and present themselves to the court and waste three, four, five, six days out of work because of it. There is a process that exists and if people feel strongly enough about those things, they can take it up in civil court. Not by the town. The town should not be the boogieman that comes around and is used by people to harass other individuals. And really lastly, from what I can see, all the members ofthis Board ran on a platform that in some manner supported preserving Southold. And I just say, ask yourselves how adopting codes from suburban areas on Long Island will somehow preserve the uniqueness of Southold and Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 15 not make it more like the rest of Long Island. To not have Southold become just the east end. Because to me I live in Southold Town, I don't live in the east end of Long Island as so many people who come out here will come out here for. I believe it is unique and part of its uniqueness is the rural character that we have maintained and has been maintained by people over decades. I believe that the legislation really is a mistake. The consequences of which our children and grandchildren will have to contend with. You would be in effect be handing them a road map to suburbia. Left to ask the question, what happened to the Southold I grew up in? And really in closing, what I do is challenge this Board to reject the notion that singling out a group, animal owners, for political expediency is justified and exercise the leadership to reject this proposal today and to vote on it today. Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you, Karl. For one thing I would say is that the noise issue is the most problematic of the legislation. We talked about that, myself with some others, a few weeks ago. It is the most problematic with any code. But we have already discussed other issues of noise enforcement and we in fact currently have a code that regulates against the noise of dogs. This would be a little bit, bring it within consistency there. I think the suburban reference, I don't understand it. I grew up in this Town, I know what the fabric of this Town was; it is mutual respect. Someone is respecting your right to have animals and you are respecting their right to you to make an effort to make sure that everybody gets along. FRANK BLANGIARDO: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the Board. My name is Frank Blangiardo from the law offices of Blangiardo and Blangiardo here in Cutchogue and I have been retained as counsel for the East End Horsemen and Livestock Association. I want to support everything that vice president Ron Chivalis said and many of the speakers here tonight and I want to congratulate everyone on expressing themselves so articulately. This has been a wonderful town hearing so far. I just have a question, Betty. When was this advertised? This proposed law? Because I have been looking for it, I didn't see it. I think it was supposed to be September 27th but I don't think I saw it in that edition of the Suffolk Times. TOWN CLERK NEVILLE: It would have been published on September 27'h MR. BLANGIARDO: And what paper was that? TOWN CLERK NEVILLE: That was in the Suffolk Times. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yeah. I checked the paper. I didn't see it published in that, did anyone see it in the paper on September 27th? Supervisor, we did not have notification adequately of this proposed legislation, I don't know why. I know you said it was the silly season. But for some reason it hasn't been publicized, maybe so it could not be voted on, I don't know. But since it wasn't publicized, I am going to ask that if we do ever want to bring this up again, we have to have a full public hearing again. Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: We would probably have to reschedule one because I would imagine that this would result in substantial changes anyway to the legislation so that is duly noted. 16 COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: And then at least people would know about it and they would show up. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yes, that is right. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yes, I believe we would have quite a bit more of a turnout if it was actually properly publicized. I know Tom that you mentioned that it was publicized when you read... COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: There is an affidavit in the file that it was published on September 27'h but I don't have a copy of the newspaper itself. MR. BLANGIARDO: Fine. Yeah, I went through the paper several times and I didn't find it. I even went through the Riverhead paper but, I just have been looking for it. So it wasn't there on the 27th, so I am going to have to renew my request that if we want to go forward, we are going to have to have another public hearing... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Understood. Understood. MR. BLANGIARDO: Because Scott... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Make sure we don't get charged for that ad. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yeah, good. See, we are saving money. Supervisor, you mentioned in your earlier comments and I don't want to single you out but it seems that this is your baby. . . SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Regrettably, yes. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yes. And you said that it is a work in progress and this is my concern. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Oh, yes. MR. BLANGIARDO: Because when we hear as my constituency and my clients, the East End Horsemen and Livestock Association says and here you say it is work in progress, we are worried that you are going to bring this up on Valentine's Day, maybe you will have a few more Republicans on the Board and you are going to push through and ram it down our throats. That is our only concern. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Frank, I have worked, I have reached out to the Horsemen's, your Association before I talked to anybody else. And I have taken every bit of input Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 17 they have given me. Somehow if I get more Republicans on this Board is this going to come back? That is ridiculous. MR. BLANGIARDO: Good. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: And I think any horse owner that I have sat and talked to, will tell you, including Kate and including the gentleman sitting behind you, including Cindy; they will all tell you that I have taken every recommendation that they have given me as a good, and make for legislative changes. MR. BLANGIARDO: Right. Terrific. You know Scott, with the history in the Assessors office you know, now you seem to be making some legislation here and that is what we are concerned with. Legislation. And this Board, you know, I sit at home and I am amazed at some of this legislation. Being an airman and I see you trying to rewrite the far aim, FAA regulations with how far I can fly my airplane and the helicopters. You seem to be attacking the horses. . . SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: That is specious. That is specious and argumentative. I am not attacking anything. MR. BLANGIARDO: I am just concerned with procedure. If you want to make new laws, we have to follow procedure. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I know. MR. BLANGIARDO: You have to advertise the proposed resolution and the law in the paper and not come here and tell a packed house, three weeks before election; that it was in the paper when it wasn't. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I presumed it was. We have, that is something I will have to address with the Town Clerk and the Suffolk Times but we will certainly try to verify that. MR. BLANGIARDO: Now, I have one simple, you know, I could go on for hours but why are we not voting on this tonight? SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Because it is imperfect. Because there are several aspects that need to, Mr. Spielmann mentioned the issue on noise. Very problematic. He is right. we need to address things in a manner that is fair. I want to hear from everybody to make this a fair law so the 99.9% of the good property and animal owners in this Town know that they are being treated fairly. And that we only provide a mechanism for those very rare occasions where someone goes outside the bounds. That is why. MR. BLANGIARDO: My constituents... Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9, 2007 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: The same reason I tabled it for months because I have gone to your Association time and time again for recommendations and input. 18 MR. BLANGIARDO: And we appreciate that and we are there. It works both ways, the door is always open. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. MR. BLANGIARDO: And our Association, East End Horsemen Livestock Association polices itself. They have a whole bureau for pet rescue and horse rescue. So we are looked to by the police department. If there is a problem, the town calls us. So we appreciate you keeping us abreast and we are here for your input. You know, traveling around other jurisdictions; New Jersey an exotic place. Hawaii, another exotic place. Horse owners, livestock owners, they receive and I want to speak to the Assessor, Scott Russell the Assessor in all you experience as an Assessor; you get a tax break for having many livestock. You can get an agricultural exemption. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Mmmhmm. I wrote many of them. MR. BLANGIARDO: You wrote many of them. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I talked people into them. MR. BLANGIARDO: Our constituency and animal owners and animal lovers and they are like members of the family, you are like fooling around with sleeping giant. Because I can tell you, I will represent anyone that wants to pursue agricultural exemption for having livestock. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Mmmhmm. You don't have to, just go to the Assessors. They will explain everything you need to do to get it. MR. BLANGIARDO: Right. but here it seems like we are going the other direction. You are penalizing people, instead of other jurisdictions where they are giving people exemptions, they are getting penalized here for having livestock. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: How? This is accessory uses in residential zones. It has nothing to do with agricultural uses or bona fide ag operations. It is not particular to farms, it is not related to farming. It is accessory uses in residential zones. MR. BLANGIARDO: I take issue with that. Since the combustion engine the farmers, like Mr. Krupski, like Mr. Wickham, they don't use horses to plow their fields. So when you say it is not affecting farming, I know horses are not really used in the farming application.. . SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: No but it wouldn't affect a boarding sense. Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 MR. BLANGIARDO: (inaudible) in a historical sense. They use tractors. But with all of the land that we are preserving, a lot of that land is people using it for horse farms. 19 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yes, I support that. MR. BLANGIARDO: Like High Wind Farms and getting their agricultural exemption that way and it is terrific. And the Town is putting so much of our tax dollar into preserving farm land and open space and that goes hand in hand... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I endorsed your plan, a few months ago you came to me to discuss creating a horse farm in Mattituck and I endorsed it. I thought it was an excellent idea. MR. BLANGIARDO: Exactly. But we couldn't gain support here in Southold so we took it to Riverhead, where we were met with open arms. So what we are doing here is penalizing people, almost it seems for having livestock when we should be welcoming them with open arms. It naturally flows that the spirit, even your own legislation refers to your articles talking about the open space and the farmland preservation. You can't have farmland preservation without the spirit and the need for livestocking and horses. I just don't see it. It goes hand in hand. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Let me ask something. Is the rest of the Board going to understand, going to jump in with me here and recognize that this is an issue because it came up a year ago and this isn't something that I have some pell mell rush to pass? I am trying to resolve the issue and I took it on with the code enforcement officer and the Town Attorney and the Town Board has voted every step of the way here to try to help me resolve it, so you are making it seem like I am out there trying to punish people that own horses and that is factually incorrect. I have got friends sitting here, they have horses. I want to protect them, too. Ninety nine percent of the owners in this Town are good owners and I need to protect them not penalize them. It is specious and argumentative, Frank, I am sorry. MR. BLANGIARDO: Well, alright then, let's get right down to the procedurally what is in English. This is one of the first town's to speak English and this is all in English, so let's get right to it. I am going to address the Town Attorney and with the article that you are saying that now wasn't published but you want to strike something from it. It seems like the first article under 4 section 83-19, it says no manure shall be kept on site, other than as permitted pursuant to, and then Tom, you said another section of the code but that section is section 280-12. Which absolutely makes no sense. TOWN ATTORNEY FINNEGAN: The sentence in the beginning, that part is stricken, it is not... MR. BLANGIARDO: No, it is not stricken. It is right here in the agenda. TOWN ATTORNEY FINNEGAN: It was agreed that it would be stricken. Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9, 2007 20 MR. BLANGIARDO: Well, if you haven't voted on it, it is not stricken. It is pending right now. You can say it is stricken but it doesn't hold water. What I would like to know... COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Excuse me, if she says it is stricken, it is stricken. MR. BLANGIARDO: Oh, then I ask you why don't you strike the whole thing. COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: Frank, from a practical point of view, what the Supervisor said tonight, the whole law is going to be if not struck, it is going to be totally reworked from square one. If it comes up again at all, there will be a whole other public hearing, with a whole other legal, the whole process starting again. So to go into the detail of what is in this particular page, I don't think is really helpful at this stage. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yeah, well, my point is, is that if you put a resolution supposedly in the paper and you advertise for a supposed public hearing on a specific date and time and people take time off from work and the first sentence makes no sense because that section 280-12 doesn't even speak to manure and this is not the first revision. As you said, you have been going over it for a year. And the first sentence is absurd. It doesn't even reflect to manure, 280-12, you wanted to say 280-13. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I think that was, yeah, that was brought to my attention by your Association. MR. BLANGIARDO: Yes. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: And the fact of the matter is, we decided, probably misrepresenting a section of the code, that whole section wasn't needed. So we struck the whole thing, it solved the issue there. MR. BLANGIARDO: Right. Because if you did change that to 280-13, it would have to be within... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: (Inaudible) Absolutely. MR. BLANGIARDO: With regard to manure, the way the way the code is drafted now, if it were to pass, Miss Finnegan, anyone who had a pony would be in violation in 10 minutes because they would be keeping manure on their property and they would be immediately in violation. Anyone who had any type of livestock. So this is my contention, this proposed legislation is basically poorly drafted and it goes back to the whole issue of, this is a very old town and tinkering with the town code should be done with a lighter touch. And not with a ball peen hammer. If not a sledge hammer. Because it has many repercussions, such as lawsuits. There is a case that came down from our own Arthur Pitts, Republican Supreme Court Justice here in Southold Town two weeks ago in Fort Salonga, Town of Smithtown; which Angels Gate, these property owners Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9, 2007 21 were, the Town Board enacted legislation saying they could not keep 200 animals on their property. The Zoning Board of Appeals upheld that and they brought an ensuing action in the Supreme Court. And Arthur Pitts, our own Southold Town Supreme Court Justice, decided on September 25th, so it is very apropos because as we know this is the second department case and just to, let me leave you with the last sentence. 'Among other evidence, comments by Lafrig at the April 2006 Town Board meeting, that a Town Code amendment could not be applied retroactively.' So, if this were adopted today, if you had your druthers, Supervisor Russell, you would be grandfathering in everyone and I would be happy to represent them in their case. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: If I had my druthers, I wouldn't pass this. Please let me explain what I explained at the beginning. Legislation shouldn't be done either lightly or with a ball peen hammer. It should be done with the community because this is a law, the whole town code, it is their law. And I need their help and I have been saying that and I have been reaching out to your Association from the beginning. I have talked to you like endlessly about help me resolve this issue. They knew what the few problems were. I needed their help and their expertise at making better law. And if this didn't get the job done, I am the first to say, let's put it to the side and start from scratch. And you seem to not want to accept that, you seem to want to argue a law that is really dead in the water. And I appreciate your killer instincts as an attorney... MR. BLANGIARDO: Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Well... MR. BLANGIARDO: Thank you. I have nothing further. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Mr. Baiz. CHRIS BAIZ: Good evening. My name is Chris Baiz, I am a resident of Southold and a farmer and businessman here. I am also the Democratic party candidate for Town Supervisor. I am here in Southold because Southold is rural and this is what I have known since the late 40's. I don't want to tell you how older I am than the late 40's. But I am older than that. And so I have seen a lot here. I love this place because it is rural and I think just about all of us are here because it is rural. This is the last stronghold of rural on Long Island. People love coming here as visitors, tourists, second homeowners not because it is a suburb. They come here and like to enjoy the place along with us because it is rural. Whether it is a law like this that is only attacking residential areas and accessory buildings in residential areas or whether it is attacking agricultural in a larger sense, that is taking rural out of the country. Every time we have legislation like this, the camels nose gets under the tent and it can be expanded time after time after time until we have lost rural. And it is what I call a suburbanizing law. I have some friends who in fact have a home up on Lighthouse Road, right next door to what some call the offending property. I would tend to disagree with that even though some of the conditions may have been less than shall we say residential. Perhaps more farmyard. And in talking with those people, they said it was terrible in the beginning and I said, well you live in Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9, 2007 Manhattan, too, on the weekdays and they said, yes we do. And I said well what about the screaming fire truck at 3:00 AM in morning that you have no control over or the automobile alarm that accidentally goes off and it just goes on. I have been there, I know what it was and it just goes off for a half an hour or 40 minutes and I said what kind of noises are those? And he said, well they are unattractive noises and I said, no, they are also city noises. So we thought about that for a moment and he said, so you mean the screaming peacock at 3:00 AM is a country noise? And I said, yes, it is a country noise. Last February, my wife and I had the great misfortune or so we thought, of one of our roosters getting a very bad frostbite. So badly that he couldn't walk. His right claw was totally crippled, he was blind in one eye. And so my wife decided to bring him up to the house. And put him in the bathtub for the next three months. We put straw in there and we changed that bedding every four or five days to let this rooster get better. And my wife fed him green vegetables and diced up carrots and celery and everything else. And slowly but surely, he got better. But that first morning that he was in the bathtub at 3:30 in the morning, he went off like an alarm clock and we couldn't shut him up for 30 minutes. The second morning, the same thing. And the third morning. By about a week into this, we got used to it and this went on for three months. And then one day in May, I didn't hear the rooster crowing anymore and I ran downstairs, I looked in the bathtub and no rooster. I thought, my god, it got loose in the house. I went off to find my wife, Roz and she said, oh, I got rid of it yesterday. I put him back up in the chicken coops. And I said, but I miss his crowing. At 3:30 in the morning. Any law that comes along and tries to shrink wrap rural is a law that hastens suburbanization and this kind of stuff, even though it may be for residential areas, you know, half acre, quarter acre or full acre what have you. this is the kind of law that will allow someone to reach out and say, well, we had better grab that stuff off R-80 land, we had better grab that stuff off R-120 land, we better grab that stuff off R-200 and AC land because it is bothering people. What we have to learn, if we haven't already, is that we do live in the country. I would much rather listen to a peacock, alas poor peacock, at 3:30 in the morning than leaf blowers and all sorts of mechanical noises that scream all day long as people's hedges and lawns get groomed. Otherwise we lose and will lose the rural that only we have left here on Long Island. And so, keep rural in rural. Do not allow any legislation to try to shrink wrap our rural. It is up to all of us, we must show up every day to prevent this. Otherwise we will lose it. If we don't lose it for ourselves, we will lose it for our children and our grandchildren. 22 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Let me ask you something, Mr. Baiz. A gentleman from Cutchogue called me last week, his name is William Gatz. He said he had met you in front of the Cutchogue post office and you told him that we were proposing a law to prohibit chickens and goats and things on properties. MR. BAIZ: I think me mischaracterized that. He was a rather angry gentleman at the time and because he had to met me in front of the Cutchogue post office, he insisted that he was one of the people that wrote one of those letters in the whatever it was September 5th or 6th Suffolk Times and as I have said here this evening and as I have said all the time, is that a law like this is a suburbanizing law. Because you first get it where you want it and then you can reach out and grab it from the rest of the community. And it Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 doesn't have to be this Board, it could be a Board 10 years from now, 15 years from now... 23 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: That is precipitous. That precipitous nature, that danger. I agree with that to some extent. We actually several months ago passed a law restricting property owners from the size of the garage that they could build and you didn't come in here and say, well you had better not go down this slippery slope because pretty soon you will be grabbing it off agriculture as well. You know, I think, again, we need reasonable discourse and I will take the input from all of these people to show me how we just protect those rare occasions. And like I said, the issue might have taken care of itself already. But I don't think there was any mischievous effort here and the suburbanization is a bit specious. It was... MR. BAIZ: No, it is not. Excuse me, it is not specious. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: ..trying to be fair. It is because... MR. BAIZ: It is what happens when you write crud like this that can take the communities rural character away from it one slice at a time, a thousand slices to the death of rural. Thank you. DIANE BERGMANN: Hello, my name is Diane Bergmann, I have been a livestock and animal owner, as a lot of people know, in this town for 30 years. I also have recently come across problems with farming in this town. I want to let everybody know here, I think Mr. Russell is very fair. I think he will listen to you. I think, I love this town. I love the ruralness of it, I have had livestock and I respect the right to have livestock. But I also feel that I am surrounded by 144 acres of farming, which I love, until three years ago, when a farmer came in there and infringed on my right to live. Where I had to shovel dirt from no cover crop off my porch, where I had to put up with flooding; the house hasn't flooded in 30 years, it did flood once before, but it hasn't flooded in 30 years, because the farmer behind me decided to change the lay of the land. I respect the right for a farmer to farm, I respect the right for a livestock owner to livestock but there is not so much legislation needed but we have to be good neighbors. I think it is more important to be a good neighbor than to legislate. If you have a problem, you can talk it out. If you can't talk it out, then you have to go somewhere where you can talk it out. But I think Mr. Russell has been very fair in my behalf. If you talk to him and you have a problem, he will see how he can address it. He has made my life more comfortable from the farmer that I have surrounding me, by speaking to somebody. And if Mr. Russell can't do it, you can go higher. But to have legislation where to say that you can't do this, you can't do that; I have peacocks, my farmland was over a half a mile away and when I was out picking my crops, I could hear the peacock a half a mile away. So you can't say 10 acres is a decent zoning amount for the noise of a peacock. You want to outlaw one, then you are going to change the ruralness but I think if we all become good neighbors and we worry about our neighbors and how we are infringing on them instead of making legislation, I think it is a little bit better and we all talk it out. I applaud Mr. Russell for listening to everybody. If you give him a chance, he will listen to you. but that is what is Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 24 fair. If this gentleman had a problem with his neighbor, you go talk it out with your neighbor, your neighbor doesn't do it; you go to Mr. Russell. IfMr. Russell doesn't do it, go to civil litigation. I mean, why ruin it for everybody else that does have livestock. Their right to have it. I think Mr. Russell has been most fair to listen to everybody. I think you should be fair in telling him what your problem is and then going, no legislation. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you, Diane. As a point of full disclosure, my daughter wanted to buy a white goat from her a few years ago. I live on a 50 x 150 lot. She was too young at the time but I might buy her a white goat in a year or two. Nothing proposed would prohibit me from doing that. What it does is gives my neighbors the right to know that I will keep my yard clean and if they don't want my goat in their yard, I won't allow that. Because those are the types of issues that we tried to address. But nothing would have prohibited me from getting that goat and you know, maybe when she is two years older. Right now she is having trouble taking care of a gerbil but we will see. She has a long way to go. MARIE ALDI: Hi, my name is Marie Aldi. I am on Lighthouse Road and I had Mr. Baiz asking about the peacocks and everybody else. But I am sure you don't go to bed II :00 and you get up every half an hour screaming. There was 13 peacocks. Not one, not two, 13 of them. Now she has four. What happened to the rest of them? What happened to them? Raccoons? No. It is closed. I made a tape, I brought it to Mr. Forrester. .. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I don't know what happened to them but I chose not to look at a gift horse in the mouth. They are gone and that is what matters. We had a problem in Cutchogue five years ago with peacocks and that issue resolved itself. I don't know if sold them or they ran away. But again, the peacocks was the one troubling thing, I didn't know how to resolve it. MS. ALDI: No, they cannot run away. On the top of the stall she has something for.... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Well, the case in Cutchogue, if you saw the way they were living you would say, yeah, they probably did run away but that is beside the point. That issue is long gone. MS. ALDI: And is not the point that she says. The lady told you a very nice story in the beginning, Mrs. (inaudible) you were there in the beginning right? And your assistant came last year with Mr. Forrester, she says it's unacceptable, there was so dirt there. so don't tell me you love horses, I love animals too, don't misunderstand. I had a dog. I mean, I love animals but as long as she keeps it clean and I don't have to smell it because I have the, I didn't come here last year or two years before. I am here for 40 years, I pay taxes. So why she allowed to have all the garbage in about 100 x 100? She has the stalls with three horses and a llama, she has chickens, I mean, chickens doesn't bother me. The horses doesn't bother me. As long as she keeps it clean. But the peacocks, 24 hours a Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9, 2007 25 day because they are mating? How many months do they mate? I mean how many months can they mate? COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: We can't say that, it is public TV. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I think we will all say, evidently more than all of us sitting at the Board. MS. ALDI: I am sorry to say that but this is what she said. I mean, this is crazy. We know there for nine whole years, the same thing. And every time she has more peacocks. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I talked to people that I knew from my days in assessing that work for the State Department of Agriculture and Markets and we talked about the different animals and the different noise levels and roosters aren't a problem because you can control their noise; the one thing they said there is nothing we have been able to resolve is how to keep peacocks quiet. That is why, I know it seems draconian to say 10 acres but I had the problem in Cutchogue, I had the problem in Southold and I didn't know any other way to resolve it and if anybody has any peacock insight, by all means, please share it with me. I am happy to address it. I am happy to incorporate it. MS. ALDI: I wish you brought the tape, so everybody can hear it. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Yeah, we were getting CD's from neighbors; saying look, put an end to this. It was 3:00 in the morning. UNIDENTIFIED: (from audience) They can be de-voiced, like a dog can be de-voiced. If you want to go that wicked method. They can be de-voiced. MS. ALDI: They can? Well, she... UNIDENTIFIED: (from audience) If they bark to much.... MS. ALDI: I don't think, in the beginning she said about neighbors.... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I hope we all understand... COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Let's just keep it... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Diane, I will actually take that suggestion from you and talk to owners about it. Let's just keep the ball rolling and please understand, this is how complicated and so many different facets to the issue we were trying to resolve. COUNCILMAN WICKHAM: Keep the ball rolling. MS. ALDI: Yeah. The only thing is, this is what we want, as long as she keeps it clean, it is not muddy... Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9, 2007 26 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Right. MS. ALDI: And everything else... SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: And my code enforcement officer doesn't have to go out there every three days to issue an order to remedy to get it clean. MS. ALDI: Well, she doesn't allow him to go in. You saw how, she talk, last year when he went to give her a subpoena, he almost got his hand in the door by shutting the door on him. That is how bad she is. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you. Mr. DiVello. VITO 'ROCKY' DiVELLO: Ladies and gentlemen of the Board, thank you for hearing us. My name is Rocky, Vito DiVello from Mattituck. I am past president of East End Horsemen and Livestock Association. Proudly served and current board of directors of East End Livestock. I am also Suffolk County representative on Long Island Farm Bureau and New York State Correspondent for the equine. I just would like to say that I don't know I don't know what I am going to say that hasn't been said already. Yes, I do love my animals, I have been an animal lover my whole life and that is not the point. I have nothing against Mercedes or whatever that other car was, except I can't afford them and if I could fit more hay bales in them, then I would probably have one. But other than that, on a serious note, I would just like to say, you all have been very good in listening to us. All the members. Coming down and talking to us, I would like to thank you for that. And just, if you would really consider what every member said, it is heartfelt. And we would really appreciate closure on this consideration. That is it. Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you, Rocky. Benja Schwartz. BENJA SCHWARTZ: Benja Schwartz, Cutchogue. Supervisor Russell, Justice Evans, Councilman Wickham, Ross, Edwards, Krupski. You are all animals. I noticed someone brought some chickens here today and I am happy to see them but I didn't hear anything from them. They are listening. Seriously, these animals some of them at least, they can't speak for themselves. We have heard a lot on behalf of the horses here, I am not going to take up a lot of time but I have some animals at home. Six of them. Moe, Joe, Jeanie, Ju and New. So I have got six of you. two months ago, these were little guinea keets. Now they are guinea fowl. They are getting bigger. They don't make a lot of noise and so far I have kept them penned up but I hope to free range them. They make noise once a day when they want to go inside their barn and I go and I get them and I bring them in the barn but last week they were making noise all morning for about two hours. Why? Because there is one landscaper that manages all three, they call them landscapers buy you know, their landscaping is mostly lawn keeping and weed killing and some of those weeds are my favorite plants. The pinks, the queen anne's lace, the spiderwort's. some people call them weeds. Even dandelions have a place... Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Benja, come by my house, I assure you, they are alive and well in my yard. So. 27 MR. SCHWARTZ: Oh, good. But you don't have any birds. You know, my neighbor has I think six or seven cats. They come over on my property. There is not a lot I can do. I think if I called the police they would probably laugh at me. If they were dogs, well, if they were dogs, that is one thing but cats, they don't have licenses, they are not. And I think bird like a guinea hen, guinea fowl, they are half wild, they are half domestic. But free ranging them, they eat the ticks. They are good for the neighborhood. And I don't think that we have any business in regulating where they go, unless it gets to the point where there is a huge block of them were they become very disturbing. And in that vein, I think that there is something that could be salvaged from this law. I am not sure there is anything in here pertaining to animals that should be salvaged, that is my opinion. But pertaining to noise, noise is one of the most pervasive and one of the worst pollutants in the world today. Most of the time we don't even realize how it affects us but it is also not a pollutant that carries very far or stays around very long. New York State doesn't regulate it, DEC doesn't care about, it is up to local goverrunent and we should regulate noise but not with an ordinance like the one that is proposed here. This is ridiculous. The ordinance in here talks about well, we consider the volume and we should consider the intensity. Well, intensity and volume are the same thing. But neither one of them are enforceable. We already have one noise ordinance in town. The barking dog law. I think we should think of the problems we have enforcing that and the reason we don't have any other noise ordinance that for us to pass a noise ordinance, we are going to have to h ire or train a noise control officer. Who knows how to measure noise. You know, volume and frequency are the two basic criteria but there is duration, there is a lot of different questions with noise and I would like to see noise be regulated especially against these landscapers. You know, I have a beautiful house and I live in a beautiful area but it is not once every two weeks for two to four hours, I have to listen to this. In the middle of the summer, I have to close all my windows and I don't have air- conditioning. So that I don't have to listen to, I can't work, I can't think. You know, I am not crazy, well, maybe I am crazy but I am not the only one. It is scientifically, medically documented that noise not only can affect our hearing but it makes us crazy and it makes us bad neighbors. So I think noise is a problem but it should be looked at as noise not as a problem from some animals. Most of the animals, even barking dogs, some of them make beautiful music. Some of them are very unhappy. Anyway, I just, some of the other things that make noise, radios, tv sets, musical instruments, loud speakers, loading operation, construction, horns and signal devices. But anyway. Thank you for your. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you, Benja. Would anybody else like to come up and address the Town Board? ERIC KEIL: Good morning. Good afternoon. Actually I guess it is good evening really. Hello, my name is Eric Keil and I am a resident of Mattituck. This is a tough issue and I don't know how it is going to be resolved. Scott, Supervisor, you mentioned the problems with the definitions and the discussions about noise in the code. That is one area where I think there is a great deal of subjectivity or a great deal left up to the interpretation... Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9, 2007 28 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Absolutely. MR. KEIL: . ..of whatever officer happens to be addressing a particular issue and that is one area where I think that there is a significant problem with this. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I agree. MR. KEIL: If that is addressed, I think that that would be great. The other is, I brought a few newspaper articles with me discussing free range guinea hens. We keep free range guinea hens. My sister, who lives in North Carolina was visiting us for a period in the summer time and both she and my niece got Lyme disease. Since then, we have started keeping guinea hens the following season and you cannot find a tick anywhere in our yard. Cape May, New Jersey the sheriffs department actually has an inmate program where inmates in the jail raise guinea fowl to be released in the community. And I think like many other things, you have to weigh the cost benefit analysis of anything that you undertake and I think that in my particular case, there would be a significant cost associated, if we could not allow our birds to be free range. We would probably stop keeping them because there would be really no reason to have them. There is also a benefit for my children, it has been a great learning experience for them, incubating and hatching chicks, raising them and so on. And that is the only thing that I would like to say. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: This is one, and I agree with you but this is one of the problematic aspects. If you have the free ranging and there is a neighbor that doesn't want them on his property, how do we address that? I mean, I want to protect your right to have guinea hens but I don't think I should be inserting your right to have guinea hens on the neighbor ifhe doesn't want them in his yard. Even ifhe doesn't mind the ticks in his yard. I understand the free range issue but what do you do for that guy? MR. KEIL: Supervisor, I totally understand and that is why I said there is a cost benefit to anything that you do. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Sure. MR. KEIL: And I think that as a community, we have to decide what is more important to us. Is it more important to have a pesticide free way of controlling ticks and preventing Lyme disease or is it more important to prevent the few people who don't want guinea hens in their yards from guinea hens in their yards. And I think that is what.. .. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: But, the fundamental property rights issue for you to have the animals, do they have a property rights issue to say, you are welcome to your animals but don't let them in my yard. I mean, isn't that property rights, too? Isn't that the balancing act? Isn't that why we are here as a Town Board? Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 29 MR. KEIL: Of course. And that is the question we have to wrestle with. I happen to think that my opinion is the right one but that is my opinion. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Good for you. MR. KEIL: Thank you very much for hearing me out. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Okay. UNIDENTIFIED: Inaudible comments from audience. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: These are livestock that are someone's pets. You can identify who the owner is. We are not regulating wild animals at this point. Ma'am? MARY BETH ANDRESON Hi, my name is Mary Beth Andreson, I actually live in Aquebogue. My husband John Andreson is a large animal veterinarian and we have been in eastern Long Island for many, many years. In fact, Scott, I addressed this Board in 1981, I guess maybe you were just out of high school. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Still in. MS. ANDRESON: And about this very same issue. I probably addressed it before many of these people became residents of this Town and it is a, obviously it is a very, very near and dear thought to my heart because all of these years my family has raised a variety of animals from horses to goats to cows to pigs, to sheep. I have had chickens and we actually have dogs, cats and turtles, too. I raised my children this way, my children were active in 4-H. I was active in 4-H even after my children grew out of 4-H and went to college, I still became the perpetual 4-H mother and took many kids from the Town of Southold back up to the New York State fair to represent eastern Long Island and their agricultural heritage. If you go out in your lobby, it is amazing how far we have come from the horses that were plowing the fields that adorn your lobby. I guess it will be potentially Mercedes in the future that will adorn your lobby. And I would love to have one, don't get me wrong but I at the same time want my pickup truck. Well, I was going to say good afternoon but it is already evening. I left work as many people did today to attend a public hearing on something that was not published and I know that the law says it has to be published, on a public hearing of a very, very sensitive nature that I know probably will involve a lot more people that are here today but those people happen to be working at 4:30 in the afternoon and possibly can't get off work. I am lucky because I have a job that I could get off work and drive from Southampton back here to Southold to attend this public hearing. It is amazing, this public hearing and your legislation is basically legislating good neighbors. And you and no other Town Board can legislate good neighbors. You talk about peacocks and I know peacocks. I don't own a peacock, I don't want to own a peacock. I do have chickens. Well, until recently when the raccoons decided they were dinner but I know somebody who lives in the Town of Southold who has hundreds of acres and is a very wealthy man who has a couple of peacocks. And when you go across Sound Avenue or if you live in the house across the street on Sound Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 30 A venue, it doesn't make any difference how many hundreds of acres he has, where they are housed and how loud they scream and where they have flown to or walked to on his hundreds of acres, can be heard. So putting them on 10 is not going to appease anybody. Because the people will still complain. You are legislating neighbors. There isn't action for that. It is civil litigation. I don't want kids revving cars or working on engines or boat motors something next door to me. I was aghast a quite a few years ago when the developments started to come in and all of a sudden what was around me, what used to be around me used to be potato fields and com fields and tractors and that was fine until one day I turned around and I started to see houses moving in on developments and I started to panic. I started to panic because my fencing goes to the property line and I don't want to be responsible for some person moving here for their little suburban house that wants to look at my pasture and not pay the taxes. Children getting their fingers bitten off because they are sticking their hands through the fences. And I knew I would have problems. They would say, oh, the manure. Just like they do with the duck farm that has been there in Aquebogue for ever and ever. The people moved here and complained. The duck farm happens to now be in my family because my son married a member of that family. We like agriculture in our house, I guess. And it has been there. you can't legislate neighborhood. You just can't do it. And if you start it, it is a suburbanization. It is cellophane wrapping the Town of Southold. And I hate to see it. It is one of the last agricultural places left on Long Island. I know we all know the story of the cow that was running loose for many months, which it actually not a cow but a steer and not a bull as the newspapers did say, that two Southold policemen and my husband went on a merry jaunt on July 4th this past year, down on the beach. While a lot of the influx people were on the beach enjoying a lovely July 4th putting up their umbrellas and putting out their chaise lounges and my husband armed with a gun and two policemen, and here he comes now as he walks by coming in, hello Doctor. He has his gun. And two policemen with him, following him, are charging down the beach. Nobody is even looking. The cow is preceding them, the cow takes off because he missed. And the cow runs through somebody's neighborhood. Well, he shot above it. COUNCILMAN KRUPSKI: Warning shot? MS. ANDRESON: Well, no, he wanted him to drop on him because he didn't want to like shoot in front of people. And the cow ran through, tranquilizer gun. It was a tranquilizer gun. And the cow ran through a neighborhood. And up pulled somebody to check on his mother's summer home in his probably Mercedes at the time and he sees not the cow, but my husband with the tranquilizer gun and two Southold policemen running and he goes, oh my god, what is going on? And John said, well, or one of the policemen said, well, we are chasing a cow. And the guy said, oh, you mean like a deer. And the Southold policeman said, no this is the north fork, we are chasing a cow. And I want to tell you, there must not have been a lot of news the next day because that article put Southold on the map in Idaho, in Maine, in South Carolina and in Florida. And California. So if that can make you a rural, wonderful homey town; please keep it that way. Think about what you are doing. Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Well, I still don't understand how, you are allowed to have a cow or a steer or a, the law never proposed eliminating any of those things. And as far as legislating for good neighbors, unfortunately that is what we have done historically. This Board over the past two years and sometimes over my no votes, tried to legislate that with the idea behind the accessory structure law because people are building these mammoth structures on their properties and there was just completely over bearing to the neighbors to the, that is all that is. That is why we are here. Unfortunately, you have to legislate sometime for good manners because they, unfortunately, and the people by the way that complained to me about those peacocks in Cutchogue, they grew up out here. I went to school with their kid. They are not new people in Lexus' trying to change this town. It's an ongoing process and we try to be fair to everybody whether you moved in yesterday or whether you moved in 150 years ago. I have the same obligation to both of you. 31 MS. ANDRESON: I understand. I understand that you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. But if it really came down to it, if it really came down to, I think you would have far more people wanting to maintain the agricultural lifestyle in the Town of Southold than to suburbanize it. And I think this is the beginning of suburbanization of Southold. Thank you. MARY McCABE: Hi. My name is Mary McCabe and this is my son David. I bought a house in Greenport II years ago. I was born in Greenport and my family goes back for many generations. One of the first few days after I bought my house, this beautiful blue peacock appeared on my deck. I had never even heard a peacock before. About five years ago, I bought him a girlfriend from Pumpkinville. So needless to say, this peacock, who has gone to numerous homes in the neighborhood, gravitates towards my female during mating season. I realize that he makes a lot of noise but this is a bucolic community. It is a farming community. I think that when people come out to a farming community and try to change it, we have heard this word over and over tonight. It is the suburbanization. I don't want to live in Nassau County. I chose to raise my son here. We love animals. We are responsible to our animals and actually, we have to go now because we have to put our peacocks in the shed for the night. They had two babies. One thing that is problematic for me is that I have a neighbor from Staten Island and his property borders mine. He is only out here for a couple of months a year. He was shooting at my birds. Shooting on to my property. I think that that is despicable and I think I have rights, too. I don't know what to say because my son says, mom, if we have to get rid of the peacocks, can we move? Do I have to leave this area to maintain living in a farming community? I think that is pretty sad. I think we have to save what is left and I think we have to preserve our heritage and continue it for our children and our grandchildren. Thank you. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you very much. SUSAN CARPENTER: Hi, my name is Susan Carpenter. I live on Sound Avenue in Mattituck. I grew up in Wading River. I lived in six other states, two foreign countries. I chose to move back to Mattituck with my husband because of the character of the town. Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9, 2007 I don't have a horse, don't have a goat, don't have a lot of livestock. Do have chickens and guinea hens. Actually inherited a couple of ducks from somebody here in Cutchogue that passed away and had way too many birds for their property. I don't think that this piece of legislation is going to do anybody any good. The law that is on the book, there is nothing wrong with it. You have heard from people all over tonight saying that you can't legislate good neighbors. You have said yourself Mr. Russell, that there is nothing in this law that is going to stop you from owning animals. Well, there actually is. Section 83-22 says 'no person shall keep, raise, house or maintain any animal that shall constitute a nuisance or create a hazard to public health or that in any manner that shall annoy, danger, disturb or endanger the comfort, health, repose, peace or safety of any other person or the public.' Who is going to say what is disturbing the peace, the safety? My guinea hens live in a fenced in area in my yard. There is a five foot high fence. There is an electric wire to keep them in as much as to keep the raccoons out from killing them. They get out most every day. They cross the street, they go across into the woods that is now Laurel Lake Preserve and they eat ticks. So, you are going to pass this law, somebody says, well they disturb me. They bothered my safety when I was driving 70 miles an hour on the 35 mile an hour street you live on and I had to swerve to avoid them, so therefore they affected my safety. So this law is telling me I can't keep an animal, my chickens occasionally get loose. They occasionally go near the road. Dogs get loose, horses get loose, cows get loose. This section of this law is going to tell us that we can't have anything any longer. It is a horrible section. 32 SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: If that is the way it reads, I am sorry. That was never the intent and by all means, we are open to suggestions on re-drafting. MS. CARPENTER: Might as well. It needs to be re-drafted. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I am looking, and particularly for people who have animals and I dealt with mostly horse owners for a lot of input. I would gladly consider the input from people that have fowl and other things. I am not sure how we are going to resolve peacocks but we will work on it. Okay? It is just, they have been so problematic. But the rest of the stuff, by all means, help us provide legislative wording that would work for everybody. MS. CARPENTER: Well, there is nothing wrong with the legislation that is already on the books. It already gives you appropriate setbacks, it already gives you recourse. Just because it didn't work with one neighbor, doesn't mean it is not going to work. There is nothing wrong with the legislation that you already have at hand. SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: I am sure that is true. Okay. Would anybody else like to address the Board? CINDY BENEDETTO: Hi, my name is Cindy Benedetto. I come before you as a Southold Town taxpayer, a parent, Southold Town business owner, a horse owner and officer of a century old organization which is dedicated to the conservation, preservation and education of Long Islands open preserve spaces. Working very closely with Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 Brookhaven Town, Suffolk County Parks Department, the DEC and New York State Parks and Recreation. I implore Southold Town to assess each animal concern on an individual basis please for everyone's well being. Thank you. Now on behalf of Sophia Greenfield, who is not able to be here today, she asked that I present this to the Board. 'I believe that I understand the concerns and circumstances that have brought about the proposed legislation and respective efforts being put towards remedy. However, simply put much of what is proposed is unenforceable because it depends on a subjective judgment of what exactly is noise, nuisance or disturbance or endangering the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of the public. This could be just about anything. It opens the door to litigation, contest and a folly for enforcing officers. Yesterday while visiting a small farm stand, I bought fresh eggs, vegetables, tomatoes, potatoes, beans and onions and enjoyed the small farmette behind the stand. I ventured out picked a few berries and then chatted with the farmer who has been selling produce for at least 30 years that I know of. I asked him what he felt about proposed law. His reply is at the crux of our Town's situation. The neighbor moved in within the past last few years, told him that he now had to quiet his rooster. Both the farmer and I were amused but not really as for as we know it, whether you are in Southold, in Poland, China, Hawaii roosters do what roosters do. They crow at the break of dawn and no amount of lawmaking is going to change that. Roosters also don't have timers attached to them. Let us also understand that if we have no roosters, we have no chicks and no eggs. It is just that simple. In my years here, I have escorted home two meandering horses, ducks, chickens, geese across the Goose Creek bridge. Ushered some hens back into their yard and helped corral an escaped pig. None of them were on leashes because this is the country. That is what rural means. Occasionally animals get free and generally get home safely. Regarding horses, there are twice the number of horses owned and stabled in Southold Town than there were when I came here. My exposure to the care and maintenance of the horses comes from Cindy Benedetto, owner of Van Duzer Gas and Cindy Hilary and her husband Chip. There are three generations of horsemen in Mrs. Benedetto's family and Mrs. Hilary has owned horses for nearly 20 years. Both of these families lives are built around horses; shows, riding parades, events and the hunt. The pleasance of their presence at parades, demonstrations and special events is costly to them but a large reason that they own and care for their horses. In both cases, they as well as many other horse owners share their extra horses with young riders, often those that would not otherwise be able to afford participating on such. I have seen countless children ogling at horses across fences or squealing with delight as Dr. Vaccariello rides by his cart with his mini horses. The cost in both effort and money is huge for these equestrians. Each morning these women are mucking their stalls at 6 and it is a lifetime commitment, rain, blizzard, sun or storm. It is good horsemanship and for the most part practiced by the equestrians I know. To that end, I would hope that the Town Board would work with the equestrian community in providing a non-burdensome management of manure disposal. Many horse owners have gardeners willing to cart away manure. But I would like to see centralized areas, for example a small portion of the land adjacent to the Custer building, which the town owns, might be a disposable and pick up site on a weekly basis. Organic, easily compostable manure is piled, let to air dry and within in a year, beautiful soil amendment which could be picked up by gardeners for free. No need for long distance carting. Little or no labor cost to the Town. If plans need to be developed for manure 33 Amendments Relating to Animals Public Hearing October 9,2007 34 management, talk to the equestrian community and ask for their input. Work on a least burdensome solution to management so that ownership of horses continues to be pleasure and not governmentally mandated burden or to costly for working people to afford. Personally, I would like to see riding trails cut into parcels owned by the Town. For example, the 20 plus acre parcel along Bayview Extension. Riding and walking trails might be cut, not bulldozed, just cleared as needed to open paths in town owned parcels, so that riders and people walking might enjoy them. I know that there is a large community of horse owners in the immediate area and new, young riders who would benefit and enjoy these public resources. I am both sympathetic for the burdens of some specific property owners as voiced in recent town meetings and I appreciate the efforts to address those problems and concerns. However I feel that this legislation is not in concert with our largely rural environment. What we value in Southold Town is its rural character and though I understand some of the recent difficulties with a few property owners, I feel that enactment of the law as written is burdensome, will waste the time of enforcers and bring about costly litigation and adversely impact the rural quality of life we so enjoy. Understanding that some boundaries and laws have to be enacted, I would ask that we look to other rural areas and see what processes they embrace, include the input of interested, involved and impacted townspeople and re-draw something that works and protects all interests. You also can't legislate common sense. The vast number of people with farm animals are respectful people who care for their animals and are sensitive to their neighbors. In a spirit that embraces all Southolders, let's work on a plan more reflective and protective of our community as a whole. Thank you. Sophia Greenfield. ' SUPERVISOR RUSSELL: Thank you very much. Would anybody else like to come up and address the Board on this public hearing? (No response) Let's close the hearing. * * * * * n~>>1J?o.~ ~z-R~~~ ~~~eville Southold Town Clerk . . ~~>( Board Meeting of October 9,2007 Southold Town Board - Letter RESOLUTION 2007-798 DEFEATED Item # 25 DOC ID: 3228 THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT THE FOLLOWING RESOLUTION NO. 2007-798 WAS DEFEATED AT THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE SOUTHOLD TOWN BOARD ON OCTOBER 9, 2007: WHEREAS there has been presented to the Town Board of the Town of Southold, Suffolk County, New York, on the 11th day of September, 2007 a Local Law entitled "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl!: to Animals" AND WHEREAS the Town Board of the Town of Southold held a public hearing on the aforesaid Local Law at which time all interested persons were given an opportunity to be heard, now therefor be it RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby ENACTS the proposed Local Law entitled, "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl!: to Animals" reads as follows: LOCAL LAW NO. 2007 A Local Law entitled, "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl!: to Animals", BE IT ENACTED by the Town Board of the Town of South old as follows: I. PURPOSE - To update the regulations concerning the keeping of animals in the Town of Southold, and requiring that a property owner harboring peacocks be located on at least ten acres of property. II. CODE AMENDMENTS. Chapter 280 of the Code of the Town of South old is hereby amended as follows: S 280-13. Use regulations. Generated October 12, 2007 Page 38 Southold Town Board - Lei . Board Meeting of October 9, 2007 In A-C, R-80, R-120, R-200 and R-400 Districts, no building or premises shall be used and no building or part of a building shall be erected or altered which is arranged, intended or designed to be used, in whole or in part, for any uses except the following: C. Accessory uses, limited to the following uses and subject to the conditions listed in S 280-15 herein: (8) Housing for and harboring of horses. livestock including sheep and goats. and domestic animals other than hOllseholEl pets dogs and cats. provided that such housing shall not be constructed within 40 feet of any lot line. The housing or harboring of such animals shall be conducted for the use and eniovment of the residents of the primary residence only. (a) Peacocks may be housed or harbored in the A-C zoning district onlv. on parcels no less than ten (J 0) acres in size. (b) Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any line. Chapter 83 of the Code of the Town of Southold is hereby amended as follows: Chapter 83, ANIMALS DEFINITIONS UNREASONABLE NOISE - Anv excessive or unusuallv loud sound or any sound that either annoys. disturbs. iniures or endangers the comfort. repose. health. peace or safety of a reasonable person of normal sensitivities or which causes iniury to animal life or damage to property or business. except the sound from agricultural operations. Standards to be considered in determining whether "unreasonable noise" exists in a given situation include. but are not limited to. the following: (J) The volume of the noise. (2) The intensity of the noise. (3) Whether the nature of the noise is usual or unusual. (4) Whether the origin of the noise is usual or unusual. (5) The volume and intensity of the background noise. if any. (6) The proximity of the noise to residential sleeping facilities. (7) The nature and zoning district of the areas within which the noise emanates. (8) The time of day or night the noise occurs. (9) The time duration of the noise. (J 0) Whether the sound source is temporary. (II) Whether the noise is continuous or impulsive. ~ 835. PeFlalties for offeFlses. [.^.meFlded7 31 1973 by L.L. :No. I 1973] Generated October 12, 2007 Page 39 . . Board Meeting of October 9, 2007 Southold Town Board - Letter A. f.ny pemon eommitting an offense against aay provision of this artiele shall, lIflon eOB-yietion thereof, Be gllilty of a violation panishallle BY a Rne not el,eeeding $250 or BY iffil9FisollffioRt for a tefIR not ol(oeading 15 d~'s, or BY Botll slleh fine and iffil9HSollffieRt. Tae eoRtiB-llation of an offense against the provisions of this llftiele shall eonstiMe, for eaeR day the offense is eoRtiRllBd, a seflarete aRd distiaet offease aereanaer. B. In additioa to the aIlove provided pea-alties, the Town Boar-d may also maiRtllin an aetion or proeeeaing in the name of tile Town in a eoart of eOffilgeteat jllFisdietion to eompel eOffil9lianee 'Nitll or to restFaia BY injUHetion the violation of this artiele. ~ 83 13. Penalties for offeases. Affy person eommitting an offonse against aay provision of this artiele shall, \lpon eoavietion thereof, Be glliky of a yiolation panishallle BY a fine not el(eeeding $259 or BY iffil9risollffient fer a tefIR Rot el(eeediRg 15 days, or BY Bath SlIOR fine aRa iffil9risonmeRt. ARTICLE IV. General Regulations for Keeping of Animals other than Dogs and Cats. &83-19. No manure shall be kept onsite. other than as permitted pursuant to &280-12. &83-20. The disposal of animal wastes shall be proyided for in such a manner as to preyent any nuisance or sanitary problem. &83-21. No accessory building or structure or part thereof used for the housing ofliyestock or domestic animals. other than dogs or cats. shall be less than 40 feet from any lot line. per &280- 13. Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any lot line. per &280-13. &83-22. No person shall keep. raise. house or maintain any animal that shall constitute a nuisance or create a hazard to public health. or in any manner that shall annoy. iniure. disturb. or endanger the comfort. repose. health. peace or safety of other persons or the public. &83-23. Noise No person shall keep. permit or maintain any animal. including a bird. under his control which freQuently or for continued duration of at least fifteen (15) minutes makes sounds which create unreasonable noise across a residential real property boundary. &83-24 No person shall allow any animal including liyestock and fowl. to run at large elsewhere than upon the premises of the owner or custodian unless said animal shall be on a leash or accompanied by a person at least 12 years of age. haying adeQuate control of such animal. or unless it be upon the premises of another person with the knowledge and consent of such person. &83-25. Burial of animals. A. No burial of any animal in a front yard shall be permitted. B. No burial of any horses or liyestock (including sheep and goats) on property less Generated October 12,2007 Page 40 Southold Town Board - Lei . Board Meeting of October 9, 2007 '. than five (5) acres. excluding propertv where the principal use is agricultural. Article VI Enforcement. &83-24. Penalties for offenses. A. Anv person committing an offense against anv provision of this article shall. upon conviction thereof. be guilty of a violation punishable bv a fine not exceeding $500 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding 15 davs. or bv both such fine and imprisonment. The continuation of an offense against the provisions of this article shall constitute. for each dav the offense is continued. a separate and distinct offense hereunder. B. In addition to the above-provided penalties. the Town Board mav also maintain an action or proceeding in the name of the Town in a court of competent iurisdiction to compel compliance with or to restrain bv iniunction the violation of this article. III. SEVERABILITY If any clause, sentence, paragraph, section, or part of this Local Law shall be adjudged by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the judgment shall not affect the validity of this law as a whole or any part thereof other than the part so decided to be unconstitutional or invalid. IV. EFFECTIVE DATE This Local Law shall take effect immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State as provided bylaw. p~...t~a~~lt.. Elizabeth A. Neville Southold Town Clerk RESULT: DEFEATED [0 TO 6] MOVER: Thomas H. Wickham, Councilman SECONDER: Daniel C. Ross, Councilman NAYS: Krupski Jr., Edwards, Ross, Wickham, Evans, Russell Generated October 12, 2007 Page 41 . . COUNTY OF SUFFOLK vf?; //--n-- ~~ ~~ ~ STEVE LEVY SUFFOLK COUNTY EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING THOMAS ISLES, AICP DIRECTOR OF PLANNING October 9, 2007 RECEIVeD '~ ~, Ms. Elizabeth Neville, Town Clerk Town of South old 53095 Main Road - P.O. Box 1179 Southold, NY 11971 SOlJ1l,dJ TG"':J Gor~ Re: Amendments to Town Code Relating to Animals Resolution No. 2007-739 SCPC File No.: SD-07-NJ Dear Ms, Neville: Pursuant to Sections A 14-14 to 23 ofthe Suffolk County Administrative Code, the above referenced application is not within the jurisdiction of the Suffolk County Planning Commission. Very truly yours, Thomas Isles Director of Planning ~~ Chief Planner APF:cc LOCATION H. LEE DENNISON BLDG. - 4TH FLOOR 100 VETERANS MEMORIAL HIGHWAY . MAILING ADDRESS P. O. BOX 6100 HAUPPAUGE, NY 11788-0099 . 16311853-5190 TELECOPIER 631) 853-4044 Southold Town Board - .er , . B.Meeting of October 9, 2007 RESOLUTION 2007-797 ADOPTED Item # 24 DOC ID: 3227 THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT THE FOLLOWING RESOLUTION NO. 2007-797 WAS ADOPTED AT THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE SOUTHOLD TOWN BOARD ON OCTOBER 9, 2007: RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby finds that the proposed "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatine to Animals" is classified as an Unlisted Action pursuant to SEQRA Rules and Regulations, 6 NYCRR Section 617, and that the Town Board of the Town of Southold hereby establishes itself as lead agency for the uncoordinated review of this action and issues a Negative Declaration for the action in accordance with the recommendation of Mark Terry dated October 9, 2007, and authorizes Supervisor Scott A. Russell to sign the short form EAF in accordance therewith. "'etu.fa~...tlo. Elizabeth A. Neville South old Town Clerk RESULT: ADOPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: William P. Edwards, Councilman SECONDER: Louisa P. Evans, Justice AYES: Krupski Jr., Edwards, Ross, Wickham, Evans, Russell Generated October 12,2007 Page 37 . . ELIZABETH A. NEVILLE TOWN CLERK REGISTRAR OF VITAL STATISTICS MARRIAGE OFFICER RECORDS MANAGEMENT OFFICER FREEDOM OF INFORMATION OFFICER Town Hall, 53095 Main Road P.O. Box 1179 Southold. New York 11971 Fax (631) 765-6145 Telephone (631) 765-1800 southoldtown.northfork.net OFFICE OF THE TOWN CLERK TOWN OF SOUTHOLD To: Supervisor Russell, Town Board Members and Town Attorney h. _. i Town Clerk Elizabeth A.Neville h ttffV ~ 10/9/07 Public Hearing on proposed Local Law Re: Animals From: Re: Date: October 10,2007 Please accept my sincere apologies for the embarassment caused to you regarding the publication of this local law. Affidavits of publication that we order from the newspapers are often not received in a timely manner. However, in checking with my office staff this morning it appears that it was not sent to the Suffolk Times. No documentation of it being sent, nor could a receipt of it from the Suffolk Times be found in the computer of the clerk responsible for this duty. In light of the above, I hereby withdraw my affidavit in the file. Although, it was affixed on the Town Clerk's Bulletin Board, it was not published in the Suffolk Times and I cannot find any documentation of it being sent there. I assume the full reponsibility of this error. I promise you that it will not happen again in the future. 1 will check the files the week before the hearing and demand receipt of affidavits of publication, if they have not been received. In addition to the Affidavit, copies of the e-mail sending it to the Suffolk Times and other newspapers, if applicable, and the return e-mail receipt from the newspaper(s) will be placed into the files in the future. Again, I am very sorry for this error. Please accept my sincere apologies. , ~ OFFICE LOCATION: Town Hall Annex 54375 State Route 25 (cor. Main Rd. & Youngs Ave.) Southold, NY MAlUNG ADDRESS: P.O. Box 1179 Southold, NY 11971 Telephone: 631 765-1938 Fax: 631 765-3136 LOCAL WATERFRONT REVITALIZATION PROGRAM COORDINATOR TOWN OF SOUTHOLD To: Town of Southold Town Board Patricia Finnegan, Town Attorney From: Mark Terry, Principal Planner ~ L WRP Coordinator Date: October 9,2007 Re: "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatine: to Animals" The proposed local law has been reviewed to Chapter 268, Waterfront Consistency Review of the Town of South old Town Code and the Local Waterfront Revitalization Progranl (LWRP) Policy Standards. Based upon the information provided on the LWRP Consistency Assessment Form submitted to this department as well as the records available to me, it is my determination that the proposed action is CONSISTENT with the Policy Standards and therefore is CONSISTENT with the L WRP. Pursuant to Chapter 268, the Town Board shall consider this recommendation in preparing its written determination regarding the consistency of the proposed action. Cc: Kieran Corcoran, Assistant Town Attorney 617,20 Appendix C State Environmental Quality Review SHORT ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FORM For UNLISTED ACTIONS Only . . PART I - PROJECT INFORMATION (To be completed by A ,plicant or Proiect SDonsorl 1. APPLICANT/SPONSOR 2. PROJECT NAME Town of South old "Amendments to the Town Code Relating to Animals" 3. PROJECT LOCATION: Municipality Southold County Suffolk 4. PRECISE LOCATION (Street address and road intersections, prominent landmarks, etc., or provide map) Town -wide 5. PROPOSED ACTION IS: o New D Expansion D Modification/alteration 6. DESCRIBE PROJECT BRIEFLY: "A Local Law in relation to Amendment, to the Town Code Relating to Animals" 7. AMOUNT OF LAND AFFECTED: NA Initially N/\ acres Ultimately acres B. WILL PROPOSED ACTION COMPLY WITH EXISTING ZONING OR OTHER EXISTING LAND USE RESTRICTIONS? [{] Yes D No If No, describe briefly 9. WHAT IS PRESENT LAND USE IN VICINITY OF PROJECT? D Residential D Industrial o Commercial D Agriculture D Park/Forest/Open Space D Other Describe: NA 10. DOES ACTION INVOLVE A PERMIT APPROVAL, OR FUNDING, NOW OR UL TIMATEL Y FROM ANY OTHER GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY (FEDERAL, STATE OR LOCAL)? DYes [Z] No If Yes, list agency(s) name and permit/approvals: 11. DOES ANY ASPECT OF THE ACTION HAVE A CURRENTLY VALID PERMIT OR APPROVAL? DYes [{] No If Yes, list agency(s) name and permit/approvals: 12 AS A RESULT OF PROPOSED ACTION WILL EXISTING PERMIT/APPROVAL REQUIRE MODIFICATION? DYes [ZINO I CERTIFY THAT THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ABOVE IS TRUE TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE ApplicanVsponsor name: Town of Southold Town Board Date: 10/9/07 Signature: If the action is in the Coastal Area, and you are a state agency, complete the Coastal Assessment Form before proceeding with this assessment OVER 1 PART II - IMPACT ASSESSMENT To om leted b Lead A enc A. DOES ACTION EXCEED ANY TYPE I THRESHOLD IN 6 NYCRR, PART 617.4? If yes, coordinate the review process and use the FULL EAF. DYes [{] No B. WILL ACTION RECEIVE COORDINATED REVIEW AS PROVIDED FOR UNLISTED ACTIONS IN 6 NYCRR, PART 617.6? If No, a negative declaration may be superseded by another involved agency. DYes [{] No C. COULD ACTION RESULT IN ANY ADVERSE EFFECTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE FOLLOWING: (Answers may be handwritten, if legible) C1. Existing air quality, surface or groundwater quality or quantity, noise levels, existing traffic pattern, solid waste production or disposal, potential for erosion, drainage or flooding problems? Explain briefly: NA C2. Aesthetic, agricultural, archaeological, historic, or other natural or cultural resources; or community or neighborhood character? Explain briefly: NA C3. Vegetation or fauna, fish, shellfish or wildlife species, significant habitats, or threatened or endangered species? Explain briefly: NA C4. A community's existing plans or goals as officially adopted, or a change in use or intensity of use of land or other natural resources? Explain briefly: NA C5. Growth, subsequent development, or related activities likely to be induced by the proposed action? Explain briefly: NA ce. Long term, short term, cumulative, or other effects not identified in C1-C5? Explain briefly: NA C7. Other impacts (including changes in use of either quantity or type of energy)? Explain briefly: NA D. WILL THE PROJECT HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS THAT CAUSED THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A CRiTICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AREA (CEA)? DYes IZJ No If Yes, explain briefly: E. IS THERE, OR IS THERE LIKELY TO BE, CONTROVERSY RELATED TO POTENTIAL ADVERSE ENVIRONMENTAL iMPACTS? DYes [{] No If Yes, explain briefly: PART III. DETERMINATION OF SIGNIFICANCE (To be completed by Agency) INSTRUCTIONS: For each adverse effect identified above, determine whether it is substantial, large, important or otherwise significant. Each effect should be assessed in connection with its (a) setting (i.e. urban or rural); (b) probability of occurring; (c) duration; (d) irreversibility; (e) geographic scope; and (I) magnitude. If necessary, add attachments or reference supporting materials. Ensure that explanations contain sufficient detail to show that all relevant adverse impacts have been identified and adequately addressed. If question 0 of Part II was checked yes, the determination of significance must evaluate the potential impact ofthe proposed action on the environmental characteristics of the CEA D [{] Check this box if you have identified one or more potentially large or significant adverse impacts which MAY occur. Then proceed directly to the FUL EAF and/or prepare a positive declaration. Check this box if you have determined, based on the information and analysis above and any supporting documentation, that the proposed action WIL NOT result in any significant adverse environmental impacts AND provide, on attachments as necessary, the reasons supporting this determination Town of Southold 10/9/07 Name of Lead Agency Date Scott Russell Print or Type Name of Responsible Officer in Lead Agency Supervisor Signature of Responsible Officer in Lead Agency , Southold Town Board - Lett . Board Meetmg of September II, 2007 RESOLUTION 2007-739 ADOPTED Item # 21 DOC ID: 3170 THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT THE FOLLOWING RESOLUTION NO. 2007-739 WAS ADOPTED AT THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE SOUTHOLD TOWN BOARD ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2007: WHEREAS, there has been presented to the Town Board of the Town of Southold, Suffolk County, New York, on the 11th day of September, 2007 a Local Law entitled "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatine: to Animals" now, therefore, be it RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Southold will hold a public hearing on the aforesaid Local Law at the Southold Town Hall, 53095 Main Road, Southold, New York, on the 9th day of October, 2007 at 4:40 p.m. at which time all interested persons will be given an opportunity to be heard. The proposed Local Law entitled, "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl! to Animals" reads as follows: LOCAL LAW NO. 2007 A Local Law entitled, "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl! to Animals". BE IT ENACTED by the Town Board of the Town of South old as follows: I. PURPOSE - To update the regulations concerning the keeping of animals in the Town of Southold, and requiring that a property owner harboring peacocks be located on at least ten acres of property. II. CODE AMENDMENTS. Chapter 280 of the Code of the Town of South old is hereby amended as follows: S 280-13. Use regulations. In A-C, R-80, R-120, R-200 and R-400 Districts, no building or premises shall be used and no building or part of a building shall be erected or altered which is arranged, intended or designed to be used, in whole or in part, for any uses except the following: Generated September 17, 2007 Page 27 Southold Town Board - Lllr Board ~ng of September II, 2007 \ C. Accessory uses, limited to the following uses and subject to the conditions listed in ~ 280-15 herein: (8) Housing for and harboring of horses. livestock including sheep and goats. and domestie animals other than household pets dogs and cats, provided that such housing shall not be constructed within 40 feet of any lot line. The housing or harboring of such animals shall be conducted for the use and eniovment of the residents of the primary residence only. (a) Peacocks may be housed or harbored in the A-C zoning district only. on parcels no less than ten (J 0) acres in size. (b) Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any line. Chapter 83 of the Code of the Town of Southold is hereby amended as follows: Chapter 83, ANIMALS DEFINITIONS UNREASONABLE NOISE - Any excessiye or unusually loud sound or any sound that either annoys. disturbs. iniures or endangers the comfort. repose. health. peace or safety of a reasonable person of normal sensitiyities or which causes iniury to animal life or damage to propertY or business. except the sound from agricultural operations. Standards to be considered in determining whether "unreasonable noise" exists in a given situation include. but are not limited to. the following: ill The volume of the noise. ill The intensity of the noise. ill Whether the nature of the noise is usual or unusual. ill Whether the origin of the noise is usual or unusual. ill (Ql ill ill (2} QQ} Whether the sound source is temporary. un Whet' The volume and intensity of the background noise. if any. The proximity of the noise to residential sleeping facilities. The nature and zoning district of the areas within which the noise emanates. The time of day or night the noise occurs. The time duration of the noise. " , '1~-q'.<' ,<: cr)ntiT'l __ ___n__ '~!.5.J2J '_~: :-_.'-: stye. ~ 83 5. Penalties for offcnses. [.A.mended 7 31 1973 by L.L. No. I 1973] A----AflT~H'fmHntHing an offense agaffi5HmYiffiWi~i;; :,Ftif,4e-5hall, apon eonviction thereof, be guilty of a ','iolation plolflishable by a tine not eKceeding $250 or by imprisonment for a term not eJleeeding 15 days, or by both sueh fine and imprisonment. The Generated September 17, 2007 Page 28 I Southold Town Board - Lei Board Me!g of September 11, 2007 eoHtiHliatieH of all offeHBe agaiHst tRe pre';isioHs ef tRis artiele shall eOHstitute, fer eaeh aay tRe offeHse is eeHtiHllea, a separate aREI aistiHet effeftBe hereliHaer. B. IH aGaitieH to the aee';e pro',iaea peaalties, the Tevffl Beara may also mailltaift all aetioft or pfOeeeaiHg iH the Hame efthe Tevffl iH a eelll1: of eampetefttjarisaietieft to (lampel eempliallee with or ta r-estraiH BY iHjliHetieH the yielatieH efthis artiele. ~ 83 13. Penalties f-ar affeHses. ,^.H)' persaH eammittiHg aft effeftse agaiHilt !Ill)' pfOvisieft efthis artiele shall, lIf1eH eeHvietieft thereef, Be guilty ef a vielatioH pllftishable BY a fiHe Het e)(eeeaiHg $250 er BY imprisoHment for a term Hot el(6eediHg 15 aays, er BY Beth sueh fine ana impriseHlReHt. ARTICLE IV. General Regulations for Keeping of Animals other than Dogs and Cats. 983-19. No manure shall be kept onsite. other than as permitted pursuant to &280-12. &83-20. The disposal of animal wastes shall be provided for in such a manner as to prevent any nuisance or sanitarY problem. &83-21. No accessory building or structure or part thereof used for the housing of livestock or domestic animals. other than dogs or cats. shall be less than 40 feet from any lot line. per &280- 13. Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any lot line. per & 280-13. &83-22. No person shall keep. raise. house or maintain any animal that shall constitute a nuisance or create a hazard to public health. or in any manner that shall annoy. iniure. disturb. or endanger the comfort. repose. health. peace or safety of other persons or the public. &83-23. Noise No person shall keep. permit or maintain any animal. including a bird. under his control which freauentlv or for continued duration of at least fifteen (! 5) minutes makes sounds which create unreasonable noise across a residential real property boundarv. &83-24 No person shall allow any animal including livestock and fowl. to run at large elsewhere than upon the premises of the owner or custodian unless said animal shall be on a leash or accompanied bv a person at least 12 years of age. having adeauate control of such animal. or unless it be upon the premises of another person with the knowledge and consent of such person. &83-25. Burial of animals. A. No burial of any animal in a front yard shall be permitted. B. No burial of any horses or livestock (including sheep and goats) on property less than five (5) acres. excluding property where the principal use is agricultural. Article VI Enforcement. Generated September 17,2007 Page 29 Southold Town Board - Lflr Board ~ing of September II, 2007 \ &83-24. Penalties for offenses. A. Any person committing an offense against any provision ofthis article shall. upon conviction thereof. be guilty of a violation punishable by a fine not exceeding $500 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding 15 days. or by both such fine and imprisonment. The continuation of an offense against the provisions of this article shall constitute. for each day the offense is continued. a separate and distinct offense hereunder. B. In addition to the above-provided penalties. the Town Board may also maintain an action or proceeding in the name of the Town in a court of competent iurisdiction to compel compliance with or to restrain by iniunction the violation ofthis article. III. SEVERABILITY If any clause, sentence, paragraph, section, or part of this Local Law shall be adjudged by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the judgment shall not affect the validity of this law as a whole or any part thereof other than the part so decided to be unconstitutional or invalid. IV. EFFECTIVE DATE This Local Law shall take effect immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State as provided by law. pg1'L.Tfa~..;;.l.. Elizabeth A. Neville Southold Town Clerk RESULT: ADOPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Louisa P. Evans, Justice SECONDER: Thomas H. Wickham, Councilman AYES: Krupski Jr., Edwards, Ross, Wickham, Evans, Russell Generated September 17, 2007 Page 30 . fl' /f: .,v ;'I/TI /o-r;-o7 MAlUNG ADDRESS: P.O. Box 1179 Southold, NY 11971 PLANNING BOARD MEMBERS JERILYN B. WOODHOUSE Chair KENNETH L. EDWARDS MARTIN H. SIDOR GEORGE D. SOLOMON JOSEPH L. TOWNSEND OFFICE WCAll0N: Town Hall Annex 54375 State Route 25 (cor. Main Rd. & Youngs Ave.) Southold, NY PLANNING BOARD OFFICE TOWN OF SOUTHOLD Telephone: 631 765-1938 Fax~iMffi36 01" vi " 01'07 ,) t..U MEMORANDUM Soulilllld TCiWR Cler. To: Scott Russell, Town Supervisor and Members of the Town Board From: Jerilyn Woodhouse, Planning Board Chair :tLJ (ilL) Date: October 2, 2007 Re: Public Hearing on the proposed "Local Law in Relation to Amendments the Town Code Relating to Animals" Thank you for your request for input from the Planning Board for the public hearing referenced above. The Planning Board has no comments to provide on these proposed code amendments. . LEGAL NOTICE . NOTICE OF PUBLIC;: HEARING NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN there has been presented to the Town Board of the Town of South old, Suffolk County, New York, on the 11th day of September, 2007 a Local Law entitled "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl! to Animals" AND NOTICE IS HEREBY FURTHER GIVEN that the Town Board of the Town of Southold will hold a public hearing on the aforesaid Local Law at the Southold Town Hall, 53095 Main Road, Southold, New York, on the 9th day of October, 2007 at 4:40 p.m. at which time all interested persons will be given an opportunity to be heard. The proposed Local Law entitled, "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl! to Animals" reads as follows: LOCAL LAW NO. 2007 A Local Law entitled, "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl! to Animals". BE IT ENACTED by the Town Board of the Town of South old as follows: I. PURPOSE - To update the regulations concerning the keeping of animals in the Town of Southold, and requiring that a property owner harboring peacocks be located on at least ten acres of property. II. CODE AMENDMENTS. Chapter 280 of the Code of the Town of South old is hereby amended as follows: ~ 280-13. Use regulations. In A-C, R-80, R-120, R-200 and R-400 Districts, no building or premises shall be used and no building or part of a building shall be erected or altered which is arranged, intended or designed to be used, in whole or in part, for any uses except the following: C. Accessory uses, limited to the following uses and subject to the conditions listed in ~ 280-15 herein: (8) Housing for and harboring of horses. livestock including sheep and goats. and demestie animals other than RlJHseneld )lets dogs and cats, provided that such housing shall not be constructed within 40 feet of any lot line. The housing or harbon of such animals shall be conducted fole use and en' 0 residents of the primary residence onlv. ment of the (a) Peacocks may be housed or harbored in the A-C zoning district onlv. on parcels no less than ten (10) acres in size. (b) Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any line. Chapter 83 of the Code of the Town of Southold is hereby amended as follows: Chapter 83, ANIMALS DEFINITIONS UNREASONABLE NOISE - Anv excessive or unusually loud sound or any sound that either annoys, disturbs. iniures or endangers the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of a reasonable person of normal sensitivities or which causes iniurv to animal life or damage to property or business. except the sound from agricultural operations. Standards to be considered in determining whether "unreasonable noise" exists in a given situation include. but are not limited to. the following: (1) The volume of the noise. (2) The intensity of the noise. (3) Whether the nature of the noise is usual or unusual. (4) Whether the origin of the noise is usual or unusual. (5) The volume and intensity ofthe background noise. if anv. (6) The proximity of the noise to residential sleeping facilities. (7) The nature and zoning district of the areas within which the noise emanates. (8) The time of day or night the noise occurs. (9) The time duration of the noise. (10) Whether the sound source is temporary. (1 I) Whether the noise is continuous or impulsive. ~ 835. Penalties for Elffenses. [:\-mended 731 1973 by L.L.I'lEl. I 1973] ,^.. ,^.ny perSEln eElmmitting an Elff-ense again"t any previsiEln Elf tftis artiele shall, lIflEln eElnvietioa thereof, be gHilty of a violatioa pooishable by a fiae aet e)(eeediag $25() or by imprisoHlllent for a tefffl not elleeeding 15 days, or by beth slleh fine and imprisonment. The eontinHation ef an offense against the pre'/isiens Elf this artiele shall eEln"titute, for eaeh day tfte offense is eontinHed, a separate aftd sistinet offonse hereUHder. B. In addition to the above provided penalties, the TmvR Boars may also maiatain IlIl aetien or proeeeding in tfte name of the TOYIR in a eollrt of eompetentjllrisdietion to eompel eomplillllee with or to restraia by iajllfletion the ',iolatioa of this artiele. ~ &3 13. Penalties for offenses. :\-ny persoa eommitting an offense against IlIlY prevision of tftis artiele shall, lIfloa eenvietion thereof, be gHilt), of a vielation pHnishable by a fine not elleeesing $25() or by imprisonment for a tenn not elleeeding 15 days, or by botft sHeh fine aftd imprisoHlllent. ARTICLE IV. General Regulations for Keeping of Animals other than Dogs and Cats. &83-19. No manure shall be kept onsite. other than as permitted pursuant to &280- 12. &83-20. The dispol of animal wastes shall be provided 1'0' such a manner as to prevent any nuisance or sanitary problem. &83-21. No accessory building or structure or part thereof used for the housing of livestock or domestic animals. other than dogs or cats. shall be less than 40 feet from any lot line. per &280-13. Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet ofanv lot line. per &280-13. &83-22. No person shall keep. raise. house or maintain any animal that shall constitute a nuisance or create a hazard to public health. or in any manner that shall annoy. iniure. disturb. or endanger the comfort. repose. health. peace or safety of other persons or the public. &83-23. Noise No person shall keep. permit or maintain any animal. including a bird. under his control which frequently or for continued duration of at least fifteen (15) minutes makes sounds which create unreasonable noise across a residential real property boundarv. &83-24 No person shall allow any animal including livestock and fowl. to run at large elsewhere than upon the premises of the owner or custodian unless said animal shall be on a leash or accompanied bv a person at least 12 years of age. having adequate control of such animal. or unless it be upon the premises of another person with the knowledge and consent of such person. &83-25. Burial of animals. A. No burial of any animal in a front yard shall be permitted. B. No burial of any horses or livestock (including sheep and goats) on property less than five (5) acres. excluding property where the principal use is agricultural. Article VI Enforcement. &83-24. Penalties for offenses. A. Anv person committing an offense against any provision of this article shall. upon conviction thereof. be guilty of a violation punishable bv a fine not exceeding $500 or bv imprisonment for a term not exceeding 15 days. or bv both such fine and imprisol1JIlsnt. The continuation of an offense against the provisions of this article shall constitute. for each day the offense is continued. a separate and distinct offense hereunder. B. In addition to the above-provided penalties. the Town Board may also maintain an action or proceeding in the name of the Town in a court of competent iurisdiction to compel compliance with or to restrain bv iniunction the violation of this article. III. SEVERABILITY If any clause, sentence, paragraph, section, or part of this Local Law shall be adjudged by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the judgment shall not affect the validity of this law as a whole or any part thereof other than the part so decided to be unconstitutional or invalid. IV. EFFECADATE . This Local Law shall take effect immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State as provided by law. September 11, 2007 BY ORDER OF THE SOUTHOLD TOWN BOARD Elizabeth A Neville Town Clerk PLEASE PUBLISH ON SEPTEMBER 27. 2007. AND FORWARD ONE (I) AFFIDAVIT OF PUBLICATION TO ELIZABETH NEVILLE. TOWN CLERK. TOWN HALL. P.O. BOX 1179. SOUTHOLD. NY 11971. Copies to the following: The Suffolk Times Town Board Members TC's Bulletin Board Town Attorney . . STATE OF NEW YORK) SS: COUNTY OF SUFFOLK) ELIZABETH A. NEVILLE, Town Clerk of the Town of South old, New York being duly sworn, says that on the I P> day of ~ to._ iUl.J-., ,2007, she affixed a notice of which the annexed printed notice is a true copy, in a proper and substantial manner, in a most public place in the Town of South old, Suffolk County, New York, to wit: Town Clerk's Bulletin Board, 53095 Main Road, Southold, New York. Public Hearing Local Law on Animals 10/9/074:40 pm ~hdA O. 'Y'Lu".lk Elizabeth A. Neville Southold Town Clerk Sworn before me this ...l8.... day of ~t~~ otary Public LYNDA M BOHN NOTARY PUBLIC, State of New York No. 01 B06020932 Qualified in Suffolk County, Term Expires March 8,20 J.L . . ELIZABETH A. NEVILLE TOWN CLERK REGISTRAR OF VITAL STATISTICS MARRIAGE OFFICER RECORDS MANAGEMENT OFFICER FREEDOM OF INFORMATION OFFICER Town Hal!, 53095 Main Road P.O. Box 1179 Southold, New York 11971 Fax (631) 765-6145 Telephone (631) 765-1800 sou thold town, northfork. net OFFICE OF THE TOWN CLERK TOWN OF SOUTHOLD September 13, 2007 Re: Reso.'s #739 & #740 regarding proposed Local Laws in relation to "Amendments to the Town Code Relating to Animals" & "Establish a Minimum Height for Operations of Aircraft Over Town Limits" of the Code of the Town of Southold Jerilyn B. Woodhouse, Chairman Southold Town Planning Board Southold Town Hall Southold, New York 11971 Dear Ms. Woodhouse: The Southold Town Board at their regular meeting held on September II, 2007 adopted the above resolutions. Certified copies of same are enclosed. Please prepare an official report defining the Planning Board's recommendations with regard to these proposed local laws and forward them to the Town Clerk's Office at your earliest convenience. These proposed local laws have also been sent to the Suffolk County Planning Department for their review. The public hearing for the "Amendments to the Town Code Relating to Animals" has been set for 4:40 P.M. on Tuesday, October 9, 2007; the public hearing "To Establish a Minimum Height for Operations of Aircraft Over Town Limits" has been set for 7:35 P.M., Tuesday, October 23,2007. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. Very truly yours, ~;~ Linda 1. Cooper Deputy Town Clerk Enclosures (2) cc: Town Board Town Attorney . . ELIZABETH A. NEVILLE TOWN CLERK REGISTRAR OF VITAL STATISTICS MARRIAGE OFFICER RECORDS MANAGEMENT OFFICER FREEDOM OF INFORMATION OFFICER Town Hall, 53095 Main Road P.O. Box 1179 Southold, New York 11971 Fax (631) 765-6145 Telephone (631) 765-1800 southoldtown.northfork. net OFFICE OF THE TOWN CLERK TOWN OF SOUTH OLD September 13,2007 Re: Reso.'s #739 & #740 regarding proposed Local Laws in relation to "Amendments to the Town Code Relating to Animals" & "Establish a Minimum Height for Operations of Aircraft Over Town Limits" of the Code of the Town of South old Andy Freleng Suffolk County Department of Planning PO Box 6100 Hauppauge, New York 11788-0099 Dear Mr. Freleng: The Southo1d Town Board at their regular meeting held on September II, 2007 adopted the above resolutions. Certified copies of same are enclosed. Please prepare an official report defining the Planning Board's recommendations with regard to these proposed local laws and forward them to the Town Clerk's Office at your earliest convenience. These proposed local laws have also been sent to the Southold Town Planning Department for their review. The public hearing for the "Amendments to the Town Code Relating to Animals" has been set for 4:40 P.M. on Tuesday, October 9, 2007; the public hearing "To Establish a Minimum Height for Operations of Aircraft Over Town Limits" has been set for 7:35 P.M., Tuesday, October 23, 2007. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. Very truly yours, ~<-1 ~ Linda J. Cooper Deputy Town Clerk Enclosures (2) cc: Town Board Town Attorney . . ~er, Linda From: Sent: To: Subject: Finnegan, Patricia Thursday, September 13, 200711:19 AM Cooper, Linda; Bohn, Lynda Local Laws Hi..... Can you guys send the LL on animals and helicopters to SCP and PB please? We can put the resos on next time, but if you can do it sooner, that would be much appreciated................. Pat Patricia A. Finnegan Town Attorney Town of South old Town Hall Annex 54375 Main Road P.O. Box 1179 Southold, N.Y. 11971 1 : . Southold Town Board - Letter .'C~ Board Mee~of September II, 2007 RESOLUTION 2007-739 ADOPTED Item # 21 DOC ID: 3170 THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT THE FOLLOWING RESOLUTION NO. 2007-739 WAS ADOPTED AT THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE SOUTHOLD TOWN BOARD ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2007: WHEREAS, there has been presented to the Town Board of the Town of South old, Suffolk County, New York, on the II th day of September, 2007 a Local Law entitled "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatinl!: to Animals" now, therefore, be it RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of South old will hold a public hearing on the aforesaid Local Law at the Southold Town Hall, 53095 Main Road, Southold, New York, on the 9th day of October, 2007 at 4:40 p.m. at which time all interested persons will be given an opportunity to be heard. The proposed Local Law entitled, "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatine: to Animals" reads as follows: LOCAL LAW NO. 2007 A Local Law entitled, "A Local Law in relation to Amendments to the Town Code Relatine: to Animals". BE IT ENACTED by the Town Board of the Town of Southold as follows: I. PURPOSE - To update the regulations concerning the keeping of animals in the Town of Southold, and requiring that a property owner harboring peacocks be located on at least ten acres of property. II. CODE AMEND;\fENTS. Chapter 280 of the Code of the Town of Southold is hereby amended as follows: ~ 280-13. Use regulations. In A-C, R-80, R-120, R-200 and R-400 Districts, no building or premises shall be used and no building or part of a building shall be erected or altered which is arranged, intended or designed to be used, in whole or in part, for any uses except the following: Generated September 17, 2007 Page 27 Southold Town Board - L.r Board ating of September II, 2007 C. Accessory uses, limited to the following uses and subject to the conditions listed in S 280-15 herein: (8) Housing for and harboring of horses, livestock including sheep and goats, and domestic animals other than housellold pets dogs and cats, provided that such housing shall not be constructed within 40 feet of any lot line. The housing or harboring of such animals shall be conducted for the use and enjoyment of the residents of the primary residence only. (a) Peacocks may be housed or harbored in the A-C zoning district only, on parcels no less than ten (10) acres in size. (b) Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any line. Chapter 83 of the Code of the Town of Southold is hereby amended as follows: Chapter 83, ANIMALS DEFINITIONS UNREASONABLE NOISE - Any excessive or unusually loud sound or any sound that either annoys. disturbs, injures or endangers the comfort, repose. health. peace or safety of a reasonable person of normal sensitivities or which causes injury to animal life or damage to property or business, except the sound from agricultural operations. Standards to be considered in determining whether "unreasonable noise" exists in a given situation include, but are not limited to. the following: ill The yolume of the noise. ill The intensity of the noise. ill Whether the nature of the noise is usual or unusual. ill Whether the origin of the noise is usual or unusual. ill The volume and intensity of the background noise, if any. (Q) The proximity of the noise to residential sleeping facilities. ill The nature and zoning district of the areas within which the noise emanates. ill The time of day or night the noise occurs. 12l The time duration of the noise. QQ} Whether the sound souree is temporary. (II} .\'-" ;,.. ;',<:.ontinuou; or imJlsi\ji'. ~ 835. Penalties for offenses. [!.mended 731 1973 by L.L. No. I 1973] .\. .\r'\~f*sBlt-€BIHlntHin6 an offense-a~~~t ~ny fi"'V~lH-ofthis article ,'hall. upon conViCtiell thereot~ be guilty of a violation punishable by II tine not exceeding $250 or by imprisonment for a term not elleeeding IS days, or by botll suell fine and imprisonment. The Generated September 17, 2007 Page 28 ; . Southold Town Board - Letter Board Melg of September 11,2007 60HtiffiuHiSH sf aH sffsHse agaiHst the prsvisisHs af this artiele shall 6aHstitute, far sa6h day the affeHse is 6aatiooed, a seplll'ate aHa aistiHet sffeHse herellfider. 8. IH additisH to the allave pravidsd pSHalties, the TO'NH 8alll'd may also maiataiH aH aetioH or preeeediag iH the flarHe of the TS';iH iH a ealH't of eompsteat jllrisdietioH ta eompel esmpliaHee v.ith or to restraiH by iHjuHetisH the violatioH of this artiele. ~ 83 13. PSlIldties for sffeases. AHy psrsaa eammittiHg an offeHse agaiast lII1J provisioH of this artiele shall, IlJlOH ssftvietioH thsmof, be guilty of a violatioH PliHishallle by a fiHe Hot eJ(eesdiHg $250 or by imprisollfHsat for a term Hot sJ(eeediHg 15 days, or by bsth sueh fiae aHd imprisaRflleHt. ARTICLE IV. General Regulations for Keeping of Animals other than Dogs and Cats. &83-19. No manure shall be kept onsite. other than as permitted pursuant to &280-12. &83-20. The disposal of animal wastes shall be provided for in such a manner as to prevent any nuisance or sanitary problem. &83-21. No accessory building or structure or part thereof used for the housing of livestock or domestic animals. other than dogs or cats. shall be less than 40 feet from any lot line. per &280- 13. Housing for flocks of more than 25 fowl shall not be constructed within 50 feet of any lot line. per &280-13. &83-22. No person shall keep. raise. house or maintain any animal that shall constitute a nuisance or create a hazard to public health. or in any manner that shall annoy. iniure. disturb. or endanger the comfort. repose. health. peace or safety of other persons or the public. &83-23. Noise No person shall keep. permit or maintain any animal. including a bird. under his control which frequentlv or for continued duration of at least fifteen (15) minutes makes sounds which create unreasonable noise across a residential real property boundary. &83-24 No person shall allow any animal including livestock and fowl. to run at large elsewhere than upon the premises of the owner or custodian unless said animal shall be on a leash or accompanied by a person at least 12 years of age. having adequate control of such animal. or unless it be upon the premises of another person with the knowledge and consent of such person. &83-25. Burial of animals. A. No burial of any animal in a front yard shall be permitted. B. No burial of any horses or livestock (including sheep and goats) on property less than five (5) acres. excluding property where the principal use is agricultural. Article VI Enforcement. Generated September 17, 2007 Page 29 Southold Town Board - .er Board ating of September II, 2007 " &83-24. Penalties for offenses. A. Anv person committing an offense against anv provision of this article shall. upon conviction thereof. be guilty of a violation punishable bv a fine not exceeding $500 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding IS davs. or bv both such fine and imprisonment. The continuation of an offense against the provisions of this article shall constitute. for each dav the offense is continued. a separate and distinct offense hereunder. B. In addition to the above-provided penalties. the Town Board mav also maintain an action or proceeding in the name of the Town in a court of competent iurisdiction to compel compliance with or to restrain bv iniunction the violation of this article. III. SEVERABILITY If any clause, sentence, paragraph, section, or part ofthis Local Law shall be adjudged by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the judgment shall not affect the validity of this law as a whole or any part thereof other than the part so decided to be unconstitutional or invalid. IV. EFFECTIVE DATE This Local Law shall take effect immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State as provided by law. ~UfCl."QwlL.' Elizabeth A. Neville South old Thwn Clerk / -' .... RESULT: ADOPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Louisa P. Evans, Justice SECONDER: Thomas H. Wickham, Councilman AYES: Krupski Jr., Edwards, Ross, Wickham, Evans, Russell Generated September 17,2007 Page 30