A pair of code amendments changing the role of the Landmarks Preservation Commission were adopted by the town board Tuesday night over the objection of the commission and Councilwoman Jodi Giglio, the town board liaison to the commission.
Both measures were adopted by 4-1 votes, without comment.
The existing code gave the commission, whose members are appointed by the town board, regulatory authority over applications to alter, demolish or build new construction that affects landmarks or historic districts. The town board had authority to review the LPC’s decision on appeal by an applicant.
The revision changed the LPC’s decision from a final determination that can be appealed to the town board to a recommendation made to the town board, which then has 15 days to act on it.
Should the board fail to act on the recommendation within the 15-day time frame, the building department decides whether to accept the recommendation of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
The proposed change took commission members by surprise and requested — three times, according to LPB chairman Richard Wines — to meet with the full town board at a work session to discuss them.
Wines reiterated the commission’s request for a meeting at the board’s Oct. 16 public hearing on the proposal. The supervisor rebuffed the request, advising Wines that the public hearing then being held “is the time to comment.”
Wines told the board the commission members were “mystified” by the town board’s proposed changes to the review process, which he said follows the state’s model code and “has worked well for the past 20 years.”
Five days later, the Landmarks Preservation Commission sent a memo to the town board asking “several key questions” about the proposed code revisions. In the two-page memo dated Oct. 21, the commission asked six specific questions about the objectives of the proposed code revisions and how the new procedures would work.
The code revision adopted Tuesday changes the LPC’s decision to a non-binding recommendation that the town board would have 15 days to “approve, modify or reject in whole or in part.”
It says if the town board fails to act within that 15-day period, “the building department may accept the recommendation of the Landmarks Preservation Committee and approve, deny or approve with modifications, as the case may be.”
Noting that the language gives the building department discretion to accept the LPC’s recommendation — or not — the commission asked, “Who in the department would make such a decision?”
Wines said yesterday the commission never got any response to its memo from anyone on the town board. They weren’t even aware that the revisions were on the town board’s agenda for a vote Tuesday, he said.
“We are surprised that the town board voted without responding to the concerns expressed in our letter,” Wines said.
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