The Village of Great Neck Estates Board of Trustees unanimously approved a measure last week to cut the red tape needed for residents to install emergency generators on their property.
During its regular meeting at Village Hall last Thursday, the board voted to establish a flat fee of $200 to install a residential generator and to reduce the amount of official documentation needed to complete the project.
“We’re not changing anything,” Village of Great Neck Estates Mayor David Fox said. “We are in compliance with New York state and Nassau County laws and village code. We’re just making it easier for them.”
The flat fee replaces a schedule of payments, which included $150 for an application for installation, $125 for a certificate of completion and a fee of $15 for each estimated $1,000 toward the final cost of the generator.
Residents who wish to install generators on their property can now expect major savings to complete a project, Fox said. The cost to homeowners installing a generator had been $400 and $600.
Board members also said during the meeting that residents will only need to present a site-plan sketch of the property done by a licensed engineer or contractor upon completion of the project, instead of an official survey.
This measure fits in compliance with section 95.10 of the village code, Fox said.
“I think generators today have almost become a necessity if people choose to use them because of the amount of problems that we have with large trees,” he said. “What we asked to do was reduce the fee to the homeowner to make it easier and to reduce the concept of having an architect having to create plans.”
The board of trustees also unanimously adopted another measure to amortize its annual New York State Retirement payment due to an increase levied by the state.
“They start off with a number, you budget that number,” Fox said of the payment. “Then they decide ‘oh that’s not a good number. We have a different number.’ The state doesn’t balance their number, but they want us to balance it and stay within the 2 percent (tax cap).”
The total amount of the village’s pension plan is in excess of $700,000. The village voted to make an amortized payment in the amount of $134,462 with a fixed rate of 3.75 percent, which can be made by the state’s deadline of Dec. 15.
“You can’t amortize the full amount,” Fox said. “You can only amortize a very small piece of it. We’ve said we’ll take that small piece provided the interest rate is stable and we have the right to prepay it.”
“It’s very inexpensive money,” the mayor added. “I think that it makes sense for us from a fiscal standpoint that we opt to maximize the amortization.”
