The Roslyn Estates Board of Trustees introduced a bill at Monday’s board meeting that would expand the number of weekend hours a resident or landscaper can operate gas-powered yard equipment, like a lawn mower or leaf blower, within the village.
“We want people to live with quiet and tranquillity on the weekend, but sometimes landscapers need to come and work,” Mayor Jeff Schwartzberg said.
The current village code limits the operation of yard equipment to three hours per day on Saturday and Sunday; such equipment can be operated on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. The proposed bill would expand the permissible hours to four or five each weekend day, depending on feedback garnered from a public hearing at next month’s board of trustees meeting, Schwartzberg said.
The village adopted its current limit as many as eight years ago, just two years before Schwartzberg become mayor, he said. He raised the idea of expanding the limit once or twice over the years and chose to bring it up again “because the board embraced it recently.”
He said the trustees, like him, “want a balance.”
“They don’t want to open the window too wide; they want people to enjoy barbecues on weekends,” he added.
Schwartzberg said he and the trustees also want to ensure that landscapers can effectively conduct business in the village.
“If a landscaper handles five or six houses, it’s hard to come in and handle things in three hours,” he said. “We’re trying to give them opportunity.”
A public hearing on the proposed bill will be held at the village’s next board of trustees meeting on Monday, Jan. 9, at 7 p.m.
The board will likely make a decision on whether to adopt the bill by the end of the meeting, Schwartzberg said.
If adopted, the bill will go into effect in February.
At the meeting, the board also approved a $650,000 bond for road replacement and repair, he said.
The village is hoping to start the roadwork at the end of March or the beginning of April and to complete it by the end of May or the beginning of June, he said.
“It’s important to me we don’t have construction in the village over the summer,” Schwartzberg said.
“People want to be outside in the summertime flipping hamburgers and having people over; they don’t want a bunch of paving trucks,” he added.
