Plandome Manor drafts road repair amendment

Teri West
Plandome Manor's Board of Trustees. (Photo by Teri West)

The Village of Plandome Manor is in the early stages of crafting an amendment to the streets and sidewalks section of the village code to address maintenance of private roads.

It intends to maintain a safe, cohesive network of roads throughout the village while ensuring that damaged roads are repaired.

The amendment, in its current draft, would create a maintenance obligation for residents.

The board agreed at a meeting on Tuesday that addressing the issue is important for the village.

“There are people screaming for this,” Deputy Mayor Matthew Clinton said. “They would pay for their neighbors to get their roads done because they do really think that it is having an adverse impact on real estate values.

Village counsel Rachel Scelfo, who is drafting the amendment, is using New York’s 1986 D’Angelo v. Cole case as guidance. The case determined that villages can require such maintenance. However, it also determined that if residents do not comply with the code and the village chooses to conduct the repairs, the village cannot collect reimbursement through civil suit.

Plandome Manor will also be getting a new website soon that will feature photos of the village taken by a Manhasset resident.

“I’m excited about at least having nice pictures of the village,” Mayor Barbara Donno said. “I mean there’s such nice homes [and] scenery.”

The village is also considering purchasing a program that would digitize meeting agendas, a tool that Great Neck uses. It would make agendas more accessible to the public, include  accompanying documents and be searchable.

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