After hearing what residents didn’t like about the waterfront analysis earlier this month, the Manorhaven Board of Trustees asked those attending Thursday’s board meeting what the village’s next move should be.
“We’re very clear on what you don’t want,” said Deputy Clerk Donald Badaczewski. “What we like to know going forward is what you do want.”
The biggest change suggested in the analysis, allowing building in the water overlay district, had been taken off the table.
Following a promise from Mayor Jim Avena earlier this month, the board accepted a resolution that would ban residential construction in the marinas.
“I am introducing a resolution to so there can be no doubt where the Board of Trustees and I stand on the issue,” he said.
Badaczewski talked about a meeting he had attended the night before with the Cow Neck Historical Society and Caroline DuBois, the acting secretary of the Manorhaven Action Committee.
During that meeting, he said an idea came up to have all the villages on the Port Washington peninsula work together to improve the waterfront.
“I think it is a great idea and we in Manorhaven would like to take the lead on that,” Avena said.
A portion of Manhasset Bay waterfront near Inspiration Wharf is currently under a moratorium by the Town of North Hempstead.
DuBois called Manorhaven conducting its own analysis a “piecemeal” effort and said one big analysis on zoning around the bay, using the state’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, would be preferable.
“All I’m saying is, this seems like a hopeful outcome of a somewhat contentious topic,” she said.
In order to pull such an effort together, DuBois requested that the waterfront moratorium be extended for an additional six months, which would keep it in place through the end of the year.
Avena, though, did not want to hand off the analysis to the state, saying that it would be too bureaucratic.
“We can all work together, we don’t need to kick it upstate,” he said.
The village also released the first draft of the proposed 2018-19 proposed budget.
The total would be $4.1 million, about a $175,000 or four percent decrease from last year’s $4.3 million budget.
Avena explained that the decrease was due to the rental registrations.
The registrations alternate every other year in revenue, providing the village with $227,000 for the 2017-18 budget but only $68,500 for the 2018-19 budget. Revenue will swing back up next year, but the current budget needed to be trimmed.
There were no major reductions in the budget to make up the gap. Instead, smaller cuts were spread across various areas.
“We were able to reduce expenses, and we increased [revenue from] fines because of improved enforcement of the codes,” Avena said.
The board also approved the hire of Alexander Kovacevic to finish the deputy clerk term of Badaczewski, who is leaving to take a job with the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington.
