The Manorhaven Board of Trustees will look to begin the process of establishing a building moratorium in the coming months. The suggestion was made Wednesday night by Trustee John Popeleski after issues between construction and parking had arisen in the village.
“Greedy builders are destroying the town, and they are all about their pocketbooks,” Popeleski said in an interview Friday.
Any official moratorium would have to take place in the form of a law, which has to go through a process including a public hearing that will take a few months, said Village Attorney Jonathan Fielding.
The board also announced a public hearing to create a singular handicap parking space on the west side of Hickory Road in front of house number 63. The public hearing will take place on Oct. 27 and has arisen from residents’ desires to control certain aspects of parking, Mayor Jim Avena said.
“We have a major problem with parking, it’s sacred around here,” Avena said in an interview Thursday. One of the methods he implemented to try and fix the issue was to eliminate alternate street parking. Instead of alternate street parking between Dec. 1 to March 15, he changed it to only in declared snow emergencies.
Also suggested Wednesday night was the implementation of parking permits, distributed only for residents and allowing unmarked cards a certain amount of time to be parked in the village.
Each suggestion is aimed at fixing what Popeleski said he considers to be a problem that has spread rapidly.
“When two-family housing was permitted, it was like wildfire after that,” said Popeleski, who has lived in Manorhaven for over two decades.
A potential building moratorium is not the first time Manorhaven has sought similar remedies.
In 2016, Manorhaven trustees at the time unanimously voted to approve a six-month building moratorium on development of waterfront property.
At the time, then Village Attorney James Toner said, “The village board of trustees and other village officials need the time afforded by the moratorium in order to comprehensively address the question of how to properly modify the restrictions in place along the village’s waterfront without further development proceeding.”
Popeleski is aware that any moves that are going to be made need to go through multiple boards and have multiple meetings in order to get a scope on what is feasible and what is not. However, he believes it is time for the board and village to have more of a say in the direction of the village.
“Are we going to stop building completely in Manorhaven? No,” Popeleski said. “Can we start controlling it? Yes.”
