BEDFORD, N.Y. - With any luck, Bedford’s months-long effort to rein in super-sized recreational vehicles on town streets should reach its conclusion next Tuesday.
The Town Board is expected to enact at its March 3 meeting a new local law defining and regulating the jumbo RVs, known by some as “rolling condos.”
Meanwhile, the RV that prompted the Town Board's action by taking up daytime residence on tiny Edgemont Road for about half a year has become something of a now-and-again visitor.
Bedford police late last week said they had not seen the vehicle in recent days or received any new complaints about it.
By late last year, some Edgemont Road residents, tired of the big rig on their narrow road, were complaining to town hall; other residents had urged compassion.
Supervisor Ellen Calves says the town has suggested alternative places to park the RV and offered other help to the vehicle’s lone occupant/driver, identified only as a woman and not a Bedford resident. “Not all of the options have been accepted or desired by this person,” Calves said at a meeting last month.
Town officials began crafting RV restrictions, incorporating them in a local law that was scheduled for a Feb. 17 vote. Board members Stephanie McCaine and Thomas Catoliato had worked with Town Attorney Eric Gordon to clarify and simplify the new law’s language in defining the affected RVs.
But an incorrect draft of the proposed law, containing earlier language, was posted online before last week’s scheduled public hearing, a further continuation of one that had begun in early January.
Now, Calves promises, the new law will be enacted next Tuesday. Targeting the largest rigs—Class A, which can top 45 feet in length, and Class C, built on a converted bus or truck chassis and running to 35 feet or more—the law forbids parking on any residential street or for more than three days in town lots 2 and 3. The supervisor would also have some discretion under the law to address special circumstances.
No community member spoke at last week’s hearing and the board had already closed it before the language discrepancy was found.
Suzanne Volpe, sitting in for town attorney Gordon, advised the board, “In the interest of full transparency, my recommendation would be . . . to reopen the public hearing.” The board did that, setting a continuation of the hearing for Tuesday’s meeting.
“I think we all know what we’re trying to achieve here,” Calves said. “Unfortunately, it’s just going to take one more meeting to get it done.”
The Town Board returned two long-serving members of pivotal regulatory land-use boards to their leadership posts for at least another year.
Deirdre Courtney-Batson and Peter Michaelis will continue to wield the gavel at meetings, respectively, of the Bedford Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals. Together they bring more than a half century’s experience reviewing proposed projects or hearing appeals when those projects conflict with town code.
Courtney-Batson has been a member of the Planning Board since 1990 and was its longtime deputy chair before succeeding Don Coe as chairman in 2013. Michaelis, a member of the ZBA for more than two decades, also took the leadership reins in 2013, succeeding David Menken as chair of that panel.
The Town Board also named Michael Mellin, a lawyer, as an alternate member of the Planning Board, effective immediately, for a three-year term ending Jan. 20, 2029. An alternate observes board matters but votes only if one of the board’s five members is absent or has a conflict.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here