FULTON, NY – The Fulton Common Council has scheduled a public hearing regarding a proposal to mend non-conforming use laws.
The hearing is scheduled to take place at a regular council meeting after the public comment section on April 5 starting at 7 p.m. in the city municipal building, 141 S. First St.
City officials say they’d like to amend the law to consider each property on an individual basis.
Currently, if a residence is vacant for 12 months or longer, the zoning of the residence will return to a single family home no matter what type of residence it was considered prior.
Therefore, landlords or prospective buyers looking into buying multi-family homes that have been vacant for 12 months or longer are unable to buy the property as a multi-family unit and would have to restore it to a single family residence.
This often deters any potential buyer as it would generally be expensive to restore the property and defeats the purpose of buying a rental property with plans to house more than one family.
In a committee meeting, the council presented a draft of the changes they would like for the non-conforming use laws under Article VII of Chapter 177, Zoning.
The draft states that the council would like “discontinuance of a non-conforming use for a period of 12 consecutive months.”
Rather, the draft explains that each property could have an extended time frame by resolution of a super majority vote by the common council and specifically, an affirmative vote by the ward councilman of which the property resides.
One member of the public approached the council and addressed this concern, saying he was working with the bank to purchase a multi-family home within the city to rent out, but before closing costs were paid the house would surpass the 12 month time frame and would have to be purchased as a single-family home, negating the intent of buying the house for multiple families.
The council assured that the proposed mend to the non-conforming laws would remedy this situation and with approval of the common council would give the prospective buyer the extra time needed to purchase the home as is.
Such a mend to the law plays in part to city officials attempt to resolve the amount of foreclosed properties in the city, hopeful to return them to the tax roll.
Such efforts have proved effective as two foreclosed properties on West Third Street recently sold through approval at the latest common council meeting.
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Sure let’s just let them keep renting out these rats nests. The city council and the mayor have already killed any single family home value anyway.
The zoning board has done a great job in eliminating these houses. Now the CC wants to play “Good Old Boy Politics” . Pick and choose who gets what and when and where. The house Mr. Myers is talking about is a condemned property and should be tore down not sold. If there is anyone out there that cares about there city and neighborhood please go to the meeting and let the CC how you feel and let them know they are talking about getting voted out of office. All this to gain the sale of some property that should be tore down. What a joke our CC is.
Mayor and City Council have been working for years to clean up “rats nests” purchased cheap and run into the ground by out of state, absentee landlords who don’t have the slightest care about you, me, or Fulton, NY. I hope they do this case-by-case law right to allow more local landlords that care about our community and want to make an honest living. And hopefully this allows more properties to be repaired, renovated, and managed responsibly.
My question for the everyone in the community is…..Who is the person looking to buy the property? It must be someone who is in relation or in tight with the city due to the response of bringing such a thing to a vote when it is only being brought forward by one citizen. This would never happen if it were the average Joe off the street.
To clarify, the citizen that spoke to the council was not the reason the Council chose to amend the law. This decision had been in the works at committee meetings and such before they heard from the concerned citizen. It was just one example of how it impacts perspective buyers in the city.