Fulton Officials Schedule Public Hearing

by Mikayla Kemp | March 7, 2016 11:33 pm

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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Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/news/fulton/fulton-officials-schedule-public-hearing/

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