Private meeting about events law angers public
The move by a town Planning and Zoning Commission subcommittee leaves dozens of people feeling misled.
A review of Marbletown’s proposed “Special Events Venues Local Law” turned into an event itself when members of a town Planning and Zoning Commission subcommittee angered people attending a Thursday night meeting by going into a closed session.
Members said the subcommittee had been advised discussions in front of an audience would slow the process. And they noted that the audience at the meeting, numbering 47 people, already had interrupted the subcommittee during the session’s first 15 minutes.
“We’ve spent a lot of time ... trying to address the legislation,” subcommittee Chairman Don Proctor said.
The subcommittee voted 7-4 to move to a private meeting, prompting members of the audience to contend the town had misled the public into believing there would be a transparent process in developing the regulations.
“It was published as an open meeting,” resident Barbara Esmark said. “People were invited to an open meeting.”
Town attorney Tracy Kellogg said subcommittee meetings are not required to be public under the state Open Meetings Law because they are appointed bodies designated to provide advice and recommendations.
“It’s not a voting body,” she said. “It has no real impact or ... ability to adopt a local law.”
There also was confusion about a written instruction to the committee by the Town Board to “not invest time in determining the economic impact to Marbletown of allowing special event venues in or our community.”
That drew objections from subcommittee member Tracey Dewart, who said she previously was told to conduct a study of the proposed law’s financial impact on the town and neighbors of event venues.
“When I was asked to sit on this committee, we were told that we were going to explore whether it was appropriate to have commercial venues in residential areas,” Dewart said. “We were told that we were going to analyze its impact ... to look at the legislation and to define the legislation.”
The instructions from the Town Board also told the subcommittee to focus on nuisance and safety issues.
“The review is on the nuts and bolts portion of the regulations, such as noise decibels, ingress and egress for emergency vehicles, fire safety, parking and any additional points that pertain [to] the event permitting process,” a letter from the board stated.
The proposed law was drafted after the Marbletown Zoning Board of Appeals in April overruled the town code enforcement officer’s determination that a bed-and-breakfast owner could broaden the use of his property to include a wedding venue. In turning down the application from Thomas Brownlie — who sought a special-use permit for events on his 78-acre property at 73 Mill Dam Road — the board said town zoning regulations apparently didn’t address the issues of B&B sites being used for weddings.
Under the proposed law, events venues would be allowed with a specialuse permit in all land-use zones except the R-3, SR-E, SR-N and I-1 districts.
The proposed law would:
• Limit the number of allowable events to 10 per calendar year, with no more than two per calendar month. Also, there would have to be at least five days between events.
• Restrict the length of each event to five hours, between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m.
• Require that plans be submitted in advance for parking, security, trash disposal and emergency medical care.
• Require that information be submitted in advance about food and drinks to be served, and transportation arrangements.
• Prohibit use of such sites for camping without special permission from the town.
The subcommittee expects to schedule another meeting on the proposal to discuss minimum property sizes for such events, the maximum number of people that would be allowed, and limits on sound and light levels.