Amateur gearheads beware: Soon, you may need to move some of your disabled vehicles out of public view.
The Clifton Park Town Board held a public hearing on a proposed amendment to the town’s junkyard laws at the Monday, Aug. 6, meeting.
Under the current law, residents can have any number of vehicles in various states of disrepair in their yard as long as the cars are registered, which requires a license plate and insurance.
Town Supervisor Phil Barrett read the proposed change to the law, which adds the words uninspected and inoperable.
`Any place of storage or deposit outside of a building where two or more uninspected, inoperable, or unregistered vehicles no longer intended or in condition for legal use on public highways are stored,` would be in violation of the law, he said.
Deputy Town Attorney Lou Renzi said the amendment had two purposes.
`One is to expand the language to what really is junk,` Renzi said. `It also expands the idea of what is or is not visible whether it’s out there in the yard or in a carport visible to the road.`
`I think this legislation is important,` Councilman Sandy Roth said. `I’m not trying to make it difficult for junkyards, but I think we all take pride in our community, and this is really an unsightly view to people who go by.`
The proposed change came about in June when Ted Kunker of Bay Hill Court complained to the town board about a neighbor who had nine cars in his yard, three of which were unregistered.
According to Kunker, many of the cars had been on jacks for more than 10 years and had since sunk into the driveway. He also said his neighbor did not regularly mow his lawn.
Kunker, who is on the board of the town’s water authority, said that his property has been on the real estate market since spring, and that his agent told him in a letter that the appearance of his neighbor’s property has turned prospective buyers away.
`It has currently been resolved because of pressure that has been put upon by the building authority in anticipation for the coming laws that I think the current landowner was aware of,` he said. `Over time, he has cleaned up the piles of rubbish. He’s moved the cars off the lifts that were sunk into the driveway since this whole thing started.`
Clifton Park resident George Sheldon voiced concerns about the proposed change during the public hearing.
`You guys did with existing law what had to be done with one complaint,` Sheldon told the board. `My concern is to change the existing law, because of not a whole bunch of complaints or a lot of problems, seems like it’s overreacting to the situation.`
Barrett acknowledged Sheldon’s concerns, but said that the proposed change was not drastic.
`If you don’t nip it in the bud, if you don’t take action in the community, this type of thing spreads,` Barrett said. `It usually behooves a community to act swiftly and make sure this type of thing doesn’t spread because it can really hurt a community over time.`
Sheldon said he thought the new law projected behavior onto people before they actually behaved that way.
`In a lot of cases, that’s what law does,` Barrett replied. `We don’t want to be Big Brother, snooping in everyone’s front yard, but typically these situations present themselves; they’re hard to miss.`
Barrett said he expected action to be taken on the proposed amendment within the next few meetings.“
