A recent addition to the building department is helping New Hyde Park step up its enforcement of village property codes, village officials said Tuesday.
Building and public works Superintendent Tom Gannon estimated the village has issued about twice as many violation notices as it had before it added a part-time code officer position a few weeks ago.
“It takes a lot of the work load off and we can follow through a lot better on that type of thing,” Gannon said.
The officer, John Nicastro, can dedicate a good portion of his three weekly shifts to driving around the village and spotting code violations, Gannon said.
Most of the notices are for small “quality-of-life” violations, such as grass growing too high, and are quickly resolved, he said. In about 5 percent of the cases, residents don’t comply and the violation goes to village court.
“You just have to give folks a nudge and they’ll do the right thing,” Deputy Mayor Lawrence Montreuil said at Tuesday’s village Board of Trustees meeting.
Nicastro’s position is funded by money the building department had in place from the last village budget, Gannon said.
Mayor Robert Lofaro said having a fourth employee in the building department has allowed the village to deal with several “egregious” code violations, some of which may have been going on for a long time.
He also commended village residents who report code violations.
“There had been quite a number of property maintenance violations, but we just weren’t staffed appropriately to address those violations until now,” Lofaro said.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Lofaro said he expects the second hearing for the controversial Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealership proposed for Jericho Turnpike currently scheduled for Dec. 15 to be postponed again.
The village has not heard from the applicant, Amir Jarrah, or his attorney, John Notaro, that they have conducted the traffic, noise and real estate studies officials requested at the first hearing in October, Lofaro said. The village also has not yet hired experts to conduct its own studies.
The trustees recently passed a law providing that applicants pay the village a deposit to help pay for expert studies, similar to the current requirement that applicants cover stenography costs for their public hearings.
Lofaro said Jarrah, who plans to effectively move the Great Neck Harley-Davidson dealership he owns to New Hyde Park, has not paid any of the $10,000 deposit the village requested.
