Town can prosecute Competition Carting for illegal parking of garbage trucks

Zoning Board of Appeals

June 27, 2013

In a unanimous vote Thursday, the Zoning Board of Appeals gave the town the green light to proceed to prosecute Competition Carting for illegally parking its garbage trucks on a parcel off Front Street without the required special permit.

The vote was based on the company’s failure to appear before the ZBA for the second month in a row or to submit an appropriate site plan in conjunction with its application for a special permit.

Shortly after Competition Carting begun parking its trucks on the site in January, the Building Department issued a Notice of Violation. However, the prosecution was put on hold when, later in January, the company filed an application for the required permit.

On June 4, after Competition Carting failed to appear at the ZBA’s May 23 meeting, the Board sent a letter to the garbage collector advising the company that unless it appeared at the June 27 meeting, its application would be “deemed withdrawn and/or abandoned” and that the town would prosecute the illegal use of the premises to the fullest extent of the law.

A portion of the parcel being used by Competition Carting is the town-owned portion of Richard Place.

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Competition Carting's last appearance before the ZBA was on April 25, at which time CIY posted the following summary:

The application is to permit the storage of up to 12 garbage trucks (for collecting kitchen waste and recyclables), containers and a temporary trailer used as an office on a parcel located off Richard Place which is off Front Street, roughly across the street from Yorktown Auto Body.  Truck drivers arrive at the site at approximately 5:30am, park their cars on the site, and then leave in the garbage trucks, returning to the site at 3pm.  The trucks are washed once a week. No one is on the site between 6am-3pm. (Note: the applicant is already using the site to park garbage trucks.)

In response to issues raised by the Building Inspector, the applicant will need to submit a formal site plan for the intended use and the application will have to be referred to the DEP because the site is located in the New York City watershed. The site is also in a FEMA designated floodplain. The application has already been referred to the county Planning Department as the site is adjacent to the Northern Westchester Trailway.  Given the environmental issues associated with the application, in February, the ZBA told the applicant that a long form Environmental Assessment Form (EAF) would be required under the SEQRA law.

ZBA members and two adjacent property owners expressed concern about the truck washing and the resulting odors, especially during the summer. Concerns were also raised about the water from the truck washing getting into the wetlands as well as traffic on Front Street although the applicant said that there wasn’t much traffic at 5:30 am.

Referring to the site’s previous special permit for outdoor storage for construction materials that expired in 1998, the applicant said that the new use, storage of trucks, was a lesser use as the site was not actively used. In response, ZBA members noted that the issue was more a “different” use than the “intensity” of the use and that because the proposed use involved garbage, there was also a health issue.

The hearing was adjourned until May 23.