Saratoga Springs’ Unified Development Ordinance does not actually exist as law.
Although the city worked for years on drafts and revisions, when the vote took place later than planned last December, the city council did not follow the full and proper procedure, and the law was never technically implemented.
This was the claim made by Mayor Ronald Kim and verified by acting City Attorney Tony Izzo at the Saratoga Springs City Council meeting Tuesday March 1. Izzo was the assistant city attorney under then-City Attorney Vincent DeLeonardis last year.
“I want to put a fact on the table for the city council to consider. There was no formal written resolution adopting this complex legislation,” the mayor said, adding a moment later: “The legislation that was passed did not repeal applicable zoning codes.”
The UDO was adopted on Dec. 21, 2021, under item #17 "discussion and vote" on the mayor’s agenda. Normally “discussion and vote” items include a hyperlink to the resolution upon which the city council votes, but the link on #17 leads to a page that itself links to UDO-related documents and webpages, not to any resolution.
Former mayor Meg Kelly wrote to FoothillsBusinessDaily.com saying in part that the current administration just wants to "undo and criticize" the previous administration. During Tuesday's meeting, Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran said that the problems with the vote on the UDO just point to the failings of the former board.
[See the mayor’s agenda here.]
According to Kim, this leaves the city, developers, property owners and others in a vague situation: Which rules apply when people consider development projects, signage on streets, or setbacks on properties and a host of other rules? The UDO is 300 pages long.
“We’re probably going to get some developer coming in when they’re denied, saying, ‘This is all wrong,’” Kim said as justification for the re-vote.
The document sets a date for it to become law, April 4, but the resolution would have been the official place to make that statement, Kim said. As well, local laws become official once they are sent to the New York State Department of State, and the city is already late sending the UDO in. However, that may be moot, since the document, without the resolution, is unofficial, he said.
The city has already garnered one lawsuit–over sidewalks–because of the lack of clarity on this issue, and the mayor told FoothillsBusinessDaily.com that Saratoga Hospital’s planned expansion on Morgan Street could also be affected by this problem.
[Read more about the expansion here.]
“There’s some murkiness about the legislative SEQR that passed some of this. So we’ll just as soon redo that,” Kim said in an interview after the vote. The SEQR is the environmental review process that all legislation in the state goes through. It looks at a proposed law, regulation or project, for the ways it will affect the ecology as well as the built environment and quality of life generally. When asked if he meant they will re-vote on the SEQR related to the full UDO, he said. “We have to.”
The mayor outlined a plan to hold public hearings and even consider amendments to it. His plan is to vote on a final resolution by the end of April.
“I think the city council has an objective here. It’s not to delay the project but to get it upright,” he said.
He said that he knows that some amendments to the UDO were supported by current council members before they were elected last year as the UDO was being revised, and that the council will consider them now.
Given the tight schedule, FoothillsBusinessDaily.com asked if this meant the council would only consider amendments that the council wanted to see.
He responded: “We know there are some specific proposed amendments. We’ll take public hearings on those and then open it up to other suggestions.” He added that the body of the UDO will remain the same as it was in December, and that the resolution will vote on that document.
“We’re not going to fool with it,” he said, indicating that the amendments would not change the body.
For her part, Kelly wrote in a text: "I would hope for the sake of our city, the current council starts moving forward in a transparent and productive manner."
The public hearing is set for 10 minutes, before the city council meeting begins on March 17.