Croton-on-Hudson's Planning Board worked line by line through two zoning laws the Board of Trustees had referred to it on Feb. 24, and came away asking the trustees for a power the drafts do not give it: the ability to lower a parking requirement, not only raise one. With Chairman Rob Luntz absent, Geoffrey Haynes presided as acting chairman. He opened the first referral, Local Law Introductory No. 3, by handing out a page-by-page summary he had written himself of the 27-page draft. "It's just me going through this 27 page document pulling out the highlights of of the changes" Read 1:52▶, Haynes said, adding that it was not an official village document. Most of Law No. 3 is housekeeping: language conforming the code to last year's transfer of special permits from the trustees to the Planning Board, Tier 4 solar energy systems and Tier 2 battery energy storage allowed in the RA-60 district of Croton's largest lots, a consolidated definition of a noncommercial swimming pool, new authority to require a traffic impact study, and four hours of professional training for Zoning Board of Appeals members.

The parking fight

Then the review reached page 14, and Steve Krisky stopped it. The draft would let the Planning Board, as part of a special permit determination, "increase these parking requirements." Nothing more. "I think we need to add increase or decrease. It's sort of tying our hands there" Read 16:53▶, Krisky said. Village Attorney Joshua Subin said the minimum is set by the trustees and that going below it is normally a variance question for the Zoning Board of Appeals. Jurisdictions that do allow waivers usually cap them, he said: "they'll say, you can waive 20% of the requirement, but no more than that" Read 23:08▶, Subin said. Croton's code has no such provision. Krisky argued the board runs into the problem constantly and that the code itself is out of date. He pointed to Maple Commons, where by his own rough recollection the board approved something like 38 or 40 spaces: "that parking lot is never then more than about 35 to 40% full" Read 18:42▶, Krisky said. "I don't think we need as many cars for people as we used to" Read 18:42▶, he added, citing car sharing, transit and bicycles. With several potentially sizable developments coming, he said, the village should measure its parking code against what other municipalities do. "I just believe that if you're gonna have a planning board do proper analysis on what we're charged with doing, you can't handcuff us" Read 24:45▶, Krisky said. He got part of what he asked for. Haynes backed flexibility on parking in every district, not just the gateway district the paragraph covers. But Krisky's parallel request — that the board also be able to increase a yard setback, not only reduce or waive one — met resistance from the chair. "Could a neighbor come to us and say, hey. I don't want this thing so close to my property. I I want I want to increase the setback, and you guys have the power to do that. That's that's gonna open up a can of worms" Read 25:07▶, Haynes said. The setback request was dropped. The parking request went into the board's recommendation, which asks the trustees for "the authority to increase or decrease parking requirements in all zoning districts," and Krisky separately asked his colleagues to take up a review of the village's parking code as its own project.

Metro-North, and a permit count nobody has

Krisky asked how many special permits actually exist now that renewals are the Planning Board's job. "I'm just trying to get a sense of, you know, with this coming from being, put on us rather than the board of trustees, what we're dealing with quantitatively" Read 5:31▶, Krisky said. Village Engineer Vincent Salanitro said he did not have a number; the recommendation asks the trustees for the count of permits needing renewal and an average of how many applications to expect each year. Krisky also questioned a section requiring Metro-North to seek special permits, given the multi-story building the railroad put up near the station seven or eight years ago without ever coming before the Planning Board. A state or municipal entity with its own code enforcement division has options, Subin said: "if they're on their property, they can do a Monroe hearing and subject themselves to their own jurisdiction as long as we don't object" Read 10:04▶. He did not know what had happened in that case. "if the the Monroe rule or any state laws dictate that they don't, then it kinda makes this somewhat irrelevant" Read 10:39▶, Krisky said. The board asked the trustees for clarification on the railroad's obligation.

How many chickens

The same law settles a question the code had left vague: how many chickens a Croton property may keep. A new table ties the maximum number of fowl to lot size — the bigger the lot, the more birds. Eva Thaddeus asked whether the old rule really had let anyone in the village keep 25 regardless of property size, and Salanitro confirmed it had. Confusing language about where birds may be penned gives way to a flat setback: no fowl within 15 feet of any lot line, which Salanitro said is far easier for his department to administer.

Preferences for the people who answer the call

The second referral, Local Law Introductory No. 5, would let Croton give preference for affordable units to three groups in a set order. Haynes read it out: "First on the priority list would be the emergency service workers, followed by medical service industry, followed by veterans" Read 55:06▶. Subin walked the board through why such preferences are legally delicate: Westchester County, sued years ago over affordable housing, now conditions some discretionary funding on model housing laws, and fair housing rules bar preferences that skew toward one demographic. "We would like to have the people who work in your community be able to live in your community and be able to serve your community without having to drive an hour to get there" Read 45:07▶, Subin said, but the county has pushed back on such preferences elsewhere. What may make Croton's version survive review, Haynes said, is data: the village worked with the PACE Land Use Law Center and the Housing Action Council, which examined the racial makeup of emergency services and health care workers across Westchester and the nine-county region. Haynes read the finding from the environmental assessment form — those occupations are majority-minority, "approximately 54% being a race other than white in Westchester and 70% being a race other than white in the nine county area" Read 66:26▶. Teachers are not in the draft because no equivalent study has been done; the law encourages one. The board sent back three requests. John Ghegan raised reservists: "I I know someone who's in the reserves. They've been overseas two different times, nine, ten months at a time, but he's not considered military" Read 53:41▶, Ghegan said. Subin read the draft's definition — active military, naval, air or space service, discharged under conditions other than dishonorable — and agreed the board should recommend looking at whether reservists are covered. Thaddeus asked whether anyone taking a preference would be expected to stay in the job. "there's no expectation that the person who's selected continue in that occupation" Read 60:45▶, Thaddeus said. Subin said a monitoring agency named by resolution would handle compliance, and that a tenant still meeting the income limits probably would not be dispossessed for changing work. Thaddeus also pressed on home health aides, a large share of the medical category: must they work for an agency, or may they be independent contractors, and does part-time work count? Subin said he had drafted the definition to be inclusive. Krisky wanted no guardrails at all. "people that are working as a health aid for somebody, these people make nothing" Read 69:30▶, Krisky said. "The last thing I wanna do is put any restrictions whatsoever on their ability to apply for affordable housing" Read 69:30▶, he added. The board's recommendation favors flexibility to include part-time employees.

Also before the board

The board opened and immediately adjourned a public hearing on an amended site plan from Temple Israel of Northern Westchester, which wants to add a portico entry at 31 Glengary Road; the applicant had said it could not attend. Krisky recused himself from that item. "Reasons being I'm recusing myself is I'm a member of Temple Israel and also involved in the design and application process" Read 1:14▶, Krisky said. Ghegan moved to open the hearing, Thaddeus seconded, and it carried 3-0 with Luntz absent and Krisky recused. Salanitro reported that the state Department of Transportation's regional head had copied him on an email about the proposed design center on Albany Post Road and is waiting on a site plan from the applicant. He expects something "maybe within a month or two" Read 71:49▶. Neither referral required a vote. Both recommendations now go back to the Board of Trustees, which will decide whether the Planning Board gets the parking flexibility it asked for and whether reservists and part-time home health aides end up inside Croton's affordable housing preferences.