Assisted Living Zoning Legislation Public Hearing and 2021 Budget Preview Follow Up
Hello Everyone,
While other Greenburgh news updates are sending out their second email about testing poop in the sewers, today's message is a follow up to my email from Friday about the budget and an alert about an important set of public hearings related to Assisted Living legislation. To my knowledge this is the first and only email notice that has been sent out regarding these public hearings. Continue to subscribe to my newsletter to be in the know on what is going on with your local government.
First, on the Assisted Living Legislation. The following Wednesday, 9/9 at 7:30pm, the Town of Greenburgh has scheduled 2 separate hearings regarding proposed legislation that would impact the zoning requirements for Assisted Living type facilities.
The first public hearing law is relatively simple and adds 3 requirements to the existing special permit process for Assisted Living and Nursing Home developments. It adds a requirement for a minimum distance of 4k feet between facilities, requires developers to provide information about the % of beds that will be set aside as affordable, and finally requires the developer to provide information regarding their policies for emergencies. This last point helps provide information as to the impact the facility will have on emergency response capacity. For instance some facilities have a "no lift" policy, requiring them to call emergency response anytime there is a fall. I strongly support this first proposal, will be speaking in support of it and I encourage others to do so as well.
The second public hearing law is more complicated and sets up an approval process for "Continuum of Care Facilities". Theses are facilities that have both assisted living and independent living beds as part of the same facility. The proposal is for the Town to review development proposals for these types of properties via a "Floating Zone" . This would be a different from the way Assisted Living, Nursing Home, and "Active 55+" communities are currently approved, which are done via special permit. Aside from whether a floating zone is the best way to review these developments, the proposal as currently written also contains density and building requirements far more permissive than similar rules for Assisted Living. There is a lot more to unpack here and I look forward to hearing more from the developers who are proposing this during the public hearing.
If you wish to share your comments with the Town Board you are encouraged to attend on 9/9. If you cannot attend but wish to speak you can email the town clerk so that your comments can be added to the public record. If you have questions about either of the laws please feel free to ask me.
My last email about the upcoming 2021 projected budget deficit was a topic that a lot of people were interested in. I got some very good follow up questions and so I wanted to share some of those with everyone.
Question-Is the impact from Covid affecting expenses too or just revenues?
Most of my email focused on the impact to revenues that the Town was facing as a result of the Covid pandemic but the town is also facing higher than projected expense as well as a result.
Question- Last year the town allocated significant funds to prefund the new police/courthouse building. I don’t think any of that was spent and I think it was larger than the projected reserve shortfall. Could the town be considering reallocating that money to address what might be a one-time shortfall?
Unfortunately that item is paid for out of the A budget or Townwide budget not the TOV or B budget and money cannot be transferred between TOV and Townwide budget. Greenburgh has two separate budgets. The A budget(smaller of 2) is paid for by all residents and the B budget(the larger budget, which is facing the projected shortfall) is paid for only by Unincorporated residents. Residents who live in villages get most of their local services(Police, Sanitation, Parks….) and pay taxes towards their village governments. Unincorporated residents receive most of their local services from the town and fund the B budget for these services. The A budget is projected right now to be just within the Town Policy for funds in reserve.
Question- Do we know for certain that this is the deficit we are facing?
No, this is only the preliminary projection from the Comptroller. We still need to see the impact of the difference in revenue/expenses between the budget that was passed and what actually comes in. We also need to see the proposals from Department heads for the upcoming year. It could be better or worse from the existing projection.
To be honest, I also got some very concerning replies on Facebook about this from our Town Supervisor who when a resident shared my post, replied "The town has a surplus, not a budget deficit." It would appear that he is confusing the funds held in reserve(required as part of the Town Financial Policy), with the term budget deficit. As is exceedingly clear, the Town absolutely 100% has a budget deficit, spending more than it takes in for both budgets during the last 2 years and thus reducing the reserve that we hold. A budget deficit is when your annual budgeted expenses, exceed your revenues for the year. This is as basic a financial term as exists. We aren’t borrowing to fund our deficit the way the federal government is, and yes we hold funds in reserve (which the Supervisor refers to as a surplus) for this specific purpose, but it is still a budget deficit. Facts matter and words matter. Even after explaining this to him, the Supervisor continued to insist "We have a surplus in our budgets". What the Supervisor wrote displays a stunning lack of understanding of basic financial terms.
If you find these updates informative, forward them to your friends and neighbors and encourage them to subscribe, and like my page on FB. Questions? Event you want publicized? Something your curious about? Email me at eric@ericzinger.com.
Eric Zinger
www.ericzinger.com