The Village of Great Neck Board of Trustees is considering ways to prevent residents from creating living spaces in their attics without village approval.
“We know they are being used for living spaces, and they don’t comply with the code, yet we have no way of getting in,” Village of Great Neck Mayor Ralph Kreitzman said Tuesday night at the board’s regularly scheduled meeting.
Kreitzman proposed that the village to permit stairways and ladders ‘as of right,’ with the requirement of the third floor to be a living space.
“The building department would have to do all the calculations to ensure that it is living space,” Kreitzman said. “It is legal, otherwise it wouldn’t be permitted. If people had reasons otherwise, they could seek a variance to be granted by our Board of Appeals.”
Kreitzman said the Village’s Building Department has seen a number of people putting in a staircase to their attic.
But Trustee Mitchell Beckerman questioned Kreitzman’s proposal, suggesting that the board instead focus on reducing the size or height of rooflines to deter people from creating a third floor living space and the possibiltiy of prohibiting windows on the third floor.
“If the fear of everybody is having living space on the third floor, one of the ways of getting around it would be to not have windows there,” Beckerman said.
Great Neck resident Deanne Raffel suggested the board also consider the construction of bedrooms in basements.
“It’s the same thing, and it’s happening all over the village,” Raffel said.
But Kreitzman pointed out that the board does allow people to put people in bedrooms – as long as they follow the law.
“We have only so much control, so what we are attempting to do when we have control is make the building safer.” Kreitzman said
“God forbid there is a fire, and all we can say is ‘we told you so’ when we tried to stop you, and we couldn’t,” he added.
Village Attorney Steven Limmer said he will be prepare a draft resolution based on Monday night for the board’s consideration.
Kreitzman said the board found only one case in the past few years where a resident applied for and received approval for a higher fence.
“There were extenuating circumstances that the board found this case different than usual,” Limmer said.
Kreitzman said he is waiting for a “crying need” to change the fence-height limitation.
But Beckerman said he has been approached by a number of people about the fence-height limitation.
“If you do not live on a large piece of property, your (backyard) view is sometimes of your neighbors garage, or their laundry hanging…things you don’t really want to see,” Beckerman said.
The consensus of the rest of the board was “if the situation needs it, don’t see the need of going beyond 4 ft.,” Trustee Mark D. Birnbaum said.
Limmer said there are circumstances in which residents will put up a higher fence due to a dog scaring children or an unkept backyard, and when those circumstances change, the higher fence still stands.
“If the people with that dog move away, or the yard is cleaned up, that six-foot fence could be objectionable,” Limmer said.
Great Neck resident Jean Piece supported raising the height limitation, saying a four-foot fence was not being high enough to prevent people from jumping over them.
“I’ve actually had four times since i’ve lived in my house, people jumping over the four-foot fence and breaking them down as they do it while they’re running hrough the yards for robberies,” Pierce said. “A six-foot fence would be a little more difficult for them.”
The board tabled a decision on the proposal, and will hold their next meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 18 at 8:30 p.m.
