The Town of Montgomery kicked off this month with a productive meeting last Wednesday, April 1, featuring considerations for short-term rentals, approvals of grant items, and numbers from February’s financial report.

The board opened the meeting with a discussion on its short-term rentals law, a draft months in the making. Town Councilman Mark Hoyt felt that the board was making good progress on the law, but questioned if they should change the acreage requirement. The law’s draft previously stated that a property owner could not receive a rental permit if their STR was located on a lot smaller than two acres.

“On page four, it states that ‘no permit to operate a short-term rental property shall be granted unless the rental property is situated on a single lot of no less than two acres,’” Hoyt said. “I think we got to think about that a little bit and consider whether we should put in something for an appeal. There’s going to be parcels that were prezoning that could be out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and all our cluster subdivisions have less than two acres.”

Town Supervisor Steve Brescia suggested that the board could lower the requirement to one-acre and allow property owners to appeal for lots smaller than one acre. Town Attorney William Frank added that owners would need to submit an application to the ZBA for the appeal process.

“Do we want to go lower than two acres? I’m sure there are a lot of properties out there that are on lots less than two acres,” Brescia said. “Maybe we should lower this to one acre and have an appeals process for anything less. And if it becomes a problem with the one-acre deal, we could tweak this down the road.”

“They’d have to go to the ZBA,” Frank said. “Owners wishing to apply for a variance relating to sleeping capacity, parking capacity, or other standards stated below must apply to the zoning board of appeals. Variance applications will be reviewed by the ZBA in accordance with the zoning code.”

The board members agreed to change the requirement from two acres to one acre, while also allowing appeals for anything smaller. They also scheduled a public hearing for the law’s adoption on Wednesday, April 15, giving residents the opportunity to comment on the draft before they finalize it.

Next up, the board voted on a few grant-related items. First, the members approved grant contracts with fire departments in Coldenham, Maybrook, Montgomery, and Walden. They then motioned Brescia to sign a letter of support for the Farmland Protection Implementation Grant, a NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets initiative that provides funding for farmland protection activities. Lastly, they accepted the STOP-DWI Grant, or the “Special Traffic Options Program for Driving While Intoxicated,” which funds efforts toward reducing substance-related traffic crashes.

Later in the meeting, Town Comptroller Katie McKnight provided a financial report for February. She stated that the expenses for the three funds and special districts were considerably better than budget, while the revenues were mostly flat. McKnight noted that revenues from mortgage tax were higher than normal and revenues from Dial-a-Bus, court fines, and building permits were slightly lower than normal.

“For the expenses, the A Fund for February is 19% better than budget, B Fund is 6% better than budget, D Fund is 29% better than budget, and special districts are 38% better than budget,” McKnight said. “Overall, we are 19% better than the budget when it comes to expenses, so we’re in very good shape.”

“For the revenue side of things, pretty much everything is flat for February. A Fund 3% better than budget, B Fund is flat, D Fund is flat, and special districts are 5% below budget,” she continued.

“Overall, revenues are flat, which is very good considering that we’re a little bit behind with our Dial-a-Bus revenues. We will be catching up with them, but some of the stuff for the first quarter hasn’t come in. So even with that, we are still in a good position. Court fines (and building permits) are also a little bit low, but we got an extra influx from mortgage tax.”