Utica, New York Common Council Meeting Records

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Common Council Meeting January 21st, 2026

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Common Council Meeting January 21st, 2026

9 matches · 4 unidentified
24:00
All right, number 6. Proposed resolution number 6, Board of Estimate and Apportionment. Another one. Be it resolved, pursuant to Section 523 of the Real Property Tax Law, the following person is hereby appointed as a member of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment for the current 5-year term which commenced on October 1st, 2025, and ends on September 30th, 2030. And that would be Carolyn E. Marino. Everybody good? And this was from Councilman Betrus. Joe, I'll just read the first part and you could discuss it.
24:48
Uh, It's the purpose, repurposing ordinance amending Chapter 2-16 of the City of Utica Code of Ordinance. Be it ordained that in Chapter 2-16, Motor Vehicle and Traffic of the City of, uh, of Utica Code of Ordinance is hereby amended by adding Section 216.184 entitled Large Industrial and Commercial Vehicles Prohibited in Residential Districts read as following: Large Industrial and Commercial Vehicles Prohibited in Residential Districts. I'll just give the purpose here. The purpose of this section is to regulate the keeping of large industrial and commercial vehicles in residential zoning districts in order to protect neighborhood character, reduce adverse land use impacts, prevent the use of residentially zoned property for industrial vehicle storage and providing clear and objective standards for enforcement. This section is not intended to regulate brief or incidental stopping of vehicles for personal transportation, loading, unloading, or servicing. So once again, this is, uh, Councilman Betrus. Would you like to speak on this?
Unidentified speaker 28:24
Okay, so just on this piece, Councilman came to me. Our job is to enforce the law. It's your job to make the law. Um, we used to have in our zoning ordinance, before you guys passed the new zoning ordinance, a vehicle weight limit, um, so there couldn't be large vehicles in driveways. That weight limit was abolished with this zoning code, and there was nothing to kind of replace it for large vehicles. So we still get a lot of the calls of people that are used to the old law that says, my neighbor has a tow truck, and you just got to hear that thing all times of night leaving the neighborhood, exhaust, they leave it running. You know, my neighbor drives a semi-truck. There's nothing in our law right now that makes that against the rules. Rules. So Councilman Betrus calls us on some of those things in his neighborhood. Other council people have called us, and, um, he wanted to come up with a law to do it. And I said I didn't think the weight limit was good because we don't have a scale, right? So we got to look at the model of the vehicle, we got to check the DMV, see if it's right. Sometimes the stickers aren't there. So just ban specific types of vehicles, and that's what this does. It names them: front loaders, pickup trucks, dump trucks. The ordinance names the vehicles that you can't park in the residential neighborhood.
Unidentified speaker 33:57
All right, yeah, two things I would like to just point out quickly for you guys. So when I talked to my, my officers and Councilman Betrus about this legislation, um, it's not like the— I don't think it's the type of legislation, but look, I could— there could be a different codes commissioner tomorrow, the mayor could give a different— so regular grains of salt, he could give a different directive. I don't think it's the type of thing where we're going around looking for trucks and driveways. I think it's the type where we're responding to complaints, and then when you get a complaint, you deal with people. That's number one. But number two is you can also write an ordinance, um, the same way you can for an 8-foot fence, like the Councilperson just said, and give exceptions in your neighborhood. But then it's on the council to do that, right? So if somebody calls and says, I don't like that codes cited me for my truck, this is how I make my living, and it's in your district and you feel like it's within the character of your district, you can bring it to the council to try to— that's the main part that we put in there.
34:55
Thank you, Councilman Betrus. Thank you, Marques, for putting this together. I will say, in South Utica, in the Third Ward, I have gotten calls about this over the years, uh, Proctor Boulevard, also off Sunnyside, regarding commercial vehicles. So we, we do see it in the Third. Um, I suppose if, if anyone does want to have to have a committee meeting on this. I know, Joe, you want to address this before we're faced with the budget here, so I would recommend the first meeting in February if anyone feels compelled to have a committee meeting.