New Dumpster regulations will wait till another day in Southold.
The Town Board chose not to act on a revised draft code amendment that would require Dumpsters to be be placed only in rear yards in residential districts. The board closed a public hearing that saw several residents and business owners question the code’s intent and proposed implementation. Board members will take those comments into consideration when it discusses the draft at a future meeting, Supervisor Scott Russell said.
Some residents questioned the need for the new rules. Others expressed concerns about residents of limited physical abilities who find use of a one-yard container placed near their homes more convenient and accessible. Still others wondered about the effect of the proposed rule on members of the trades who don’t have a separate business location and rely on the one-yard containers at their homes to dispose of items that can’t practically be disposed in the town’s yellow bags.
“A lot of self-employed people who work the trades may have one or two service vehicles, use their garage for storage and may need to have a Dumpster at their house,” Scott Schelin of North Fork Sanitation said.
“Home businesses by code need to look like a house,” Russell said. “If we’re going to create a code that says no Dumpsters on residential properties, unfortunately they’re going to have to comply.”
The supervisor assured Schelin, in response to his question about enforcement, that the town seeks compliance, not penalties.
“We’re not going to go out there measuring fences and those things,” Russell said.
Jon DiVello of Peconic Recycling and Mattituck Environmental praised the changes the board made since the first draft, which was the subject of a public hearing in October.
“A majority of the customers with containers are people with disabilities and homes for the handicapped,” DiVello said. “Something needs to be put in for that … to address that,” he said.
DiVello also suggested the board change language to require that containers be emptied “within a time frame,” he said, suggesting “within a week.” The draft currently says they must be emptied “when full.” That could mean trash being held long enough to pose a nuisance, he said.
He echoed Schelin’s concerns about tradesmen and other business owners.
“Big pieces don’t work with the yellow bags,” DiVello said. “A Dumpster is convenient. The code needs a little more work.”
In a SoutholdLOCAL interview this week, DiVello was sharply critical of the town’s yellow bag program, which he called ineffective and expensive.
Seeming to respond to that criticism, the supervisor addressed the yellow bag issue after DiVello spoke.
“Some people are looking at this as a referendum on yellow bags. I get it. Yellow bags are awful,” Russell said, adding that he’s advocated re-evaluating the program for some time now.
“But don’t confuse the issues. The continued merit of yellow bags is a fair discussion but a separate discussion.”
