New restrictions on the placement and use of Dumpsters on residential properties were adopted by the Southold Town Board at its regular meeting yesterday afternoon.
The board voted unanimously to adopt a local law prohibiting the placement of Dumpsters in the front yard of any residential property for more than 30 days, unless there is a valid, open building permit in effect for the property. A Dumpster is defined in the local law as a “litter storage and collection container of one cubic yard or greater in capacity, which is mechanically emptied or removed.”
The law drew criticism from local carting companies and some customers. Requiring rear-yard placement will eliminate the use of the containers for many, if not most, residential customers, according to carting company owners.
“It’s a polite way of making them illegal,” Mattituck Environmental Services/Peconic Recycling co-owner Jon DiVello told SoutholdLOCAL in a Jan. 16 interview. The new rules would make container use impossible for most residential customers, he said.
DiVello and Scott Schelin of North Fork Sanitation both spoke against the local law during a town board public hearing on the proposal Jan. 17 and during a prior public hearing on an initial draft of the proposal Oct. 4.
Town officials have said they were acting on residents’ complaints about the trash containers.
Dumpsters will still be be permitted in the rear yard of residential properties engaged as long as they comply with accessory structure setbacks required by the applicable zoning code, are “fully enclosed by a stockade fence, or other similar enclosure of not more than six feet in height,” has a cover and is emptied when full.
The code also prohibits the placement of Dumpsters on “any portion of any street, lane, sidewalk, roadway or highway” in the town.
The new local law goes into effect upon its filing with the N.Y. Secretary of State.
