LAKE HUNTINGTON, NY — With the first blast of winter howling at the town hall door, the Cochecton Town Board did at its November 8 meeting what it does every year at this time: presented a fiscal year budget for voter comment. Receiving none, it voted unanimously to adopt the $1,075,979 2018 budget, a .14% increase over last year’s $1,055,149 budget.

Although the bitter cold outside made summer seem a far-off dream, the board, mindful of the clock ticking on its summer-camp moratorium, turned its attention to developing a comprehensive summer-camp zoning ordinance. Using current Bethel and Liberty ordinances as models, town attorney Karen Mannino and code enforcement officer Greg Semenetz advised the board on specific ordinance language and enforcement options.

The goals of the ordinance will be twofold: to eliminate common complaints of summer camp neighbors about lighting, noise, traffic, inadequate overflow parking and untimely pickup of improperly contained refuse; and to ensure that a camp operates as a summer camp only for the whole of its existence and doesn’t morph into a resort, bungalow colony, school, or year-round sports academy.

The latter concern will be addressed by limiting facility operation to the months between May and September (or October) and restricting permanent residents on camp premises to owner and caretaker families. Mannino’s suggestion that ordinance language mirror that of the town’s recently enacted large-scale solar ordinance would address most neighbor complaints. Generous setback requirements, mandatory fencing of regulation height, vegetation buffers, and parking provisions like those in the solar ordinance would counter noise, light and parking challenges.

But Semenetz said refuse that overflows dumpsters and is not removed on a timely basis has been problematic at other summer camps. And recouping costs expended by the town for refuse removal via tax re-levy (the town adds the cost of refuse removal to the camp’s tax bill) would not be an option if the camp were tax exempt, as are most religious and Scout camps. One remedy, said Semenetz, would be to withhold the camp’s operating permit for the following year until restitution has been made to the town.

A pivotal question is yet to be answered: in what districts will summer camps be permitted?

The board recessed until November 21 at 6:30 p.m.