To the editor:

With limited public awareness, the Cazenovia Village Board of Trustees on September 6 held a public hearing on its proposal to repeal a local zoning law prohibiting “flag lots.” The configuration of a residence built in the backyard of an existing residence with a private driveway serving both residences would be a flag lot. The driveway represents the flag pole with the backyard structure representing the flag. Many residential parcels in the Village of Cazenovia with their narrow front footage and deep backyards are prime candidates for flag lot development.

The Village Board during the September 6 hearing failed to offer, at least from the view of this writer, a satisfactory explanation for its desire to repeal the flag lot prohibition. The Board’s explanation seemed to be that it was merely cleaning up some loose ends in the local zoning code. It did not offer any insight into when the flag lot prohibition was first enacted or the reasons for its enactment. Clearly, a Village Board in the past found some justification for the prohibition.

The repeal of the prohibition could increase the population density and vehicular traffic within confined spaces in the Village, which in turn could negatively affect the aesthetic aspects and property values surrounding a flag lot development. The repeal would cause a definite, major shift in the “burden of persuasion” from flag lot developer to flag lot objector. Presently, a petitioner for a flag lot development has the burden of successfully obtaining a variance or some similar exception to the prohibition. With a repeal of the prohibition, the burden would dramatically shift and fall, for instance, on adjacent property owners and other affected entities through petitioning a governmental body, like a zoning board, or by pursuing costly legal redress from the courts in order to seek denial of a flag lot development.

I would urge the Village Board to conduct a thoughtful study of its proposed repeal in which it weighs the advantages and disadvantages of the repeal and, if it still concludes that repeal is justified, that it issue a written report detailing its rationale supporting the repeal. Indeed, it would seem mandatory that as a matter of course the Board would have to undertake to some minimal degree a cost benefit review and an economic impact study on the local community of any legislation that it offers for passage. Because the proposed repeal of the flag lot prohibition raises some “red flags” and could result in a slippery slope of unintended and unwanted consequences for the Village, particularly with its many elongated and narrow residential parcels, I would also urge the community-at-large to give its attention to the proposed repeal and to convey its input, “pro or con,” to the Village Board about its proposal.

Randy Light

Cazenovia