With the fall semester at the College at Brockport set to begin, Brockport Mayor Margaret Blackman reported during the regular meeting of the village board August 21, that the village’s attorney has advised the board to hold off pursuing proposed public nuisance and party nuisance legislation – at least for the time being.
“On June 15, 2017, the NYS Supreme Court, Appellate Division, found the Village of Groton, New York’s public nuisance law unconstitutional, calling into question the constitutionality of our proposed legislation. A pending case involving the public nuisance law in the City of Rochester has raised a similar issue of constitutionality,” the mayor said.
In their June decision, justices stated that the Groton Nuisance Law, “has a chilling effect upon tenants’ exercise of their First Amendment right to petition the government, in that it penalizes them for doing so by using their constitutionally protected activity as a basis for identifying their homes as public nuisances.”
Mayor Blackman explained that the setback does not dampen the village’s concern for quality of life issues in neighborhoods shared by college students and family homeowners.
“Accordingly, we are taking steps, short of legislation, to address these issues,” she said. “We have pursued police records to locate trouble spots in student village housing regarding noise violations and disorderly house arrests.”
Village leaders are encouraging landlords to include in their leases prohibition of parties that violate the disorderly house ordinance. Additionally, village residents are asked to call 911 to report excessive noise and out of control parties.
Mayor Blackman told the Suburban News that she plans to bring up the issue at a town/gown meeting and have the group refocus on quality of life. She noted that there was a recent situation the night of August 21, involving a fraternity at 254 Main Street.
“One of the board members called the police when we learned that there were kids sitting on the roof drinking,” she said, and added that the police chief and lieutenant planned to pay a call on the tenants August 22. The village code enforcement officer planned to meet with the owner for a C of O inspection and to talk with tenants and the owner regarding the issue, the mayor said.
“Village board members have offered to meet with landlords of troubled properties,” Mayor Blackman added.
“Town/gown will also be promoting living in Brockport to entice new faculty/staff at the college and school district to live in the area,” she said.
The mayor said officials have not discussed the topic yet, and details need to be worked out, but the effort might include promoting renting as well as buying, and financial incentives from the college to buy homes in the vicinity of the college – as SUNY Cortland and U of R have done.
The mayor said the village welcomes the opportunity to present – with the police and code enforcement departments – information sessions for college students about living off campus in neighborhoods with village homeowners.
“We want to work with Student Affairs administrators at the College at Brockport to educate students about living in shared neighborhoods,” Mayor Blackman said. “We are continuing to study how other municipalities handle these same issues, short of public nuisance laws that run into constitutional issues.”
