New rules keep balance near university

The Syracuse Post Standard

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

By Michael Stanton SEUNA

Homeowners who have lived near the Syracuse University campus since the 1970s remember how common it once was to see impromptu student gatherings at faculty homes, or students and professors striking up a conversation as they walked between home and campus. Such encounters are rare these days since so many faculty and other homeowners have moved.

Students will pay more to live near campus. Landlords have catered to this demand by buying up family homes near campus and converting them to student rooming houses. Over the years, as the number of rentals increased, remaining families felt more and more compelled to move away. Potential homeowners have been afraid to buy homes on some blocks near campus because the trend was all too clear - it was only a matter of time before all homes on these blocks would be rentals.

That all changed Oct. 11, when the mayor signed into law an ordinance giving new life and hope to the near-campus neighborhood.

This measure puts important new restrictions on which properties can be converted to absentee-owned rentals in the future. The architect of this new law is Zoning Administrator Chuck Ladd who, at the urging of Mayor Driscoll, used his considerable knowledge of Syracuse zoning law to devise an ingenious solution. Councilors-at-Large Bill Ryan, Stephanie Miner and Kathleen Joy piloted the measure through the Common Council, and the ordinance passed unanimously.

Student rentals can cause a variety of problems in single-family neighborhoods - noise, litter, late-night parties - but the biggest problem is often parking. When our neighborhood was constructed early in the last century, trolleys traveled down Euclid, headed for downtown, every 10 minutes. Many homes got by with one car, some with no car.

Today, families have one, two or sometimes three cars. Student rentals have anywhere from four to eight cars - one for every tenant. Many backyards at these rentals have been paved over to create parking lots, but cars spill out onto the streets just the same.

Since the beginning of the academic year, SEUNA has been sending letters to City Hall every other week with dozens of pictures documenting the many parking violations occurring near campus: cars parked over sidewalks, blocking driveways, parked beyond stop signs and in front yards. The city has stepped up enforcement, but the task is daunting.

The new ordinance restricts future rental conversions to those properties where parking can be self-contained. Parking had always been restricted to no more than 30 percent of the total backyard lot, and parking was never allowed at the front. Now there is also an absolute limit on the area that can be used for parking. For single- family homes the limit is an area that can accommodate no more than three cars; for two-family houses the limit is six cars.

Since 1991, in the University Neighborhood Special District, a Certificate of Suitability has been required before an owner-occupied house could become an absentee-owned rental. Going forward, before a certificate will be issued, the owner of a single- family house must demonstrate there will be one off-street parking space available on- site for every bedroom in the house. If a single-family house has more than three bedrooms, it must remain owner- occupied.

Unfortunately, the new ordinance does nothing to address problems and overcrowding at the more than 800 existing student rentals. Just the same, it is reason for celebration as a huge step toward the sustainable balance between owner-occupied and rental properties we hope to achieve in our neighborhood. We thank Mayor Driscoll and the Common Council for supporting our neighborhood with this important legislation.

Michael Stanton, president of the Southeast University Neighborhood Association in Syracuse, wrote this on behalf of SEUNA's board of directors.

© 2007 The Post-Standard.

Court rules Syracuse ordinances are valid

EmpireStateNews.net

Weekend, December 22-23, 2007

Syracuse - The City of Syracuse Friday was notified that the Appeals Court in Rochester declared that its Certificate of Sufficiency and Nuisance Party Ordinances are valid.

The decision reversed a July 2006 decision by the Supreme Court of Onondaga County, which had ruled that the ordinances were not valid because no environmental review had been conducted prior to the adoption of the ordinances.

“This means that the City has the necessary tools to better enforce existing laws that help ensure that properties and their tenants are not nuisances to their neighborhoods,” said Rory McMahon, the city’s Corporation Counsel.

The Certificate of Sufficiency Ordinance, which will go in effect January 1, 2008, requires non-owner occupied 1 and 2 family houses in special neighborhood districts, as established by the City of Syracuse legislation, to obtain a certificate of sufficiency, to ensure they are in compliance with codes and zoning requirements including certificate of suitability. Currently there is only one special neighborhood district in the City of Syracuse, located in the University Area and established in 1992.

The Nuisance Party Ordinance, effective when it was passed in November of 2005, holds owners and tenants responsible for making sure that any social gatherings held on their premises are not conducted in such a manner as to become a nuisance to neighboring properties, such as no public urination, blocking of traffic, illegal parking, unlawfully loud noise, among other items listed. This ordinance also authorizes police officers to order people to disperse from a social gathering that meets one of eleven conditions cited in the ordinance.