Long Beach City Council Preview: Zoning Change, Fire Barracks Renovation Make The Agenda

LONG BEACH, NY — The Long Beach City Council will hold its second meeting of the month of June Tuesday night at 7 p.m., hearing public comment on a pair of code changes and considering seven agenda items.

The first item subject to public hearing is a proposal to change the city’s zoning code. If approved, the proposal would give the city’s building commissioner the power to identify variances to zoning code and refer them to both the planning board and the zoning board of appeals during the site plan approval process; it would also subject any plans requiring zoning variances receive written comment from the planning board.

Second on the agenda is an adjustment of the city’s code pertaining to environmental quality review of new buildings. City officials have said the change is meant to bring the city into alignment with state environmental review codes, and to eliminate redundancies that exist in the current environmental review process. Namely, city officials noted that the current environmental review process includes references to a local waterfront revitalization program (LWRP), a program the city doesn’t actually have.

After public hearing on both of those items, the council will consider a resolution to change the requirements for food service providers within city limits. Specifically, the resolution would add language to the city code for trash being disposed of by food service providers. Under the proposed resolution, food service providers would have to bag their own trash and put it in a trash receptacle — a dumpster or trash can, with a secured cover or lid — and bring their trash receptacle out for collection every day that the establishment is open.

Fourth on the agenda is a resolution that would allow city manager Dan Creighton to pay $8,200 to the state department of housing and community renewal, in accordance with the emergency tenant protection act of 1974.

Fifth on the agenda is the fire barracks renovation, in this case the city manager would get the green light from the city council to pay $17,500 to Rockville Centre-based firm PL Engineering for additional design work on the National Boulevard Fire Department Barracks. Those funds, the agenda reads, are currently available in an account listed as “City Hall Fire Department Renovation.”

The sixth agenda item is a proposal to purchase two ADA-compliant vans for city use — a Chrysler Voyager and a Ram Crew Cab — costing the city $21,934.92. According to the agenda, the first of these vans is being purchased from Orlando, FL-based Matthews Bus Alliance INC at a total cost of $164,166.06, while the second is being purchased from Watsonville, CA-based National AutoFleet Group at a total cost of $55,183.14. 90 percent of the vehicle costs will be funded through federal transportation grant funding under the proposal.

Finally, the seventh item on the agenda would allow the city to accept a $49,000 grant from New York state to fund a cybersecurity audit and sign a contract to hire Somerset, NY-based SHI International Corp to perform the audit. The total cost of that audit, the agenda reads, would be $48,550.

The meeting will take place Tuesday night at 7 p.m., and will be live streamed on the city’s YouTube page.