Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the zoning board of appeals for the town of Huntington for June the 4th, 2026.

Please rise for the pledge to our flag.

The United States of America to the Republicans.

One nation delivery justice for all.

Please be seated.

We had several other uh applications scheduled for tonight, but uh they're going to be adjourned.

And I would like to ask uh Dawn Martin if all the publications and the postings with the appropriate affidavits would give us jurisdiction for all of the ones that we were scheduled to hear tonight, obviously, including McDonald's.

Okay.

So the order for tonight will be pretty simple.

We're just going to do McDonald's tonight, but I am going to but I'm going to make a record for those other cases that are being administratively adjourned.

23617 is adjourned to June 11th, 2026.

23676 is adjourned to June 25th, 2026.

23683 is adjourned to June 11th, 2026.

23693 is adjourned to June 25th, 2026.

23697 is adjourned to June 11th, 2026.

23702 is adjourned to June 11th, 2026.

And finally, 23708 is a June to June, adjourned to June 11th, 2026.

That leaves one application for tonight, which is 23704, which everybody knows is the McDonald's application.

I have a few comments to make before the application is made.

Lots of reasons for that.

But I hear about it, it's all hearsay to me.

And I think that in some respects, I've I've been to a few public meetings where there has been a little bit of a misunderstanding of what the zoning board of appeals does.

And so I have a few preliminary comments so that at least uh you'll know that we do not make zoning laws.

Uh there are seven members of the zoning board of appeals, as you can see, and we collectively make decisions that are brought before us.

When I indicate that we do not make zoning laws, only the town board has the opportunity to do that.

Zoning laws came into existence in New York State in 1934.

And since that time, uh the New York State legislature gave municipalities, whether they be towns or counties or villages, the opportunity to regulate land use.

And with uh sideline front yard, backyard uh distances for 5,000 square feet, 10,000 square feet, 20,000 square feet, all the way up to two acres with respect to residential use.

Also gave the uh town uh municipalities the opportunity for business areas.

So those are business uses, industrial uses, and other things.

All of that is with respect to the zoning laws, and the zoning board of appeals and the planning board are both creatures of uh Albany's legislative process.

The ZBA is created by town law 267, and we are obligated to follow that town law.

Local governments, towns, and villages, uh, they can have a zoning board of appeals and a planning board if they choose to do so.

If they choose not to do so, then they make the decisions.

Most municipalities have zoning boards and planning boards.

But just as a matter of information to indicate my point, the town of Brookhaven within the past year or so eliminated their planning board.

They still have a zoning board.

I'm sure the people, the council persons and the supervisor in the town of Brookhaven had reasons why they wanted to eliminate the planning board, and they did.

So they have the responsibility now to take on those obligations.

The zoning board interprets the zoning code and varies it if an applicant believes that they have a reasonable request to change what the zoning code says.

The typical thing that appears in front of the zoning board on a re fairly routine basis is if someone wants to build a garage and they're going to be a little bit too close to the side line or the property line.

They come to us to ask us for a variance.

That's why we that's why we use the term variance.

Another one that would be easy to understand would be let's say there's a residential plot that requires 20,000 square feet, and they have 19,000 square feet.

They come before us to see whether or not we think it's reasonable for them to be able to get a building permit to build a one-family house.

With regard to business matters, there's also statutes that sets forth what can be done in a particular zone and what cannot be done.

And those provisions sometimes boil down to what's called a special use permit or an SUP.

There are standards both in the town law and in the suffix and in the Huntington Town ordinance that are required to be met, typically under a special use permit.

Standards are under Section 1986A of the town code.

There can also be use variances, but if there's a use variance, it has to be in conformity with Section 267 of the town law.

That's not a town, it's not a town of Huntington ordinance, that's a New York state law, 267.

And the statute sets forth the things that have to be proved and uh and indicated that would permit a zoning board of appeals to grant relief.

Uh just as a matter of information, those proofs are pretty difficult.

All people have a right to apply to a zoning board and make an application to prove their case based on the town ordinances or the or the uh New York state law.

We don't have the right to tell somebody that they can't make an application in front of us.

They have the right to make that application, but they have to prove, they have to have a standard of proof to indicate that they deserve relief for their application.

We uh we promote civil discourse, and obviously there's going to be a discourse today, and anyone wishing to be heard tonight can be heard.

We've asked you to sign up, and there's a several of you have 40 plus have already signed up, and if there are still others that want to sign up, they allow they're invited to do so.

The request for us is that you keep it to three minutes.

Um sometimes difficult to do that, but I got the three-minute concept from the town board, because that's what the town board does whenever they have the open matter for for public hearings.