Economic Development & Code Enforcement Meeting Minutes

March 16, 2010 

• Gathered bulletpoints for resolution to COG around contractor registration:
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    • Local municipalities left out
    • Decrease in local revenue
    • No regular monitoring by local agency – consumer protection bureau of the state
    • Decrease in protecting residents from shady contractors
    • Taken away our ability to remove licenses from shoddy contractors
    • Makes code office impotent to improve quality control
    • Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act 132
  • Will write letter based on this input and submit to COG to get additional signors
• Downtown East Neighborhood Meeting Debrief
  • Schedule next meting – 20th Century Club on April 14th – check availability
  • Email out minutes from first meeting, with save-the-date for next meeting
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    • Will do
• B&B Ordinance
  • Put this back on the agenda for April business meeting to send to planning commission for 30-day review
• Chickens
• Developer Updates
  • Bhounta from 55 E. Baltimore Ave has been in touch with codes office and is promising to do work on his 3rd floor
  • A southern developer looking to do Grocery store at Lansdowne Center can’t make square footage work
• Parking – 
  • Asked by residents to develop a strategy for keeping visitors from parking in residential areas and taking up street parking when events are in town and municipal lots are filled
  • Discussed whether the Borough is interested in buying the parking lot at Lansdowne Shopping Center – if possible
  • Will ask for recommendations from Puiblic Safety
• Discussed adjustment of trash ordinance to provide for B&Bs that one unit is equal to 3 guestrooms for trash fee purposes.
  • This will go to Finance to take forward
• White Elephants Program
  • Discussed developing a strategy for dealing with large historic  homes in Lansdowne that might otherwise have been candidates for subdivision.
  • Will look into what other communities doing about this
• ADA Compliance Audit
  • Reviewed results letter from auditor and agreed that codes office will take legitimate recommendations into consideration going forward.