Albany County Adopts Neighbor Notification Law

“After the public hearing, after taking numerous phone calls and letters on both sides of the issue, he (Breslin) decided that the public’s right to know circumvented all the other concerns with the bill,” Breslin’s Director of Communications Jim Plastiras explained.

The statewide law was enacted in August 2000, but state legislators gave each county until March 1, 2001 – the day the law takes effect – to decide if they were going to adopt it. To date, Suffolk, Westchester and Nassau counties are the only other counties to adopt the law.

Because the bill is not popular among the green industry, a group of industry associations has come together to try to stop the law by filing lawsuits in each county that adopts it. Besides the additional costs Lawn Care Operators (LCOs) will have to incur because of the bill, industry spokesmen are claiming that the proper environmental research wasn’t done before the state enacted the law and are, therefore, asking the court to issue an injunction to stop the law from going into effect. However, the group wasn’t able to get a court date before the March 1 effective date, ensuring that the law will go into effect in those counties this week.

Despite complaints from some counties that the law is too ambiguous and will be hard to enforce, Plastiras said Albany County is certain that it won’t have any problems absorbing costs associated with enforcing the new law.

“We’re pretty confident that we can follow through on the law as far as enforcement is concerned with our existing resources,” he said, “by redirecting some of the health department’s funds that have already been allocated.”