The Town Board finds that:
A. The health, safety and welfare of the community cannot
be adequately protected by the Town Board unless it can speedily effect changes
of land use regulations when the need for such action is clearly shown. However,
certain provisions of the New York Town Law have proven to be detrimental
to towns by impairing the ability of a Town Board to speedily enact needed
changes in zoning and land use regulations even when such changes are desired
by the overwhelming majority of Town residents and a majority of their elected
representatives, with the result that sound planning and orderly growth has
often been undermined and the will of the electorate thwarted.
B. In order to achieve the objectives of protecting the
established character of neighborhoods, especially residential neighborhoods,
the social and economic well-being of residents and the value of private and
public property and in order to prevent the overcrowding of land or buildings,
to avoid the undue and unnecessary concentration of population and to lessen
and, when possible, to prevent traffic congestion on the public streets and
highways, the Town Board desires to utilize a proven mechanism to accomplish
the above objectives.
C. The Constitution and the Municipal Home Rule Law of the
State of New York provide a mechanism for remedying this situation and permitting
the adoption and amendment of land use regulations by local law by a simple
majority vote of the Town Board, and the use of such mechanism is an appropriate
way for the Town Board to deal with the recent unprecedented redevelopment
of the Town and the obvious need to update and amend the land use regulations
of the Town of Babylon.
Any land use regulation, restriction or zoning district classification or boundary, whether included in Chapter
213, Zoning, of the Town Code or otherwise, may be adopted, amended, changed, modified or repealed by the Town Board by adoption of a local law, and such local law shall be deemed to have been approved and adopted by a favorable vote of a simple majority of the entire Town Board and shall then take full force and effect as provided for in state law, regardless of whether or not the same has been the subject of:
A. A protest signed by the owners of 20% or more either
of the area of the land included in or affected by such action or of that
immediately adjacent extended 100 feet therefrom or of that directly opposite
thereto extending 100 feet from the street frontage of such opposite land;
or
B. Any other similar protest or petition.
Local laws involving land use regulations shall be adopted in accordance
with the procedures for the adoption of local laws generally, as set forth
in § 20 of the Municipal Home Rule Law.
This chapter is adopted as a local law and, pursuant to, inter alia,
the New York State Constitution, Article 9, § 2(b)(3); Statute of
Local Governments, § 10, Subdivision 6; and Municipal Home Rule
Law § 10, Subdivision 1(ii)a(11), § 10, Subdivision 1(ii)a(12),
and § 10, Subdivision 1(ii)d(3), shall, in its application to the
Town of Babylon, amend and, to the extent necessary, supersede any provisions
of § 265 or other sections of the New York Town Law with which it
may be inconsistent.