I attended the Town of Pembroke Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on Wednesday, May 17, 2013. One of the items on the agenda was in regard to a permit granted to Mr. Jeffrey Humel for his converted multi-apartment building located at 1633 Indian Falls Road in Corfu. Jeffrey Humel, who is already operating under a special use permit what was supposed to be a “storage only” business at this location, has now not only converted an old nursery warehouse into a 3-unit apartment building, but has allowed families to occupy two of those units without the proper permits or certificate of occupancies. When the Town of Pembroke became aware of the multi-family units and that they were occupied they notified Mr. Humel that he was not in compliance with town code and that he needed to remedy the violations. The town Zoning Enforcement Officer issued a "Notice of Eviction" to both tenants residing in two of the apartments.
Since then, a certificate of Occupancy has been issued to Mr. Humel so he could rent out one (1) apartment. Mr. Humel then allowed one of the tenants that were evicted before to move back in.
Using definitions found in the Town of Pembroke’s Zoning Law, a neighboring property owner’s attorney explained to the board the difference between a single unit dwelling and a multi-family dwelling. He also reminded them that since the principal use of the property is already operating under a special use permit, the town zoning law only allows for a single unit apartment not a multi-family dwelling. The board gave me the impression that it must not understand what the law means. Numerous times Board member David Sabato questioned the attorney’s statement about what the difference is between single-family and multi-family. A couple of times, the attorney stated it is in black and white and Mr. Sabato could follow along on the copy that he (the attorney) made for each board member to read. Zoning Board Chairman Nathan Witkowski raised the question as to whether or not there were multiple units in the building (Prior to this statement, Chairman Witkowski held up the layout plans for the build where everyone in the meeting could see the 3 units). He said it was “too bad that someone wasn’t there to represent Mr. Humel”. (Mr. Humel has a history of not showing up at previous board meetings to answer violations and issues.) Thankfully, Mr. Charles Reid, the issuing Zoning Enforcement Officer, was able to make it to the meeting. Mr. Charles Reid was the ZEO who issued the Certificate of Occupancy this spring and he was able to validate for everyone at that meeting, including Mr. Nathan Witkowski, that in fact there are three (3) separate apartment units in the old nursery building. He reported that he had been at the location a number of times, he inspected each unit and he signed the Certificate of Occupancy for apartment “B.” It became rather obvious that the board was not happy about admitting that there were 3 separate apartment units in Mr. Humel’s converted warehouse building, particularly when Board member Terrance Daniel said that all Jeff has to do is “knock out a wall between the apartments or put a connecting door between them and then they could fall under code as a single unit apartment.” After being asked again, Zoning Enforcement Officer Mr. Charles Reid reiterated that he indeed had inspected the inside of the made over building and there were in fact three (3) separate apartment units in it.
I got a very strong message that the members of the Zoning Board of Appeals were all in favor of allowing Jeff Humel to continue operating the multi-unit apartments along with his multi-commercial businesses even though this type of activity is not allowed in an agricultural/residential area per town zoning laws.
The board seemed reluctant, but the certificate of occupancy was rescinded by a vote of 3 – 2. David Sabato and Richard Doktor both voted "nay" while Terrance Daniel, Ronald Kasinski and board chairman Nathan Witkowski all voted "aye."
The Town of Pembroke has allowed Jeff Humel, dba Creekside Septic, Mike’s Roll Offs and Creekside Rentals (which includes rentals of port-a-johns and closed storage units) to operate multi-commercial businesses in an agricultural / residential zoned district since 2008. Not only are commercial businesses not allowed on secondary roads by town law, but it has aggrieved neighboring property owners as well. And now he wants to add apartments!
For complete documented information, please go to www.crlowder.com/pembroke/
