What is a family?
An Oneonta landlord and one of his tenants are arguing that it can be a group of more than three unrelated college students who live, eat and do chores together in the same house.
But the city of Oneonta's zoning code has a different definition.
Robert Martella and tenant Alexander N. Juravlea initiated an Article 78 legal proceeding against the city last week regarding a home Martella owns at 7 Walnut St. The action came after the city Zoning Board of Appeals upheld a Code Enforcement Office finding the house was over-occupied. Last fall, Juravlea lived at the home with five other Hartwick College students; he argued before the ZBA that the group lived together as a family.
City zoning law forbids more than three unrelated people from living in a single-family home in that section of the city. The case is slated to go before state Supreme Court Justice Michael Coccoma on May 15 in Cooperstown.
In the claim against the city, Martella's attorney, Brody Smith, said a 1989 State Court of Appeals decision is on his client's side.
"In short, the Oneonta zoning code states that an unlimited number of related persons may reside in a single-family residence. However, no more than three unrelated persons may reside in that same residence," Smith wrote to Ed May, chairman of the Zoning and Housing Board of Appeals. "The New York State Court of Appeals unequivocally declared this type of zoning law to be unconstitutional in Baer v. Town of Brookhaven."
That 1989 decision involved unrelated, elderly women living in the same home.
"No zoning ordinance should segregate where people may live based on age or vocation," Smith said.
The city established a limit on unrelated people allowed to live at individual housing units when it instituted zoning in 1975.
A single dwelling unit with four or more unrelated residents is considered a boarding house under Oneonta's zoning laws and is forbidden in that section of the city.
"We think there is a significant difference between a semester rental to college students and a functional family," City Attorney David Merzig said Monday.
The occupancy law is intended to help guarantee a good quality of life in the city, with the theory being the more unrelated people living together in one place, the more problems there will be in that neighborhood.
When the regulations were adopted, city officials were also concerned over fire safety issues and wanted to limit the number of people living in attics or other unsafe spaces.
"I don't like to comment on litigation, but generally, we've written our statutes pretty tightly," Mayor John Nader said Monday.
Nader said he is confident the city's ruling will be upheld and said that a group of students living together is not a family.
Smith said Monday, "We wouldn't sue the case if we didn't think it was a strong case."
