CHRISTOPHER KEEFE
WESTFIELD – The City Council referred an ordinance amendment to the Planning Board for its review and a recommendation at the request of Ward 4 Councilor Mary O’Connell.
O’Connell has submitted the amendment to the council where it was sent to the Zoning, Planning and Development Committee which made changes to the language, then brought it out Thursday night to the City Council floor for further discussion.
ZP&D Chairman Christopher Keefe said O’Connell’s amendment pertains to inoperable motor vehicles stowed outside a structure on private property and that the amendment is a minor change to an existing ordinance regulation the storage or motor vehilces and parts.
ROBERT PAUL
O’Connell said she brought the amendment forward at the request of city code inspectors from the Building, Health and Police departments.
“Basically the change is that if you have a car that is registered, you have to have a registration plate on that vehicle,” O’Connell said. “I would not have brought this up if it were not an issue in the city. All this does is require people to display a registration plate. It’s a very small matter.”
The current ordinance prohibits the outdoor storage of unregistered cars. The problem is that if there is no registration plate, code enforcement officers have to return to their perspective offices and research records if the vehicle is registered or not, then take the proper code enforcement steps.
O’Connell said that delay is costing the city time and effort which could be avoided by simply requiring residents to display their registration plate on the vehicle.
Keefe noted that registered vehicles, even if inoperable, are subject to the city’s excise take, “so there is also lost revenue.”
Ward 5 Councilor Robert Paul objected to the proposed amendment, stating that there could be a legitimate reason to remove a registration plate from a registered vehicle for an extended period of time.
“What if a family member is gone for a year, to school, on a church trip as a missionary,” Paul said. “There are so many incidents where people go away for a year, so many circumstances.”
The Planning Board will discuss the proposed ordinance change and make a recommendation to the City Council when it continues its review of the proposed amendment.
