By ADAM ATKINSON

CANTON -- The village’s new rental registration law will get some additional fine tuning by the village attorney before the board of trustees moves forward with it.

The village board here opted to hold off passing a new rental registration law pending further review of a few concerns raised by rental property owners and residents at a public hearing held prior to the board meeting Monday night.

Village attorney Gerald Ducharme will review the issues raised during the hearing and present any resulting changes to the board for consideration at their next meeting on Sept. 25.

A dozen or so rental property owners were in attendance at the public hearing prior to the meeting. Most seemed to voice support for the new law which will allow the village to have the name and phone number for a contact person for a rental property in the event of emergencies. The proposed law will additionally allow for greater enforcement of code violations regarding single family rental properties within the village.

The municipality has been crafting the law for several months. Among the recent issues raised tonight, was a request by resident John McKlosky for more clarity in the language of the law regarding the definition of single family dwellings, multifamily dwellings, and whether or not condominiums and townhouses fall under those particular definitions.

Residents Tom Jenison and Linda Fay also voiced support for the idea of allowing a “to the best of my knowledge” stipulation in the self-certification aspect of the new law which allows rental property owners to avoid formal code inspection. That stipulation would allow property owners to sign off on the self-certification and still potentially be held blameless in the event their renter is found to be breaking code without the owner's knowledge later on.

Fay pointed out an example of where this could be applied, describing a situation where one of her renters was not supposed to have potentially dangerous dogs at a rental unit. It was discovered that they instead had three large cats and 12 chickens in the basement Faye said.

“Sometimes you just don’t know,” said Faye. “It can be amusing, but also frustrating.”

Diane Exoo, local attorney, St. Lawrence University law professor and rental property owner, said during discussion that many of the properties in the village would probably not pass a code inspection currently. She expressed concern about the legal language in the self certification process which currently states that landlords who self certify a property inspection when that property is not up to code would be perjuring themselves. She said a landlord may not be able to see all of the code problems in a rental unit. “We don’t have x-ray vision.”

“Well you don’t have to have x-ray vision to self certify,” said Mayor Dalton.

The proposed law requires a code inspection of rental units within the village. That inspection could be done by the village code enforcement office, requiring a fee as it does currently. That amount under the existing law is $20, but it would be expected to go up. The landlord can also self-certify an inspection, which requires no fee and obligates them to fill out a basic information form verifying that their property is up to code.

Ducharme will look at the possibility of potentially softer language in the self certification process, instead of the term perjury and also whether or not civil penalties could be worked into the law instead of a perjury accusation.

The attorney will also review other language in the law to see if additional changes may be necessary. If no substantial changes are made to the proposed ordinance, the board could pass the new rental registration law at their next meeting.

If changes are to be made, the trustees and mayor will have to schedule another public hearing to allow more comment prior to passage.

The law being considered currently would account for three possible fees for rental property owners – a one-time registration fee, and a rental permit fee of $10 and inspection fee, both of which would be renewed every three years. There would be no fee for self inspection.

Rental property owners however would not have to pay rental registration fee (potentially around $25) if they registered their properties with the village clerk’s office within 90 days of the new law taking effect or within 30 days of acquiring a new rental property.

Copies of the proposed law and all the related forms can be found on the village website at http://www.cantonnewyork.us/rental-law-2/.

“We have taken into consideration everything that we’ve heard as we’ve tried to narrow this down,” said Mayor Dalton. The mayor pointed out that the final version of the law may not please everyone on every point, but the board would try to reach a compromise.