Best To Check With Skip Taylor First I Guess

Hi All,

The Lewis Family Farm in Essex, New York has been fined 50-thousand dollars by the Adirondack Park Agency. They had been facing a possible one million dollar fine. The APA says the family never got the appropriate permits before building two houses for their employees. The Lewis Farm plans to appeal because they were never told they needed permits from the APA - and were also under the impression that the agriculture project was exempt.

Back in the 1960s when I was the Zoning Administrator, if my memory serves me correctly, farmers did not need a permit to put up something for their hired help. Of course that was back when there were many more farms here in Fairfax. I believe during that time that a lot of the farmers put up trailers, but in some cases, especially where some of their children got married and worked on the farm, some actual houses were built that did not require building permits.

I keep a lot of stuff, but don't actually have a copy of the original zoning by-laws used back in the 1960s - I do remember though that Zoning was not well received here in town.