Jamestown City Council Housing Committee meeting (February 9, 2026)
Several amendments to the City of Jamestown Code are being proposed including the addition of new requirements for composting.
Jamestown City Council members reviewed the amendments which Department of Development staff are mainly to clarify existing code.
One example is the update to driveways in residential districts to add language to section A that states, “All automotive use areas shall be surfaced with a durable and dustless material.” Deputy Director of Housing Policy and Development Kasie Foulk said the code previously didn’t explain what “dustless” means, “Gravel can cause dust and does cause dust, so we don’t love gravel driveways. So again, this is for new installs. It would have to be approved by the building and zoning code enforcement officer, such as asphalt, concrete, brick or interlocking paper. This just ensures the dustless surface and stops any like mud from forming in the property.”
Another update was the addition of the words “owner occupied” to the code about the minimum temperature for rental homes. The code requires that rental units must have heating equipment that provide an indoor temperature to 68 degrees. Foulk said it doesn’t require that all apartments must be kept at that temperature by the tenants but that the heating equipment must be functional enough to reach 68 degrees. She added this temperature is set by New York State.
For the new composting code, Foulk said she modeled the language off the town of Amherst’s code and it spells out what is and isn’t okay to compost, “So you’re looking at organic materials, where it can be located. We don’t want this directly on someone’s property line, because if people don’t compost property and it smells bad and then you get vermin and rodents and animals. It also has to be in a proper bin.”
The code updates were approved by the Public Safety Committee and will be voted on by the full Council at the February 23 voting session.
Leave a Reply