Mount Morris Serves ‘Order to Remedy’ on Owners of Boarding House

MOUNT MORRIS – The Village of Mount Morris served an ‘order to remedy’ to the owners of a boarding house that a resident alleged was not in compliance with local code.

Ken Mignemi, who owns the house with Joe Zambito, says that they will appeal the order to the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA)

and have concerns about the living arrangements of their tenants, most of whom have checkered pasts and criminal histories.

“We have four homeless gentlemen with nowhere to go,” said Mignemi. “I interact with these guys almost on a daily basis so I know they have nowhere to go.”

The Mount Morris village code defines a ‘rooming house’ as ‘a dwelling in which three or more persons, either individually or or as families, are housed for hire with or without meals. A lodging house and boarding house shall be deemed a rooming house.’

The New York State Multiple Dwelling Law defines a ‘rooming house’ or ‘furnished room house’ as ‘a multiple dwelling, other than a hotel, having less than thirty sleeping rooms and which persons either individually or as families are housed for hire or otherwise with or without meals.’

The Village had an outside code enforcement officer interpret the Village code. That officer said that the house is not in an area that is zoned for boarding houses.

In the meantime, Mignemi says that the four tenants will continue to live at 22 1.2 Damonsville Street until the appeal process is over and the question as to whether the men are allowed to live there is answered by the ZBA.

“We will obviously comply once we have our answer from the ZBA,” said Mignemi. “We didn’t go into this thinking we were doing anything wrong.”