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Ritchie Touts Building-Code Reform for Maple Producers

By Jude Seymour

Story Published: Mar 24, 2011 at 11:52 AM EDT

Story Updated: Mar 24, 2011 at 11:52 AM EDT

Sen. Patty Ritchie hailed passage of a bill she sponsored that would define sugarhouses and other maple production facilities as agricultural buildings.

"When I became Senate Agriculture Committee chair, I was shocked to discover that, in addition to battling late winter cold and waist-high snow drifts, New York's 550 maple producers were battling government bureaucrats who wanted to treat seasonal 'sugar shacks' like regular commercial buildings, subject to all sorts of expensive and difficult rules and regulations," the senator said in a press release.

I suppose she wouldn't be as shocked if she read the newspaper last March. 

As I noted in the Watertown Times, producers were forced to overbuild their sugarhouses to comply with more restrictive building codes when they couldn't obtain an agricultural building permit. The bill passed the Senate last year too, but died in the Assembly.

Assemblyman Ken Blankenbush is a co-sponsor of the companion to Ritchie's bill.

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