The village planning board has not given up on convincing the board of trustees that its proposal to remove the limit on the number of rooms a tourist accommodation may rent is the right approach.

Last week the trustees did not endorse the planning board's room limit recommendation and opted instead to place a four-room limit throughout the village. That decision set the stage for another public hearing on a new amendment to the law.

Changes in the zoning law require a report to the trustees from the planning board and Tuesday that board began to formulate its response. Chairman Paul Kuhn said the board has 60 days to respond.

"I hope we can submit the report in much less time," he said.

Kuhn told board members that mayor Carol Waller, who did not vote on the amendment last week supported the planning board's recommendation and that the vote was 5 to 1. He added that judging from comments made by trustees, some of them may be able to be swayed.

Planning board member Bill Rigby said he did not believe they had enough information to come up with a solution and suggested a meeting with village attorney John Lambert, the board of trustees and the members of the zoning board of appeals which opposed the planning board's recommendation.

But Kuhn was not receptive to the idea and admitted he killed an earlier attempt to bring the boards together. "I'm the one that nixed the meeting as a waste of time," he said. "Seventeen people will never agree."

"When they're part of the picture on B&Bs, I think they really need to be in on it," Rigby said.

"This is our responsibility," Kuhn replied.

The board did not formally vote on meeting with the other boards, but a majority of the members favored a joint session.

As a prelude to that meeting, Kuhn will prepare a first draft of a document intended to educate the trustees as to the process required to obtain a special permit for a tourist accommodation.

Kuhn said he had already started to put the procedure down on paper so trustees could see what's involved and understand why the planning board recommended removing the room limit andf let the number of rooms be set other requriements in the law.

"Everything can't be black and white. We're supposed to make judgments," he said.

According to Kuhn, the planning board was trying to do what's right and fair for the property owners of the village and at the same time reduce the village's litigation exposure.

The planning board has worried that setting a limit on the number of rooms, no matter what the number is, would be seen by a court as being capricious and arbitrary.

Kuhn said he had talked with the village attorney many times and that Lambert had said he would research New York State case law in regard to setting limits on tourist accommodations.

"I think we ought to find out if there have been any instances in New York State where the limit has been challenged and overturned in court," Kuhn said.

The board also discussed a provision of the zoning law that describes the use of a property for a tourist accommodation as being "clearly secondary and incidental" to its residential use.

"We all know most of these places are not incidental use," said planning board member Karin Svahn.

The board of trustees has scheduled a public hearing on the four-room limit amendment to the zoning law for its next meeting April 19.