Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer
Shirt Factory owner Eric Unkauf’s initiative to plant flowers between the sidewalk and road at 188 Maple Street turned into more hassle than he expected.
The City of Glens Falls issued him a violation, withdrew it, and then told him he would need to seek an encroachment permit to do such work in the future.
“This is kind of silly,” Mr. Unkauf told The Chronicle. “Why should it be an encroachment permit? It’s got to go to Common Council to talk about who’s planting what flowers in front of their place? To me, that seems like a waste of Common Council’s time.
“And does this really need to be something that Code Enforcement is going after either?
Mr. Unkauf said the flower saga started when a representative of Wild Ones Southern Adirondacks reached out to see if there were projects they could be involved with at the Shirt Factory. They settled on redoing some of the “hell strips,” the term for a piece of land between the sidewalk and street.
Mr. Unkauf said he reached out to city Planning and Zoning Department Director Allison Gaddy. He says she told him it was a “great initiative.”
“I’m thinking, I don’t need any permits. I see plenty of these things that other people have done around town.”
Mr. Unfauf said he wasn’t worried about disrupting by digging. “This building here has got no gas, no water, no nothing, so I knew there was nothing in the street.”
But then on July 22 he said he received a Notice of City Code Violation stating that a Code Enforcement Officer inspected and found “Work has been completed in the city right-of-way, on the grass panel between the street and sidewalk, without first obtaining an encroachment permit from the city clerk’s office.”
Mr. Unkauf said he went to “settle this crisis of bureaucracy with the city” and the city withdrew the violation Aug. 4.
He received a message that said, “After speaking with the Mayor, the City proposes to settle this matter by withdrawing the violation, given that the work has already been completed. Please note that any future work within the public right-of-way will require prior coordination with the City to ensure all necessary requirements are met.
“While we understand you previously spoke with the Planning & Zoning Director regarding flower planting, more extensive work and more permanent alterations – such as excavating or using heavy equipment on City property – presents a different set of safety and regulatory considerations.
“Moving forward, an encroachment permit is required for any construction, permanent alteration or any work in the public right-of-way that changes the character of the right-of-way, and/or may impact drainage or the City’s access to public utilities, or the public’s access to the right-of-way. This process helps safeguard City infrastructure, public property, and contractors performing the work.”
Mr. Unkauf told The Chronicle he used a skid steer in the flower planting process “to loosen the soil at the surface, because it was so packed down. That’s all. We didn’t get in there with an excavator or anything crazy.”
The Chronicle asked the city clerk’s office if encroachment permits are required for all planting in the city’s hell strips.
Deputy City Clerk Emily Neal responded, “Encroachment permits are not required for planting; however, they are required when the city’s right-of-way is disturbed with any form of digging into the city’s right-of-way, particularly with heavy machinery.”
Mr. Unkauf complains, “The code needs a lot of help. And I know they’re going to redo it, but it’s just another one of these things that points out how out of sync that is with where it should be.
He added, “Right now it just seems random and sporadic the way anything is enforced, and I don’t even know that it’s enforced the same way five different times in a row.”-
Copyright © 2026 Lone Oak Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserve
