The Village of Roslyn Board of Trustees is considering a tax break for restoration activities on homes in the historic district.

The law would grant a five-year assessment moratorium on houses whose owners engage in certain renovation and restoration projects. After six years, any increased assessments will kick in with full assessment in place ten years after the initial renovations were made.

Board of Trustee members described the proposed tax break as an "incentive law," a tax incentive for people who plan to or are just thinking of restoring existing parts of their homes. BOT members also hope the tax break would serve as an incentive to continue with historic preservation of the village.

Village Attorney John Spellman said renovations would include those that increase the amount of historic material in the home, increase square footage on the home site, and repair dilapidated material. Only work that can be attributed to historic renovation would be covered by the assessment moratorium.

Trustee Marshall Bernstein said the new law might induce homeowners to make improvements on their properties that they otherwise would not make. Such renovations could, in the long run, result in net revenue gains for the village.

On the other hand, the village, Trustee Bernstein admitted, is making clear distinctions between some properties in Roslyn and others, namely the majority of Roslynites who do not live in an historic district. The new tax law might not benefit Roslynites in other parts of the village.

Guy Frost, a member of the Historic District Board, said the proposed tax law should only be used for correcting architectural mistakes from the past. It should not encourage homeowners to put additions on historic homes.

In other news, the BOT adopted a new, recodified code for the Village of Roslyn. The code, which will become effective Feb. 1, was recodified in order to make village laws more user friendly to the public. Copies of the new code will be available to the public, but the entire length will run to 1,200 pages.

The purpose of the recodification hearings was to sort out both old and new village laws and make them more accessible to the public. The process essentially involved coordinating laws from the village's beginnings and those that have been enacted in the past 30 years into a new, "state of the art" code. During the hearings, an attempt to extend the term of BOT members from two years to four years failed, otherwise, the revised code had no new major characteristics.

Also at the meeting, Trustee John Durkin reported that restoration on the Roslyn Viaduct bridge should be complete by the year 2003. According to Trustee Durkin, the New York State Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the renovation, estimates the total cost at $60 to 80 million.

The renovation will include a concrete board construction for the bridge's driving lanes. In the meantime, the DOT will build two additional lanes first in order to keep four lanes open at all times during the renovation process. The DOT is also weighing the possibility of building a pedestrian walkway on the bridge.

On the lawsuit front, the village is now accepting applications for a contract bid from construction companies to make repairs on a retaining wall at the Jolly Fisherman restaurant on Roslyn Road.