Concern Persists Over Sag Harbor Moratorium

Members of the Sag Harbor Village Board came under fire Tuesday night from residents angry over proposed new laws that they say will hurt their property values. Residents also questioned the validity of a moratorium on building that has been in effect while the legislation was being drawn up.

Four laws, the most significant of which ties house size to lot size, have been proposed and made available to the public, but not yet formally introduced or set for a public hearing. Instead, the village has scheduled an information session later this month to explain them.

Tuesday night’s session included a hearing, in essence to extend the moratorium while easing up on the restrictions over the next three months as the code revisions are vetted. Residents took the opportunity to voice their concerns that the proposals are already a done deal. 

“I think somehow this board has it all the way upside down. You work for us,” said Marius Fortelni, who owns property on Bluff Point Road and has been unable to move forward with a project for four years. He said the board was “destroying” $100 million to $200 million in property values with a stroke of a pen. 

“I know a government that is drunk on power and illegality. I’m fed up,” he said. “I’m going to sue the entire town — sue for millions.”

Kat Eban said she and her husband put her Rysam Street house on the market in early June with every expectation that they would be in a new home 2,000 miles away by Christmas. She said her house has been “held hostage facing an uncertain future” due to the moratorium, enacted in mid-July. While there is still interest, “no one is willing to commit to buying a historic structure.”

“What you are tampering with here isn’t just square footage ratios and property line setbacks,” she said. “People’s lives are hanging in the balance, and I hope that you, our elected officials, will show some true leadership and proceed with restraint and caution in a situation that is careening swiftly out of control.”

Aidan Cornish, a Howard Street resident who has no applications nor plans for any, said he was concerned that village business was not being conducted in public. He has written to the board to protest “the prominence the village attorney assumed, to the apparent exclusion of you, our elected representatives.” State Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. is also the Sag Harbor Village attorney.

Mr. Cornish said it was “astonishing” that Save Sag Harbor’s publicly listed call to action seemed also to be addressed in the code revisions. “Now considering that there was no public input on any of these new laws, I find this degree of similarity almost beggars belief. The point here is not that I disagree with everything that’s in there. But nobody, or no group, deserves special treatment or access. We all expect and deserve to be treated fairly and with respect.”

Also at issue was the board’s convening for last-minute, often early-morning meetings. There were five special village board meetings in December, and another on Jan. 7.

Edwina Annicelli of Gardiner Street said that Mr. Thiele had come up with the code revisions and in doing so, without public input, had created an adversarial situation. She also raised the question of whether the moratorium had been properly created.

Mr. Thiele said a question had been raised as to whether the moratorium should have gone before the Suffolk County Planning Commission; it did not. “It’s still in effect. If it was illegal, it would not be in effect,” he told the audience.

Reached by phone yesterday, Mr. Thiele said some but not all zoning actions are referred to the county. “It is the position of the village that the moratorium was legally enacted,” he said, explaining that a moratorium is not considered a zoning action, but the suspension of one.

In view of the questions raised, Tuesday night’s extension was sent to the planning commission, which did not approve or disapprove it but said it was not for that board to decide.

The extension, referred to as a temporary stopgap on development, is the same as a moratorium, Mr. Thiele said. The difference from the original moratorium, which was to expire at the end of this month, is that it is less restrictive. Applications will be processed if they meet the current zoning code, so that applicants can get feedback from the various boards.

Mr. Thiele said yesterday that the proposed code revisions are far from a done deal. “We’ve gotten a number of suggestions that we think are good that are going to be incorporated into the public process.”

The informational meeting will be held at the Sag Harbor Firehouse, switched from Village Hall at the suggestion of an audience member that they use a bigger venue, on Jan. 27 at 6 p.m.