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House-Size Rules Spark Suit

Marius Fortelni, who expressed his anger over the Sag Harbor Village zoning code revisions at a meeting in January, has now filed suit against the village.
Marius Fortelni, who expressed his anger over the Sag Harbor Village zoning code revisions at a meeting in January, has now filed suit against the village.
Morgan McGivern
By
Taylor K. Vecsey

A Suffolk Supreme Court judge has ruled that the Village of Sag Harbor cannot hold a property owner to new zoning and wetland laws created after two recent moratoriums in the village, at least for the next three weeks.

Justice W. Gerard Asher granted a temporary restraining order barring the village from applying five different code amendments to Marius Fortelni’s Bluff Point Road property, pending a hearing on June 8. Mr. Fortelni is claiming also that the new laws, passed on April 21, are illegal.

Mr. Fortelni, who bought the waterfront property in 2002, wants to replace his 1,200-square-foot house at 14 Bluff Point Road, outside the historic district, with a larger one. His proposal to build a house just shy of 5,000 square feet on a property that measures just a little less than half an acre would not be allowed under the new gross floor area laws, which tie the size of a house to the size of its lot.

     Alex Kriegsman, a Sag Harbor attorney representing the homeowner, said his client first filed an application to build in 2005, though he acknowledged that the village was “not solely responsible for 10 years of delays.”

“Supposedly, the idea is to preserve historic properties, but it never made any sense. The moratorium never made any sense, and was totally inconsistent with that goal,” the lawyer said.

Mr. Fortelni contends that the village laws were passed after an illegal moratorium on large residential building projects. The village should have sent the moratorium proposal to the Suffolk County Planning Commission before enacting it, he claims. Months into the moratorium, the issue was raised publicly, and Fred W. Thiele Jr., the village attorney at the time, said he did not believe the village had the obligation to send it to the county but forwarded it to the commission for review nonetheless.

“The law is very clear that a moratorium in such instances is null and void,” Mr. Kriegsman said.  

Mr. Fortelni could begin building his house in the next few weeks under the temporary restraining order, but the upcoming hearing may result, his attorney said, in a preliminary or even permanent injunction, which would allow the project to move forward without further ado. “He could just invalidate the whole law,” Mr. Kriegsman said.

Sag Harbor was without an attorney for about a month, and hired David Gilmartin Jr. last week. “With good counsel in place,” Mr. Kriegsman said, “they are likely to do what’s in the best interest of the village. We’d like to settle the case. My client’s looking to build a house, he’s not looking to change the world.”

Mayor Sandra Schroeder declined to comment.

 

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