Montauk Restaurant Can Reopen
A neighbor’s campaign to make the owners of the Breakers motel obtain a permit before they can reopen its long-dormant restaurant was unanimously rejected by the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals Tuesday night.
Jay Schneiderman, the Southampton Town supervisor, and his sister, Helen Ficalora, own the Breakers. Mr. Schneiderman was on hand for the board’s deliberation of the appeal by Jane Concannon, who owns an adjacent property.
During a Dec. 1 public hearing, Ms. Concannon had alleged that the restaurant did not exist on Dec. 19, 1984, when the Old Montauk Highway neighborhood where the motel is located was rezoned from residential to resort use. Under the change in the law, an existing motel could open a new restaurant if it obtained a permit and went through site plan review. But if it already had a restaurant, it would be exempted from the review process.
The board never got to the merits of the case. The problem with Ms. Concannon’s appeal, members determined, was that it should have been made many years ago.
A 2005 certificate of occupancy for the motel included language describing a restaurant. Normally, such a certificate would have to be challenged within 60 days of its issuance. However, said John Jilnicki, the town attorney who advised the board members on the appeal, the clock on such a challenge actually starts ticking when a complainant should “reasonably know” that something is happening that needs looking into.
In this case, the board found that date to be five years later, in 2010, when Mr. Schneiderman and Ms. Ficalora applied for site plan review for a deck. At that 2010 meeting — Cate Rogers, a board member, said Tuesday — the public hearing notice was read, aloud, twice. The description included a restaurant. Ms. Rogers pointed out that Ms. Concannon could be seen sitting in the audience, in a video of the hearing provided by LTV.
Further, she said, in 2014 Ms. Concannon saw the construction involved in the installation of a new septic system on the Breakers property, and that too should have triggered an inquiry. Instead, the neighbor waited until 2015 to make her appeal.
The other board members agreed with Ms. Rogers, though David Lys said he wished they had been able to grapple with the merits. John Whelan, the chairman, agreed. Had that been the case, Mr. Whelan said, their deliberations would have lasted “much longer.”
“To challenge a 10-year-old C. of O. in a case where notice was clearly given would have been a leap,” Mr. Schneiderman said after the decision was announced, suggesting that approving the appeal would have set a dangerous precedent.
Later in the evening, on the same grounds of untimeliness, the board denied Mr. Schneiderman’s appeal against a Building Department determination favoring Ms. Concannon. The denial will allow the Concannon family to replace its house next door to the Breakers. Also on Tuesday, the board approved an application for a special permit from the owners of 349 Cranberry Hole Road in Amagansett, to allow construction of a walkway from the house to the beach on Gardiner’s Bay, as well as an enlarged driveway, to facilitate handicapped access. The owner of the house, Sam Isaly, needs a wheelchair to get to the beach. The permit was needed because of the proximity of wetlands and dune crest.
The board had declined to approve a somewhat similar proposal last year. “The gentleman needs this structure for a rather large wheelchair,” Ms. Rogers said, noting that the project had been scaled back since the board first heard it.
“The walkway is not on the beach,” Mr. Lys said. “It would not act as a hard structure.” However, he asked his fellow members to deny a request for a handrail, and also asked that the walkway be removed should the house be sold or change hands. His colleagues agreed.
“I was a bit upset they went ahead with a driveway without approval, but he needs a special van,” Roy Dalene said, though he added that he would have approved the driveway anyway.
Lee White had an emergency and could not attend the meeting, but Mr. Whelan made it clear that he would be able to add his thoughts when it comes time to approve the formal decision.