Sag to Tie House Size To Lot Size

Sag Harbor officials are planning a session to fully explain proposed zoning code revisions meant to curtail overdevelopment in the village, revisions they formulated over the past six months during a freeze on major residential building projects.

“It’s too big to say this is what we’re doing, we’re done,” said Mayor Sandra Schroeder on Tuesday. In the meantime, the village intends to dial back on the development moratorium, even though the village board will vote next week to keep it in place for another three months. Projects that meet the standards set forth in the proposal will be allowed to go forward in the planning process and be reviewed by the necessary village boards. 

Of the four local laws proposed, the most substantial change is the introduction of a cap on how big a house can be based on the size of the property. In calculating gross floor area, the village would consider the total square footage of the house, including basements, where at least half the height is above grade, but not including cellars (with at least half of the height below grade). 

“Sag Harbor is the only village left that doesn’t have a gross floor area ordinance,” said Fred W. Thiele Jr., the village attorney, who helped to craft the amendments, as a way “to conserve the resources that make Sag Harbor special” as the trend toward bigger houses on smaller lots grew. The village, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places for more than 40 years, had a decision to make, he said: Be “the Hollywood-set version of a historic village or you could actually have a historic village.”

Rich Warren of InterScience, a consultant, looked at all 1,845 properties in the village and plotted the size of each of the 1,607 residential lots and each house based on data from the assessors’ offices in the Towns of East Hampton and Southampton, as well as information from the village Building Department. Of those residential lots, 1,167 are less than 20,000 square feet. The median house size is 1,500 square feet, pretty significant, officials said, in terms of applications made in recent years. 

“Let’s say we haven’t seen many of those in a long time,” said Denise Schoen, the attorney for the planning and zoning boards. Twenty-five building permits were issued over the last two years, 19 for houses over 3,000 square feet and 11 for houses over 4,000 square feet. “You get used to the bigger sizes and all of a sudden it skews your view.” 

Under current zoning, a lot of 5,000 square feet or less could see a 2,000-square-foot house. That won’t change under the new ordinance, though other villages, like Sagaponack and North Haven, allow only a 1,500-square-foot house on a property of that size.

The differences under the proposed ordinance become more apparent as the lot size grows. For instance, a 15,000-square-foot lot could see a 6,000-square-foot house now, but the proposed zoning changes would allow a gross floor area of only 2,800 square feet on a lot that size. In neighboring villages, except Southampton Village, which allows houses of up to 3,300 square feet on a 15,000-square-foot lot, the cap would be 2,500 square feet.

Lots that are more than 20,000 square feet and up to 30,000 square feet, would be able to have houses no larger than 4,000 square feet, standard in most villages. Right now, a house on a lot that size in Sag Harbor could go as large as 12,000 square feet. 

A special permit from the village board, rather than the planning board, would be required for houses proposed on lots larger than 30,000 square feet (there are only 114 such properties), with house sizes capped at between 4,000 and 6,000 square feet for lots up to 80,000 square feet.

Another amendment would allow the village to set an additional permit fee of $15 per square foot on applications for houses larger than 3,000-square-feet. That additional fee would go into an affordable housing fund already set up and would be used to establish affordable housing in the Sag Harbor School District. The proposal would be the first in the state, Mr. Thiele said, though the concept has been used in California and Colorado. 

There are some other changes afoot, as well. The historic preservation and architectural review board is the focus of one amendment that would formalize the board’s process, moving it from being an “informal consensus-driven board,” Mr. Thiele said. “I suspect you’ll see more public hearings.” For one, the way the board considers projects with any aspect of demolition will be more stringent. “We had no definition” before, Mr. Thiele said. Any removal of historic structures would trigger these requirements, he said. 

Applicants who plan to demolish historic buildings — there are 700 in the village — will have to meet “a burden of proof.” On major applications, the architectural review board could require a bond be posted to guarantee the work is done as it is supposed to be. The village has had little recourse in recent years when several houses were demolished without full approval. 

Last, an amendment with regard to swimming pools will help the zoning board and harbor committee as it reviews such applications. Though it was not the major focus of the board’s work during the moratorium, current regulations are confusing, the attorneys said. The proposal will establish elevation from groundwater, among other things, Mr. Warren said. 

The six-month moratorium is set to expire on Jan. 25. The board intends to modify the moratorium to allow projects to move forward that would ultimately fall into the proposed criteria with respect to gross floor area. A hearing on the modification will be held on Tuesday.  

The informational meeting on the changes, with a date still to be determined, will take place before a public hearing is scheduled, though officials hope to pass the amendments in three months’ time.