Town Challenges Revetment

An Oyster Bay man is facing criminal charges in East Hampton Town Justice Court after allegedly erecting a hard-rock revetment on Soundview Drive in Montauk without permits.

Richard Appell, a former trustee of the village of Oyster Bay Cove and a controlling partner in Odin Marine Inc., a shipping brokerage house, installed the revetment at 180 Soundview Drive between November 2013 and December 2015, according to documents on file with the court.

Mr. Appell and his wife, Donna, purchased the 1.5-acre shorefront property for $2.2 million in the summer of 2012. Though it was spared the worst of Superstorm Sandy, which hit that October, damage to the shoreline was extensive, and in May 2013 the Building Department granted the couple a permit to install “emergency erosion control sandbags,” considered by the Planning Department to be a “soft solution” to protect the bluff from erosion.

Brian Frank, the Planning Department’s chief environmentalist, first visited the property six months later, in November 2013, after Mr. Appell sought a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals to construct a “coastal erosion control structure” — a steel bulkhead and a stone armor revetment. Such a structure is considered a “hard solution” by the town. As part of his inspection, Mr. Frank photographed the shoreline. “There was no erosion control structure on the property,” he stated in an affidavit.

The 2013 application for the hardened revetment was never completed, and fell by the wayside. The permit for the sandbags was renewed the following year.

In December 2015, Mr. Frank was called upon to inspect the neighboring site just to the east, where there is a steel bulkhead fronted by huge boulders, protecting the shoreline of several properties on Captain Kidd’s Path. Aerial photos taken over the past few years appear to show that the bulkhead created a scouring effect on the beachfront and bluff where the Appell house sits.

Mr. Frank reported that in the course of his December visit, “I observed a stone armor revetment with nylon netting and fill placed along the shoreline of 180 Soundview Drive.” Knowing it had not been there in 2013, he photographed it, and brought the photos to the attention of the town’s code enforcement division. After several attempts, officers of the division were able to serve the Appells with a court summons.

Mr. Appell is charged with three misdemeanors: building a structure without a building permit, lacking a certificate of occupancy, and failing to obtain a special permit for such a structure. He could be sentenced to up to six months in jail on each charge, though such sentences are extremely rare in zoning violation cases. Arraignment is scheduled for March 14.