Village Pushes the Pause Button on New Construction

After receiving much support from village residents, the Sag Harbor Village Board unanimously passed a temporary moratorium on construction of most new single-family houses and major improvements on existing ones.

The board, led by Sandra Schroeder, who was presiding over her first regular meeting as mayor, received a round of applause from the audience, which packed the Village Hall meeting room for a hearing on the matter and spilled out into the hallway.

The message from most who came out in support of the six-month moratorium was summed up by William Pickens of Ninevah Place, whose family has been visiting Sag Harbor for over 100 years. “This village is being assaulted. My only advice to you is don’t let developers pillage our village.”

By hitting the pause button on major residential construction, the board will have an opportunity to strengthen the building code. In recent years, the village has been inundated with building applications, and several old structures on small lots have been demolished to make way for much larger houses that many feel are changing the character of the village.

Carol Olejnik lives next to one of those houses on Main Street. The owner essentially tore down the house and rebuilt it even though it was considered a renovation. One of the issues, Tom Preiato, the building inspector, has said, is that there is no definition of a demolition. The village code also deals mainly with lot and building coverage, and not gross floor area. “It’s too late for me, but you have got to fix it so it doesn’t happen to other people,” Ms. Olejnik told the board. “You have to define everything in this law,” she said.

Georgette Grier-Key, the director of the Eastville Historical Society, spoke out about a house at 11 Eastville Avenue that was also recently demolished and lamented that no archaeological investigation was done. She urged the board to ensure the village maintains its cultural and historical heritage, which is a part of the community’s shared history.

Save Sag Harbor, a community organization that began as an effort to stop big chain stores from running out mom-and-pops, also supported the moratorium, according to Bob Weinstein of Jefferson Street, who is on the board. He repeated a phrase from Ada Louise Huxtable, a renowned architecture critic who once wrote, “And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.”

Tim Martin of High Street has been visiting Sag Harbor since he was a child. He lives in a 1,600-square-foot house next to a “behemoth with six air-conditioning compressors.” He said that while many had touched on the character of the village, he believes character is also described by that of the people living there. “I personally don’t want to live in a village with people who want to live in McMansions with Range Rovers.”

The moratorium would allow for exemptions for new construction if the size and scope of the project is deemed appropriate for the lot based on floor area and lot area. Renovations would be exempted if they are not considered substantial improvements. A substantial improvement is considered to be any change where the cost equals or exceeds 50 percent of the market value of the house before construction begins.

Anthony Vermandois, an architect who lives on Union Street and does a lot of work in the village, said he does not object in principal to the moratorium, or the board’s intent to enact a floor-area ratio during the moratorium as other villages have done. “The one thing you don’t want is to pick North Haven’s version or Southampton’s version and implement in Sag Harbor,” he said.

Fred W. Thiele Jr., the village attorney, agreed. Other villages “don’t have anywhere near the number of small lots that we have. We really need to take a careful look at those small lots,” he said. Rich Warren, the village consultant, will be “doing a lot-by-lot analysis of what’s out there,” Mr. Thiele said.