Perhaps it’s fitting that the Zoning Code Amendment Working Group has a rather convoluted name. Formed just over a year ago, it’s walking a tightrope between business interests, builders, real estate people, and others who fear over-restrictive zoning, and those who want the code strengthened to preserve what they say is a town that is quickly losing, or has already lost, its character.
It’s no easy task.
“There is no good guy; there is no bad guy,” said Councilwoman Cate Rogers. “There are just people who have different beliefs about private land use.”
In May, when the group presented its initial ideas to the town board, it was met by a packed room of industry players who demanded more inclusion in the process. Since then, members have met with a subset of that group almost weekly. On Tuesday, they presented the board with some changes and compromises, claiming to now have more than 90 percent of the industry on their side.
While the room was once again packed, this time the voices of those looking for a tougher code were louder and more numerous.
Irwin Levy commented that “clearing and supersizing” were now spreading to parts of the town — Springs, in his example — that had heretofore been relatively ignored by developers. “It’s happening now in the more modest parts of the town, where local families used to buy and rent,” he said. “They’re being knocked down, they’re being redeveloped, large in both size and price, for a very different clientele, exacerbating an ever more fragile affordable housing crisis.”
“Town seems to be changing at a breakneck pace,” he continued, “by extracting from a place, rather than contributing to it. I’ll ask the same question the late William Pickens of Sag Harbor Hills asked; ‘Are we a community or are we a commodity?’ “ His remarks, and others like them, were met with loud applause.
The headline item presented in May — to slash the maximum allowable size of a single-family residence from 20,000 square feet to 10,000 — remained intact. Not so a recommendation to include finished basements and attached garages in a house’s gross floor area. Instead, the working group suggested exempting 600 square feet of that area from attached garages and exempting 600 feet from finished basements as well. In another compromise, the rest of the finished basement would be calculated at just 50 percent of the gross floor area.
In the past, for example, a 2,000-square-foot finished basement would not be counted at all in the house’s G.F.A. That same basement would now count for 1,300 square feet. (What constitutes
a finished versus an unfinished basement is a question yet to be tackled.)
Louis Cortese, a member of the town planning board, speaking during the public comment portion of the meeting, said that “the recommendation to include portions of a basement in G.F.A. does nothing to stop development in Ditch Plains, because most houses are built on a slab.” The solution, he said, was to “change the formula that determines allowable G.F.A.” — what is known as the dimensional table.
The feeling in the room was intense, and speaker after speaker, well over 20, touched on similar points: Overclearing (“Old hickory forests are replaced by green giants lined around the outside of a property, and somehow this passes,” said Leonard Green); environmental degradation (“I cannot stomach another smashed turtle,” said Andrea Kuenzel); stress on natural resources (“Larger houses mean more bathrooms, more stress on wetlands, groundwater, and our drinking water,” said Gail Pellett), and the feeling that more needs to be done, sooner (“Your biggest risk is to do too little, not too much,” said Dan Mongan).
There was general incredulity regarding the size of new houses (“It’s so defeating when you live in an area and then next door to you is a monstrosity,” said Tom Plant), and even a hint of conspiracy (“Please do something. If you do nothing, citizens can only surmise you are firmly in the pockets of realtors, developers, and big money,” said Christina Buckley).
Tyler Borsack, a principal planner in the town Planning Department, described other changes made since May. Basement depth would be limited to 15 feet, and only a single level could be below grade. So-called “iceberg” houses — those with basements exceeding the footprint of the above-ground portion of the house — would be outlawed, excepting areas of egress. Importantly, height would be measured from the lowest point of the finished grade, in addition to a parcel’s natural grade. At present, grade is measured only before construction.) That change, said the working group, could prevent the “digging out” of basements, which is now allowed by town code and has turned many basements into a third “walkout” story.
Other suggestions remain as they were in May: Accessory structure height would be capped at 15 feet for flat roofs and 20 feet for gabled roofs; the setback between a principal structure and an accessory structure would be increased from five to 10 feet to help reduce massing; all buildings and swimming pools would need to be located at least two feet from groundwater; and any railing 10 feet above an adjacent grade would increase from 36 inches to 42 inches.
Councilwoman Rogers discussed tools the town already has to address “chaotic development,” including requiring an updated certificate of occupancy after a house is built. “We didn’t know what was built out there,” she said. “If something was built illegally, we didn’t know about it . . . I’ve heard talk that these recommendations are easy-peasy and not really meaningful.” Harder conversations will come, she promised, but “having the ability to go around our code in every direction possible, what would be the point of changing a dimensional table without first closing up loopholes?”
Chris DiSunno, an architect and one of a handful of speakers who, while agreeing that the code needs to be amended, was worried about drastic changes. There are other ways, he said, besides using gross floor area, to regulate house size, including restrictions on lot coverage and clearing. “When specific instances of entire lot clearing are brought up, they need to be shared. Where they are, why they’re not being addressed by code enforcement, and how they were permitted in the first place,” he said. “It’s our own job to self-police.” Talk of a moratorium on construction, he added, was not helpful; it would put local workers out of work.
No town board member expressed any strong objections to the recommendations, though all made clear they wanted to protect the investments of “regular” residents. “I’m supportive of what was presented here today,” said Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez.
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Correction: A caption that appeared earlier in print and online said that Chris DiSunno, an architect who spoke at the meeting had said that builders need to self-police. As is clear in the quote in the article, Mr. DiSunno instead said that people in general need to self-police.
