In a split decision, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals approved a nearly 9,000-square-foot house located at 325 Bluff Road, adjacent to the Atlantic Double Dunes Preserve in Amagansett. The current structure, purchased by Caryn Seidman Becker sometime after the summer of 2020, sits alone on the dune and will be demolished. The home approved at the Jan. 7 meeting required eight variances and, because there are freshwater wetlands, barrier dunes, secondary dunes, and beach vegetation, a natural resources special permit.
“This is a model application, and I applaud this application,” said Roy Dalene, the zoning board’s chairman, who voted for approval. “This is a retreat project. I think it’s extremely well done.”
Jaine Mehring, a board member who voted to deny the variances, offered a lengthy discussion of the positives and negatives of the application. She seemed most bothered by a statement from Ms. Seidman Becker’s lawyer, Tony Pasca, that the proposal was the minimum the property owner would accept. She compared it to two other applications in the dunes that required no variances and were on much larger lots (because of the dune, only 2.2 acres of the property can be built on.) “Drawing this hard line in the sand,” she said, led to a “lose-lose” situation. She said it was up to the applicant to demonstrate alternative designs, such as one with a smaller house, but they were never produced.
In short, the proposed house, while deemed too large by most of the board, was considered a better alternative than what exists, or what else might be built in its place.
Development of the parcel began in 1965, before local zoning laws went into effect, when a 3,926-square-foot, two-story house with a basement, surrounded by lawn, was built. It is only 52 feet away from the crest of the primary dune. It has a pool, a large patio, and 1,250 square feet of balcony. It’s an island of sorts, surrounded by 75 acres of dunes, bordering the ocean, and is the only residence visible from the beach between Indian Wells and Atlantic Avenue.
So, even though a Planning Department analysis of the project noted that the biggest threat to the dunes of East Hampton is residential development, with a pre-existing house, unless the land is purchased and preserved by either the town or a group like the Nature Conservancy or Peconic Land Trust, it will continue as a house, in some form.
“The existing conditions of the property offer little to no value to the surrounding duneland habitat due to the presence of pre-existing, nonconforming non-native/invasive ornamental landscaping,” reads a report by Morgan Slater, an environmental technician in the Planning Department. The new plan requires less clearing and the house will be pushed farther from the primary dune crest, almost completely out of sight from the beach. The required variances are because of a wetland in the northern portion of the lot. A pyramid variance was also necessary, largely because of Federal Emergency Management Agency flood elevation standards.
Today, 24,059 square feet of the lot is cleared. Even though the new house will be larger (building coverage is to increase by 79 percent, to roughly 20 percent of the maximum size for the lot) Carl Smith, a principal at Leroy Street Studio Architecture, told the board at a Dec. 3 public hearing that the new design is much less sprawling. (Ms. Mehring, in her denial, countered that total coverage was reduced “by a modest 6 percent.”) After construction, he said it would require 15,276 square feet of clearing, 36 percent less. (During construction, which is estimated to take 28 months, a much larger portion of the lot, 43,746 square feet, will be cleared.) The clearing also occurs landward of the current clearing, north of the Coastal Erosion Hazard Area, theoretically increasing resiliency.
The town planners seemed particularly pleased with the restoration of the dune. “The application includes a duneland restoration plan by James C. Grimes Land Design, Inc., which proposes to remove all landscaping and re-establish duneland species that have not existed within the cleared area of the premises in decades.”
Theresa Berger, another Z.B.A. member, as Ms. Mehring did, expressed reservations about the size of the house, although she ultimately voted to approve the application, minus the height variance. In her comments, she highlighted a problematic roof deck with glass rails and lighting that could inadvertently harm resident and migrating birds. Bird-friendly glass is not yet mandated by the town, even in sensitive dune habitat.
“I say with a certain amount of feeling that the house could have been smaller,” said Ed Johann, nonetheless approving the project. The architects defended the house size, blaming it on FEMA regulations that wouldn’t allow a basement in the dunes. As a result, “mechanicals” were placed in a space between the first and second stories, increasing the house size.
At the December public hearing, Ms. Seidman Becker said despite the house’s size, she was committed to restoring the dunes. “That’s why we’re not planting a lawn.” She said she felt fortunate to have purchased the property with her late husband, Marc Becker. He loved watching the whales, she told the board, through some emotion. “It is our commitment to make Marc’s vision a reality,” she said.
The house also needs approval from the architectural review board. In comments submitted to the Z.B.A., Chip Rae, the A.R.B. chairman, perhaps best summed up how the project ultimately received approval. “They appear to have embraced the environmental requirements of dune and vegetative restoration as an integral aspect of the design,” he wrote. “Also, at our suggestion, the applicant has decreased exterior lighting and mitigated some of the light emanating from within the house at night. Given all this, and that we could potentially be reviewing something much less attractive and deferential to the primacy of the double dune setting, the board is overall generally favorable towards this updated application.”
