In a split 5-to-2 vote on Thursday, the Public Service Commission awarded the roughly 100-space parking area, known as the gas ball lot, that the village has leased from KeySpan Energy since 2016, to Adam Potter's 11 Bridge Street LLC. The transfer of control will happen in December.
Last winter, upon learning that Mr. Potter had outbid them for the 99-year lease from KeySpan's public-facing entity, National Grid, village officials petitioned the Public Service Commission to nullify the lease, saying it was not in the public interest.
Diane Burman, one of the two commissioners who agreed with the village, came out against the application, saying that it was "backwards" to vote to approve the lease and then tell the village to work it out with Mr. Potter afterwards, saying it should be worked out beforehand.
"We have the discretion to decide if it's in the public interest. For me, I don't believe it's in the public interest," she said.
Another commissioner, John Maggiore, said he could have gone either way on the vote and understands giving the lot to a private entity runs counter to the village code. However, he said, "In my review of past cases we define public interest as it relates to the rate payer as opposed to the host community."
In other words, money talks. Because Mr. Potter will pay $400,000 up front for the first 10 years, and then $50,000 annually for the next 15 years, with an annual increase of 5 percent every 15 years thereafter, rates will be incrementally lower, at the expense, perhaps, of visitors to the village, which is plagued by a lack of public parking.
In December, Mr. Potter indicated that the lot would be used for his proposed adjacent mixed-use development, which included 79 units of affordable housing and 34,000 square feet of retail space. However, by spring, that project was thrown into question when Save Sag Harbor and a group of village residents prevailed in Suffolk County Supreme Court in overturning one of the village laws that allowed for it to be proposed in the first place.
"I look forward to working with the new mayor and the trustees to come up with the right solution for everybody," Mr. Potter said by phone on Friday.
