HomeMy WebLinkAboutZBA-12/28/2006 Hearing
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TOWN OF SOUTHOLD
COUNTY OF SUFFOLK
ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
STATE OF NEW YORK
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TOW N
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SOU THO L D
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A P PEA L S
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Southold Town Hall
53095 Main Road
Southold, New York
December 28, 2006
9:30 a.m.
Board Members Present
RUTH OLIVA, Chairwoman
GERARD P. GOEHRINGER, Board Member
LESLIE KANES WEISMAN, Board Member
JAMES DINIZIO, Board Member
MICHAEL SIMON, Board Member
LINDA KOWALSKI, Board Secretary
KIERAN CORCORAN, Assistant Town Attorney
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COURT REPORTING AND TRANSCRIPTION SERVICE (631) 878-8047
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Good morning,
everybody, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to
you all.
First I'd like to call to order our first
meeting of December 28, 2006 and I'd like to have
a motion stating that all our applications are a
Type 2 Action.
(See minutes for resolution.)
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Our first hearing is
for the Kiefers on Terry Lane in Orient; lS there
someone here to speak on this application?
MR. KIEFER: This is my wife, Joan and
Harold Kiefer. We just want to get the okay to
get the Building Department to okay our plans.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: You are planning to
build a deck?
MR. KIEFER: A deck.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA:
15 or 19 feet?
MR. KIEFER: 15 or
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA:
about 85 feet from the edge
MR. KIEFER: Right.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: I was up there and you
can take my advice or not, this is part of it.
But you have an overhang, a lip on your bluff.
Ten years ago we had a number of terrible
northeast storms, and I walked that whole beach
and you must have lost at least 15 to 20 feet from
that storm on that bluff because it is gouged out.
I would suggest, if you want to hold that bluff in
behind that lip, if you could plant some low
shrubs like rosa rugosa, something like that that
would hold that in that if we have another
How wide lS that deck,
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16.
That will leave
of your bluff?
you
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storm --
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MR. KIEFER: I have planted at least 50
rosa rugosa on the bluff itself.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: We got a nlce report
from Suffolk County Soil and Water. I'm just
suggesting that after the cut off from the bluff
you could put something there that would hold that
top up. Jerry?
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Mr. Kiefer, I
believe you were fishing that day I was there. I
didn't want to bother you. I have no objection to
your application as long as the deck remaln open.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: To the sky. Leslie?
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Your proposal lS to
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December 28, 2006
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create a deck that's 22 inches off the ground
level so you can come straight out off your
sliding door?
MR. KIEFER: I think it's 24 or something.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Your neighbor has a
two level deck on one side and yourself is
actually going to be smaller, the bluff seems in
relatively decent shape at the moment. And 85
feet --
MR. KIEFER: Orginally when we put it up I
guess it was 100.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: You were smart.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Yes, the farther
back the better In terms of protection of the
property. I have no problem.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Jim?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: That's going to be
54'7" long, right?
MR. KIEFER: Yes.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: How do you get
access to the deck from the house?
MR. KIEFER: Double sliders.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: From the kitchen,
any other rooms?
MR. KIEFER: Living room, dining room.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Then looks like
it's 40 feet from the rest of the property line,
the deck lS going to end up 40 feet?
MR. KIEFER: I guess so.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: That's all I have.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Michael?
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: One of the reasons
for the variance is because 100 feet is the code
requirement; is there a reason why it would be
necessary or desireable that it be 15 feet wide
rather than five feet wide so the setback could be
increased to 90 feet for example; could you speak
to that question? If the Board decided that some
sort of compromise would be offered would you
argue against the plausibility of that compromise?
MR. KIEFER: You mean?
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: If we gave you 90
feet rather than 85 feet, and your deck was going
to be five feet narrow, it would be 10 feet
instead of the 11, instead of 16.
MR. KIEFER: Ten foot would be kind of
narrow for a deck and table and chairs. If you
have the 15 feet would be reasonable.
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December 28, 2006
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BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I just wanted to hear
you address the issue is all.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you. Is there
anyone in the audience that wishes to speak on
this application? If not, I'll make a motion to
close the hearing and reserve decision until
later.
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(See minutes for resolution.)
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Our next hearing is
for the Milowskis on Cox Neck Road in
Mattituck. Is there anyone here to speak on this
application? The applicant, we are awaiting an
amended survey; is there anyone in the audience
that wishes to speak on this application? Yes,
sir?
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MR. DOUBLEDAY: My name is Malcolm
Doubleday. I'm here on behalf of some neighbors
Ted and Rita Wells; they're in Florida, so they
couldn't be here. I just want to read a letter
from them, it's addressed to the Board Members.
We, Theodore and Rita Wells, give Malcolm
Doubleday full authority to represent us at the
Southold Town Board meeting of December 28th.
This pertains to the request of Kevin Milowski to
add a structure on his property. We haven't any
objections to that, our only concern is that the
50 foot right of way remains open and unobstructed
at all times as our deed states.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you very much.
Is there anyone else here? If not, I make a
motion to adjourn the hearing until January 25th
at 9:35 in the morning.
(See minutes for resolution.)
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Our next hearing is
for the Beninatis on Oakwood Drive in Southold; is
there anyone here who would like to speak on this?
Cathy?
MS. MESIANO: Catherine Mesiano on behalf
of the applicants. Mr. and Mrs. Beninati propose
to construct a garage with a second story over.
Our request is for a side yard variance for a
seven foot side yard setback, and that would be on
the southerly side yard. We've done everything we
could design-wise to snug this up as much as
possible. The purpose of this renovation is to
provide actually some living space to the house.
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A lot of these houses were beautiful
architecturally, but from a practical perspective,
they really were not livable. There's really not
much of a kitchen. The Beninatis expect to make
this their principal residence, so they're taking
a bedroom, converting it to enlarge the kitchen
and creating another bedroom up over the garage.
So that's the essence of our request. We do not
exceed the lot coverage. We do have Trustees
approval; we're pending in the DEC. It's pretty
straightforward.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: May I can ask a
question?
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Sure, go ahead, Jerry.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: As you know, I'm
a stickler on side yard situations.
MS. MESIANO: I know.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: The way that
portion of that application is presented, the tail
end, which is closest to the water, which is
closest to the wood deck restricts it farther down
than seven feet.
MS. MESIANO:
noted as a deck?
BOARD MEMBER
MS. MESIANO:
BOARD MEMBER
deck or cement deck?
MS. MESIANO: It's intended to be wood.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Well, wood or
not, it's still restricted. Actually, eight feet
is the actual minimum that you could use to bring
machinery.
MS. MESIANO: Even considering the fact
that we do have ample room on the other side, on
the north side?
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: That was my
question, and I did spend some time looking at
that ample room. I just don't know what they
intend to do with the rest of that and the
landscaping on the other side.
MS. MESIANO: I can give you a landscape
plan. We have had a landscape plan very
rudimentary but very representative of what their
intention lS, and basically the landscape plan is
a revegetation plan that would put back, give back
if you will, the wetland vegetation because it has
deteriorated. It's been a lot of runoff, the
Are you looking at what's
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GOEHRINGER: Yes.
That's at grade.
GOEHRINGER: Is that
a wood
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house hasn't been occupied. So it's intended to
give back as far as the wetland vegetation is
concerned. So they're all low shrubs, low bush
blueberries, et cetera. And that's a plan that
the Trustees have approved.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Do you have any
idea how far that ground level deck encroaches
into that deck area?
MS. MESIANO: If you bear with me a
minute, I'll get my scale and I'll tell you.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: The question is
how far does the ground level deck encroach into
the side yard? That's what Miss Mesiano's gOlng
to give us.
MS. MESIANO: It appears to be five feet,
the closest point of the at-grade deck. We could
propose there to be stone set in sand so we still
maintain drainage and have no wood structure
there. That's an alternative that we could
propose. That's certainly something that
equipment can move over.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Just remember
that equipment doesn't have to be mechanized
equipment, it could be fire lines, et cetera.
MS. MESIANO: But that point is at five
feet, but it is at grade.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Is there any reason
that you couldn't slant that deck off so it would
glve you a little greater side yard?
MS. MESIANO: We could do that.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: You're going to be
hard pressed to fit two cars in it then because
it's oblique.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: It's not a straight
square, but I'm just looking at the deck
MS. MESIANO: We had no choice but the
oblique angle.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I raise a question
about the garage and I appreciate the need for the
oblique angle, there is a concern of the LWRP
coordinator regarding the closest -- when you're
ready.
MS. MESIANO: I'm sorry. Mrs. Beninati is
just pointing out a discrepancy here. She's
telling me that what we're referring to as the
proposed deck as it's shown on the survey lS a
second floor balcony.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Over the garage,
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coming out from the garage.
MS. MESIANO: Okay.
Lee on that.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: You're not talking
about the deck on the north side, you're talking
about the garage now?
MS. MESIANO: We have been talking about
the rectangular structure on the east side, and
Mrs. Beninati just informed me that although the
survey calls that a proposed deck, it lS In fact a
second story deck.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: What's beneath it?
MS. MESIANO: Nothing.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: That will be open
land. So this is a deck that comes out about
eight feet above the ground or so?
MS. MESIANO: It would be eight to 10 feet
and an open structure.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: What
approach to the deck come from?
MS. MESIANO: That would
house because it's proposed that
would be over the garage.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON:
also be part of the roof of
that small area, or will it
is that what it will be?
MS. MESIANO: You have a set of plans In
there. A lot of the finer details they haven't
fully resolved because conceptually we needed to
know what we could do before we spent a lot of
money before fine-tuning the details of the
structure.
Because I questioned
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will the
From the house?
come from the
a master bedroom
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So would the deck
the garage as well,
be a flat roof garage;
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BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: We don't have
plans, we don't have a schematic of what it might
look look like. There's no diagram showing the
second story deck, it doesn't give details of
it. It shows elevations but it doesn't show
anything more.
MS. MESIANO: Well, at this point, what I
would say to the Board is, we'll basically accept
your recommendation on that because we are more
concerned with the side yard setback because that
will allow us to design the space that they're
hoping to galn for inhabiting the house. As far
as that deck that would be accessible from the
room over the garage, if you want it open to the
sky, we would give it to you open to the sky. If
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you would allow a roof portion but not to be
enclosed and not be heated, we would be satisfied
with that. Again, our primary concern is the side
yard setback and what the Board sees fit as far as
allowing the utility of that deck is less
important to us. I think -- do you have a
preference? Would you like for it to be roofed
over or is it shady enough that that doesn't make
a difference?
MS. BENINATI:
about it.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA:
difference.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: The question with
regard to the dimensions of the deck, as it is on
the plan it will be closer to the boundary line,
that corner of the deck, than the proposed side of
the garage would be?
MS. MESIANO: Yes.
then five feet but it would
grade.
I haven't even thought
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Doesn't make a
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The corner would be
be eight feet off
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: It would be good if
you could slice that.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: That would be good if
that was sliced off.
MS. MESIANO: We could live with that.
MS. BENINATI: I'm Marie Beninati. I
think it's strange because when you make that kind
of cut, you lose all that space over to the right
because it's an angle, it's a sharp angle.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: will the useable part
of the deck be limited to that little rectangle or
will that also include the roof of the garage?
MS. BENINATI: I'm not sure about that.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I haven't seen what
the plan is for the garage, but if it were a
peaked roof for the garage, obviously that
couldn't be part of the deck, but if the deck were
actually going to be 20 feet long because it was
the entire roof of the garage, then that entire
corner would be less crucial to your design, so I
think we need to know that.
MS. BENINATI: I really don't know.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: It's clear at this
point what you have is schematic plans. This lS
Just a blocking diagram. It does callout second
floor deck. It's in our packet. And these
elevations are very schematic, but it shows flat
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roof structure. That's as far as they have
gotten. And you don't want to invest in finalized
architectural plans until you understand what your
setback will be.
MS. BENINATI: I don't have to tell you
we've already invested a substantial sum to get to
this point.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: It's just a question
if we have enough information on what you have
done to be able to decide the zoning issue because
your point about the effective size of the deck is
an important one. And whether the deck is going
to be limited to that little rectangle or whether
you are going to have more space that would be
relevant to a balancing of interests if it was
felt that it would be desirable to have you slice
off a corner of that deck that extends behind the
garage. So, I would like to have more information
about what the deck is going to look like from
people who are sitting on the deck.
MS. MESIANO: I think I could answer your
question. We could reduce the overall width of
the deck and instead of cutting it in a line
parallel to the property line, we could cut that
deck back so that it will still have a 90 degree
angle, so we maintained the same setback as the
corner of the garage.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: That sounds very
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good.
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BOARD MEMBER SIMON: That would certainly
mitigate.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: What are the
dimensions of the garage, Cathy, do you know?
MS. MESIANO: The deck dimension is
presently 18 by -- it's about 8 by 18, and I'm
just going to strike that line so I can make a
measurement. It would make it 15; it would be 8
by 15 rectangular instead of 18.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: It's a second story
deck open on the sides, right?
MS. MESIANO: Yes.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: And the ground
floor is flush with the ground?
MS. MESIANO: Yes. That will be flush
with the ground, there's no structure under it.
MS. BENINATI: It wouldn't be open on one
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side.
MS. MESIANO: Because that's where it
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attaches to the house.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: No roof on it?
MS. MESIANO: Correct.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: So in other
words, Mrs. Beninati, you're going to put a
privacy effect going down causing a pr1vacy factor
for you and then there will be straight railing
going across?
MS. BENINATI: Correct. And we are gOlng
to put privacy shrubbery on the other side.
Actually our neighbor is a friend, and he actually
prefers the garage here to the only other place we
could put it, because that would obstruct his
house, basically. So he'd really rather see this.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: It's a nice spot down
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there.
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BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: You will be losing
some lovely pine trees in the process. The thing
1S with this side yard variance of seven feet,
when you revegetate, when you create a landscape
buffer, you're going to have to maybe talk to your
neighbor about where to locate it because when
those evergreens are mature, they're going to
impinge upon that seven feet if it's on your
property. So it will then narrow, 1n effect, the
access so there has to be some care with how that
gets planted. Just so it remains wide enough.
MS. BENINATI: Right now there's bamboo
and the bamboo crosses from his property to
mine.
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: You need a machete.
Hope they like bamboo.
MS. BENINATI: They do.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Does anybody have any
other questions?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I have questions.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Sure.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I guess I'm trying
to catch myself and find out if there are other
places that would be acceptable to you to put this
garage. I mean, to me it's an expansion of your
house, it's not a garage; is that correct?
MS. MESIANO: It's an addition to the
house but the utility of the space on the first
floor will be as a garage.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Right. So it's not
necessarily the garage that you need; is that --
it's the space?
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MS. MESIANO: It's the bedroom space, and
there's no place, there's no way to achieve
everything that you needed by strictly going up.
Giving up a bedroom downstairs again, limited the
utility of the house. Since it will be their
primary residence, a garage is more necessary than
discretionary I would say.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I mean, a garage
could be put anywhere on this property?
MS. MESIANO: No. We're extremely limited
because of the wetlands setback.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: What about where
the pool is?
MS. MESIANO: We would be limited as well
because while the Trustees have approved this we
haven't get gotten past the DEC. And our
probability of having the DEC approve the pool are
not great; it's less than 50-50. If we are going
to lose something, we'd rather lose the pool than
the garage. So we'd be more comfortable giving up
in a location where we may not get an approval.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Okay. You're
basically saying you're restricted, you couldn't
put it in front of the house any place?
MS. MESIANO: No, because the wetlands
setback -- our wetlands setback at the closest
point I think it 50 or 51 feet, and we're
maintaining that. If we were to put it in the
front we'd be losing some more substantial trees
and we'd be much closer to the wetland line.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I'm talking towards
Oakwood Drive.
MS. MESIANO: No. Again, because the
wetland line -- there is a shed on the driveway
closer to the Oakwood. We have that area of the
proposed pool, and again, if we measure 75 feet
back from the wetland, that encompasses most of
that area.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Looks to me like it
encompasses the garage where you want to put it
now also, I mean as far as the setback.
MS. MESIANO: Correct. But the point with
the garage where we put it now is that it
maintains the existing setback from the wetlands.
So I have a structure with a -- for argument's
sake -- 50 foot setback, and I'm proposing an
addition to that structure with a setback no less
than what we presently have. That, the DEC would
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find more acceptable than my putting a new
free-standing structure in an area that is within
75 feet of the wetland. That's a sure loser. The
pool is, again, if we're going to gamble
something, we'd rather lose the pool than the
garage because the garage is more important to the
utility of the structure as a primary residence.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: You couldn't have a
single car garage for what reason?
MS. MESIANO: Again, principal structure,
being able to utilize it fully because it's on an
oblique angle, it's not a full two car garage,
they're trying to get as much as they can out of
the space. Again, it's utility of the property.
If you're talking about a matter of one foot,
Mr. Goehringer mentioned eight foot, if you're
talking about one foot, I think we can accomplish
that without sacrificing the utility of the
property. But if we start cutting it back further
then we have spent a lot of money building a
structure that looks a little bit like what we had
originally hoped for, but given the expense the
utility is not equivalent to what 100 percent of
the structure would have been.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: How many bedrooms
are you going to have?
MS. MESIANO: There are three and will be
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three.
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BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO:
over this?
MS. MESIANO: There will be one room over
the structure that will be, I believe, a bedroom.
There are three bedrooms and one of them
downstairs is being given up to create a kitchen
because there's not a normal kitchen. It's like a
gaIly kitchen. It's not one what one would expect
in a full time use primary residence.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: That's not a
subject of this hearing? I mean whether or not
the kitchen or not doesn't make --
MS. MESIANO: That's part of the reason
behind the whole thought process is giving up a
bedroom for the kitchen and creating another
bedroom. We're not adding another bedroom to the
house.
I'm talking about
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BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: So what, the
kitchen is going to be access inside the house;
that's where it's going to go?
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MS. BENINATI: May I say something? We're
not building a McMansion here. We're doing what's
needed, as Cathy said, to kind of make it livable.
It's a very small house, and to make it livable so
we can live here year round. A garage is a
necessity. Having the garage attached to the
house as we get older is probably more important
to us than a lot of other things we might opt
for. As you can see, we respected all of the
wetlands, and I think what Cathy's saying is
absolutely right, anywhere else it's a very
stranged shaped property, it's an odd shape, and
there's wetlands all around. And the truth of the
matter is, even with neighbors, there had to be an
approval for setback that you wouldn't normally
do. It's that area and the way things were
built.
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BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Mrs. Beninati,
don't take my questioning as being opposed to
it. We need to set on the record your reasonlngs
for having about a 55 percent variance. It's
fairly important because people come In and ask
for much less and we turn it down. I live in a
house that's 40 by 20, okay, so what you're
looking at, your house is a fairly large house.
With that said, we need to establish the
reasoning behind it. And my asking you to replace
it by the pool, you giving me an answer makes
sense to me, your answer makes sense to me but if
those questions aren't answered we establish no
record, so don't take that --
MS. BENINATI: No, I'm not. I just want
you to know, we are not building a monster house
here; we don/t want to.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: It's a fairly large
house for that lot, quite honestly. I know it's
an unusual shape, it's narrow, but it's a pretty
good sized house for that lot. But that's neither
here nor there. It's not a subject of this
variance except for the fact that you want to add
more living space, and you want to build close to
the property line than what's allowed by the
code. Just trying to establish some facts, and
we'll make our decision on those facts to the
answers that we get.
MS. BENINATI: The existing lot coverage
J,S really not
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: That's not before us,
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it's just the kinds of consideration. May I raise
a question, just to get absolutely clear, given
the shape of the property and the position of the
house and the garage, it's a two-car garage. That
means there's going to be a corner of the garage
closer to the property line which is not going to
be accessible for a car; what use is proposed for
it?
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MS. MESIANO: Storage space.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: On the other side of
the cars. Again, the reason why the south side of
the garage is not parallel to the north side of
the garage, i.e. the side of the house, can you go
over the reasons why that is important? Is it
just to have the extra storage space?
MS. MESIANO: To have the extra storage
space. Mr. Beninati collects antique cars,
classic cars, and he would rather not pay for
storage space off site, so he can keep his cars
and his equipment on his property. And to further
answer Mr. Dinizio's comments, the garage being
attached to the house Marie brought up an
important point, as one gets older it's more
convenient. Also there's a safety factor if the
garage were up by the road you've got a long
gravel, uneven driveway. Traversing that in the
middle of the winter in the dark lS a safety
factor.
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BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I certainly will
grant you, and I'm not particularly concerned, I
understand the advantages of having an attached
garage. Is this essentially going to be a mini
shop?
MS. MESIANO: Lee, can you answer that?
MR. BENINATI: I'm Lee Beninati. That
little extra space I like to use because you
probably notice the size of my cars, if you notice
my little Fiat. It's a little car, and I like to
store.
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BOARD MEMBER SIMON:
So you can put a
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little car in that corner?
MR. BENINATI: Exactly. And that's
basically it. Basically back it in in the winter
and it never goes out.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: That's the kind of
answer -- I was looking for some sort of answer
that would make some sense as to why this shape
would be put in there.
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MR. BENINATI: Which I would like to
utilize as much as I can.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON:
to be able to have enclosed
work on your car, and since
garage anyway, why not make
for you?
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: In addition, I must
say that as someone whose profession is design, is
architecture, aesthetics matter. That corner,
that oblique corner is a part of an architectural
vocabulary that will be forthcoming as you see
your design develop, and I think people within
reason as long as it's not enormous defiance of
the zoning requirements have the right to be as
creative with their architectural decisions as is
possible. To me the infill of what you're
proposing within the footprint of the existing
deck is a very responsible and reasonable way to
proceed with adding and enlarging space to your
existing dwelling. I think the siting of these
various things is perfectly reasonable, as you
say, that in gaining optimal utility for the money
you're investing. It is a very difficult site,
you have water on three sides. It's a very
fragile site. If I were on the DEC I'd be highly
questioning a swimming pool in any location on
that piece of property. But that isn't before us,
that's just an obvious problem when you have to
deal with excavation of a rather fragile wetland.
Certainly I think the garage is much better placed
where it is both in terms of adding living space
to the second floor as well as clearly being able
to enjoy the comforts of a garage that you have
access in inclement weather. It's a long, long
driveway and it would be difficult to traverse
that driveway.
MS. MESIANO:
better, thank you.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Is there anyone else
in the audience that wishes to speak on this
application? If not, I'll make a motion to close
the hearing and reserve decision until later.
(See minutes for resolution.)
Essentially you want
space to store and
you're building a
a wing to the garage
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Our next hearing lS
for the Reiblings on Island View Drive in
Greenport.
December 2S, 2006
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Mr. Tohill.
MR. TOHILL: Good morning, how are you?
This is a difficult application. I don't think
it's difficult legally, but that's only because I
don't think it's difficult legally. So let me
talk a little bit. The owners are here, the
Reiblings are sitting next to me. They've been
sitting there for a while. They've been in this
process for five years, to renovate and upgrade
this house they have lived in with their family 40
years. They would like to live there another 40
years. If you were to go out there and looked at
it right now you'll see, the foundations, it
actually is the same cinder block foundation that
has been there for the last 40 years, however it's
been improved with ribar and concrete, and it has
been elevated so as to comply with the elevation
requirements under FEMA and flood damage
prevention. That work was done by Frank Summer,
who is to my immediate right; he is the contractor
on the job. And the design of the work was Meryl
Kramer, who is sitting next to Frank Summer, who
made the original presentation with respect to
this property.
The property, as you recall, lS on the
water at 75 Island View Drive. It's a small --
less than 10,000 square feet lot in an R40 zone.
So it comes in under the under 20,000 square foot
standards under Section 280-124, and it requlres
the rear yard or a side yard of 35 feet; it has
only 13 feet. There's no problem on either of the
side yards or is there a problem on the front
yard, exceeds the requirements even though it's a
small house about the same size as Jim Dinizio's
house, I heard that, that's a coincidence.
In any event, there was an application
here that the understanding -- I wasn't here --
but the understanding from everybody I've spoken
to was that what the Board was entertaining at the
time was an application with a rear yard variance
35 feet, 13 preexisting conditions -- it was a
Walz application -- and a reduction of the 75 foot
under Section 280-116 down to 13 feet. It was
understood that the house that was there would
remaln and that the second story under Walz would
be the lncrease in volume and the increase In the
degree of nonconformity. There were DEe
approvals, there were Health Department approvals,
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there were Trustee approvals and the work
started. When the work started, the contractor
was following a set of plans, and I'm going to
hand them up (handing). I'm actually going to
hand up what is the actual approved Building
Department set of plans, and I'm going to hand up
an extra set. I'm going to ask that the set
that's marked Exhibit D be kept as part of the
record. The extra set, which we'll put over on
this side of the table so people can follow the
conversation, I'd like it back because it's the
only remaining set that we have. When I do this
I'm going to also hand up at the time a copy of
your decision, because it should be made part of
your record; I'm going to hand up a copy of the
actual application of the building permit, which
lS the beginning of the problem. You'll notice on
the second page, Paragraph 3, describes the nature
of the work: "New building and repair." So here
it starts. Then you come to the building permit
itself, and the plot thickens as they say 80 miles
to the west of us. Some day when I write my
memoirs this is going to be one of the chapters
for sure. This is the building permit, and it's a
building permit not for a new construction, which
is what the application is for. It's for
adds/alter, translation I think addition and
alteration. Then here's the set of drawings,
which is the approved set of drawings. With your
permission I'm going to hand all of this up right
now and talk about the drawings.
If you look at the Drawing A3 you'll see
that it calls out a new foundation. So to have a
new foundation on the existing house, obviously
the house that was there had to be lifted and
placed back on. If you look at A5, and you look
on the right side of A5 there's an arrow pointed
back at the wall on the first floor, and it calls
out typical construction.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Typical exterior wall?
MR. TOHILL: Exactly.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Yes.
MR. TOHILL: If you parse that out, you'll
see first there will be new siding; there was
asbestos siding that had to be removed, so new
siding. The second thing is there had to be new
sheathing, so that's new plyboard on the outside
half-inch plyboard, whatever was there would be
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removed. There was to be new insulation, there
was no insulation. This was a house that was
built as a summer house years ago. There was to
be new half-inch drywall, you see this spec called
out. Now I'm inside the house where I'm starting
to put in drywall. And it was to be put on 2 by 6
studs. There are no 2 by 6 studs on that house.
They were 2 by 4 at best, and they were to be on
16 inch centers. Nothing was on 16 inch centers.
If you turn to page -- I'm sorry, on the same
page, if you look at the height of the first
floor, it would be on the left side instead of the
right side where we were just looking at that
note. It's called out at nine feet; in fact, the
house was seven and a half feet. So when the
contractor started to do his work, the first thing
that he saw was the carpenter ants had removed a
good portion of the old 2 by 4 studs, and that he
could not safely or prudently in his judgment
place a second story on top of that kind of
timber.
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Second thing is that the timber was
essentially all rotted out, throughout the whole
structure the house had been exposed to weather;
it had never been insulated or properly sealed.
So the material once he uncovered it, that he was
working on it as he was removing it in order to
comply with the specs, he didn't see much that he
was going to be able to either preserve and work
with, sistering wasn't there as a reasonable path
for him. And the reason is there was nothing for
him to safely sister. There was no sill plate for
him to work with to settle. The house once lifted
up back down on this new foundation. So the
bottom line is that he continued to work,
continued to do what he was doing and the house
ended up largely in the dumpster. He then called
for a foundation inspection. He called for the
foundation inspection. He asked Gary Fish to come
by and look at my work, and when Gary Fish got
there, he sat in his car and he looked through the
car window, and he saw that the house was removed.
And the next thing that happened is that he
issued -- Pat Conklin actually at his direction
issued a notice of disapproval, which I have
marked as Exhibit E, and in the course of doing
that, she cites the Walz decision, the famous Walz
decision, which I have marked as Exhibit F. Both
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of those I'd like to make part of the record.
They're important because that notice of
disapproval is saying that what happened here is a
violation of Walz, when In fact after parsing out
the drawings I'm not so sure it lS a violation of
Walz. I know that I'm here -- and the name of my
chapter, by the way, in my memoirs, is going to be
called "Regulatory Miscommunication." And here it
lS. You reviewed a set of drawings under Walz
with the understanding that the first floor was
gOlng to remain when nobody put all the two and
twos together, nobody connected all the dots,
seven and a half feet doesn't equal nine feet, the
timber is terrible; there's no insulation; there's
carpenter ants throughout; there's no sill plate;
that's not your job, by the way, you're not GCs.
You're not CMs. You're not In the business of
gOlng out into the field with high boots. So the
bottom line is when all of this happened, the
contractor who's doing the right thing by these
property owners who have been there for a long
time, he was criticized by Gary Fish. And he was
told he did the wrong thing. Pat Conklin's memo
says he violated Walz. There is no increase in
the vertical mass, if there lS no increase In the
volume, if there is not horizontal expansion,
there lS no violation of Walz. And the reason lS
just read the decision in Walz, and you will see
that that's the exact language that you
use in Walz. I'm looking at Paragraph 3, it says,
"If the new construction, remodeling,
reconstruction or addition to a nonconforming
building creates a new area of nonconformance
where none existed before, the degree of the
building's nonconformity will be increased." So
what you were doing when Walz was originally
written was taking the concept of increase of
degree of nonconformity and translating it the way
three or four other municipalities in the state
have translated it, including by the way, the City
of New York prior to the introduction of the
floor-area ratio local law. It's exactly the way
they translate it. Any increase in volume would
be considered increase in the degree
nonconformity.
However, here there's a variance that has
been granted by this Board, part of the
miscommunication, where the varlance that was
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granted did not have expressed conditions saying
that the first floor had to remain exactly the way
it was despite the set of drawi~gs that were
approved when the variance was approved. In other
words, that set of drawings is the set of drawings
that's part of the record of the variance
application; that's the original set of drawings.
Then they're approved by the Building Department,
nobody ever seeing that these problems were
absolutely likely, if not certain to occur. And
they now have occured, and the property owner has
been told by the Trustees, pay $1,000 to the
Justice Court; I have a check here for $1,000
payable to the Justice Court. They're here
because the Building Department has issued a Stop
Work Order.
I don't think they're in violation of
Walz. The house that's under construction, the
foundation is exactly where the foundation was
before. The only difference is it's higher, 8.3
feet high, and then if you add two sill plates and
the joists, you'll create a bottom floor joist of
9.3 -- I'm sorry, it's 7.3. It needs to be eight.
It's gOlng to be 8.3 when it's finished, in order
to be three inches above base floor elevation. So
that's exactly what everybody approved, Building
Department and ZBA. The first floor is not going
to be different from the first floor on those
drawings for which a building permit was issued,
and the second floor will be exactly what you
allowed under Walz to exist. So that if this lS
translated under Walz, somebody's in the wrong
department. This is not a Walz case anymore at
all. At best this is the case where the variance
was granted; there were misunderstandings or there
was miscommunication without any question, but the
property owner achieved absolutely no advantage.
The property owner is simply going to get the same
house they had before except that it's going to be
new materials. The government, I suspect, this
Board in particular, the government is not gOlng
to ask a property owner to put that second floor
that you approved on top of a first floor that
this contractor, who has been here for a few
years, says it was falling down. That wasn't in
the cards at all when you granted the variance.
There is no public purpose to telling people,
whether you're in the Building Department or any
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part of Town government, to build the second floor
only on top of rotted out first floor; that's what
happened. That's the whole of the story
here. It's not something where anybody got
anything out of it other than a lot of
aggravation, a lot of expense. There is one case
out of the Second Department called Hoffman versus
Gunther. It's not easy to find a case with this
set of facts, but this is the closest I could
come. In this case the Second Department
Appellate Division said, the proper remedy here
when this kind of thing happens is to direct the
Building Department to issue an amended permit and
that's what we're asking.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Mr. Tohill, can
I just mention something? Along about six or
eight months ago we had a series of two
applications, one of which was in New Suffolk, one
of which was in Nassau Point, and both of which
had some very interesting similarities, so to
speak. And we began at that particular time and
I'm going to say I began -- several of us on the
Board began -- to look at the situation and say,
and ask the property owner: Is this application
going to include a partial demolition, a full
demolition, whatever the case might be. The
property owner in Nassau Point came back to us and
said, I'd really like to ask for a full demolition
because it's costing me 47 percent more for this
sistering and all this other schmaltz you have to
go through, and so based upon the New Suffolk
situation, and based upon the Nassau Point
situation, we are now, I am now asking that
question. And possibly in this particular case, I
have to tell you that Meryl Kramer's been before
us many, many times. She's a wonderful, wonderful
person in her presentation and in what she tells
us. She does work on some smaller projects,
meaning smaller lots particularly in that
particular area. And this was not a question that
was asked at that particular time because we know
there's deterioration, particularly anything that
is open faced to the water. There is going to be
deterioration based upon either substandard
construction in the past or deterioration by
water. So in some respects, this may not be an
lssue that comes before us in the future based on
those particular questions we ask now based upon
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those two particular cases that we had.
MR. TOHILL: I think under Section 122 of
the Town Code, what happened here is actually
permitted. It says that you're allowed to
reconstruct provided you don't lncrease the degree
of nonconformity. If you parse this out, there lS
actually no lncrease In the degree of
nonconformity. I understand what Gary was doing
at the job site. Gary's written a building permit
that says "add/alt". He sees completely new
construction. He could see the bay when he pulled
up, that's not adds and alts, but if you look the
at building permit application, it says new
construction. If you look at the drawings, really
look at the drawings the way we did this morning,
that's not adds and alts, that's new
construction. So here's the problem: If the
Board doesn't have a FAR -- Floor Area Ratio --
local law doesn't have a pyramid law, neither does
here. There's been article for Suffolk Times
where I collect them assuming I'm going to see
something enacted before I die or retire. If you
had that, you would not need the Walz view of the
increase in the degree of nonconformity, and the
reason is it becomes much clearer. So now you
have the Walz doctrine here and you follow it as
consistently as you do, if someone's gOlng to come
In and they're only going to add a second floor,
and that is a increase in volume then maybe the
decisions In the future would callout that the
applicant represented, and that if something
happens that the applicant would stop work on his
own, and return to the Board and that the
situation would be evaluated. So it puts you in a
bad situation because if you look at the four
corners of the decision, it doesn't have any
expressed condition that the first floor actually
remaln. It was sort of benignly understood. You
look at the building drawings, the building
drawings callout essentially new construction.
Typical is typical so the contractor lS following
exactly what the drawings do. The Building
Department didn't connect any of this and then
Gary Fish says not on my watch that this is going
to happen. Go back to the ZBA because what is a
mother to do. What is anybody to do with this
situation? Bottom line, bad experience.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: The problem I take it
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and I think we probably agree, and I think this lS
what you're arguing lS procedural and not
substantive.
MR. TOHILL: Let's parse it out.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Excuse me, Mr. Tohill,
we never get did get plans like this.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: There's another
file, and that's what happened, the Building
Department checked with the Zoning Board office.
They looked at our file of everything, and the
maps that we had showed loft over existing first
floor. There was no mention of any of the other
work that was done. So the Building Department
said if the Zoning Board didn't grant this
substantial demo, then we can't amend the building
permit, and that's why we're here.
MR. TOHILL: Okay, let's parse it out.
order to get here there ought to have been a set
of drawings before the Building Department in
order for the disapproval or denial to get you the
jurisdiction as the Zoning Board of Appeals. So
it sounds to me like some steps got skipped here.
So let's go back to your question, the Board's
jurisdiction, as Kieran will tell you, lS area
variances, use variances, special permits if you
had that particular authority under the code.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: We do.
MR. TOHILL: There we go.
under certain circumstances. What
today? Don't answer too quickly.
actually none of the above.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: Change of
In
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Interpretations
are we here for
There is
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circumstances.
ASST. TOWN ATTY. CORCORAN: May I try to
understand, because I didn't before today have
previous familiarity with this application. I'm
gathering that this applicant came before the
Board, got a Walz variance in the first instance
because they required that; there was an lncrease
in the degree of nonconformance. There was some
representation, the degree of which I'm not
certain, that this was needed because we want to
build over the existing single story home. So one
question let's flag for a moment and I'll come
back to it. Would the ZBA have made the same
decision had there not been that representation;
had they been told at that time we're going to
oemo and build a new house, would the ZBA have
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granted that same house or would they have
required they put it somewhere else. That's an
lssue. So it is represented they're going to
rebuild over the existing story. They grant the
variance. We go out into the world, we start
building and they realize they can't. And I don't
think anyone here would suggest that you should
build over a floor that shouldn't be built over.
But someone said, hey, you were supposed to leave
that first floor, not demo it, so you're really
doing something you're not supposed to be doing.
We're going to send you back to the ZBA to make
sure they're going to stand by their decision now
that they know that first floor lS not going to be
staying there. So I think what the ZBA has to
decide today is, knowing what we know now, which
is that the first floor is not going to be there
anymore, are we going to stick with that decision
to allow that Slze house to stay in that location;
is that right?
MR. TOHILL: Except what the problem is,
it's a hindsight analysis.
ASST. TOWN ATTY. CORCORAN: Although
that's not the fault of this Board, and it may not
even be the fault of the Building Department or
the Town whatsoever. Somebody should have made an
analysis whether that floor was going to be able
to carry another floor on top of it.
MR. TOHILL: I don't think the Board lS at
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fault.
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BOARD MEMBER SIMON: It's not a matter of
fault, it's a matter of what should have been
done, and what would we have done.
ASST. TOWN ATTY. CORCORAN: Right. So
this Board is put in the position of making
hindsight analysis, but it's really been put In
that position by the applicant.
MR. TOHILL: I think by circumstances that
developed afterwards. The applicant wasn't
there. The applicant's up in Westchester.
ASST. TOWN ATTY. CORCORAN: The applicant
and their agents. It's for them to figure out
whether that first floor is going to be able to
handle a second floor or not.
MR. TOHILL: If there were an advantage
I'd follow that analysis better. There's no
advantage here at all. They're getting back what
they started with albeit new timber, but that's
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what the plans effectively --
ASST. TOWN ATTY. CORCORAN: Right,
although you have to understand, which I'm sure
you do, is sometimes people come before this Board
and say, we want what we want, where we want it
because we already have a preexisting footprint,
and we're going to keep it, and it's gOlng to cost
too much to tear it down and rebuild it somewhere
else so please glve it to us where it is, even
though you prefer it somewhere else.
MR. TOHILL: What I'm worried about from
the Board's perspective isn't that one, it's a
different one. The one I'm worried about from the
Board's perspective is the intentional
misrepresentation; that one would bother me much
more.
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BOARD MEMBER SIMON: Intentional or not,
there lS still an issue. And we have had a case,
an embattled case involving a variance for a
renovation of a house which was In a place which
the Board would never have approved de novo. As
soon as they got started, they realized that the
existing foundation, which they were going to
build on, it was a demo, keeping the foundation,
had to be completely replaced. They went ahead
and tried to build on that place after redoing the
foundation, a Stop Work order was given, and they
have had to move the house because what we
approved was conditional on the impracticability
of moving the house to a place which it turns out
they were planning to do anyway, and they were
proceeding without a permit until a Stop Work
order was issued. It didn't depend on whether we
suspected that they knew it was going to be
necessary or not. A house was being built at a
place where it should not have been. I think the
argument that needs to be made here is even if
there were was full knowledge and even if the
demolition had been put in at that case, the Board
can consider would it have approved the house as
planned right, now on the foundation that now
exists. I think that is the material question
before us. We don't have to get into questions of
fault or intention.
MR. TOHILL: Nobody's talking fault. It's
a question of miscommunication at best. Nobody
got an advantage here. If anything the property
owner's been put through tremendous additional
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expense. I'm here. The Trustees are charging
$1,000 payable to the Justice Court. The process
has been five years underway between the DEC, the
Health Department, the Trustees, here, and now
this is a position they're in. It's a regulatory
nightmare. You didn't design it. They didn't
design it. None of us designed it. We're stuck.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Jim?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Well, I
by design, quite honestly, Mr. Tohill,
decision is directly to blame for your
However, we have to live with that.
MR. TOHILL: Were you here?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I was here until
the day it was implemented then I was gone.
However, and Jerry brought up a good point that I
hadn't remembered, and that is about this
sistering pretending that we're adding on, doing
an addition when we're actually rebuilding a house
doesn't seem to make any sense to me either. And
although in our decision, I just read it, that we
did say that it would be over an existing first
floor and Mr. Fish did drive up and not see an
existing first floor. So that certainly is a
problem. I'm not sure that the building inspector
didn't think that we tore down a house that had
nonconformities, now we're back to square one. I
know that they think that way. That may have been
his reason now for saying, okay, now you've got to
go back. I didn't hear you address that. I don't
know that you thought about that. It seems to me
that when we get applications such as this.
That's the immediate thing, if you have a
nonconformity and it no longer exists you have to
get a variance.
MR. TOHILL:
been moved.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I wouldn't argue
it, but I think that's what his thinking is, and
that's why you're here before us. But I have to
concur with Jerry that this sistering and this
adding on to houses just simply because it looks
like we're applying the law has really got to
stop. In some way we have to come to grips when
we make our decisions.
MR. TOHILL: On your end, I agree with
you. I don't know the solution, I don't know how
you fix it.
think it is
the Walz
situation.
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Except the foundation hasn't
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BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: You throw Walz out,
and you get a law that's applied in the code, but
that's besides the point.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: When we have
situations like this, you know they're going to
reconstruct above, that we're going to have to
require an engineer's report stating that the
foundation is sufficient to withstand the building
of first or second floor.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: That's not the
subject of our application; we deal with
variances; we deal with distances, not necessarily
structure. And if the application makes a
representation to us that this building will
withstand whatever it is; that's their
representation. If they do so and then they find
out that they can't, that's not our decision. We
shouldn't be asking for engineering reports based
on distance.
MR. TOHILL: I was asked when I was
wearing Keiran's hat for another municipality to
fix this exact problem, and the way I did it was I
went to the City of New York and I recreated their
floor-area ratio local law, and then I created a
schedule of lot sizes similar to Section 124 of
the Zoning Ordinance and sliding schedule. So
when the property owner comes In instead of an
engineer's report to you, it's an engineers or
architect's report to the building inspector and
they do the analysis of the cubic feet, and then
they're allowed or not allowed, and if they're not
allowed, then they have to come to the ZBA. And
then it's a pure area variance.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: But it's based on
the person in town who can make those decisions,
i.e. the building inspector, not an architect, guy
who works for government, not Ruth makes nice
muffins, and Jim Dinizio -- do you know what I
mean? It's made specifically on someone's
knowledge. Ruth says we should start requiring
engineering reports --
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: We have done that in
the past, Jim.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Hopefully we would
not continue to do that.
MR. TOHILL: It would be nice not to have
to do that.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: It is untenable to
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December 28, 2006
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be placed In a position, property owner or
architect or contractor to try to put good money
into bad materials. It's simply not a reasonable
proposition. The plans you submited are dated
5/3/04 with a progress of 4/6/2006. Had I seen
these to begin with, I would have said it's a
total reconstruction to bring it up to code
essentially. So that the interior, the floor to
ceiling height is to code and so on.
MR. TOHILL: You know what
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: You have described
the procedural problems very well, I think Keiran
summarized it very accurately. The only reason
that we would want to understand an engineer's
report, a structural report would have to do
primarily with the idea of additional degree of
nonconformity. Whether that's a feasible thing to
do if you're putting a second story on, for
example, and it's increasing the degree of
nonconformity in so granting that, are we going to
be assured that that's what we're granting or that
we should be allowing the individual to
reconstruct.
MR. TOHILL: You just gave me an idea. If
you're going to continue with Walz and you have a
Walz application, make the property owner have a
set of drawings as a condition for the Board's
review. That's different, Jim, from an engineer's
report.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: When someone knows
how to study these documents, and there's a good
reason for them being drawn, then it's very clear.
These documents communicate very precisely exactly
what the intentions are, not text, it's all in the
measurement.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Again, that lS not
the purview of this Board. We're supposed to
review.
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BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN:
Walz it is.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: No. We are
supposed to review the building inspector's notice
of disapproval. That is it. We don't go any
further than that. We don't even need the plan as
long as we know what the distances are.
ASST. TOWN ATTY. CORCORAN: It depends. If
you are not inclined to grant a variance because
you don't want it where the person wants it to be,
Only relative to
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and you are inclined to make them move it
someplace else, then that's when the plans become
relevant; that's when you would be looking to see
if there's a hardship to that.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I would agree. But
that would be part of the hearing when Ruth bangs
the gavel. Before that you don't have to require
every applicant or any applicant to have anything
other than what they're requesting. After we
request something then, yes.
ASST. TOWN ATTY. CORCORAN: You can follow
whatever procedure you think is most expedient.
Where we are now right now, it's all a little bit
hypothetical and theoretical. Right now you have
to decide are you okay with where they want to
build this new house whether it's a
reconstruction, whatever you want to call it,
they're building a new house in this spot; are you
okay with it? Or are you offended with where it's
going to be and want to require some other
condition?
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you, Keiran.
Frankly, I don't have a problem with it.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I don't either.
But I do think we can ask the question as Jerry
says, hey, is this gOlng to be a tear-down? I
know Leslie does it once in a while. They say
it's not gOlng to be, they live up to that, they
come before us. It's no one's fault but their
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BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Sometimes the
problem is you really want it to be a
reconstruction or a sistered up situation, and a
because you don't know in advance what you're
going to get when you tear into a wall, you cannot
always predict that. If you take extreme measures
and you do a little pre-construction demo, you can
find out about conditions of termites and so on.
But that's a whole other process that lS not now
required. We can't sit here and legislate from
the bench. We follow what the codes are, and if
we don't like them we try to change them. And I
think we have all the information we could
possibly get.
MR. TOHILL: Thank you very much.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Have a happy New
Year. Is there anyone else In the audience that
wishes to comment on this application? If not,
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I'll make a motion to close the hearing and
reserve decision until later.
(See minutes for resolution.)
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Our next application
lS for the Reeds on Private Road in East Marion.
They have had a little problem also with where the
shed is placed. Is there anybody here to speak on
this application?
MS. REED: Good morning. Maggi-Meg Reed
and this is my husband Michael Schubert. We're
here hoping to speak for ourselves. I believe you
have the application in front of you for our
request for a variance.
This concerns an as-built utility shed on
our property. It was built -- a variance was
requested for it to be built at less than the
traditional 40 foot, at a 35 foot distance from
the technical front yard lot line, and it was
built. However, what was determined after the
fact was that the individual who measured it on
behalf of the architect approximated the distance
because the measurement would have gone into a
heavy brush area that nobody could climb through
so the distance ended up being closer to 32 feet
instead of 35 feet. It was information that none
of us knew at the time. It had already been
built. It was an after the fact variance, so
we're asking to correct that at this point.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Michael?
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: You say
fact. A varlance was given and what
not consistent with the variance; is
you're saying?
MR. SCHUBERT: Yes, actually
MS. REED: Actually, the building was
built on the recommendation of the architect. The
application, it was then determined after the fact
that we needed to request a variance.
MR. SCHUBERT: The architect drafted a
variance based on the as-built building and he
mismeasured the distance in that variance that was
approved, but when the person came to check it and
measured there was a two or three foot
discrepancy.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: So you're asking that
the record be changed to conform to what exists
where, in fact, what exists would probably by your
after the
was built
that what
was
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argument would not be problematic had it been
properly described in the first place?
MR. SCHUBERT: That's sounds right.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: No, that's not what
they're asking for. Okay, you were granted a
variance to build the building.
MS. REED: Had they applied for the
correct measurement variance in the first place
that would have been granted.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I won't say that
you misrepresented that; I will say that it was
built in a place other than the place that we
approved.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Not the place, the
setback.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: We approved a
certain setback. It was not 32 feet from that
property line.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: No, 35.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Right, but you
built lS 32 feet from the property line.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: He thought it was 35.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Right, that's okay,
you're going to have your shed. Don't get upset.
I don't want anyone to say or this Board to think
that it was in any way your doing or in any way
the Board's doing.
MS. REED: The building was constructed.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: You couldn't get
through the brush to make this measurement. So
all you need now is a variance from 35 to 32 and
you're on your way, correct?
MS. REED: That's the issue.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: We're clear on
that. Thank you.
MR. SCHUBERT: We're not architects.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Believe me neither
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MR. SCHUBERT: We are just here trying to
clean up what was left.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Are you selling the
house; what made you come to this point?
MS. REED: The Building Inspector came to
issue the certificate of occupancy and measured it
himself.
MR. SCHUBERT: And it doesn't match the
variance that was granted.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: There's no
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change of use of the building; it's still a shed,
it will remain a shed?
MS. REED: There's no change of use.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Michael? Leslie?
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Moving that
building over a couple feet it serves no purpose.
MS. REED: The difficulty in moving it is
there's a very large cherry tree just in front of
it. So it wouldn't be possible to move it in the
opposite direction. We entertained that the first
time around with the initial variance, that's why
it can't be put into a different position.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: But to restate
Leslie's question, are you saYlng that even if
there were reasons against moving it, were there
any good purposes even if there could be a
cost less move? Is there anything wrong with it
where it is now?
MS. REED: No. There lS nothing wrong
with where it lS now, other than the fact that
it's closer than it should be to the technical
front yard line.
MR. SCHUBERT: If you were to come to the
property, you would see that it's not.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: We all saw it.
MS. REED: The access is actually from the
side yard.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I must admit as I was
walking around the property, I had to go back and
look at the plans, and I looked around and I said,
what lS the problem, and I had to read the plans
to see what the problem was in the application.
MS. REED: It is that three foot distance.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: It isn't something
that sticks out that leads people to say, as we do
In other cases, how did they ever get away with
that. There is no that.
MS. REED: There is no glaring error here,
it's after the fact.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Is there anyone else
here to speak for or against this application? If
not, I'll make a motion to close the hearing and
reserve decision until later.
(See minutes for resolution.)
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Our next hearing lS
for the Mears on Dean Drive In Cutchogue. They
want to put a deck addition. How are you?
December 28, 2006
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MS. MEARS: I'm Maryann Mears and I'm here
with my brother David Mears and our neighbor Don
Suter, who is president of the Beachwood Colony
Association. We would like to add a deck to our
existing bungalow on Dean Drive, which is a little
bungalow that is almost 100 years old. The
variance that we are seeking is to go too close to
the property line on either side. The lots are
very narrow. I think the best thing is to look at
the photographs and the plan. We've wanted to
build this deck for many, many years, and it's
really a matter we enjoy the decks of our
neighbors on either side have added to their
bungalows, we want to do the same kind thing. You
will see the photographs showing my daughter
standing holding a spar or mast from a Sunfish.
She's standing on the property line, you can see
this is the property line to our neighbors to the
east, and it runs under the eve of our bungalow;
and then you'll see the neighbors to the other
side, the Taylors' house, again, the property line
runs under the eve of the house. If you look at
our bungalow and the design of the deck, we have
actually angled it so it angles away from the
McAlions, the property line to the east. And we
have actually designed the deck so that we believe
it's aesthetically pleasing, which is extremely
important to us, and is accommodating as much as
possible the existing property lines, and the
alternative would be to pick up the house and move
it but that's really not practical. If you look
at the Taylors' deck, their deck, the line of it
angles right along the property line, and that was
the accommodation we all agreed to when they built
theirs a number of years ago. So I think that In
a nutshell is the case.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Is your existing
setback on the east side one foot also?
MS. MEARS: The eve of the house
overhangs. It's probably negative one foot.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Jerry?
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Just 5.6, which
it exists on the corner of the house, which will
then end up 9.4 at its closest point where the
deck starts, I would suggest to the Board that no
other construction exist on that side at any time
to provide the access to the water side.
MS. MEARS: I'm sorry, you're talking
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December 28, 2006
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about the west side of the house?
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Yes.
MS. MEARS: So nothing more beyond the
deck, correct.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: It's nlce you
kept it pretty much in line with the existing
overhang of the house. Unfortunately you only
have 5.6 that exists. It's important to keep that
side yard open.
MS. MEARS: Yes. And we actually use that
to wheel the Sunfish back and forth.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: And of course to
leave the deck open at the same time. You're
proposing an open deck?
MS. MEARS: Yes. It's an open deck and it
will be just at 29 inches, so we won't even need
to have a railing except by the steps.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Leslie?
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I met the
president of your association there. Perhaps you
want to speak for yourself then.
MR. SUTER: I am the president of the
homeowner's association. We talked to a number of
folks, this goes on in our development all the
time. We have lots of small houses with strange
angles. I think everybody's very comfortable with
them putting a deck In. Most of us have decks
there. I think everybody feels what they have
done lS very accommodating, and I think both
neighbors have written notes supporting their
efforts.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I have no
questions. This is all a consequence of very,
very narrow and long, long lots where the houses,
cottages are sited diagonally rather than parallel
to the lot line. So I think it's a perfectly
reasonable proposal, I agree, as long as that one
side yard remains open for access.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Jim?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: No questions.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Michael?
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: If I read this site
plan correctly, if the deck did not extend the
entire length of a house at that point, and it
ended earlier, there would be much more of a
setback than as proposed on this plan?
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Not really.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: The corner of the
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December 28, 2006
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house is very close to the lot line and then I see
the corner of the deck, is that the exact same
distance?
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA:
One foot proposed.
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MR. SCHUBERT: The line of the deck is
actually further away from the lot line than the
corner of the house.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: Because the map I'm
looking at may be inaccurate, it was a very minor
amount, I was just curious about it.
MS. MEARS: The corner of the house
overlaps the property line and the deck will be
set back from the property line.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: If you take the edge
of the house, the part that lS already on the
neighbor's property, then of course the deck lS
farther back.
MS. REED: Yes.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I have no further
questions.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Is there anyone in the
audience that wishes to comment on this
application? If not, I'll make a motion to close
the hearing and reserve decision until later.
(See minutes for resolution.)
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Next hearing is for
Mrs. Bower who wishes a side yard variance for a
shed.
MS. BOWER: I have my affidavit of
posting, and these are the only four that came
back out of six. This is for my neighbor who
away on vacation. She asked me to deliver it
you (handing).
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA:
just describe to us why you
accessory shed in the front
move it?
is
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Thank you. Would you
have the as-built
yard, why you can't
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MS. BOWER: It could be moved at a great
expense with a crane or a cherry picker or
something. Because of the topography of our yard,
it slopes in the front and slopes in the
back. And in the back are the cesspools, you
couldn't drive a vehicle to move it by truck; and
in the front you couldn't drive a vehicle to move
it by truck either, it would falloff, which we
discussed this with the gentleman who delivered
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I really want to just tell you folks how
we got into this fine mess in the first place.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Sure.
MS. BOWER: We had heard through the
grapevine that you did not need a permit for a
shed if it was less than 100 square feet.
MR. BOWER: Heard it from the Building
Department from the Town.
MS. BOWER: But we wanted to go right to
the horse's mouth, I sent my husband down to the
Building Department to just make sure that was in
fact true. He went down and told them he was
about to put a deposit on a shed, it's 96 square
feet, does he need a permit and what did they tell
you?
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MR. BOWER:
it's under 100.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: That's true, but you
didn't ask them where you could put it, or they
didn't ask you where you were going to put it?
MR. BOWER: Well, the lady said generally
in the backyard, and where it is now it
technically is our backyard.
MS. BOWER: It's behind the house, it's In
the rear of the house.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: You
front yards, you are on Horton
just the way your property is.
kind of stuck.
MS. BOWER: We're kind of stuck, but if we
had known that we were in that situation, we may
have skipped the whole thing all together or just
built the shed in the back because it was a very
good buy. He said, oh, I couldn't buy the
materials to build this thing so let's just
purchase it all together. That's the situation.
MR. BOWER: And it wasn't from China.
MS. BOWER: It was built up until
Calverton.
That's one aspect of the situation, and
the other aspect is we do have a full acre we're
dealing with, but because of our restraints, the
wetland restraints, we have a nonturf disturbance
of only 10 feet from our foundation. So we
couldn't really put it anywhere else. There's one
corner to the north --
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: East, that little
No permit required as long as
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really have two
and on Soundview,
So you're really
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section where you have the evergreens there.
MS. BOWER: No. It couldn't go In front
where the evergreens are, but initially we thought
In the back, towards the Hawkins property, just
the little Tudor house, but it would mean taking
down the few trees that we have between Mrs.
Hawkins and ourselves, and there aren't many trees
left standing on that section, but also because of
the way the Hawkins driveway drains, it's very
unstable there. It's like mush.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Because they have a
brick driveway and everything runs off.
MS. BOWER: Runs down there and you
couldn't put a structure in there without putting
In fill and also cutting down all the trees. So
it would make our land there look like Levittown
or something instead of what it is, and it
wouldn't be fair to the Hawkins. And Mrs.
Hawkins, who lS the only adjacent neighbor, she's
very pleased with it. She was happy from the
first day. She thinks it's adorable. She's glad
we didn't put it In the back because it wouldn't
take away from her aesthetic point of
Vlew. That's it, that's our story. I don't know
what else I can tell you. Just if I can read from
the application. The home that we built is a
reproduction of a classic 17th century saltbox,
and the out-building or shed lS in keeping with
the size and style of outbuildings that were In
use in those days, and can be found on nearby
historical buildings throughout Southold. And
particularly on Horton's Lane, at the old Conway
farm. And the benefit sought by us cannot be
achieved by some method feasible for us to pursue
other than the variance because of the building
envelope restriction, the location of the septic
system, the unyielding topography and the drainage
lssues from the adjacent property.
My property consists of 40,466 square
feet. I am only utilizing 11,000 square feet.
I'm talking about my buildings and the actual
property that we're allowed to walk on and exist
on. We're not even talking about the
three-quarters of an acre that the Highway
Department lS using for drainage and it's supposed
to be wetlands. So that's the story. You guys
have all the photographs and stuff. We do plan to
dress it up. We had planned to put a fieldstone
.
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foundation under the shed because the way it's
sitting, it's up on cinder blocks in back because
of the hill, we were going to fashion it so it's
more attractive. Right now you see it sticking up
out of the ground on the cinder blocks. We were
also going to put a row of trees, evergreens
behind it, so the neighbors couldn't see it from
across the street or the road; that was our plan
but we stopped because we wanted to see the
outcome of this.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Leslie?
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Mrs. Bower, we
have a situation previously where the site plan
that was submitted, you submitted one with your
application, that was drawn in by hand and not by
a licensed surveyor. I presume what you submitted
to us was your measurement and you drew that In on
here; lS that correct?
MS. BOWER: Yes.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I feel I must on
the record say this lS not a legal document
because it was not done by a licensed surveyor, so
we cannot absolutely accept the dimensions that
you have provided us with to make a determination.
MS. BOWER: It's unfortunate because the
surveyor that we came to use for our building
project, he was instrumental in getting the
building envelope approved by the Trustees. He
proved to be incompetent. What he did was
actually gave an additional five feet to the north
to the wetlands, so we actually lost usable land.
And he made numerous mistakes. We had to go back
and to go back and back. I did not want to hire
him for this project. I did not want to hire him
for anything ever again. I think his license
should be removed. I have heard other folks, you
know, through the grapevine, our builder actually
had a stop work order because another big blunder
that he made. So I would have to go through great
expense to hire a new architect to draw this up
for 96 square feet.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: You don't need an
architect, you need a surveyor. And usually
amended surveys don't cost that much. You're not
starting from scratch. They will take your
existing survey. They don't necessarily have to
redo the entire thing. Having said that, I just
wanted that on the record because it needs to be
.
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made clear to applicants that when setbacks are
being examined, we can only operate on information
that is provided us through a licensed surveyor.
You can appreciate why. This lS testimony that
requires expertise. My yardstick and your
yardstick may be off by where a rock is placed.
We might slightly vary.
MS. BOWER: No. My husband has been in
construction his whole life, and I was a licensed
real estate appralser for 10 years. So a yard
stick is not foreign to me. I am used to
measuring buildings.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: We're talking about
legally supportable standards. Not about people's
accuracy as measurers.
MS. BOWER: I see. But in my view of the
world, you can hire a expert and the expert can
screw up. And this guy screwed up for us. So I
thought I might as well do it myself. I will get
a better job and not cost anything.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: I think I agree with
Leslie. You must have a legally surveyed piece of
paper for us and for your own sake, too.
MS. BOWER: I'm curious why. I didn't
apply for the swimming pool. The pool company did
that, we just had put it In over the summer, and
that wasn't required to be
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Because you didn't
require a variance.
MS. BOWER: Okay.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I would like to ralse
a question. What I'm saying is really independent
of the question of whether we actually decide that
the house, the shed can stay exactly where it is
or whether it would have to be moved. But with
regard of the confusion, apparently failures of
communication, what the facts are on the grounds,
yes, your property, your shed lS considered In a
front yard because of a technical reason, because
you're on a corner, it has two front yards. But
if you look at the house and you look at the area
where you say you don't have any access, if
anybody who didn't know anything about that looked
to see what is your front yard --
MS. BOWER: They wouldn't tell.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: No. They would see
where the shed lS because the other front yard lS
not even by eyeballing a candidate for the front
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yard. This is not a question that this is a
technical front yard where the shed is; it's also
the visible front yard because it's the only front
yard you have access to. Every house has to have
a front yard. So that question about the two
front yards becomes somewhat of less relevance in
this particular case. So then the issue comes
that if you did not ask the Building Department
and they didn't tell you whether you could put
this shed less than 100 square feet anyplace you
wanted to on your property, whether that thereby
freed you up to put it anyplace you wanted to on
your property, and that is the issue before us.
Secondly, the fact that your neighbor may very
well prefer the shed where it lS now, says that
she would probably prefer it less if it were were
actually where it was legally allowed. So again,
the force of that argument is not overpowering.
So I think what we really have to decide is
whether given all this, what is the hardship
involved; what are the possibilities of moving the
shed where it is now. As it stands now, it
reminds me of a guard house that you sometimes see
right up by the front yard of a large estate
because it doesn't look like it's on the property.
It looks as though it's almost as close to the
road as you can possibly put it.
MS. BOWER: It appears that way. But I
just want to take a point on your point that if
you say that we have no use of this front yard so
that the area where the shed lS lS our front
yard --
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I didn't say you had
no use for it; I just said you can't build on it.
MS. BOWER: Well essentially then, to my
mind, we don't really have a front yard on
Soundview Avenue. I mean, we don't have -- so
essentially we don't have a corner property any
more. So we're not subject to any of this.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: So are you saying you
don't have any front yard?
MS. BOWER: Exactly.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I didn't mean that
seriously. Your argument would depend upon
assuming that you had no front yard. And I'm not
sure I'm persuaded by that.
MS. BOWER: There are some issues pending
on this whole situation of this front yard that
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fronts on Soundview Avenue. It may be in the
future not our front yard.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Yes?
MS. BOWER: It's a long story, but --
MR. BOWER: If I move it into the backyard
I don't need a survey.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: If you don't need a
variance.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: If you don't need a
variance, you don't need a survey.
MS. BOWER: So essentially we need a
survey, and from your point of view, Mr. Simon,
you think it looks terrible
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I didn't say it looks
terrible.
MS. BOWER: -- and the argument has not
any validity at all.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I'm saying I agree
with your neighbor that it is fairly attractive,
but it is very hard to get around the point that
it is not where anybody else lS allowed to put a
shed In this town without a very, very generous
variance that's what you're asking for, and you
may get it, I don't know.
MR. BOWER: Technically I was told by the
town preferably in the back yard, and that is my
back yard.
MS. BOWER: Because of the corner
situation. We have no use and no access to our
front yard on Soundview Avenue. Technically
speaking, we don't have a -- we have a front yard
that's ten foot wide.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: What you have is
two front yards and a very, very narrow rear yard.
The problem is that people don't understand that
front lS not necessarily where the front of your
house; it's street house. And the average
homeowner doesn't understand that.
MS. BOWER: And apparently the Building
Department clerks do not know this either, or
they're not willing to go the extra step, and say
well, there must be many, many corner properties
in the town of Southold, why didn't they say, gee,
maybe if you're on a corner you might need to have
a permit or something. You know, to me that's the
unfairness of it all. We would have rethought the
whole thing if we were glven the proper
information at the Building Department.
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BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I think
procedurally if you had come in with a survey and
said here's the Slze of the shed, here's my
property, where can I put it; but you didn't know
to ask that, and they didn't voluntarily inform
you of that, however -- well, it's unfortunate
because it's difficult when you have invested
money. It is very, very close to the road. It's
really, really in your face when you drive by.
MS. BOWER: How close to the road?
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I can't say. I
can say that I agree with your numbers. I can go
out and measure it myself; it still wouldn't be
legal. But having said that visually, the visual
impact, without even looking at the numbers, it's
substantial. It's very, very much close to the
shoulder, the edge of the road. That's a
fact. It can be screened with evergreens in a way
that will mitigate, so it becomes a green,
vegetated buffer. It could be moved slightly,
closer toward your house in the same general
area. It can be still be in the front yard, still
require a variance.
MS. BOWER: The earth would have to be dug
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BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: It's on cinder
blocks. You would have a slight increase in the
elevation there, it's not enormous. The other
side, the other front yard on the wetlands side,
there is more room actually over there, and it's a
little bit flatter from the edge of the road to
your house on the other side of your driveway
MS. BOWER: Then we would have to get a
Trustee permit.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: You need a variance
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BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: You're going to
need a variance no matter what.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: You could put it
back by where the pool is, that's your hardship.
MS. BOWER: I have no other back yard, no
other privacy, no other use.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Can I ask you a
couple questions?
MS. BOWER: Sure.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO:
side, you're 84 feet away from
wetlands.
On the Soundview
the flagged
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MS. BOWER: From the plants that were
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BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: That was something
everybody agreed to, I'm sure.
MS. BOWER: Uh-huh.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: So, if you were to
take this structure and put it on that side, you'd
still require a variance, just not 100 feet.
A MS. BOWER: Right. And I'd need a
Trustee permit and DEC.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: As that stands now
that 100 foot mark is far enough away from the
building that you don't need a variance for that.
Basically you have a hardship because that; you're
restricted on this piece of property from building
on that side anything without gOlng through the
process you're going through right now?
MS. BOWER: A much worse process.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Now, you purchased
a building as opposed to lumber and stuff and
hauling it into your backyard, you purchased it,
it came on wheels, you set it down 19 feet away
from your front property line. There's no way
that you can move it back?
MS. BOWER: Back where?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Towards the house.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: That's not 19 feet
from the property line it's 19 feet from the road,
from the center of the yellow line.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Nineteen feet from
the property line.
MS. BOWER: It's 19 feet from the property
line and 33 feet from the center of that, and 21
feet from Hawkins.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: The only place you
could put this building is where the pool is,
right, that's your backyard.
MS. BOWER: Exactly. And to move this
shed ln, you're heading into these eight
cesspools, you know.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: That was my next
question. Let's talk about the backyard, first.
On your west side I guess it's John Berriman?
MS. BOWER: Yes.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I know John very
well. If you were to put -- I think if you were
to put the shed between your house and John
Berriman's, you would be in your side yard?
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MS. BOWER: We would be past.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Where the pool is
right now, that's a side yard.
MS. BOWER: Yes.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: Except where the
pool lS, that's the rear yard. The Building
Department determined that to be a rear yard and
gave a building permit for the pool.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I would dispute
that that's not a side yard, the only place that's
a true rear yard lS that southwest corner of your
house.
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BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: How they determine
it is the larger yard that remains when you
subtract the two front yards, you only have two
yards left; the larger yard is the rear yard
because the way the code is written it says then
the rear yard shall be determined and any
remaining yard will be a side yard. So then the
side yard is to the left of the house and the rear
yard lS where the pool area is.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Okay. But in any
case, you could take this building and bring it
back there or you could build it there if somehow
you could get it there. It's built. That's a
hardship that you're complaining here too, that
could be very expensive. You couldn't just take
it put it on wheels and have North Fork whoever
they are and bring this back to them? There's no
way you can get a truck back there to do it?
MS. BOWER: We had a cement truck try to
come in to put our patio in, and the cement truck
was almost impaled into the wetlands because it lS
a steep incline, and the morning the gentleman
came to deliver that shed, he also said there's no
way you could drive back there.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Was that your
original thing?
MS. BOWER: That was our original thing.
We were going to align it up with Mr. Berriman's
shed, although we couldn't line it up directly but
in that general vicinity because we can't go past
the 10 feet. If you see my foundation, you follow
that line along, we have five feet less, so we
have essentially five feet past that foundation
which we are not technically allowed to disturb.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: On the Soundview
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December 28, 2006
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MS. BOWER: We couldn't put it there.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: You're 84 feet away
from wetlands, so you're not putting anything
there.
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MS. BOWER: Exactly.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: You couldn't take a
truck because the topography of the land doesn't
lend itself to you taking this building and
bringing it around the back. You could hire a
crane, it could set up in your driveway, and you
could haul it up over your house and set it down.
Any idea of what that would cost?
MS. BOWER: Thousands and thousands of
dollars. I don't even want to find out.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: For a 96 square
foot shed. Now, what do you do with this place?
MS. BOWER: Our gardening tools, the pool
pump we put in there. It's quite a distance from
where the pool is but that's what we got.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: The pool equipment
lS going to be there? You're just storing stuff
out there; any heat, water?
MS. BOWER: Gosh, no. We haven't even
anchored it to the ground permanently because
we're waiting for this hearing.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: That's all I have.
Thank you very much.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Jerry?
MS. BOWER: It is a hardship down at that
Building Department. They really need to get
information out to the poor slobs that come in.
We really didn't know. I have been in to the
assessor's office. I understand that my corner
property is a premimum on my property because
they're more valuable, however, it is useless.
How is that valuable?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: It's valuable to
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BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN:
I have a corner
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lot too, I understand.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: I'm not going to
blow this out of proportion, but this lS my
application to write up the decision, which I am
still up in the alr about, I don't know what to
do. And hearing all my fellow colleagues, let's
just explore the aspect of taking it off those
cement blocks and moving it back a little bit
farther away from the front property line on
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Horton's Lane; is that a possibility or is that
not a possibility?
MR. BOWER: That's possible.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: How far do you
think you would be able to move that, Mr. Bower?
MR. BOWER: I would guess four or five
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MS. BOWER: It is starting to go uphill.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: There's no
attempt to bring a small machine in there and
flattening that incline out a little bit and
possibly lowering it a little bit?
MR. BOWER: If you would accept the five
feet, which I'm just guessing right now, I assume
it's about five feet, I could hand dig it out a
little and do that.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: It could be
lowered then?
MR. BOWER: Yes.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Because
personally when looking at it, the highest portion
of it is that portion that's visible from Horton's
Lane based upon the present topography that
exists, right?
MS. BOWER: Uh-huh.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Is there
something you would like to do based upon this
hearing prior to the completion of this hearing In
further investigation that you could get back on
to us on, or are you pretty much etched in stone
at the five feet that you feel you could move this
back?
MR. BOWER: I can take a concrete
measurement and let you know how far I could bring
it.
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BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: That's probably
my suggestion to the Board at this particular
point, and any type of specific landscaping plan
that Mrs. Bower was mentioning in the way of --
our suggestions are basically two things, and I'm
not speaking for the Board -- it's either
arborvitae four to five feet high continuously
maintained or with a nice area of distance between
them, and two would be evergreens, which are
bushier, fatter and sometimes more appealing, but
much more expensive, would be the same situation.
MS. BOWER: I was planning and I have a
few of them there, those green giant arborvitae,
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although they don't grow too well in the shade.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: They don't grow
too much in acidy soil and In oak leaves, which
you know as well as I do we all have out here.
However with some TLC they do exist.
MS. BOWER: I'm questioning this moving,
you're more optimistic than I am. It's quite an
incline.
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BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Not only look at
the topography again and what you think is a
reasonable possibility, but it might behoove you
to make a call or two to see what's involved and
move it just a few feet back toward your house.
You may be pleasantly surprised. As you say and
you're right to not proceed in creating any more
permanent foundation. They're just cinder blocks.
They can be moved by hand. And the structure lS
stable, it has a floor, and just scooting it back
can be done on rollers. At least find out.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Can I make one more
suggestion? If you turn this thing around 90
degrees, you would gain four feet there.
MS. BOWER: That's a very good point. I
would go along with that.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I don't know how
the Board feels about that. I think you may be
surprised at what you're going to hear. I think
there's four feet and maybe another foot.
MS. BOWER: That's a better.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Four feet and
five feet are nine feet.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I think if we were
talking a real five feet, you would gain four by
turning that building.
MS. BOWER: We have an extensive septic
system that we had to put in there, and it goes
right up to the driveway, and I don't want to
disturb that. If we start digging around In
there
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: How do you feel
about turning it around?
MS. BOWER: It's a good idea.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Can you move it
another foot or two or three?
MR. BOWER: If I do turn it 90 and four
feet, and I move it two -- six feet.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Right. You're
gaining another foot out of that.
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BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: The advantage
too lS you can enter it from the driveway area.
MS. BOWER: We were trying to make it less
obscure. We thought if we tucked it in there
behind those trees, put more trees. That was what
we were trying to do. There was a little grove of
trees in there, we were trying to tuck it in
there. We felt if we put it the other way, it
would be more out In the open.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Then throw some
plans in there.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: But we should have an
accurate survey.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I disagree with
that. We're granting a setback. We're not
granting where the building is going on the lot.
We're granting a setback from a side yard. And we
have that. We can grant 20, 22 or 24 feet from
the front, side yard line and 21 feet, we can do
all that without a survey.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Jim, I disagree. I'm
really kind of edgy about it because we have been
caught so many times. We let people just get away
with it and in the end it either bites their hand
or bites our hand. I think it would be a minimal
adjustment and a minimal amount of money to have
someone come in and adjust the survey that you
have here with the accurate dimensions.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: One of the things
that would be called out on a survey, and it's so
tiny on this Xerox, which is not even to scale
because the Xerox destroys scale, would be where
the septic system is; that should be on a survey.
MS. BOWER: It is on there.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Well, you do, but
it's not legible. What I'm trying to point out is
your argument of where the septic system lS lS
very credible and very important, and it makes a
difference. It does create a burden, a hardship
and a potential environmental hazard. But without
accurate, legal information for us to make our
decision on, that becomes sort of just
theoretical. Not that I disbelieve you, by no
means do I disbelieve you. But, agaln, we had a
situation not long ago where there was tremendous
miscommunication because someone drew In by hand
where they wanted to put another structure with a
survey that was done by the licensed surveyor, and
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in fact if they had done that, they would have
gotten everything they wanted right off the bat.
They had given us misinformation. They were In
better shape than what their survey, actually
drawn by hand, said. You might find that you are
farther back from the property line, we don't
really know.
MS. BOWER: I'm afraid to find out what
other mistakes the surveyor made.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I wouldn't suggest
going back to the surveyor if you're unhappy,
that's silly. But at least, find out the cost of
sliding it over a little bit to you; B, what you
think is realistic about the topography and where
you can put it; and, C, what an amended, updated
survey would cost you. Then we'll know exactly
what we're dealing with, and what is feasible to
your point of view and what would be burdensome to
you.
MS. BOWER: Do you want us to have a
surveyor draw up after he moves it or --
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: I think it would be
better after it's moved, then we could put it In
our decision that you would only get the CO unless
you had a new survey prepared to give to the
Building Department.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: What if the
distance lS different from what we're discussing
right now?
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: We wouldn't put
the actual distances In, Jim, until we saw what
that new survey called out?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO:
I mean,
are we
it?
can show
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going to grant it after this man moves
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: If he
that he can move it back.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: We're going to have to
adjourn this until the later meeting to see if Mr.
Bower can move it back and to what degree.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Then we would
come over and see the new stakes where you were
going to put it.
MS. BOWER: You want to see the stakes
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first?
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MR. BOWER: I'll stake it out for you.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Then we can do
one of two things, we can make the decision
subject to the survey and call it out in the
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decision, or you can get the survey first and then
we can re-site it, either one of those two
situations. This Board over the years has made
decisions subject to a survey. It's really
semantics of how you want to do it.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Fine.
MR. BOWER: I'd rather stake it out and
have you look at it.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Fine. Can we adjourn
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this to
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BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: January 25th, 9:45.
MS. BOWER: If the survey costs more than
the shed I might have a problem with that.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: It's imperative
that you have your pool mentioned on the survey.
Everything would then be done in a proper sense.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: You should have the
pool on it. You'd have no problem from here on
In.
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BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: You would have
no problem because if you needed to work on
something else, or if you needed let's say a
second shed, you know where everything lS and you
know where you could squeeze it in In that back.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: I'll make the
motion to adjourn this hearing until January 25th
at which -- prior to that date the Bowers will
contact us with an alternative location staked out
of which we will go back and inspect its location
by stakes. We could make this decision subject to
a survey, subject to staking first and then we'll
talk about the survey.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: So subject to
staking.
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(See minutes for resolution.)
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Next hearing is NO FO
Properties, LLC, the Gordons on Northview Drive In
Orient.
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MR. GORDON: Good morning, my name is
Jessie Gordon. How are you doing today? Our
application, we are seeking a variance to have
some work done on the house on Northview.
Basically the scope of the work involves primarily
interior work along with the addition of an
existing deck that we want to extend beyond its
current position. The extension of a bedroom
above an already existing roof. So no expansion
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of the existing footprint, home. And other than
that, the majority of the work, as I said, is
interior work. We'll be bringing an exterior set
of stairs that go up to the roof up to code
because they in their current position they aren't
up to code when the house was originally built.
And we'll also be doing some decking on the roof
because the home has a flat roof.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: It's all flat roof?
MR. GORDON: All flat roof. The whole
roof is a flat roof. The house was built in --
we're also going to be correcting the pitch of the
roof so prior to putting the decking down to make
sure that it drains properly with gutters and
scuppers. We've already had roof people come in
and analyze that situation.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Flat roofs are very
difficult. It was dripping on my head, which is
okay. I'm just saying I have had experience with
other people, they're ticklish.
MR. GORDON: They are indeed. We are
aware of that and we want to make sure that if we
are going to put decking on the roof, that all the
drainage is correct so that we don't have any
leaking into the home and then have to pull any
decking up to repair.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Because it was leaking
right by your foundation In the back.
MR. GORDON: The person who lived In the
house prior to us purchasing it lived there until
she was 99 years old. The house fell into
disrepair. Our hope is to bring the house -- the
house was originally designed by a gentleman named
Olindo Grassi, who was the head of the
architecture department at Pratt. So it's an
architecturally significant home. And our plan
isn't to tear the home down or to do anything
other than to bring it back to its original glory.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Those gutters and dry
wells into a dry well up closer to the road
because you are fairly near the edge of the bluff
and the bluff does slope more downward than up.
MR. GORDON: We can do that most
certainly.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Mr. Gordon, I
want you to know I have great difficulty in
understanding exactly what you are doing. This is
not a derogotory statement of what you are doing.
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Is there some time you could meet us there so you
could explain to us exactly what you are doing?
Particularly with the second story deck addition.
I have been there twice and I'm still baffled by
this plan. I've been on this Board for 26 years;
starting January 1st it will be my 27th year.
This one is a little baffling to me.
MR. GORDON: I'd be more than happy to
meet you there, but perhaps I can address your
concerns here prlor to doing that, or at least
make an attempt to address those concerns.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Is there gOlng
to be a significant change in height to the
structure?
MR. GORDON: No change whatsoever in
height. What we are doing lS we are capturing an
already existing portion of an existing roof and
extending a bedroom off of that. Essentially
there will be no change In height
whatsoever. There will be no additional roof
added to the home itself because we're gOlng over
an already existing plain of space. Essentially
we're capturing unused space on an already
existing structure and enclosing it.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Just as the
Chairperson said, how are you going to capture
this water runoff off of the existing roof? Are
there gOlng to be French drains placed In the roof
to do that?
MR. GORDON: The roof currently lS pitched
and it has gutters, and what we can do is run
those gutters as was suggested to dry wells on the
not water side but the other side of the property.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: The road side.
MR. GORDON: Road side, correct. There's
a significant amount of room to do that and as I
said we've already consulted with the roof
professionals and that significant part of our
plan is making sure all that drainage lS going
away from the home, away from the foundation and
away from the bluff because we want to maintain
the integrity of the bluff to the best of our
ability. We had a gentleman five or six homes
down on the bluff who is running his gutters
directly into a dry well that was on the front of
his property and caused a portion of the bluff to
erode.
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BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER:
You sat here
December 28, 2006
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through a hearing on Island View Lane I hope with
a gentleman who was standing on the location, an
attorney from Riverhead. You've done I hope some
intensive investigation on the house; is there
going to be any need to demolish, destroy or
dismantle any portion of this house as it
presently exists at this time?
MR. GORDON: There will be some interior
demolition; there will be no structural
demolition. We have had an engineer come and do
an analysis of all the load-bearing beams of all
the structure of the home, of the foundation and
prior to doing any of these plans that was all
taken into consideration. We will not be doing
any demolition of the house. We want to keep the
house as it is. Our intent is from the structure
of the house itself to expand that bedroom out,
it's only about six or seven feet, just so we have
a place to put a bed in the master bedroom. It's
small. We are not going to do any demolition. As
I said, we had an engineer come in, we've actually
had several engineers come in as well as our
general contractor, punch holes in the ceilings,
analyze the foundation, extensive engineer's
report done on all the systems of the home as
well.
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BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Mechanical systems?
MR. GORDON: Mechanical systems, correct.
We will be replacing some mechanical systems. But
we will not be demolishing any portion of the
house; that's the last thing we want to do.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Because of that
architectural integrity.
MR. GORDON: Because of the architectural
integrity of the home. It's a mid-century home
that was designed by a well-known architect. I'm
going to be using the home myself with my family.
I have a particular affinity with this style of a
architecture. It's my goal to return the house to
its original glory as it was built.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: So you'll be
working independently with the Building Department
on this renovation, you particularly or the
contractor?
MR. GORDON: The contractor and the
architect will be working with the Building
Department and have been working with the Building
Department.
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December 28, 2006
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BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: So they're
perfectly aware of what you are doing based upon
this application that is before us?
MR. GORDON: Yes, indeed.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Of course the
main reason is because you're well within the 100
foot setback situation.
MR. GORDON: I understand that.
Basically, if we aren't able to do anything to the
home, you know, if we aren't able to make any
changes, the home is just going to fall into
further disrepair. What we want to do lS make the
property and the home more usable for me and my
family, and it improves upon the nature of the
home itself. It gives us the ability to use it.
In its current condition it's not useable.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Based on the
elevations that I'm looking at here, you're doing
a good job just to the restoration.
MR. GORDON: Thank you very much. We've
worked very hard on that.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: It shows. I knew
the architect. I have no problems In reading
these plans or supporting what your intention is.
I have to write the finding, and I just want to
make sure that the proposed setback lS 39'2" from
the edge of the bluff to the new deck?
MR. GORDON: That's correct, with the
extension. The deck in its current condition is
in a state of disrepair. It's rotted away.
Essentially In its current condition it's very,
very narrow and doesn't have much useability for
anything other than walking out of the home and
down to the lawn. This will enable us to place a
table there, place some chairs there, enable us to
use the space.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: What is the
additional increase in the depth of the deck from
the existing to the proposed?
MR. GORDON: I believe it's 6'6".
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Yes, that's what
it's called out as. I'm just making sure.
MR. GORDON: The plans accurately reflect
our intentions. We haven't strayed from the plans
In any way whatsoever. I don't know if the plans
you have have a cut-out on the front portion of
the deck; there's a possibility that a portion of
the deck won't extend out that far.
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December 28, 2006
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BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN:
called out as open to the sky.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO:
put it on there.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: They know Jerry.
MR. GORDON: We do thorough research.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I'm impressed. As
long as you're prepared to deal with the drainage.
MR. GORDON: We have no choice but to deal
with the drainage problems for the well being of
the home and the well being of the bluff, it's
important we contain any drainage.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Be very careful.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I have no further
Right, and it's
Favorite phrase.
That's funny they
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questions.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: As you know, it's
38.5 feet from the edge of the bluff and that
raises a flag with the LWRP and so on. How far
actually closer to the edge of the bluff will it
be after this deck is built or rebuilt?
MR. GORDON: It's 6'6" closer to the bluff
than it is now.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: Now it's 44 feet or
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MR. GORDON: Correct.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: And it's pilings
underneath the deck?
MR. GORDON: Correct.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: I will point out
to you that I will go again on Saturday, and I
will look at this entire plan. It's not that I
have additional questions, it's just questions
that I had when I was looking at it. So you'll
see me there Saturday morning.
MR. GORDON: Would you like me to meet you
I could possibly make arrangements to do
I live in Manhattan.
there?
that.
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BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: I don't think
it's necessary at this time. As I said, Miss
Weisman is much more articulate.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Jim?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: My confusion is
reading the notice of disapproval which doesn't
give me any information as to exactly what you're
doing. So I think that's where it pretty much all
came from. It looks to me like the deck is just
steps, you're adding steps to --
MR. GORDON: To the front portion of the
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December 28, 2006
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deck.
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BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Those steps are
going to take up about six feet.
MR. GORDON: It's my understanding that
the cut out section, there currently are steps. I
don't think that the steps are gOlng to take up
the six feet that we're adding. At least that's
not my understanding from the plans. I believe
we'll be gaining a significant amount of useful
space to use the deck with just that --
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: You'll be filling
in and squaring off. But as far as the utility of
that deck and filling that In, that gets you to
just about six feet, which is about six inches
just from your plan. And it looks like the rest
of it lS just steps down and the planting in the
middle.
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MR. GORDON: You have to take into
consideration the deck as it currently exists also
has steps so we'll be galnlng that space as well.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I don't want to
take any space from you.
MR. GORDON: The way it currently exists
we can't put a table on there; it's pitched very
steeply. We have a three year old daughter. It
just doesn't work.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Then you're adding
a second story bedroom?
MR. GORDON: We're not even adding a
second story bedroom; we're expanding off the
existing bedroom over the roof that currently
exists.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Are you putting up
two by fours and windows, and it's going to be a
roof that's higher than the roof.
MR. GORDON: One window and another flat
roof, just one additional window. So it will be
some two by four framing and dry wall.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I don't know what
the distance of that is. How big is that? The
new addition upstairs, how large lS that?
MR. GORDON: It looks like 10.6 feet out
and 14 feet across and then five feet back.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: That's all the
questions I have.
MR. GORDON: That's the only building
that's being done on the exterior other than the
decking and the railing that will be put on the
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December 28, 2006
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roof as well.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Is there anyone else In
the audience that wishes to comment on this
application? If not, I'll make a motion to close
the hearing and reserve decision until later.
(See minutes for resolution.)
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Next hearing is for
Michael Leigey who wishes to build a garage on
Town Creek Lane.
MR. VANDENBERG: Good morning, Richard
VanDenBerg. I just handed up an authorization for
Mr. Leigey who very reluctantly could not be here
today. I know that he was actually concerned
about his inability to be here and inquired
whether he should request an adjournment, but I
think the advice that was given to him was to
allow the public hearing to go forward. So he
asked me toward the end of last week to appear
here In order to relay comments and his intent as
best as I could from notes he's given me.
I can tell you that I have known Mike for
20 some~odd years. He is a single dad. He runs
the party shop in town. He is a member of the
Chamber of Commerce and volunteer firefighter In
the community. Mike does also run his ~~ has a
business known as Peconic Building Solutions and
operates that business and continues to do and
will continue to do so out of 53840 Main Road in
Southold. He has no intention of runnlng any
business out of the property located at 105 Town
Creek Lane.
I believe you have ~~ he only gave me some
information before he left, but I believe you have
some plans and some elevations with regard to what
he proposes to do. It seems to be somewhat the
theme today about putting a garage or structure In
a side or front yard. And from what I can
determine that is the situation here.
I'm also aware there are a number of
people with us today that Michael told me that
there was a petition that had been circulated
where there was great concern about what Michael
was intending to do with the garage, and I've seen
a copy of that petition where it does appear ~~
and I'm not certain where it came from ~~ to say
that this was gOlng to be a warehouse of some
kind. Michael absolutely, emphatically indicates
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December 28, 2006
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that there is no way this is intended or will ever
be a warehouse. It will not be used for
manufacturing anything. It's really just a
three-car garage in order to house -- he wants to
be able to put his boat in there. He owns three
vehicles and he wants to be able to store his boat
In the garage over the winter time, and he wants
to be able to park his truck and another vehicle
that he uses. So that's really the intent of the
use of the garage is just that, just a garage for
storage space.
He also wants the Board to know that
because it's being used for personal storage, he
can explain some of that with the fact that the
house that lS on the property lS over 300 years
old, does not have any basement, attic and
virtually any closet space for storage. He lives
there with his three young children and has no
available storage for any of those things that are
attendant to a busy young household. In addition
to storing items for his boat that sort of thing,
rakes, utensils, all of that will also be stored
In the garage.
The reason for the setback requirement lS
because again, his situation being on the corner
of Youngs Avenue and Town Creek Lane. The survey
will show that his house lS located on the
easterly -- virtually right on the easterly
property line of the property. Locating the
garage In a different location other than what
he's proposing would create putting the garage
right where the back quote/unquote backyard is for
his family. Located there he has a very small,
grassy area with a picnic table and things of that
nature that he uses with the family. So placing
in what would otherwise be that northeast corner
of the property would create a problem In that his
kids would lose what little rear yard that they
have to play in, and also create an extremely long
and kind of consuming driveway in order to get to
that location. He also has some intention, as his
family continues to grow in terms of age and size,
to add on at some point to the house relative to
expanding the kitchen area because it lS a small
home. I've been In it and it lS small.
The other point that he wanted me to make
was that in locating the garage where he has it
proposed lS taking advantage of the grade, the
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December 28, 2006
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slope of the property. The way he's proposing
constructing this garage lS to actually build it
into the grade so that the height actually after
it was finished would be relatively nominal. The
rear of the garage would only be about 18 feet to
the peak of the garage in the back. So the
profile or the view of the garage from the back
side or from a neighbor's property or even from
the road would be relatively a lower profile, not
a 20-plus foot high garage. You would see it a
lower profile. Part of what he intends to do In
terms of constructing it there as well is to
create more of a grade, potentially a berm with
some screening along the roadway to further shield
and soften the visual impact of the garage from
Youngs Avenue.
He wanted me to point out, and I have a
couple of pictures that he took, that his
neighbors to the north on Youngs Avenue have
also -- I believe it's the Anderson property
have a five-car garage with a finished second
floor. which also has, as you can see from the
photograph, a sliding door and outside windows
that face the south to my client's property. In
addition to that, and not sure if it's the Lynch
property or if it's Mrs. Lynch that has been the
proponent with regard to the petition, but that
her property, which is on the other side of the
Anderson property also has a minimum four-car
garage with a finished or apartment above it. Now
both of those buildings exceed the overall height
of what my client is proposing. Michael told me
that he has specific knowledge with regard to the
Lynch property because he looked at that property
before buying this property as potentially
purchasing that property. That garage has a stove
In it, as I say, it has the apartment. This
particular garage will have no bathrooms or any
running water. It's purely going to be for his
personal use, parking his vehicles and storing his
personal effects. In addition, he also wanted me
to point out that just up the road at 425 Calves
Neck, which is the neighbor directly to the south,
across the creek, has a garage in the front yard
that's not attached to the house approximately 15
feet from the road. And he mentions that he
believes the Board or the Building Department has
issued a building permit 3190 back in April of '06
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December 28, 2006
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for 1020 Goose Creek Lane which is a two-story
garage with windows in the back side and located
In the front yard with 20 feet from the road. I
don't have any specific knowledge of those
applications, but Michael wanted me to make sure I
made that part of the record as well.
There's also been some rumor with regard
to the type of construction with this garage, that
it was gOlng to be like a Morton building or a
steel building; that is absolutely false. And
certainly if anyone came to me with a petition
saYlng that that's what somebody intended to do, I
would probably be concerned and might even
consider signing such a petition. But quite
frankly, that's a rumor that's misleading because
this particular structure, as you can see, will be
all stick built. It's going to be either in the
Shaker or Craftsman style design. He's looking to
keep the profile low. There are some materials
that he already has located over In that area in
the yard. He has three setback of garage doors.
He has some other lumber there.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Bunch of stuff there.
MR. VANDENBERG: Yes. He realizes that
while that may be of some concern those are
materials that he intended to use in the
construction of this property. They will all be
natural woods, there will be no steel in it, the
only steel that will be used will be the nails.
So hopefully that will put to rest that rumor with
regard to the construction of the building.
As I said, he does propose, and I'm not
sure that you have this, he's hoping where he does
wish to create some additional screening, as much
screenlng as possible. And one of the other
comments he's wanted to make is someone has
indicated where they see his truck, as I say he
has a black truck that says Peconic Building
Solutions on it, he sees his truck constantly
coming and going up and down Youngs Avenue.
Michael, as I say, he's a single father, he is
perplexed by that comment because as I said, he lS
the person responsible for transporting kids to
and from dance class, to and from practice, piano
lessons. He has the benefit fortunately of living
locally, and he's able to do that and it's
certainly at different hours of the day, but it
has nothing to do with the fact that he's runnlng
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December 28, 2006
back and forth to his home to operate his
business; it has everything to do with the fact
that he's doing the best job that he can taking
care of his three young kids. So there's really,
again, there's no foundation, there's really no
basis of saying he's operating any business out of
this location.
He was aware of this petition. He
actually had developed a petition of his own. I'm
not sure if the Board has that. There's a number
of signatures on this petition as well that are in
support of what he's looking to do knowing the
work that he's capable of in terms of the
construction of the property. His neighbor, which
lS to the east, happens to be In favor of what
he's looking to do. There are a number of other
petitions, again, I'm not sure if the Board has
this and is interested In this petition.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Sure, always
interested in more information.
MR. VANDENBERG: As I said, the garage
would be constructed out of wood, it's cedar shake
siding and cedar shake roof, not out of
metal. I'm not sure if the building plans call it
out that way, but that's what Michael was saying
he intends to do. It's supposed to simulate a
carriage house. And his idea is to make it
somewhat consistent with the other structure on
the property, which as I say is about a 300 year
old home. As far as what his alternative would
be, it appears as though because of the lack of
storage and the hardship there, the only other
option in order to make the garage appear to be
more in the backyard, would be to pick the 300
year old house up off the original foundation and
move it closer to the street. I don't know if
that completely alleviates the side yard
situation, but it would potentially help. The
problem is doing that to this house would be
potentially devastating to this 300 year old
structure. The cost as well would be significant
in addition. So I think what he's sought to do by
actually building the garage into the grade of the
existing topography of the property certainly
mlnlmlzes the impact it has being where he's
proposing it to be.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER:
couple of questions that we need
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There are a
answered. Do you
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want to go first?
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I'll ask a couple
quick questions. The plans are not fully specked
out. So let me double check. It would appear
that the mean height of the structure is 16 feet
and it's 21 feet to the ridge; is that correct?
MR. VANDENBERG: Did you see say 16?
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: The mean.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: And 21 to the ridge
is what it looks like.
MR. VANDENBERG: Yes, that's what I'm
seeing as well, 21 feet to the ridge.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: The actual prints
are very faint. The other question I have had to
do with the handling of runoff; to site that there
certainly in terms of the berm building in on the
Horton side will mitigate some of the height.
However, there's a great divot, kind of slope that
the property sits like this, and it will be
sitting in a well, a low spot. So some tree
cutting and excavation is going to be required in
that area. How has your client -- has he
considered drainage, road runoff and so on?
MR. VANDENBERG: I will tell you --
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Goes straight down to
the creek.
MR. VANDENBERG: I will say that the way
currently there is a bit of a pitch back into that
area, there's kind of a swale where the front of
the garage would be located. Certainly I'm sure
he's not planning on any impervious driveway; it
would still be a stone driveway of that nature.
But certainly there would have to be some added
consideration for installing dry wells, perhaps
some runoff grates in the driveway to try to catch
whatever water flow would come off, as well as dry
wells along the exterior of the roof pitch line.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: He's going to have to
do a lot of excavation to push that garage as far
back as he wants to do it. So that's that whole
swale area. It goes far back. Any runoff is
going to have to be put over maybe to the east
side of the property as close as possible to the
north.
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MR. VANDENBERG: Yes. Because of that
swale that comes in there I know that there's a
fair amount of available space for dry wells if
you call that in front of the house, to the west
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of the house, and to the east of what would be the
driveway, as well as the garage itself.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: I think it's to the
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BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I have a question
about the garage. As I understand, this garage
which is 21 feet to the pitch, has I count nine
windows in that garage from the elevations, three
on each of three sides, I don't see the fourth
side elevation. There's a side elevation, a front
and rear elevation.
MR. VANDENBERG: I'm not sure, I only saw
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BOARD MEMBER SIMON: But in any case, what
ultimate purpose can we anticipate he has for that
garage? What else is going in that garage?
MR. VANDENBERG: Nothing, there's no
intended apartment use. Quite frankly, I know his
objective in terms of placing the windows was to
make it appear somewhat more pleasing than just a
simple wall of cedar shake.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: Presumably there will
be electricity, but will there be plumbing In the
garage?
MR. VANDENBERG: No.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: It will essentially
be unfinished interior to a garage?
MR. VANDENBERG: That's correct. It's
purely intended for personal storage space.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: will there be a floor
or stairway going to the upper level?
MR. VANDENBERG: Yes. There is a
stairwell.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: Presumably for
storage, attic.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Just lights In there,
that's it.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: So essentially it
would be no different than the attic of an
ordinary two-story house that would have windows
in the attic for aesthetic and practical reasons?
MR. VANDENBERG: That's my understanding.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: I just want to
address two lssues. Although the Board did
entertain an application on a back road in a
subdivision that's of a similar setback, for the
period of time I've been on this Board we very
rarely if ever have granted a 24 foot setback on a
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major public road, which comes out of the actual
hamlet of Southold at 20 feet. I can think of two
of them; one of them is Deep Hole Drive In
Mattituck on a 50 by 210 foot lot on the water,
person's cesspools, sanitary system was in the
front yard area, and the person had no other
choice but to locate a garage -- not of this
magnitude -- in the front yard area of which there
were substantial plantings placed In front of it.
The other one was one we agonized over in Nassau
Point. The house fronted on Nassau Point
Road. The rear of the house fronted on Wunnaweta,
and there was a reconstruction of a garage which
the applicant significantly minimized in reference
to Slze. Size is an issue here. Setback lS an
lssue here. This is an extremely large structure.
The structure is almost the same size as the
house. It's got to be pushed back in my
particular oplnlon. It's got to go to at least 30
feet, and it has to be lessened In Slze and in
magnitude. I think you have addressed some of the
magnitudenal issues regarding the placing it in
that area that has to be excavated. However, it's
too high anyway and it's too large. There's no
question about it if you want to build it in an
area of this proposed location.
Secondly, the height of the garage has to
be lessened. I would never suggest anything than
a ceiling not to exceed about 7'6" on the second
floor and I realize the eve aspect or the gable
end aspect, which you refer to as a Shaker roof
aspect, lS fine, but that's the max I would
suggest that you're going to get out of me.
MR. VANDENBERG: If I could, certainly I
see the criss-cross pattern of the gable end of
the second floor. If he were to eliminate one
qable on either side, I know that part of the size
aspect is because he's looking for the three
parking spots, the boat with the trailer and
everything, it's going to encompass almost 30
feet, 20-something feet. If there was a way to do
that and to reduce the ridge line and eliminate a
couple of the gable ends, would that be a
potential compromise in keeping the footprint the
way it is?
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Let's look at a
normal Slze garage. A normal size garage can be
20 or 22, or it can be 22 by 22. This is 30 by
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40, extremely too long. Entirely too long for a
front yard area, again, on a very well used public
road. I mean 1,000, 800 feet from town and
feeding a very big subdivision that apart from the
satellite roads, but a very big subdivision after
you go over the little bridge up to Calve's
Neck. If it was on a dead end street somewhere In
Southold or in any hamlet in the north fork you
could see it, but it's just too big.
MR. VANDENBERG: And the fact that there
are neighbors with larger.
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: Yes, but they're
not In a front yard area one; number two, we have
no idea if they preexisted zonlng or not. They
may have preexisted zoning, and those may be
established issues.
I have to tell you that we did a
significant, a very similar design, by the way,
the one on Nassau Point and there were questions
of privacy basically, to other people's property
in that particular design, and so on and so
forth. So those are all issues that I think this
applicant needs to look at in the proposal of a
1,200 square feet, two-story garage on a very
heavily traveled road. That is just my opinion.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: On the overall
height to the top of the ridge --
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: It should limit
it by about three feet, which is exactly 18 feet,
which the code requires.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Linda has a question.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: I wanted to ask
Mr. VanDenBerg, because on the right side of the
map you have Mr. Leigey had mentioned that there
might be a change of a few inches, maybe six
inches or so in the mean height. So I thought
perhaps he gave you the amended plan.
MR. VANDENBERG: I have a notation drawn
on the map he gave me saying 18.6. This is March
16 of '06.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: This is different
from what we have. We need that.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: Are you saying that
he's already proposed to lower the ridge?
MR. VANDENBERG: That's what it appears to
me based upon his notes.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: Lower the ridge but
I think lncrease the mean height.
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MR. VANDENBERG: I'm not sure.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I don't care about
the mean height; I care about the height to the
ridge. That's the bulk.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: I guess there lS a
concern that we're talking about a 1,200 square
foot garage. There are people in this room, some
of whom on this side of the podium, have houses
that aren't any bigger than that, that are
smaller. When talking about a garage, the largest
garage that I can recall our approving was 24 by
24, people say 22, and so on. So it looks as
though something will have to glve. First of all
the 20 foot setback, second the closeness to the
road, and this rather large garage. I've seen
some garages that large, but as some other people
have said, not on that kind of property, in that
kind of location. As a message to take back to
your client.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: It's right next to a
very beautiful historic house.
MR. VANDENBERG: He doesn't want to
diminish that, he really wants to construct it so
that it compliments it. I understand your Board's
concern.
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: I understand it would
be better to have a garage to put his trucks In
instead of leaving them In his driveway.
MR. VANDENBERG: That's what he wanted to
do. He really wanted to get everything indoors
including his boat.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Leslie?
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I don't have any
questions.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Jim?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Is there any reason
he can't attach it to the house?
MR. VANDENBERG: Well, the problem is you
would be attaching to the front, and he really
would be significantly altering that 300 year old
structure in terms of incorporation of the garage,
so it's probably not feasible without damaging the
character of that old home.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: You couldn't build
it like the old home? I know on Village Lane In
Orient, there's a couple new houses there, you
can't even tell they're there. Is it a possible
that if he wants a three-car garage, needs a
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three-car garage, he could attach it to this
house? I don't believe he would need a variance
then.
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MR. VANDENBERG: Well, he was kind of
concerned about, quite frankly, the structural
integrity about beginning to mess with the
existing structure there. But one of the things
he said 1S look, if it were a situation where they
were saying, I'm not going to get anything I'm
asking for, then my next alternative is to move
this house so that I can move it forward to be in
conformity with setbacks and so forth and then
that would give him more options to allow him to
attach the garage to the back side of the
house. Certainly there are significant costs 1n
doing that. His biggest concern 1S not to
eliminate -- I mean, certainly there's overhead
wires there, certainly he could have the wires
buried. He didn't want to eliminate, really which
1S probably the nicest part really of the entire
lot, is that back northeast corner. And that was
placing the garage back in that area would
eliminate that. I don't know it would probably
call for redoing the entire house in terms of the
layout of the house because that's really the
entrance; you can see the screened-in porch on
that side, there's a walkway, there's a front
entrance on the westerly side, it's got the main
door entrance to it, and there's certainly no room
to the south. It would really require significant
adjustment of that existing structure. As far as
options, I think he thought that would be probably
option number four or five down the list of
potentials.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: It's a lot to be
asking for in that area. When you have so many
other areas that you could attach this, that you
could put this building. If you're uncompromising
in that, then we really have nothing to work with.
MR. VANDENBERG: I don't want to give the
impression he's uncompromising. Certainly pushing
the distance back further, reducing the size,
eliminating some of the gables, that to me seems
relatively feasible without even beginning to have
to deal with incorporating a structure into an
older structure, in terms of cost and really just
a fear that when you start doing that it's gOlng
to cause some structural damage to an old house.
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I've been in there. It's got the old, thin doors.
It's a small old house. It's beautiful but it's
old.
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BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: You're worried
about the integrity of the house if you were to
attach this, which is something you could legally
do. So now you need a variance just because it's
so far back. Naturally you can't move the house
for the same reason you can't put a building
alongside it, you're certainly not going to want
to put it on steel beams and move it. So we're
stuck now with a 40 by 30 foot structure, which lS
10 feet larger than my house, and you want to put
it 20 feet away from the road. And I honestly
don't think that's going to be forthcoming from
this Board. So you need to come up with some
other probably fairly drastic alternatives.
MR. VANDENBERG: You're suggesting that if
he did attach it to the garage, it would be
attached to the northern side?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: However, it's not
my purview.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: He wouldn't need a
variance.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: We're looking for
hardship. And first I look at what you can do on
the property. I see you can attach something to
this house. I realize ~~ no, I don't realize the
structural integrity part of it. I install phone
systems for a living. I don't know about
basements. But when I'm looking at a plan that's
on here, I say to myself, let's see what could he
do without me ever having to see this as a Zoning
Board member, and that's one of the things, attach
it to the house. I suppose you could make a
three~car garage, certainly the lot coverage
wouldn't be bad. The height, I don't know where
it falls with Walz, in any case, that possibility
is there. So, if you're saying it's just because
the integrity of the house I probably am willing
to buy that. But a 30 by 40 foot structure that's
going to be 20 feet away from the front property
line I can't. Your hardship, maybe you're gOlng
to lose backyard, the kids aren't going to be able
to play, probably a pretty good argument if you
you didn't have 300 feet of front yard, whatever
it is, where they could play. My kids played In
the front yard, put up a fence and whatnot. I
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don't see that as being much of a hardship. I'm
just being forthright with you, sir. I would say
that you may be served better if your client, the
applicant were to come before us.
MR. VANDENBERG: Certainly, and he wanted
to. If it's a matter that you would like to hear
from him, then we would request a continuance so
he could be here. Unfortunately he had a
prearranged vacation and with all the kids and
tickets, air fare that couldn't be refunded and
any of that.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: No, no, but if he
could come next month. I don't know when we can
put him on, but he may be able to explain it
better.
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA:
alternative plans.
MR. VANDENBERG: Absolutely. Based on
initial comments, at least I can give him
feedback. We would have no opposition to
whatsoever. He would invite that.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Michael, do you have
anything else?
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: No, I certainly
concur with keeping the hearing open.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Where are the
sanitary systems located, if you know?
MR. VANDENBERG: I have no idea.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: They don't.
They're probably perfectly willing to replace
whatever is there.
Or he may have some
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: They're probably 300
years old. I think some of these good people have
something to say. Who would like to speak first?
MS. SERCHIN: My name is Ann Serchin, and
I live at 355 Youngs Avenue, diagonally across the
street from the applicant's house. I live in a
house that was built in 1891, by Benjamin Lawrence
Prince, known as the Elm Cottage. It's a very
historic house. I brought with me, I don't know
if you have it, the building structure inventory
form for 105 Town Creek Road, which is
Mr. Leigey's house. It was the first custom's
house in town, moved to his site from Founder's
Landing. It was also the Landon House, which
belonged to a sea captain. The construction goes
back to around the mid 1700s. I did all this
research in the library and I thought maybe you
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would like to peruse this to see how historic his
house really is. There is a report in there from
the Southold Landmark's Preservation Commission
with regard to his house. Anyway, I'm just
throwing that out as a preface to what I am about
to say.
By the way, I'm also an architect. I
really feel that this building will irreparably
change the character of the neighborhood if it
goes where the applicant has proposed putting it.
These are small houses in this neighborhood. I
did a square footage takeoff from the survey, it's
1,100 square feet and change. The garage is 1,200
square feet. If you add on the storage space
above, double it, 2,400 square feet as a
totality. I just think that the building is
proportionally challenged with more than half of
its height taken up by the roof, when you look at
the plans. It's a very awkward looking thing.
And there is no other garage on our street that
sits in the front yard. As you were saying
before, the whole notion that on the Anderson and
Lynch properties there are garages there, they
were put in either preexisting zoning or done
legally; they're not out in your face on the
street. I also have problems with this particular
building in terms of the fact that it has 10 foot
high garage doors; that's not exactly in my mind a
residential height for garage door. It has 12
foot ceilings according to the plans for the
downstairs. That is also extraordinarily high for
a garage. I realize he does have a truck.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: And a boat.
MS. SERCHIN: Also I look at this and I
say, is this building really an appropriate
companion piece to the historic house on the
property. He says it's a carriage house; that's a
very vague, nebulous term in architecture, and
that it's appropriate on what basis. On what
basis? On what authority? I don't know. I'm an
architect, I just kind of scratch my head at that
one.
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Basically those are the issues of the
character of the neighborhood. I just have to
throw this out to the Board because I think it's a
loophole in the zoning ordinance altogether where
you can have an accessory structure that can
actually dwarf the primary building on the site.
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I don't know any other municipality that allows
that. I'm just throwing that out.
The other thing to me that is very suspect
are the drawings. They are misleading. The
survey doesn't indicate for example any datum, any
base elevation on which these mean heights are
given. So then you start to scale the drawings,
which we know lS a very sort of inaccurate thing
to do because the Xerox does shrink them or
stretch them. But just scaling them, the rear
elevation from peak of roof to grade lS 21'3", and
from the front elevation it's 26 feet to grade.
Those are the actual scaled dimensions, which
varied from what you were discussing a little
earlier.
The site slopes. Obviously it's going to
be a cut and fill job. The contours will be
altered somewhat for a variety of reasons
including drainage. So it's kind of silly to say
that he's burying this house to accommodate a
lessening of height, especially where he's put it.
Because just to the north of it, a little closer
to the house, is really like a pit. It's much
lower, so much lower In fact that if he were to
put the garage there, it would be substantially
lessened height-wise. If he were to lower the
first floor height, it would be lessened
height-wise. If he were to change the pitch of
the roof, it would be lowered. There are a
million things he could do. He could reorient his
driveway, a minor point, but one well taken to
glve space in front of the house. I just have a
feeling that the scheme wasn't well thought out by
whoever prepared it for him.
The other thing lS the materials. As I
said before, it was a little vague. Cedar shakes,
I guess that's appropriate to the neighborhood,
but those windows, a collection of windows
upstairs isn't really a historic look, you know,
gable windows on the second floor are usually much
smaller. So you do have to wonder what mayor may
not be going on up there.
The other thing also is what we see is not
necessarily what we ultimately are gOlng to get
with this building. I say this because as a
practicing architect who deals all the time with
the relatively new building code and the
prOVlSlons for hurricane sheltering and strapping,
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this building as drawn does not meet the sheer
requirements of the code. So that means he has to
indicate on the drawings or do an analysis of what
lS required to fulfill the code, meaning, the
width of that front entrance might have to shrink
In order to combat the sheer forces, and that can
be done. Or, what he's presented to us, the
representation is really not what we're going to
get, because he'll get his zoning variance, it
will be kicked into the Building Department,
they'll tell him he's got to change the design
then. So I'm pointing this out to you now, what
he has submitted and what we're ultimately going
to see based on these drawings I don't think are
one and the same thing.
Lastly, you have all touched on this, I
really believe this is a self-created hardship
because there are other alternatives on the site.
I'm sympathetic to him in terms of having no
basement storage space, et cetera, but he knew all
of this when he bought the house. I feel to
change irreparably the character of our
neighborhood it's a very special place. It's a
very special block. This is why I moved here. It
just kind of makes me sick. I feel very strongly
about the character of this neighborhood. Thank
you very much.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you. Anybody
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MS. LYNCH: It's now good afternoon. My
name is Adriane Lynch and I reside at 450 Youngs
Avenue In the Reverend John Youngs house, at least
folks have told me, because I have two young
children and have no time for home research, but
it's rumored that my house is the oldest in
Southold, but I think there is some discrepancy
among people who own old houses, but give me a
couple of years.
I am the lady who wallpapered your offices
with the petitions and the signatures and I
apologize in advance for the aggresslve nature
with which I did that, but my feeling was if we
didn't voice our collective oplnlon early In this
process that perhaps we wouldn't have an
opportunity to do so further down the road.
I have four quick points to raise. I
read, and I'm not very up to the terminology of
this, but I guess Mr. Leigey's application for a
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variance, he states somewhere In that that this
structure's gOlng to cost him somewhere In the
area of $9,000, I haven't done very much
renovation on my home, but I am in mortal fear of
what will be built for $9,000 in the scale that
this gentleman is proposing. I did some quick
math, I think I was toying with the idea of
redoing one of myoId bathrooms, and someone told
me it was gOlng to cost between 10 and 15 grand,
and that's the size of a shoebox. I think it's
$250 a square foot these days for retail
construction. He's a builder, so let's play the
devil's advocate, it would cost him 75 bucks a
square foot, that still puts the structure at 180
grand. What's he going to put up for 9 grand? If
you do the math, that's $3.75 a square foot -- not
interested in living next door to that, most
especially if we get a hurricane.
The second point I have is there seems to
be a discrepancy between his drawings and
somewhere in his application he's stating that the
structure is 40 by 40, and yet on the drawings
it's 30 by 40, I'm confused. How big is this
thing going to be?
The other thing that concerns me is I
think in his letter of denial where he was first
denied the ability to build this structure, the
letter is addressed to the Peconic Building
Solutions and Michael Leigey. My concern is why,
if this lS a residential garage strictly for
storage, is the name of his company a few places
on his application?
To speak to Mr. VanDerBerg's point about
there being a stove, by the way, I do have a large
garage, it's actually a seven or eight-car garage
that was built by I think two previous owners to
me. It is large. When I bought the house I
thought I hope some day I can afford enough cars
to put in it. There is an office space above that
garage. I invite any of you to come; there is no
stove there. But I guess that's sort of
irrelevant. What I have and what Mr. Anderson
next door to me has, I guess when they were built
we were conforming to whatever town code there
was. I think Mr. Leigey should have bought my
home, it has an enormous garage; it is an old
historic house; it probably would have suited his
needs better. I am very sympathetic to historic
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homes, I own one. They are very expensive to
restore, endless foundation issues, want to pick
our house up but have been told under pain of
death don't even think about it -- I get all that.
But if Mr. Leigey lS a builder with three growing
children, he maybe should have thought not to buy
that home if it doesn't suit his needs. Many
people own homes that they outgrow or that the
purpose doesn't suit them after a while. I don't
begrudge him a garage within proportion to the
neighborhood. If I could have a quick show of
hands of everyone who has come or who potentially
has come --
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: We need names.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: People speak for
themselves.
MS. ABRAHAM: My name is Harriet Abraham
and I live at 265 Youngs Avenue. I just wanted to
point out that when we talk about the beauty of
this neighborhood, I've been reading Suffolk Times
quite a lot lately, including this very week about
changes to come in the accessory code, and how
important it is in the new code and what lS
proposed by the public, and what the people want,
is that the buildings be in proportion to the Slze
of the home not just in terms of the placement on
the property, but everywhere In the code it says
that an accessory building must always be built in
the back, and that all the proposals here indicate
a variety of changes that the public and
apparently the Town government supports In terms
of exactly the opposite of what our neighbor lS
proposing to build. I just wanted to make that
fact known. And also to say that one thing that
hasn't been mentioned here in terms of the beauty
of our neighborhood is that this house is directly
across the street from the town's waterfront. And
so it's not just Youngs Avenue traffic; it's not
just the neighbors; it's everyone who pays taxes
In this town and in the park district who will be
impacted by a giant garage bigger than his house.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you. Yes, sir?
MR. BARRY: Good afternoon, Bill Barry,
500 Hill Road. I go down this road every day to
Youngs Avenue. I have seen such debris in that
yard you cannot believe. As far as I can see, not
right at the moment but In the last year, there's
a business being run out of here. He's got
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dumpsters in the yard and he brings his material
and dumps it in there. Sometimes they are
filled, they take them away, and then there's more
debris dumped in there. So I think I agree -- I
know I agree with the lady who got here first.
What you see is not what you're going to get in
the end. I have a big garage, 22 by 22; this is
30 by 40 garage with an upstairs. There's
something else in the long term here, and I think
it looks terrible or it will look terrible in the
neighborhood. I go to use that park with my
granddaughters, and I look forward to the beauty
of it. That's all I have to say to the Board.
Thank you very much.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you very much.
Is there anyone else?
MS. BERTANI: I am Linda Bertani. I am
the sectretary/treasurer of the Southold Park
District. I think you got the letter that was
written on behalf of the commissioners that
couldn't be here today, I'm sorry. Basically just
listening to everything that has been said today,
and your questions, you've basically answered all
my questions, and everything I wanted to say I
think has been said.
I would like to say that Mr. Leigey cut
down almost all the trees in his front yard in
preparation, I'm thinking, for building this
humongous thing, which really disturbed the Park
District commissioners. Any relief that you grant
to him, they do want to reiterate regardless of
what he puts it whatever, we would like to
possibly see a stand of evergreen trees on the
south property line in between his house and the
park.
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA:
Thank you.
Anybody
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MR. ANDERSON: I was gOlng to say good
morning, Board Members, but I think I'll say good
afternoon. I'm sorry this is running on, and I
know you all want to go onto other things. I'm
Stan Anderson. I live at 330 Youngs Avenue. My
property borders Mr. Leigey's property to the
north. I have several concerns of course, many of
which have been stated. A few years ago, two
years ago approximately when Mr. Leigey moved into
the area, everything was fine for a while, then I
noticed changes. Not only has he clear-cut the
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entire property, with just a few fringe trees on
the property, which technically he's entitled to.
I notice the presence of backhoes and bobcats and
moving earth and moving rocks and all that type of
thing. Then I got piles of building debris,
which, if I stood on my deck, or I look out my
windows toward the south, all I see is
scaffolding, piles of wood, ladders, PVC piping,
blue tarp rolled in balls, shingles, fencing,
sinks, plywood sheets, whatever, ACs -- old alr
conditioners. Anyway, if Mr. Leigey is not
running a business out of this area, why do I see
regular visits by he and his staff gOlng through
these piles, taking out whatever building
materials he might need to work on the house that
he's working on at the time. I do see countless
trips daily by his vehicles up and down the road.
His children are in school, so he's not delivering
his children anywhere.
Now Mr. Leigey wants to build a 30 by 40
foot two-story structure. It's apparent that he
intends to run his business out of there. The
Town responded, as was previously stated, to his
application that when he was declined or said he
did not meet the code, that Town response was
addressed to peconic Building Solutions. What
does that say?
My personal concerns, why not In the
backyard where the building code says it should
be? Why so close to the Town road and my property
line given the fact that he has so much land, and
why would the building require windows and
dormers on the second story, especially one that's
going to look right into my bedroom windows.
I'm retired. I spend a great deal of time
trying to keep my property fit and as beautiful as
I can make it; however, when I sit on my back
deck, if I look over there all I see is what looks
like a garbage pit.
So anyway, I would like to just VOlce my
biggest concern at what the impact is gOlng to be
on my real estate values as well as other real
estate values in the area. I don't know what this
lS ultimately going to look like, but I certainly
would like to see Mr. Leigey compromise his
requirements.
And one point regarding the integrity of
this old 300 year old house and why it might not
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be able to be moved, I can understand that but
adding on a breezeway or Mr. Leigey's
representative has already said that he intends to
do construction to that house, an add-on onto the
kitchen. So if you're going to do that, then add
on to the west, add on a little breezeway, put
your garage over there where it belongs, then he
wouldn't need any variance.
Anyway, that's my statement for today and
thank you very much for your time.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you. Yes,
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MS. MADELENA: Good afternoon, my name is
Joanne Madelena, my residence is 510 Youngs
Avenue, just north of the Lynch residence. I have
a tiny garage, which was built in 1929, and I
cannot put one of my vehicles in that garage. We
also own a boat, we keep our boat at a marina for
storage. It certainly is not a hardship for us to
put our boat at a marina for storage, and I can't
understand why someone would need to keep it on
their property. That's the only point. Thank
you.
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MR. ANDERSON: Could I just add one thing
to my statement? It was stated that both the
Lynch property and my property have large garages
In the backyard where they should be, and I know
from the prior ownership of the Lynch property
that they complied with the code, which lS the
same as mlne, an extension to an existing
accessory building. It was done 100 percent to
code, no variances were required. I just wanted
to put that on the record.
MR. FREDERICKSON: Good afternoon, my name
lS Jim Frederickson, and I live at 195 Youngs
Avenue. I am directly west of Mr. Leigey's
property, across Youngs Avenue. You'll have to
excuse me if I get emotional but I am very, very
concerned about having a building of the Slze
proposed in these documents directly in my line of
sight outside of the front of my property.
My wife has history in the town of
Greenport that extends over 50 years. She has a
family business that's there. And we are trying
to prepare for our future out here, which is where
we intend to spend the rest of our lives, and it
didn't have anywhere in that plan that I should be
looking at the back of a 30 foot building that may
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or may not be housing a business in a quiet,
heavenly residential area, which is why we spent
so much time looking for an ideal house that we
could live in. Now, to see a proposal like that,
it saddens me to an extent that I'm not sure I can
make you aware of.
Now, I will say even In his defense, when
he started clear cutting some of the property, I
said, you know, that's great for me because I know
what the property looked like prior to his clear
cutting it, and I couldn't see to the creek. I
said that looks nice, it's cleaned up, and I'm
going to have a winter view, and I can appreciate
that. And now when I go, my wife and I fight
because from day one I said now there's a truck
there, and now there's a construction vehicle with
advertising allover it and a trailer, and now
there's a fence surrounding 20, 30 yards of
debris. And from my bedroom windows upstairs I
can see the ditch that we're talking about, and
all the building supplies that are stashed In
there. That's not why I moved to Southold. I
moved here because I can see the potential and the
beauty that's out here. That's what I want to
live with. I don't want to live with the back of
a barn. Thank you very much.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you, anybody
else? Yes, ma'am.
MS. SHEA: My name is Maureen Shea, 250
Calves Neck Road. I will make my remarks brief.
I live in an historic house, the Thomas Lester
house, also known as the Booth house. We've put a
lot of care into preserving and restoring this as
part of the historic heritage of the area. Our
house directly faces the Town Creek and the
applicant's house, that's the front view from our
home. Although much mention has been made of an
old house and the integrity of an old house, I
haven't seen any indication that there's concern
about the preservation of a heritage house and
grounds to preserve this. Rather, I've seen
destruction of landscape, destruction of view,
debris, and I share the concerns of the people
that have spoken before me, what it has left me
with is a great lack of confidence in the
applicant's intent and concern for the particular
area and what his new development would do this to
area. I do not have any confidence that this
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would be an asset to preserving the lovely
historic nature of the community and the park
area. Thank you.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you. Yes, sir?
MR. GRANFORD: Good afternoon, my name is
Sal Granford. I live at 575 Hill Road. I'd just
like to tell you a story about my summer time in
Southold. If you want to make a left turn from
Wells Avenue or from Youngs Avenue from the south
side, the only safe way to do it is to Youngs
Avenue, there's a stop light; if you didn't take
Wells Avenue, you're gOlng to be cut in two. So
every day when I want to go to the Main Road I go
up Youngs Avenue. Every day going up Youngs
Avenue for quite a period of time, all I ever
witnessed was debris. It was the only place In
our part of the woods, that looked anything like
that. I don't understand why it was justified,
why it was allowed, but it was allowed. I think
after numerous complaints part of a fence was put
up, vegetation but there was all kinds of building
materials just laying there, piping, fencing, to
name a few. I think if you were to judge the size
of this building, I think you have to take into
account, the only way to know what the future lS
is to look at the past. And if you judge the
past, then you have a better look at the future.
See what had happened and think about the size of
this building, and if it's appropriate for this
spot. Thank you.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you. Anybody
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else?
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MR. ANDERSON: Could I ask for the record
that the people that have not spoken at least name
themselves as representatives for the cause?
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Come up to the
microphone, sure.
MS. BERRY:
Southold.
MR. KROLL:
MS. MANN:
Betty Berry, 500 Hill Road in
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Ken Kroll, 265 Youngs Avenue.
Joan Mann, 1775 Calves Neck
Road.
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MS. GRANFORD: Lucille Granford, 575 Hill
Road.
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MR. MADELENA: Robert Madelena, 510 Youngs
Avenue, Southold. By the way, I'd like to
describe the manner in which I discovered who had
bought this house when Mr. Leigey did buy it. And
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that was during my walks to Town Creek, finding
all of his trucks parked in the park district
parking lot for what seemed like a long, long
time. So I think this shows total disregard for
anything he might do.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you.
MS. NORTHUM: Johanna Northum, 1150 Calves
Neck Road. I think the bottom line here is that
it's illegal to put a structure this size in a
residential neighborhood. Thank you.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you.
MS. STEINAKER: Sandra Steinaker, 560
Youngs Avenue. The house was owned by my very
best friend Betty, she died. If she could see
what's happened to that place, her son lS so upset
for that purpose.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you. I make a
motion to adjourn the hearing subject to the
applicant providing us with the information that's
required.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: How much time,
Mr. VanDenBerg, do you think you'll be able to
have all that in in the next two and-a-half weeks?
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: It was my
understanding that the applicant was going to come
next themselves?
MR. VANDENBERG: Yes.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: I'd prefer to
adjourn with the date. The meeting in February is
the 22nd if that's okay. Otherwise, it would be
January 25th, if you feel that's too soon.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Yes, sir?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Could I ask a question
as far as February is not a great month because a
lot of people they go on vacation in February. So
if that's the case there won't be as many people
come and listen to the hearing.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: Well, it may be
that way every month. So how would you know which
month more people will be here? So which is the
best month for everybody?
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: It may not be fair to
the applicant whether we agree or don't agree. If
he's under some sort of time constraint.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: You can have a
representative; you can have a substitute for
you.
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CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA:
You're all probably
December 2S, 2006
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on computers or telephone.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Can I comment?
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Yes, Jim.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: What he comes back
with may be radically different from what it is
right now. And quite honestly, I myself did not
hear any alternatives from your side. Everybody
had a comment, and, you know, I for one, February
or March lS fine for this gentleman, and if I
think I haven't gotten enough information, I'm
gOlng to ask that it be held, but if you could
write to us what you feel is acceptable, I
certainly will read those. They have to go into
the record. Maybe we can consider it that way.
MS. LYNCH: I don't think we were aware
that we could propose alternatives.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: We tend to make
better decisions if the people -- it's not a
decision based on what you think, but certainly, I
mean, you heard my comment and I have my own way
of thinking about these things, as do all five of
us. But tell us what you think is acceptable. I
felt like I wanted to ask you, but I did not want
you to feel like you were being grilled.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Did everybody agree with
what the Park's Department said they would like to
do?
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: Then they can write a
letter to that effect.
BOARD SECY. KOWALSKI: You could put a
letter in and also I think that Mr. VanDenBerg
would need to submit the information at least a
week before that February meeting. So if you
would like to be in touch with us the week before
February 22nd and look at the file, it's available
to you.
BOARD MEMBER WEISMAN: I'd also like to
reiterate what Mr. Dinizio said. I have to write
the draft finding for this case and would very
much welcome opinions on alternatives. Again,
they don't determine what the outcome is, but
they're certainly important to the record. There
are alternative possibilities, numerous
alternative possibilities to this, and I would
also want all of you to know that we on this Board
are very aware of the proposed changes to the code
for accessory structures. I have been
instrumental in working on the draft legislation,
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not the legislation so much as the proposal that
the legislation has to be done by the Town Board,
but on proposals that examine the size and
proportionality, and so has Miss Oliva been
involved In that. So we're very aware of our
concern of making sure that the scale and
character of all the hamlets are respected.
BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I have one more
thing, I did hear this comment, I just wanted to
be clear, that this applicant is here because it
isn't allowed In the code. So you can say it's
illegal, but our Board is the relief for that
because there are a lot of older structures, and
you're all aware of that that can't be moved, and
they're built on the property line. So he's
coming to us for some relief from that code, and
we have the power to grant it. And we're looking
for the best for all the neighbors. Quite
honestly, a structure that's the size of my house
1 don't know if that's going to happen. Think of
it as relief, not necessarily that we're going to
let him break the law.
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: In other words, we
are the Appellate Division of the Board, the board
you come to seek relief from. Sometimes we glve
it; sometimes we make amendments, but we listen to
everybody. We're always interested In any of your
comments or what have you.
BOARD MEMBER SIMON: To supplement that
remark, is nothing like this would come before us
if it hadn't been judged at least to be
technically illegal, and then it appeals for us,
then we have to decide whether we're going to
enforce the letter of the law or modify or offer
the notion of alternative relief is exactly why we
welcome any suggestions because sometimes we come
up with them ourselves, and the more help we get
from concerned citizens the better off we all are.
MR. VANDENBERG: When you come up with a
proposal, is that a place to start negotiating
from?
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BOARD MEMBER SIMON: The form it would
typically take is if the applicant doesn't already
alter the proposal, the Board may deny and then
put together all this other information, and come
up with alternative relief, which lS then offered
to the applicant. So it will coalesce into one or
two or three alternatives based on all the inputs
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that have been received.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Can something be done
about the mess in the short term?
BOARD MEMBER GOEHRINGER: We are not
charged with that code enforcement.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Aren't there codes for
the number of vehicles?
CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: I would suggest that
you call Mr. Edward Forrester. He's located In
the annex building. Thank you very much. I'll
make a motion to adjourn the hearing.
(See minutes for resolution.)
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C E R T I FIe A T ION
I, Florence v. Wiles, Notary Public for the
State of New York, do hereby certify:
THAT the within transcript is a true record of
the testimony given.
I further certify that I am not related by
blood or marriage, to any of the parties to this
action; and
THAT I am in no way interested in the outcome
of this matter.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my
hand this 28th day of December, 2006.
,
December 28, 2006