Town Board wrestles with property rights

At its Tuesday work session, the Town Board returned to discussions about regulating how homeowners use their property.

Brad Tolkin’s applications to build a large house on Charlie’s Lane have consumed the board’s business for almost two months. Don Bouchard, an architect for Mr. Tolkin, joked before the meeting about the amount of money he was spending on ferry tickets.

The board also discussed how to regulate private properties used for large outdoor properties, focusing on 89 Ram Island Drive, owned by Trip McCrossin. It’s been alleged that Mr. McCrossin is renting out his property, zoned residential, specifically for large wedding receptions.

On the Tolkin issue, the board reviewed language for a resolution on the project, which means demolishing an existing structure on Charlie’s Lane and constructing a 7,840-square-foot house with six bedrooms, six full baths and two half baths.

Neighbors have mobilized, organizing a significant protest concerning the size of the proposed project, water usage, traffic and negative environmental impacts if the applications are approved.

The board has negotiated with Mr. Tolkin’s representatives to whittle down the size and water use of the property.

Tuesday language was tweaked for a future resolution on numbers of water tankers that will be allowed to service the property and also how to verify if the homeowner will return Charlie’s Lane to conditions prior to construction after the house is built.

Supervisor Jim Dougherty noted that these concerns were “the least of our problems,” and said again that he wanted a full environmental review of the plans.

He objected to language that the project would not adversely affect the aquifer, and at Councilman Ed Brown’s suggestion, the language was changed to “many steps have been taken to reduce the impact on the aquifer.”

Councilman Paul Shepherd questioned a full blown environmental review. “I couldn’t see any specific thing that would jump out at me that I didn’t feel that we already generally knew,” Mr. Shepherd said.

He later added “I don’t know that this house will ultimately have any damaging impact on the environment that isn’t present in any project.”

He suggested that in the future, the town code might be changed so single family homes would be subject to zoning by size.

The issue of 89 Ram Island Drive goes back years, and resurfaced a year ago when neighbors began complaining of the large parties that, they alleged, were held by people paying Mr. McCrossin solely to have wedding receptions. This would be a commercial use in a residential zone, if it were, in fact, the case.

Last week, the discussion turned to changing the public assembly permitting process to limit the number of large parties a family could hold, and defined the size by either numbers of people, tent size, portable toilets used and traffic.

Tuesday Town Attorney Laury Dowd opened the discussion on what language should be added or changed to the town code.

Mr. Dougherty said that “we don’t want to overregulate” and that the subject of large parties “hasn’t been a major problem,” except in the case of Mr. McCrossin’s property.

“I don’t know why this individual can’t be gone after,” Building Inspector William Banks said. “By his own admission in some of his correspondence he’s admitted that he does this to defray the costs of keeping the property.”

Police Chief Jim Read asked Mr. Banks why Mr. McCrossin hasn’t been issued a summons.

Mr. Banks said that he had mentioned a summons before but was told, “it wasn’t a good idea.”

Ms. Dowd said she would review the situation with Mr. Banks, but added that in Mr. McCrossin’s last correspondence with the town he “insisted he took no money.”