St. Gabe’s plan tweaked: Planners to involve ZBA, Town Board
St. Gabriel’s property owner Richard Hogan and his representatives brought a revised proposal to the Planning Board Tuesday night that splits what was originally one of five house lots into two separate lots.
That brings to eight the number of lots to be developed on the property — six individual house lots and two homeowners’ association facilities.
The 25-acre site could accommodate three times that number of developed sites, Mr. Hogan’s attorney, William Fleming, told the planners.
Planning Board member Ian McDonald pointed out that it could be possible to get permission to build a main house and an accessory building on the two merged lots. But an accessory building can’t have kitchen and bathroom facilities as the main house would.
As for the two homeowners’ association lots, one is intended to be a boathouse adjacent to a dock that potentially could accommodate six slips, Mr. Fleming said.
The second would be designated as either a clubhouse or parkland depending on its use, Planning Board attorney Anthony Pasca said.
“You guys have to figure that out, which way you want to go,” Mr. Pasca advised.
To get the most flexibility of use, Mr. Pasca suggested Mr. Hogan seek a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals that could provide some flexibility for that second homeowners’ association lot’s use.
One use contemplated for that area would be storage of boats. But that’s not likely something a parkland designation would allow, Mr. Pasca said. Parkland allows for recreational activities and while boating falls under that definition, boat storage doesn’t, Mr. Pasca said.
The process is a long one starting with Planning Board review of the latest proposal and develop questions for Mr. Hogan and his team. Once those are answered, the team would have to develop a sketch of the proposal that would be used by the planners for a SEQRA environmental review.
Because of its location, the SEQRA process would be designated as a “type one” situation requiring much greater review, including Suffolk County Department of Health Services permits.
The Planning Board would share with the ZBA and Town Board the sketch and invite the other two boards to weigh in on the proposal and indicate whether either would like to be the lead agency for the environmental review or allow the Planning Board to take lead agency status.
