Grant wetlands permit again? Dougherty says no, 2 other board members yes

Town Board members were divided Tuesday when they discussed a controversial application for a wetlands permit from Andrew Gitlin to build a two-story house with a basement and mezzanine on a one-third acre waterfront lot he owns at 70 Peconic Avenue in Silver Beach.

The aging bulkhead on the lot gave way during Sunday’s storm and the surf gouged out several yards of soil from the property, according to a Silver Beach resident. Neighboring properties were also affected.

The lot covers about 14,000 square feet. The house would occupy 10.3 percent of the small parcel.

The Gitlin permit expired early this year and Mr. Gitlin, whose contractor failed to meet the deadline for renewing it, has had to start from scratch and submit a new application. Neighbors oppose the application, saying the house would be too big for the lot and it would ruin a waterfront view and the character of the neighborhood.

Supervisor Jim Dougherty argued that the “the world has dramatic changed” since the board granted the permit in a 5-0 vote in 2008. It’s now known, he said, that septic wastes leaching from underground cesspools are damaging the health of the Peconic Bay system more than any other factor.

He said the Town Board had to be “stricter guardians” of the environment. “It’s in more fragile shape than it was two years ago,” he said, “so I feel quite comfortable” taking a new stand on the application because “we have been given a second chance to vote the proper way.”

“I don’t accept that I’m not allowed to have discretion in the matter,” he said.

No hardship had been shown in the Gitlin case and  no offer for “mitigation” had been made — a concession to scale back the project to reduce its impacts, Mr. Dougherty argued.

Councilwoman Chris Lewis and Councilman Glenn Waddington argued in favor of the granting the application.

“I’ll say I thought long and hard two years ago when I voted in favor” of the application, Mr. Waddington said. “I’m going to hold to that.”

He added that doing so was “probably not a politically astute thing to do in an election year,” which prompted a rebuke from Mr. Dougherty. He called the comment “an inappropriate remark.”

“This is the same house under the same code” that was in effect when the board granted the permit in 2008, Mr. Waddington said, reading a letter to the board from Planning Board member Emory Briener, who asked how the board could change its mind unless it intended to be “arbitrary and capricious” — legal language for all lawsuits seeking to overturn a municipal decision.

Ms. Lewis said she understood the neighbors’ concerns. “However my personal feeling is my conscience says they get their permit,” she said.

It was immaterial whether or not Mr. Gitlin intended to sell the house or use it himself, she said, and the only way the property could be protected from development was to buy it, she argued. “I thought it was okay two years ago. I can’t change my mind,” she said.

Councilman Peter Reich noted that a major point of contention in 2008 was a proposed patio and it had been dropped from the application before it was approved then. As for denying a new permit, that would make sense “had we changed the code” that was in effect in 2008, he said.

Councilman Ed Brown suggested that “maybe we can do a little more” in the way of pushing Mr. Gitlin to reduce the environmental impacts of the project.

Peconic BayKeeper Kevin McAllister was in the audience for the long discussion of the Gitlin case at Tuesday’s work session. He said he’d seen a story about the application in the Reporter, and had read that the Conservation Advisory Council had changed its own opinion on the application: it was split 4-3 in favor in 2008, it now opposes it 9-0. The reason for the change was new research showing the greatest threat to the bays is from septic systems, according to the CAC’s chair, Ed Bausman.

“We are seeing a trend toward impaired waters,” Mr. McAllister said, along “the entire south shore” of eastern Long Island. Excessive nitrogen loading from septic systems is causing chronic algae blooms. “It’s an alarming trend,” he said, noting a recent study that found large increases of nitrogen in groundwater in Long Island’s aquifer.

He said scientists now attributed 70 percent of the nitrogen to old and ineffective septic systems, 9 percent to fertilizers and the balance to atmospheric deposition.

“I implore the town to be really conscious of its land use decisions,” he said, adding that Shelter Island was “not immune” from the trends being seen on the South Fork and elsewhere on Long Island.

“My point is you can define your own destiny,” he said, by “changing the way you do things,” with upzonings, denitrification systems. He told the board that it had the legal authority to impose stricter rules for septic systems than the Suffolk County Department of Health Services.

He said typical residential cesspools, even when they are not old and crumbling underground, “do very little for nitrogen reduction.”

He and the board discussed the pros and cons of a new generation of residential septic systems that reduces nitrogen far more effectively than conventional septic system. It is not currently approved by the Suffolk County Health Department but it has been approved in other states, according to Mr. McAllister.

Several board members agreed Tuesday to go visit the parcel after they learned that Hurricane Irene’s winds and tides had damaged the aging bulkhead there, gouging out the property in 20-foot chunks.

The board is likely to schedule a vote on the Gitlin application at its next formal meeting at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, September 9.