Editorial: Great work
A collegial, always-compromising approach is useful, up to a point. But sooner or later, when it comes to complex, controversial proposals that aren’t perfect and never will be, somebody’s got to stand up and take a position. With Councilwoman Chris Lewis leading the way, the Town Board finally did just that on Friday.
After a very long haul, the board took the bull by the horns and adopted three code amendments that limit development on the Ram Island causeways. The code changes severely limit lot clearing and house size, set a minimum size for new lots and ban accessory structures. Short of buying all private parcels on the causeways — which the town is in no position to do right now — the new rules are the next best thing for protecting a scenic landmark.
Now that the rules are in place and the veil of uncertainty over the legislation’s fate is gone, it suddenly becomes abundantly clear that the Town Board and Town Attorney Laury Dowd did a very good job staying on track through the long slog of discussions and revisions.
Special credit, however, goes to the ever-steady and straightforward Councilwoman Chris Lewis, who formed a committee in 2010 to develop the rules. It included hydrologist Drew Bennett, permits administrator Mary Wilson, Zoning Board member Bill “Punch” Johnston, Mark Mobius, who has a degree from Duke in environmental management, Ms. Dowd and Ms. Lewis. They worked with the Shelter Island Association and other community members to develop the rules over many months and through major revisions.
There was plenty of doubt before last week that the board would enact the legislation before the end of the year. As always, there were more suggestions for refining and tweaking — including somehow weaving in the findings of wetlands delineator Louise Harrison, whose services were funded by the Shelter Island Association. She determined this fall that more than half of the causeway’s privately held properties are state-protected wetlands. The state DEC officially sanctioned her findings and a surveyor, hired by the town, has mapped and memorialized those boundaries for future reference.
That’s vital information that will help protect the community’s interests when and if anyone seeks the required permits to build a house on the causeways. But there was no good reason to rewrite the proposal all over again. Wetlands are protected by state regulations and a local code that has served the town well.
More suggestions for added tweaks were made at Friday’s hearing, some of them good. But the code can be amended if changes become necessary. The time for action had come. The day before the hearing, Ms. Lewis told the other board members she would insist on a vote Friday and she got it — three votes, actually, because the causeway code is encompassed in three code amendments. All votes were unanimous.
