It’s official: causeway law adopted

After more than a year and a half of worry, work, discussion and debate, the Town Board on Friday adopted rules to limit development on the Ram Island causeways.

The rules, which do not replace or otherwise affect the enforcement of the existing wetlands code on the causeways, set a minimum lot size of 5 acres; restrict house size to a maximum of 1,800 square feet depending on lot size and house height to 25 feet from grade; tightly limit clearing, and bar all accessory structures including garages, tennis courts or swimming pools. The rules, which establish a new causeway zone, require applicants to obtain a causeway permit from the Town Board in addition to a town wetlands permit. Under the new rules, no causeway applications may be submitted until all other state, county and local required permits are obtained.

The board’s vote ends a moratorium on permits for new causeway construction that the Town Board imposed in March 2010 and extended as the rules were developed by Town Board members, the town attorney and citizen groups.

Under existing state and town wetlands regulations, there may be as few as one and perhaps as many as three parcels along the causeway for which owners might be able to obtain building permits. No applications are pending and none ever has been sought except for the house of Alexander Zagoreos, the only structure on the low-lying sandy isthmus along Ram Island Road.

Zoning Board and Town Board approvals for its reconstruction in 2010 after a fire in 2007 inspired a collective gasp from the community, especially on Little Ram and Ram Island. Many people feared that the owners of other privately held parcels would decide to build, ruining a nearly pristine coastal barrier environment that has been a scenic landmark for generations of Islanders and visitors.

Work to establish the moratorium and come up with special rules to limit any construction on the causeway began in February 2010, as Councilwoman Chris Lewis reported to a packed audience in Town Hall Friday evening when the Town Board opened the first of three hearings on the causeway rules, which are encompassed in three amendments to the town code.

No one in the audience knew for sure whether the board would adopt the causeway rules after Friday’s hearings or table them again for further revisions, which would have required the board to extend its moratorium once again before it expired on December 31. In the end, the board voted after its long agenda was completed without further discussion or debate.

Councilwoman Chris Lewis later acknowledged in an interview that she had told her colleagues on Thursday she would call for a vote, whether they were for or against the proposals.

Board members credited Ms. Lewis as the key player who met with a special committee, groups of concerned citizens and Town Attorney Laury Dowd every few weeks for many months to hammer out the rules that were adopted Friday. She said in a later interview Councilman Glenn Waddington worked with her during some of the committee sessions.

Ms. Lewis on Friday called the package of proposals a “Frankenstein” in the way it came together piece by piece; she was referring to a previous reference made at Friday’s meeting to another pending code proposal — to allow paved driveways in the Near Shore Overlay Protection District — as the “Bride of Frankenstein.” That proposal was put on hold Friday for a possible vote at a special meeting set for December 29.

She told the audience that all the public’s comments were considered during the review process. Even if a comment did not result in a change in the proposal, “You weren’t ignored,” Ms. Lewis said.

“All the time the goal has been to balance the right of property owners to the use of their land with protecting a fragile and unique place,” Ms. Lewis said.

No one voiced opposition to the proposals during the three related public hearings conducted over the course of an hour. Instead, there were more suggestions for tweaking the proposal and several questions about how many houses might be built on the causeways — something that town officials and Louise Harrison, the environmental consultant the board brought in to delineate wetlands on the causeways, declined to specify.

The town hired a surveyor to map her findings, which showed more than half of the private lots to be wetlands that are protected from development by existing laws. Tim Hogue, president of Shelter Island Association, was among those pressing for a document or map to show once and for all where houses could be built on the causeways.

When he spoke at the first hearing Friday, Robert DeLuca, president of the Group for the East End, explained the reluctance of public officials to estimate total lot yield: “A town can’t be essentially telling anyone how to come up with a building envelope,” he explained. All it can do “is set parameters.” He said that “people will try anything” hoping to win permits to develop coastal property.

Mr. DeLuca praised the Town Board, which he said “deserves a lot of credit” for its work.

“This board has done what the public asked it to do” even as it changed course during the process to revise the regulations in response to a burst of opposition in June, when the initial proposal was formally aired. “This board has risen to the challenge” and it was owed “a debt of gratitude.”

He called the regulations “A very positive protection strategy for the causeways.”