Yacht Club application sends ZBA back 41 years

What was the Shelter Island Zoning Board of Appeals thinking 41 years ago?

That’s the question the current ZBA is trying to answer in response to an application from the Shelter Island Yacht Club to use an adjacent lot for various functions, including  parking and boat and equipment storage.

Three members of the five-member ZBA struggled again with that question last Wednesday night, ultimately concluding they couldn’t reach a unanimous agreement and would have to put off a decision until their chairman, Doug Matz, returns to the table.

The problem is that the lot belongs not to the Yacht Club, but to the Shelter Island Development Corporation that was created 41 years ago, ostensibly to acquire the land and avoid what members apparently thought would be a tax increase for the club.

For years, club members have made use of the lot behind the club for parking, boat storage and even to erect a couple of storage sheds. But when permission to use the lot was granted in 1971, it was accompanied by the proviso that the Yacht Club purchase the land and that never happened.

Accordingly, when members sought a building permit for the existing sheds, they got a turn down that sent them to the ZBA. Their attorney, Anthony Tohill of Riverhead, argued that the approval they sought was identical to what they got in 1971 and the ownership of the land should have no impact on the decision the ZBA should render in granting the necessary permission.

With Mr. Matz absent last Wednesday night and William Johnston III recusing himself from the discussion because he has done work for the Yacht Club in recent months, that left three members at the table — Patricia Shillingburg, Phil DiOrio and Neal Raymond — who couldn’t find much on which to agree. It would take three votes to either grant or turn down the application and after a half hour’s struggle, the one conclusion they could draw was that they needed another voice at the table if there was any hope of finding a resolution.

Mr. Raymond wanted to insert a statement in an agreement that would prohibit the Yacht Club and the Shelter Island Development Corporation from selling either piece of property without the other.

Mr. DiOrio couldn’t get that far along, struggling with trying to understand whether there was anything in the original ruling that absolutely required the Yacht Club to buy the second lot from the Shelter Island Development Corporation. Neither the minutes of meetings to discuss the issue back in 1971 nor the decision rendered at the time were clear on that.

What the current ZBA does have is an affidavit from former Yacht Club commodore Jay Helme, now living in Florida. No former ZBA members who rendered that ZBA decision are alive today.

Mr. Helme said he negotiated the purchase of the second parcel from Yacht Club member Hank Bull in 1971 and said the lot was purchased to meet club needs. Yacht Club attorney Edward Dinkel, now deceased, advised the club to hold the Bull parcel as a separate entity and there was no condition in the ZBA ruling at the time that required common ownership of the two lots, Mr. Helme said. The shares of the Shelter Island Yacht Club Development Corporation “were and always have been solely owned by the Yacht Club,” he said. The only requirement the ZBA imposed at the time, he said, was that the membership approve the purchase and that vote did occur.

Mr. Helme also attached a copy of the tax bill for the land that has been paid by the Yacht Club.
For the Yacht Club to acquire the Bull property directly would have resulted in “a huge capital gain,” Mr. Helme said, explaining why it has continued to be held by the separate corporation.

He said he has no reason to believe the Yacht Club would sell the Bull parcel because “history since 1971 shows the wisdom of the acquisition and the need for this space to meet the needs of the Yacht Club.”

Ms. Shillingburg said that her own tax attorney had told her the issue cited in 1971 about a major hit in capital gains taxes was “fallacious.”

But she said the two properties have clearly been functioning as one all these years. She said she can’t see how the Yacht Club could function today without using the second lot.

Various suggestions for wording a decision were tossed around with the Building Department’s Mary Wilson cautioning that members not adopt any language that isn’t clearly defined.