Building moratorium meets with resistance at Town Hall

There were three challenges at the April 25  Town Board meeting to the proposed 12-month moratorium on large construction projects that the Board is seeking.

Two were speakers representing property owners requesting special permits for houses that would exceed the permitted 5,999 square feet of living space.

The third was Richard Hogan, the developer of Pandion, with five houses on the 25-acre site he purchased from the Passionist Fathers for $15.1 million in 2015. The Catholic religious order had operated St. Gabriel’s Retreat Center on the property overlooking Coecles Harbor.

Mr. Hogan called the proposed moratorium “lazy legislation,” when there would be better ways to assess land use. In other hands, the St. Gabriel property could have had 21 small homes, none of which would have exceeded zoning code restrictions.

It’s not a moratorium or the need to limit house sizes that’s necessary, he argued. Instead, the town should adopt a policy relating development to what the entire lot size is.

Maybe the issue isn’t lot size, Councilwoman BJ Ianfolla said, but a question of water use on a large lot.

Deny an application if that’s necessary to protect the environment, Mr. Hogan said, but that doesn’t require a moratorium.

Two speakers — one representing Crescent Beach LLC at 11 Serpentine Drive and the other representing owners of property at 149 North Ram Island Road challenged the proposal for a moratorium on behalf of their clients.

John Bennett of Bennettt & Read, LLP, for the Serpentine Drive application, said the public hearing for the community was inappropriate at this stage since the Suffolk County Planning Board hasn’t met to assess the request and has been critical of requests for moratoriums.

Town Attorney Stephen Kiely said a vote of four of the five Town Board members could override the County Planning Commission if it turned down the request. The Planning Commission is to meet on Wednesday, May 3.

Moratoriums are reserved for “dire necessity” and should only be used to deal with crisis situations, according to Mr. Bennett. There is no emergency, he said. But if the Town Board is determined, the Serpentine project should be given a hardship variance, Mr. Bennett said.

In the second case, Christopher Kelley of the law firm Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin & Quartararo, representing the owners of property at 149 North Ram Island Road, said the owners purchased a property in which a basement under construction had been finished without a special permit. But the current owners simply wanted to act to make the space legal, according to their representative.

The Building Department turned down the request because the basement space now contains an extra bedroom, necessitating installation of an I/A septic system. The owners went to the expense of doing that, but the threat of a moratorium would block the attempt to make the space legal. In the interest of justice, the application should be approved now, Mr. Kelley said.

Heights Property Owners Corporation General Manager Stella Lagudis said her board supports a 12-month moratorium.

She cited the increase in applications for large houses and said continuing in that direction would change the community character and pose threats to the aquifer and wetlands. The 1994 Comprehensive Plan already calls for scaling back house sizes and the work on updating it currently underway also appears likely to maintain that advice.

“Stop and take a breath,” Ms. Lagudis said.

Bayman Bert Waife made the same argument about large houses posing a threat to community character.

The hearing was recessed and will be discussed by the Town Board and reopened to the public possibly on May.16, the date of the next regular Town Board meeting.

Wetlands authority

The controversial proposal to transfer final decisions on wetlands permits from the Town Board to the Planning Board was passed by a 3-1 vote, with Councilman Jim Colligan absent.

Public hearings had been held in March and April at which no speakers favored the change, and many argued against it. But no member of the public commented on the vote Tuesday night.

Only Deputy Supervisor Amber Brach-Williams voted no. She said the general opposition from the public to transferring the authority convinced her to take more time.

Ms. Brach-Williams also pointed out that delays addressing other aspects of how wetlands permits represent legislating in a “piecemeal” way. She preferred to maintain the current practice with the Town Board considering all changes.

That didn’t convince her colleagues, who supported the decision-making authority going to the Planning Board.

Right of way safety law

A public hearing on a law to prohibit obstructions in or near roadways from posing dangers to public health and safety easily secured a 4-0 vote after a public hearing at which no one commented.

It would give notice to property owners of the need to remove obstructions, while giving the town the right to act if property owners failed to do so.