Shelter Island Town Board discusses issues to resolve for 2025

Town Board members discussed issues they think need attention at the Jan. 14 work session, but followed Supervisor Amber Brach-Williams’ lead in not yet prioritizing anything.

At the same time, there are several efforts that got attention in 2024, that the supervisor said, she thought could be concluded fairly quickly by some early attention. Among them is to complete the Town Board’s review of the Comprehensive Plan to ready it for one or more public hearings.

COMPREHENSIVE PLAN

A municipality’s Comprehensive Plan dictates policy on multiple fronts, including development, land use, transportation and housing. In 1994, a Comprehensive Plan was adopted by a Town Board resolution. A seven-month effort of discussion and research in 2008 produced an update to that plan, but the Board rejected it.

DOCKS

Another issue to resolve is the dock code revision. It has gone through two controversial public hearings, and objections to the plan from the public must be addressed before bringing it back for a third and potentially final public hearing before a Town Board vote. Whether changes being reviewed by the Town Board will prove acceptable to the public at a third public hearing remains to be seen.

SPACE AT TOWN HALL

There’s a need to assess municipal buildings to determine their condition and ways in which each can be used. Space has long been tight in the Town Hall complex. A house adjacent to Town Hall that was owned by the government was once eyed for offices, but ultimately was demolished when the previous administration decided it was beyond repair.

WATER, WATER

In response to a question at a previous meeting, Ms. Brach-Williams said the Town Board would soon be hearing from Town Engineer Joe Finora about ways to address water quality in Center municipal buildings. Mandated by the Suffolk County Department of Health to implement a permanent solution to the issue.

Town officials have been allowed to use temporary moves to ensure water is safe until a permanent solution is in place. But Mr. Finora said time is running out and it’s necessary to push ahead.

That is one of the critical issues that has been identified by the administration from the time Ms. Brach-Williams became supervisor.

It appears there’s now a move to prioritize it this year.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Deputy Supervisor Meg Larsen wants an examination of whether a floating zone established years ago for affordable housing — but declared not usable in the past year — could be made to work in selecting where the housing could be constructed.

Also underway on the affordable housing front is work on accessory dwelling units with State ADU-Plus grant money.  Accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, allow property owners to either adapt a main house to accommodate a tenant, or develop a housing unit that could be in a separate structure on their property. While they aren’t held to affordable levels of rent, the hope is some will be.

The Town received a $2 million grant to start the project and a second $2 million is earmarked for more units with grants to individual property owners of up to $125,000.

MEGA HOUSES

Regulating the size of houses on the Island is another issue that has been discussed for years, and  is still open for debate. “We just can’t have any more 12,000-square-foot homes,” Councilman Benjamin Dyett said. The Board has generally been united in controlling such large houses, but hasn’t arrived at a solution on how to do it.

Mr. Dyett said he believes applications should be considered on an entire structure, not just that part of the house that is heated and air conditioned. There have been a number of projects on which applications have outlined plans for only finished rooms, but after a certificate of occupancy has been received, the property owner finishes other areas of the structure not covered by the applications.

By considering the entire structure, whether or not all space is completed, there would be no need for ongoing monitoring and the owner would have to abide by a decision based on what may or may not happen in the entire structure.

Another possibility was to base how large a structure could be on the entire lot size. Councilman Albert Dickson has been firm about limiting any future structure from being more than 5,999 square feet. Mr. Dyett has suggested a somewhat larger entire structure, but certainly not anything like some of the mega houses that have been constructed.

Deputy Supervisor Meg Larsen had suggested another plan for this issue but to date, it hasn’t gained traction.

NEW ATTORNEY

A major issue for Mr. Dickson is hiring a new attorney to replace Stephen Kiely who has resigned. Mr. Kiely was attorney for the Zoning Board of Appeals. It remains to be seen if the next Town Attorney also assumes that role or someone else is needed to provide legal advice to the ZBA.

FRESH POND

Other unfinished projects include finding money to conclude the cleanup of Fresh Pond. A temporary solution happened this summer, but grant money is needed to push forward with the technology identified as providing a permanent solution.

PLANNING BOARD  

In the few weeks since the dawning of the New Year, much time has been devoted to interviews to add members to Town committees. The decision not to have Ian McDonald continue as Planning Board chairman leaves that position open. The chair is  expected to go to one of the current four members, two of whom say they would like the job. (See story, page 6 .) The Planning Board attorney Elizabeth Baldwin also resigned and must be replaced.

COUNCILMAN’S CONCERNS

The Town Board’s newest member, Councilman Gordon Gooding, said he’s thinking about priorities in some different ways than his colleagues. He called for a shorter, more focused list, which he said would be less chaotic. Mr. Gooding emphasized ensuring goals are attainable, and legal actions attendant to any projects be examined.

He also raised issues about allowing public comment on matters that could be the subject of legislation. Those matters have been marked with an asterisk, indicating the public could only comment on them at a public hearing, but not at other times.

Other requests he made were for a monthly Town budget report; a full environmental review of the Comprehensive Plan; and development of a complete wastewater system to serve Center municipal and public buildings.

Ms. Brach-Williams said she planned to begin to prioritize suggestions from her own list. Right now, the list resides on Sharepoint, a system only open to Town Board members or members of committees for their internal use.