Town Board - Regular Meeting

I can't hear anything. I don't.

There we go. We can hear you really. We're going to mute you. And you can always unmute yourself and do a speech later. Respondents? No. Nothing. That's related to the stack.

Yes.

Does anyone in the public have questions about any resolutions that were not subject to a public hearing? Anyone on Zoom? OK. We'll proceed with resolutions. Elizabeth, you could have started. Great.

All right, whereas Courtney O'Sullivan and Pierre Champagneau, 74 Peconic, Suffolk tax maps 700-25-1-6 have petitioned the town of Shelter Island for a permit to remove 101 plus or minus feet of timber bulkhead base to be replaced in place with vinyl shoot bulkhead and to remove and replace a 10, but return along the southern property line with a vinyl return and to backfill with existing fill from the property as per plan submitted by S. Heaney Marine Construction Inc., dated March 4, 2026, and approved by the New York State DEC under General Permit GP-122, COB, Erika Vandenbrande:" 001 data April 2 2026 now therefore be it resolved that pursuant to section 53 of the code of the town of shelter island, the public hearing will be held on. COB, Erika Vandenbrande:" Monday August 10 2026 at 6pm or soon thereafter prevailing time and then in the shelter island town hall. 38 North Ferry Road, Shelter Island, New York, for all interested persons to be heard in favor and oppositions to the proposed application. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye.

Motion carried.

Whereas Bingo Project Solutions, LLC, Karamanti Weddings, 47B South Ferry Road, has petitioned the town of Shelter Island for permission to install a riparian moray at a location designated as Latitude 41.06717 North, And 72.30653 West. Now, therefore, be it resolved that pursuant to Section 90-5 of the Code of the Town of Filth Riley, public hearing will be held at 6 p.m. or as soon as there is active prevailing time on Monday, August 10, 2026, in the South Round Town Hall in New York. For all interested persons to be heard in favor of or in opposition to the proposed installation, so moved. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Motion carried. Whereas an application for site plan approval was submitted by SI Corner LLC during Business and Stars Cafe at White Oak, the applicant, on May 7, 2026, to convert the existing White Oak wine tasting business to a coffee shop with packaged goods. And whereas the project is located at 4 Manwaring Road, Suffolk County Tax Map No. 700-15-3-1.2, Delta Island, a 44,670 square foot property located within a business B zone district, and whereas the project was deemed a type two action for state environmental quality review act purposes, and whereas the subject application was referred to the building department, conservation advisory council, the planning board, and the town engineer, and reports therefrom were issued and taken under consideration, and whereas on June 29th, 2026, a public hearing was held on the subject application where public comments were received and taken under consideration, And whereas the town board has reviewed said application with regard to the standards of review commemorated in town code section 109 dash three. And now, therefore, be it resolved with the town board hereby approves the subject site plan. For the applicant to convert the existing white oak wine tasting business to a coffee shop with packaged goods located at four man wearing road. is shown on the site plan prepared by Matthew Benjamin Sherman PE David May 7 2026 last revised June 2 2026 and subject to the following condition. one applicant shall plant and maintain vegetation along the post and rail fence front of the mammary road starting at the western entryway entryway for 30 feet running to the east so as to block parking along the post and rail fence in that area so moved second all in favor aye motion carried yeah whereas the public hearing was held on monday april 6th 2026

to hear any and all persons either for or against a local law entitled a local law amending chapter 115 taxation article 6 exemption for volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers now therefore be it resolved that the town board does hereby adopt local law Number four, 2026. Be it enacted in the town board of the town of Shelter Island as follows. Now this is on file and it's been greatly discussed, so I think I need to read this. So you can grab a copy at the clerk's office if you don't already have one. So we jump to the resolved bit. you know find it in three phases that's right yeah yeah well it says the local law shall take effect immediately upon filing with the secretary of state to move second we'll call vote um i'm explaining what i'm saying i vote yes

Benjamin Dyett?

Yes.

Albert Dixon?

Yes.

Motion carried.

Whereas the Shelter Island Lions Club Foundation P.O. Box 760 Shelter Island, NY 11964 has submitted an outdoor assembly application requesting an exemption from the noise ordinance for the July 25, 2026 fundraising event at Gardiners Bay Country Club. 12 diner rock road from 6 p.m to 10 30 p.m and whereas the town board reviewed and discussed said request that the july 7 2026 work session now therefore be resolved that said exemption from the noise ordinance is hereby approved so moved second all in favor aye motion carried

Steven Cyril on behalf of Sylvester Manor Educational Farm P.O. Box 2029 Shelter Island 11964 has submitted an outdoor assembly application requesting an exemption from the noise ordinance for their August 8, 2026 Creekside Concert fundraising event. From 430 to 730pm and whereas the town board reviewed and discuss said request that the July 7 2026 work session. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the set that said exemption from the noise ordinances hereby approved so moved second on favor.

i'm understanding Okay, yes.

Okay, I vote yes, this has to stay to. Because it says you're on the farm committee.

Yeah, abstain.

Yes, okay. You're abstaining. Okay. Yes. Okay. Albert Dixon? Yes. Motion carried.

Thank you.

It's me, right? Yes. Okay.

I know. Whereas pursuant to Chapter 33 of the Town Code, the Taylor's Island Foundation has submitted an application requesting permission to hold the benefit for the Smith Taylor Cabin and the Taylor's Island Foundation on Saturday, August 15, 2026 at the Josephson Preserve on South Cartwright Road, with events set up beginning at 1 p.m. and all cleanup to be completed by 8 p.m., and whereas said application has been reviewed by the police department highway department town board and discussed at the july 7th 2026 work session now therefore be it resolved that the town board hereby does approve the outdoor assembly application submitted by the taylor's island foundation for their benefit so moved Second.

All in favor?

Discussion. I had asked that maybe this be clarified further at a work-to-work session, that the Taylor's Island Foundation actually manages a town asset property. And just so this isn't opened up to public use, really, that CPF becomes public use. That's all. So we agreed on that.

But CPF properties are for public use.

yeah but for parties is that what we want do you remember i brought it up in the work session yeah and i'm i think we would do them at you know when it you know on a as common basis so if someone else comes with the you know a request we can deny it okay all right i thought you agreed with me Yeah, no, no. And I mean, I do like Taylor's Island Foundation because of the connection. I'm going to vote yes. Any further discussion?

No.

All in favor?

Aye. Motion carried.

or is pursuant to Chapter 33 of the Shelter Island Town Code, the Shelter Island Lions Club has submitted an application requesting permission to hold the annual Snapper Derby on Town Grounds at 40 North Ferry Road on Saturday, September 5, 2026, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., with events set up beginning at 2 p.m. and cleanup time ending at 8 p.m. The applicant has requested an exemption from the Norris Ordinance and permission to place four 4x4 plywood signs from August 8, 2026 to September 8, 2026 in four locations around the island to promote the event and where said application has been reviewed by the police department, the highway department, town board and discussed at the July 14th, 2026 work session. Now, therefore be it resolved that the town board does hereby approve the outdoor assembly application exemption from the noise ordinance and signage requests with the condition that all signage placed in a manner that does not obstruct the line of sight for motorists or create any roadway safety hazard and that all signage be removed by September 8th, 2026. So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

Whereas the term of Phil Di Iorio as a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals expired on July 8th, 2026, and whereas Mr. Di Iorio has expressed his willingness to continue to serve the town in said capacity, now therefore be it resolved that Phil Di Iorio is hereby reappointed to serve as a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals for a term to expire on July 8, 2031, and be it further resolved that Mr. DiIorio was hereby designated and appointed as chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals, and that his term as chairman shall run contemporaneously with his term of appointment to the committee. So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

whereas the term of Joseph Messing as a member of the Board of Assessment Review will expire on September 30, 2026, and whereas Mr. Messing has expressed his willingness to continue to serve the Town in said capacity, now therefore it be resolved that Joseph Messing is hereby reappointed to serve as a member of the Board of Assessment Review for a term to expire on September 30, 2031, and be it further resolved that Mr. Messing is hereby designated and appointed as chairman of the Board of Assessment Review, and that his term as chairman shall run conterminously with his term of appointment to the committee. So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Motion carries.

Resolved that Lorraine Meehan is hereby appointed to serve as a full-time cook for the Senior Center Nutrition Program for 30 hours per week for the annual salary of $48,892.50 effective July 20th, 2026 with a probationary period of 26 weeks. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

It resolved that Frank Emmett is hereby appointed to serve as a shopping assistance driver for the year of 2026 retroactive to July 9th, 2026 to be paid at a rate of $25.72 per hour. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

Resolved that Jerry Soler is hereby appointed to serve as shopping assistance driver for the year 2026 retroactive to July 16th, 2026 to be paid at a rate of $25.72 per hour. So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

Resolved that Lori DePoto is hereby appointed to serve as shopping assistance driver for the year 2026 to be paid at a rate of $25.72 per hour. So moved. Second. All in favor?

Aye. Motion carried.

Whereas the Town of Shelter Island is committed to promoting physical activity, exercise and youth socialization through the provision of accessible playgrounds that are open to the public. And whereas the Town of Shelter Island community currently has two public playgrounds available for use by the general public, including a playground on the grounds of the shelter on school district for children ages six and up and the tot lot at school street and whereas the conditions assessment prepared by the town of shelter island town engineer and department of public works finds that the tot lot on school street is 28 years old and in deteriorated condition, contains playground equipment designed for children ages two through eight years old, lacks accessibility, and universal design elements to accommodate children with neurodivergent needs, physical disabilities, and whereas the town of shelter on has entered into a lease agreement with the town of shelter island school district governing the town's role in maintaining and improving the top lot with the term of such lease expiring on april 30 2041 And whereas the town of Shelter Island has engaged in ongoing discussions with the Shelter Island community regarding the need for a playground that offers universal design elements for children ages two through eight. And whereas the town of Shelter Island has prepared a conceptual design and course estimate for redevelopment and expansion of the potluck on School Street that will provide a playground for children ages two through eight designed so that children with Neurodivergent needs, physical disabilities and typical developing children can play alongside one another and whereas total cost of a major playground redevelopment and expansion project to include playground equipment and safety surfacing is estimated at 455 215.50 and whereas in accordance with resolution 2026-302 adopted june 8 2026, the town board has submitted a grant application to the New York Plays grant program requesting 80% funding support and supporting 20% local matching share. And whereas recognizing that the New York Plays grant awards are not expected to be announced until August 2026, and in order to maximize the town's ability to secure grant funds for this project, other grant opportunities will be pursued. and whereas the town of shelter island hereby requests financial assistance from the new york state environmental protection fund initiative overseen by the new york state office of parks recreation and historic preservation with applications due by july 31 2026 And whereas the town of Shelter Island continues, certifies, excuse me, that it has identified $227,607.75 of matching funds from the town capital funds and community fundraising, representing 50% of estimated project costs. In the event that New York plays application is not approved for an award. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the town of Shelter Island, hereby authorized town supervisor amber brock williams for her designee you act on its behalf and submittal application to the New York plays initiative for 227,607 dollars and 75 cents representing 50% of the estimated project costs for the major redevelopment and expansion project so move.

I think favor.

Motion carried.

resolved that the supervisors hereby authorized to execute a letter of permission for Oyster Keepers Inc. allowing access to approximately 3,000 square feet of underwater lands in Monantik Creek, an area depicted by Oyster Keepers Monantik Creek map and bound by the following coordinates. And so I'm not going to read all of these. Is that OK? They are posted, and I'm certainly going to do it wrong. and approximately 3,000 square feet of underwater lands in Dickerson Creek, an area depicted on Oyster Keeper's Dickerson Creek map and bound by the following coordinates, where you see the resolution, subject to the approval by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for the purpose of oyster reef restoration and ecological enhancement. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye.

Motion carried.

The result of the amount of funds requested for the third round of the Suffolk County Opioid Settlement Funds, as stated in resolution number 2026-334, is hereby amended from $346,768 to $349,676. So moved. Second. David? You said aye? Yes. Okay, sorry. Aye.

Motion carried. Resultant supervisor is hereby authorized and directed to execute the contract with ADPA for payroll services. So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

Resolved that the town supervisor or designee is hereby authorized and directed to execute a memorandum of understanding between the town of Shelter Island and Clare Medical Practice to meet and discuss the health care needs of the community. So moved. Second.

all in favor aye aye motion carried resolve of the town supervisor or her designate is hereby authorized and directed to execute an agreement with the southampton hospital foundation for the shelter island stony brook ems fly car program don't move second discussion i want to table this because we were not able to get a hold of the 2025 contract and so we want to have them both

together. The staff are applying to get their hands on it. So we're going to table it until next month.

All right, whereas the Town Board approved an outdoor assembly application for a Sunset Beach Hotel for the viewing of the World Cup Final Match on July 18, 2026, yesterday, and whereas a compliance fee of $100 clean-up deposit was paid, now therefore be it resolved that the supervisor is hereby authorized and directed to return the deposit of $100 to the Sunset Beach Hotel, so moved. Second. All in favor? Aye.

Motion carried.

He resolved that the supervisors hereby authorized and directed to issue a refund in the amount of $963.50 to Robert and Ingrid Fagan from the 2026 B1289 Wetlands Consultant Fees Revenue Code. So moved. Second.

Discussion?

Reflect my memory.

So their application came under, before we had The code change that allows us to bill for consulting fees. Got it. So they were billed for them under the new code, but they were actually subject to the old code. So we need to return it. Yep. Which is not returning. They had a second application fee. And we're not returning the second application fee because it was a valid second application. OK. Aye. Motion carried. Aye. Aye. I think right all right yeah if the town of shop around recreation department has received a generous donation for the purpose of sponsoring a Wednesday by the water weights. shelter island pool from the amount of $600 and there is the receipt of these funds was not anticipated for the 2026 budget preparation now therefore be resolved with the 2026 revenue code a 2705 W Wednesday weights donations is hereby increased by $600 and the 2026 expenditure code. A7310.400 youth recreation programs is increased by $600 and be a further result that the town board and the recreation department extended sincere gratitude to Shell Prime Pools for their generous contribution. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

It's all that the supervisor is hereby authorized and directed to deposit the reimbursement amount of $176.69 from Taylor Randa to the 2026 expense code A312 0.487 police department uniform allowance due to an overage. So moved. Second. Aye. Aye.

Results of the following budget modifications are hereby approved. $23,793.95 increased to the A3589 State Aid Ferry Flood Mitigation Grant and a $23,793.95 increase to the A5720.497 Ferry Flood Mitigation Study to increase the revenues and expenses for grant reimbursement. a $9,106.56 increase to the A2770 miscellaneous revenue and a $9,106.56 increase to the A9040.800 workers' compensation, a $1,205.28 increase to a new B2770 miscellaneous revenue code and a $1,205.28 increase to the B9040.800 workers compensation and $2,946.24 increase to a new da2770a miscellaneous revenue code and a 669.60 increase to the da9040.846 mechanic workers compensation and 267 dollars and 84 cent increase to the da nine zero four zero point eight four seven snow workers compensation and a two thousand eight dollar and eighty cent increase to the da nine zero four zero point eight four eight russian weeds workers compensation and 133.92 increase to a new da2770 miscellaneous revenue code and a $133.92 increase to the EB-9040.4845 workers' compensation to be funded by the dividend check received from Paramount. So moved.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion carried. Resolved that 2026 general claims numbered 1213 through 1347 in the amount of $190,000 $26.74 2026 highway claims number 106 through 115 in the amount of $18,686.44 the 2026 Community Preservation Fund claims number 10 through 13 in the amount of $7,858.77 2026 water quality improvement claim number four in the amount of $32.66 and West Neck water claim two in the amount of $550 are hereby approved for payment as audited and the supervisor and or any town board members hereby authorized and directed to sign for sign the approval for payment of the same so moved. Second. All in favor?

Aye. Okay.

And so we will adjourn the regular part of the meeting and open up the public hearings. The first one is a continuation of the Thompson Coffin Dock application at 1 and 1A. And this one needs to be adjourned. And we're going to adjourn it to date uncertain. They didn't meet the posting requirement. And they are, I think, having a rework of the application. So we don't, other than last meeting, we postponed it to this meeting. rather than continue rolling over, we will wait until they are ready to go forward with this application and post set the public reset the public hearing that.

Okay.

Motion to adjourn. Second.

All in favor? Aye.

Second public hearing is a local law amending chapter 53 docs.

Yes, on the 20th day of July 2026 at the Shelter Island Town Hall at 6 o'clock PM or as soon thereafter prevailing time on the proposed local law entitled a local law amending Chapter 53 docs in order to correct a scrivener's error inadvertently made during the doc code update in 2025 in section 53-8G.

Pretty much self at all. So unless the town board has any questions, I'll open it up to the public. Anyone in the public? Anyone on Zoom? Motion to close that public hearing? Second. All in favor?

Aye.

The next public hearing to open is 9 South Portwright Road, a zoning change application by Lynn Halligan and it's a continuation of a previous public hearing. And I know that we have Theresa Mason, I was going to call on her first because at our last public hearing she had made a statement about for determination this was. So you were going to, you had done a little bit of research and wanted to set the record straight, so.

Yes. So I apologize. My brain just kind of went into autopilot at 1030 at night. And most of the zone change applications that I've dealt with in the past are type one actions. However, the section of the code, specifically section 617.4, that deals with type one actions. And under that section, there is a subsection that says, one second, let me find it. Under B3, it says the granting of zone change at the request of the applicant for an action that meets or exceeds one of the thresholds listed below is a type one action. But then when you go down to the discussion of new residential constructions, it talks about 10 units in a municipality that doesn't have zoning, which you have. So that doesn't apply. It has 50 units that are not connected to an existing water or sewage system, which, again, doesn't apply because it's a single unit. It has a population of 150,000 people, and you're doing 200 units. Again, not applicable. And then a population of more than a million people with 1,000 units. Again, not applicable. So it was my incorrect answer. statement that it was a type one action it is an unlisted action pursuant to these two subsections which is uh 617.4 i believe it is one second uh 617.4 b3 and then uh five so those are the sections there so it is not a type one it is an unlisted action however secret still does need to be done before the hearing can be closed and the um a decision can be made. Do you have any questions for me with respect to that? And again, I apologize. I messed that up. Brain just went on autopilot.

Thank you, Teresa. Any questions from the board? Thank you, Teresa.

You're welcome. If you have any more questions, you can always email me or call me. And again, my mistake. I apologize. And I wanted to correct that for the record.

Thank you.

That's one of the reasons we've kept it open. Does the board have any questions, or does the applicant actually wish to speak to any of the correspondence and things that have come in over the, like from PW Grocer and ? Yes, I have three that were requested.

So since the June 29th hearing, we've received two additional letters in support, 19 letters opposed, and three of those wanted to be read into the record at the meeting. So the first one was a letter of support from Mike Gaynor, and he says, I want to go on record once again in strong support of Miss Culligan's application for a zoning change to provide affordable housing on her property. Count every essential worker on this island, town employees, boarding committee members, firefighters, EMTs, teachers, police, and you'll find fewer than 200 people. Every time we lose one of them to the lack of affordable housing, they're replaced by a high-wealth part-time resident. That is simply a fact. We talk a great deal on Shelter Island about protecting scarce resources, but no resource here is closer to running out than our year-round essential workers, people exactly like Ms. Colligan. If this board votes against solving this problem for Ms. Colligan, the message to this community will be unmistakable, that the people who keep this island running with their hard work, their service, and their dedication are not a priority worth protecting. I urge you to approve this application. Mike Gaynor. And then we have one letter opposed from Bob Fredericks. City Council Chambers, Dear town clerk and members of shelter island town Council, I will be unable to attend the town Council meeting discussing the application for a zone change at nine self part right with respect to the near shore overlay. However, I would like to go on record against changing the zone and request that my letter be read into the record as part of the meeting. I believe the board should reject this application. There are many reasons for my objection, but the board has a history of changing the rules after the fact, and then opening up regulations to further change based on making these exceptions. We need stability in the laws and regulations of Shelter Island, and we need to keep and enforce these rules and regulations. As a longtime resident over 25 years, I'm very concerned about making sure there's adequate potable drinking water on the island and now and in the future. Look at the inundation Inundation of visitors, including renters, this summer and every summer. The more exceptions are made so that some residents may increase their personal income, the more our fragile water ecosystem is stressed. We need to enforce regulations that protect our aquifer. The more people are allowed to construct any ADUs, and especially illegal ADUs, the more we risk what we have here on Shelter Island. A wonderful place to live raise our children and retire. How will the board deny future applications for zone changes to other property owners? If it allows this application, it will be very hard to defend. It is amazing to me that the applicant can receive the 125,000 grant and then profit from that grant by receiving further rental monies from renting that space. While the applicants have contributed their time and energy to Shelter Island, that does not mean they can take advantage of their service by getting favorable treatment from the town board. Please put the needs of the town and its residents first in making all decisions that might affect the lives of most of the residents of Shelter Island. Keep the needs of all of the island and its ecosystems and the waste from ever-growing ADUs. We should have environmental risk studies for any and every decision that affects the lives of the people who live year-round on Shelter Island. Thank you, Bob and Nancy Fredericks." And then the last letter opposed to be read was from Stella from the Shelter Island Heights Property Owners Corporation. Dear Shelter Island Town Board, the Shelter Island Heights Property Owners Corporation does not support the proposed zoning change for 9 South Cartwright Road. Our concern is not with the specific application, but with the town code provision that allows individual property owners to seek isolated zoning changes. Section 133-37 establishes no clear criteria or comprehensive analytical framework for evaluating such requests. Until recently there was not even a formal application process to initiate these changes, suggesting that the current process has not yet been fully developed. We are not familiar with the analysis that led to the creation of the nearshore overlay in Peninsula District 26 years ago. However, conditions have changed significantly since then, including sea level rise, changing groundwater conditions, and other environmental factors. In response to these changes, our subsidiary North Ferry Company invested millions of dollars to raise its ferry ramps. These evolving conditions warrant a comprehensive review of the nearshore overlay and peninsula district and other zoning districts before considering if any individual zoning amendments are warranted. We therefore urge the town to place a moratorium on individual zoning changes while it undertakes an island-wide review of the hydrogeologic data, groundwater flow, environmental conditions, and the continued appropriateness of existing zoning boundaries. This review should also be coordinated with the ongoing update of the town's comprehensive plan. The Heights cannot make a scientific determination regarding this particular application. However, allowing what is effectively spot zoning rather than making zoning decisions through a comprehensive planning process is inconsistent with sound planning principles and risks, unintended consequences for the island. Thank you for your consideration.

I also wanted to throw into the record.

Dear Supervisor Brock-Williams and town board members, I write in support of the cited application, both as a private citizen and as a former town engineer. Over time, local governments have increasingly lost the practical ability to say yes to reasonable development. In an effort to prevent arbitrary decision-making, we have layered...

Sorry, if you're talking, I can't hear.

This may be your screen, if you could just move that. Can you hear me now?

While these safeguards serve an important purpose, they also create an environment in which delay, inaction, and unnecessary burdens on applicants become accepted outcomes. Equally troubling is the fact that some of the most vocal opponents of proposed projects have themselves benefited from or engaged in the very practices they now seek to prohibit. When the original comprehensive plan was adopted, zoning action Z20 served as the impetus for creation of the near shore and peninsula overlay district. Although well intentioned, its implementation was not perfect. Certain properties were included within the near shore, despite not meeting all the criteria for inclusion. The board is now asked to consider one such property. The available data demonstrate that groundwater beneath the subject property is sufficiently deep and that there is no current risk of saltwater intrusion. The property lies approximately 800 feet from the tidal wetlands associated with Congdon Creek. Its topography slopes away from tidal waters, reducing the potential for pollutant migration. Nearby flood control parcels and dense vegetation further limit drainage concerns. The evidence does not indicate that the site drains towards sensitive tidal or freshwater wetlands. The nearest regulated wetlands are located more than 900 feet away and are separated from the property by vegetated lands and existing infrastructure. The proposed addition of an accessory dwelling unit will not materially increase the risk of pollution to groundwater wetlands or the coastal environment. Town code identifies the purposes of the nearshore as addressing circumstances in which The freshwater table is close to sea level, creating a risk of saltwater intrusion through consumptive use of potable water. The land surface is close to the freshwater table, increasing the risk of aquifer contamination. The land drains towards creeks or bays, increasing the potential for pollution through surface or subsurface drainage. Existing and anticipated development densities threaten ecologically sensitive areas. The land drains towards freshwater ponds that are hydraulically connected to outcroppings of the freshwater table, creating the potential for groundwater contamination. These conditions do not exist at the subject property. Some may argue that removing this parcel from the near shore would establish an undesirable precedent. I respectfully submit that the opposite is true. Granting this application would correct a longstanding classification error and demonstrate the town's willingness to apply its regulations based on site-specific facts rather than broad assumptions. While the original designation was undoubtedly made in good faith, it reflected information and assumptions available at the time. As our understanding of environmental conditions improves, so too should our willingness to revisit and refine prior determinations. Good planning requires not only the foresight to adopt protective regulations, but also the judgment to recognize when those regulations no longer apply to a particular property. The integrity of the zoning code is strengthened, not weakened, when classifications are aligned with current facts and sound science. For these reasons, I respectfully urge the Board to approve the requested zoning amendment. Sincerely yours, John C. Cronin.

Since the last public hearing, we had gotten a memo from PW Grocer, Town Engineer's memo, and a couple of supplemental submissions. So I turn it over to the applicant if you wish to address any of your submissions, or if you wish to discuss your memo.

Matt, I can step back and let Caitlin from PW Grocer address their secret memo, and then step in if you'd like, whatever works.

Good evening. I'll hop in here. Caitlin Kime, Peter Vugoros there on behalf of the town board. So on the memo that we had sent to the applicant, Matt has provided all the information that we have requested. At this time, we have received everything from the applicant and we're currently reviewing and analyzing everything for Seeker to make a determination of significance at this time. So I will pass it over to Matt Sherman if he wants to go through his responses. But that's all we have tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Matthew Sherman, Sherman Engineering and Consulting. I'm here on behalf of Lynn Colligan, who's the property owner. She's in the audience tonight. Karen Hogue, Lynn's attorney, is also on Zoom tonight. We had a very long and information-filled hearing last month, so I'm not going to go over all of the finer details again, but I do want to hit a couple of key points just to kind of set the stage, one for people who are just starting to pay attention now, but also to just kind of refresh some memories. Okay, so as a quick recap, the property is a quarter acre. It's in AA zone, and it's in the Nearshore Peninsula Overlay District, which is why we're here this evening. As we laid out at the initial hearing, the property doesn't meet any of the five criteria that's laid out in the town code for the near shore peninsula overlay zone, overlay district, excuse me. Those are fresh water being close to sea level. That's defined in the comprehensive plan as 1.5 feet above mean sea level, plus or minus. Land surface close to the aquifer. that the land drains and the aquifer drain toward surface waters, that there's a high density of development in the area, and that the property drains toward freshwater wetlands. And as we laid out during the initial hearing, this property does not hit any of those marks. In that first hearing, supervisor Siller or Jerry Siller, previous supervisor of the island had explained that he was supervisor at the time that the near shore overlay was put into place. And that the boundary was created for expediency, not necessarily for accuracy. So they had a general idea of where they wanted the boundary to go. And they basically followed roads for the most part. In some areas they didn't. They bisected some properties. They went in 500 feet off the shoreline in Sylvester Manor. They did the same thing over towards West Neck. So there's a couple of areas that didn't follow roads, but for the most part, all of the zone followed roads. And that was part of what our initial discussion was, was how this property, even though the near shore boundary follows down South Cartwright Road, it doesn't necessarily make sense once you get down to where this property is. There were several letters that were written in support of the application. John Cronin's was one from the first hearing that was just read into the record. And that agreed with our analysis and our conclusions of the specifics of this property and the specifics of this application. It's also important to note that after the hearing, because it was brought into question as to whether or not our analysis was what could be considered on the up and up since we're working for the applicant. And so the town presented this to the town engineer, Joe Fenora, the current town engineer. who also concurred with our conclusions and felt that we had come to proper and reasonable conclusions on the facts of this property. And that inclusion in the near shore overlay district did not make sense. One of the things that we had done initially was before we came to the town board for the change of zone, we had gone to the zoning board of appeals for a use variance. The reason why we did that was because there was no process in place. Even though there was a mechanism in place in the town code to apply for a zone change, there was no process. So we went to the zoning board of appeals while the town was working on creating the application process for this. As part of that ZBA application, they had asked us to take the same facts and the same results and get an independent environmental analysis and evaluation of our conclusions to either correct or confirm. So we had brought on end consultants, Rob Herman, who is, as far as I'm concerned, beyond reproach. I don't think anybody questions his integrity and the results and the conclusions that he comes to, that they're not completely fact-based and completely supported by the facts of the site. And he had also concluded that our results, that our conclusions were reasonable and were appropriate. I'm going to just talk about a couple of quick things that came out during that first hearing. One of the things that's coming out a lot from a lot of the people who are opposed to this are saying if the board approves this application, that they're opening Pandora's box and there's going to be people coming out of the woodwork trying to get all of their accessory sleeping units or even buildings without any accessory buildings on them and convert them into accessory dwelling units. within the Nearshore Overlay District. And Jan Sudol, who was at the first meeting, had mentioned that where his property is in his neighborhood on Little Ram, that most of the buildings there have accessory buildings. A lot of them have accessory sleeping. And what's to stop them from Converting those applying to the town to get taken out of the near shore overlay district and converting those accessory sleeping buildings into accessory accessory dwelling units. Excuse me. And if I could share my screen for a second, I'm going to go through some of the reasons why that's not possible. And that fear is unfounded. And what we've got is I'm going to go through a couple of different websites. So these are not my information. This is information that I've gotten from the USGS and let's see the DEC. And let's see, here we go. Okay, so just start sharing here in just a second.

Hold on.

Okay, so this is a Shelter Island GIS website. This is the island as a whole. And just to give you a quick idea of what it is we're talking about here. Everything in pink is the near shore overlay district. The property we're talking about is right here. That's 9 South Cartwright Road. So you see the line comes down South Cartwright Road, goes down to South Midway, up and around, comes over, includes some in Fresh Pond right here, wraps around Dickerson Creek, West Neck, and just basically rings the island as you would expect it to. That makes perfectly good sense. When you look at Little Ram, this area right up here, One of the things that we can look at is how does Little Ram, how do these properties factor in to the criteria for the nearshore overlay? The first thing we're going to look at is the depth of groundwater, the groundwater table. And what this is, is this is the USGS. As luck would have it, there's an active USGS groundwater monitoring well right smack dab in the middle of Little Ram right off the road. So you can click on that well, you can pull up the data. We'll go down, we'll look at it from groundwater level above the accepted datum, which is NAVD 1988. And we'll go to the... full record of the time that they've got. So this is from, this first one is December 13th, 1983. Groundwater elevation is about 0.8 feet, 0.83 feet. So one, you can see that groundwater elevation fluctuates wildly over time. So you've got a low of, our lowest was right here, which is minus 0.3 feet in January of 2025. we've got a high of 1.5 feet in October of 2009. So you've got just over a foot and a half of fluctuation between the groundwater elevations. The mean in this thing is approximately a half a foot. That runs right through the middle of all of these points. These are all data points. So for the properties on Little Ram, the groundwater is at an absolute maximum 1.5, it's really closer to 0.5. So that certainly would not meet the definition that would be required to say that groundwater elevation was high enough to justify being taken out of the Nearshore Overlay District. What we can also do is go to the DEC's website and we can pull up groundwater supply wells And this is all publicly available information. Anybody can go to these websites and see this stuff. And of course, I'm getting a notice that says it's unavailable. All right, hold on just a second. Here we go. Let's try it again. There we go. Alright, so let's just pick one right in the middle of the island, right in the middle of Little Ram. This is the groundwater supply well that was installed on this property. The depth of the total depth of the well below grade is 33 feet. It has a depth of groundwater of 18 feet, so the total well depth is there's 15 feet of water in the well. The screen has a five foot length. So there's 10 feet of water above the well at this property on Little Ram. That's the absolute minimum that the health department will allow for a legal potable supply well. So that's nowhere near a deep enough aquifer to get out of that requirement for the near shore overlay district. And then we can go back to, Go back to the town's contour map. And in that same general area, your elevations in the middle by Little Ram Island Road, the drive is about 20 feet, goes down to 15, goes down to 10 as you go to the north. And then it slowly drops from 20 to 10 to 5 as you go out to the shoreline on either side, either to the east or to the west. So the groundwater or the surface water is going to shed toward Cockles Harbor going east and going west. same thing with the aquifer the aquifer in this area has a ridge that basically runs underneath little ram island drive and the water in the aquifer is going to shed to the east and to the west so when you look at the requirement for the near shore overlay district this area clearly clearly is within the criteria for the nearshore overlay district. So remember, there's five different things. And of those five things, three of them apply here. The ones that don't apply is we're not impacting freshwater wetlands because there aren't any around. And this can't be considered a high density area. It's it's it's a very low to moderate density area. So of the five criteria, three of them hit the target. So there's not a chance that any of these properties should or would be allowed to remove themselves or have an approval request approved to remove themselves from the near shore overlay district. I'll stop my share there. So that's kind of just to run contrary to a lot of, there's some misinformation, there's some fear tactics maybe, there's some people who are saying, making these statements that I'm sure that they don't know, most of you probably don't know what the depth of groundwater is at your property. probably don't know how deep your supply well is or how deep the aquifer is in the given area. Why would you? This isn't what you do for a living. So I'm sure there's honest, innocent mistakes being made when people are saying this is going to run rampant through the island. It simply can't because the vast majority of the area that's in the Nearshore Overlay District should be and the criteria apply and this is just one small snapshot to show why that is the case uh one of the things that has been mentioned it was mentioned by mr sudol as well as various other people um that you know we're hired consultants and as he said um hi you hire consultants that tell you want to tell you what you want to hear Lynn is not the first person that I've talked to about seeing if their property is appropriate for the nearshore overlay district with the purpose of seeing if they can put in an accessory dwelling unit. And I know people are going to say, oh, God, listen, Sherman even said himself, there's a line of people waiting to come in the door. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is this question has been asked before. And what we can do is, you know, what did that take? five minutes so I can sit down with somebody and in five minutes show them if their property is not an appropriate spot to even think about taking it out of the nearshore overlay district. It's very straightforward. It's not complicated in any real way. So Lins is the first one that as we were going through it, we said, hey, wait a second. These criteria don't apply here. So let's see what we've got to do to see if we can make this application. So that's what we did. One of the things that Mr. Sudol also said, and I'm sure he said it with all the appropriate respect and affection that you would expect, that he doesn't want run-of-the-mill consultants looking at this stuff and opining on it and advising the town board about it. I'd like to think we're not run-of-the-mill consultants. I'd like to think that our reputations speak for ourselves, whether it's mine or Rob Herman's or Karen Hogue's or whomever else, John Cronin, Joe Fenora. The people who are doing this stuff and understand the science behind it are pretty much in agreement that everything is going in the same direction, that this property should not be in the Nearshore Overlay District. There's one other thing that I want to discuss real quick that's come up a couple of different times. It's the onsite sanitary system. In late 2020, 2021, Ms. Colligan put in a new IA septic system at her property. The smallest one we're allowed to design for in this kind of situation is a four bedroom IA septic. The health department doesn't care If it's a three-bedroom house and a one-bedroom accessory sleeping unit, accessory dwelling unit, or if it's a two-in-two, or if it's a four-bedroom house and you've got a pool house with a toilet in it but there's no sleeping, so it would be considered a four-in-zero. It's the same septic system. A statement was made at the last hearing that it's a significantly different or a very different application. Not the case in any way, shape, or form. I'm not even sure where that information came from. The fact is there is a form that has to be filled out and signed by the town that the application meets the town zoning code and the town code. Typically we do it with respect to zoning because that's what is the biggest thing that impacts everything. If the accessory unit meets zoning code, the town just signs it. If a zoning variance is required, we have to obtain that zoning variance first before we can even go to the town to sign that form. It's called the WWM 105 form that was mentioned at the last hearing. So there's no way a 105 form could even be considered at this point because we still have approvals that we need to have behind us before we can take that step. So again, some misinformation is kind of implying that the process is not going through the proper channels, but it absolutely is. There's a natural progression of the way that these things are supposed to move forward. The other thing is there was a question brought up at the same time about the layout of the accessory dwelling unit. What this is proposed to be is it's two rooms in the building basically, a bedroom and then a kitchen, living room, dining room area. The town code requires a minimum square foot size of 480 square feet for those two areas, and it excludes bathrooms, hallways, closets, staircases, if there's a staircase, something to that effect. So inside Lynn's basement, we're able to set aside a portion of the building that has that 480 minimum square feet, one bedroom, and then we can call it a common room. There is not a scenario where that could be considered a two bedroom house. It's simply impossible. So again, the statement that was made at the last hearing that the town, the health department could very well consider this more than a four bedroom house. It is impossible. It just, it's just, again, I don't know where it came from. I don't know what was the motivation for saying that, but it's just simply not true. So this property is a, it's a three bedroom house, excuse me. It's got a one bedroom proposed ADU with a common area. The ADU is gonna be inside the basement. So one of the questions that PW Grocer had asked us as part of their review is was there gonna be any tree clearing? because Shelter Island has northern long-eared bats, so you've got to be careful when you're clearing trees. There's no exterior construction going on with the exception of an emergency egress window well, which is required by the building code, and then an exterior staircase which is required to go down and access this building, this ADU. So you're not going through the main structure, the main building to get down into the ADU. Those are both right up tight against the existing house. So there is no additional clearing, no trees to be removed or anything to that effect. The other thing that was brought up on the septic system is that it was what is referred to as a best fit approval. And at the time, there was no intent to do anything other than just replace an old conventional septic system with a new IA system. So a best fit scenario is allowed when that's all you're doing. You're not decreasing distances to wells. You're not decreasing distances to any kind of wetlands. You're not adding any construction or anything to that effect. You're just replacing the septic. And at the time, that was true. Here we are five years later, and the opportunities availed itself to Lynn to be able to do an accessory dwelling unit if she can get the approvals. So now what we'll have to do once we get all of the approvals at the town level, if they come through, is apply back to the health department to switch that best fit approval to an actual Typical residential upgrade approval, and that would have a number of bedroom count 3 in 1. in this case, we would have to address the existing supply. Well, make sure it's okay. Water quality is okay. Separation distances and everything like that. So there is. When the town process is all done, there will be another application process, which will be in front of the health department in order to switch from the best fit approval to the regular red stamped approval, as we would call it, which would be for the three bedroom house and the one bedroom ADU. So that pretty much summarizes everything that got us up to this point today. I just wanted to highlight a couple of quick things again. This is not just our conclusions. These conclusions have been reviewed and supported by both the past and current town engineer. They've been reviewed and supported by End Consultants, one of the leading environmental consulting companies on the East End. And I look forward to see what PW Grocer has to say when they're done reviewing all the information and they put their recommendations out. I am confident that based on everything that we've seen, all the totality of the evidence, that they will come to similar conclusions as well. I know that that's all I've got for right now. I know that Karen Hogue wanted to address the board as well to address some of the same issues that were brought up at the previous hearing and with some of the letters and correspondence that the town has received in the time since.

Thank you, Matt. Karen? Thank you, Matt. Good evening, supervisor and town board members. Karen Hoag from Timmy Latham on behalf of the applicant. The board has heard a great deal of testimony at the last meeting and received both letters in support and in opposition to this application. There's a lot of important information before you to consider, and I do want to make a few additional points. First, this application should be viewed site-specific given the existing physical and environmental characteristics of the property. When the overlay boundaries were created, the lines were drawn were arbitrary. As noted by Supervisor Siller, and as commonly done in municipalities, streets were used as boundary lines for ease of zoning implementation. Doing it this way, some properties that were included don't really belong in the district, and this property is one of them. The town provided the public with a mechanism in which a property owner can appeal to the town to request a zone change if their property doesn't meet the criteria for the district, which is what the applicant has done here. After the last meeting, the board requested its town engineer, Mr. Finora, to review the application and prepare an assessment of whether this property possesses the physical and environmental characteristics that the near shore overlay district seeks to regulate. Lisa Morici, Ph.D.: Mr finora and his report noted that his opinion is based upon the available site specific engineering information assessment of the hydro geological conditions wastewater suitability and potential environmental sensitivity. Specifically, town engineer Fenora comments that existing topography and drainage characteristics do not appear to direct runoff toward adjacent tidal wetlands, and that the nearest regulated wetlands are over several hundred feet away. The property is served by an advanced low nitrogen sanitary system, which Matt Sherman talked about, which substantially reduces the potential for groundwater impacts. Based upon his review of several factors, he determines that the collective weight of the available engineering evidence suggests that this parcel does not possess the level of environmental sensitivity contemplated when the overlay district was created. In sum, he concludes that the subject property does not presently exhibit the hydrogeological or environmental characteristics that appear to have motivated the creation of the overlay district and that the available evidence presented to him provides reasonable engineering support for removal of 9 South Cartwright Road from the overlay district. This is important because the town's own staff performed an independent assessment and made a determination. And this is similar to some comments that Mr. Sherman made in regard to members of the public at the past meeting making statements saying that the applicant can hire engineers and consultants to make conclusory findings. Removal of this property from the overlay district is consistent with the comp plan and surrounding uses. There was no likelihood of harm to surrounding properties if this property was removed from the district. And I hope that the board views this application globally. There's a need for full-time housing on the island and allowing this parcel to be removed from the overlay district in order to construct an ADU in the basement of a modest size home where she lives supports this goal. The board should take this important need into account when reviewing the applicant's request. And unless the board believes that there was additional information needed to review the application, we would request that the public record be closed.

Thank you, Karen. Does the board have any questions at this time?

No.

I actually have a, can I ask a question on Thomas? Yes. I had a constituent come to me and ask about some New York legislation around, I'm going to get this wrong, like two actions and like basically ADUs. Do you know what I'm talking about? I do, yes. I'm expressing it poorly. Yes. Thank you.

I believe the governor very recently signed a bill that would make ADUs a type two action, like the building of an ADU . Now, this application is a rezoning application. So I think the board has to consider the impacts of, yes, it's been explained by the applicant to build an ADU, but also all of the impacts of it no longer being a nearshore overlay property. But yeah, that's my understanding, is the governor signed that bill a couple months ago. The secret regulations, like the list that's online, hasn't been updated yet. But that's part of it, is that the building of an ADU is now considered to be a type 2 action.

Anyone else on the board before we open it to the public?

Peel to the work session.

we hear a lot about you know the submission en consultants and joe finor even the town engineers made a submission but the last paragraph i just want to read that that joe finor wrote in his submission more broadly i believe this application highlights an opportunity for the town to undertake a comprehensive technical review of the near shore overlay district While the environmental goals of the ordinance remain both appropriate and necessary, the regulatory framework would benefit from modernization to incorporate objective engineering and environmental performance standards reflective of current scientific understanding. Such a review would strengthen the ordinance, improve consistency in its application, and ensure that the future regulatory decisions remain firmly grounded in measurable environmental conditions rather than generalized geographic assumptions what he's calling for is look at this thing seriously do a study don't just take an applicant's representatives as giving forth information let's do a town-wide study let's review it i think that's a discussion that we need to have when we get this to work session

i agree we've got to find the money we've got to figure out what the time frame what it would look like but it's i think a discussion needs to happen i mean this seems to be going like one way here joe finn or saying things but in his conclusion this is his last paragraph in his letter and i think it says a lot yeah i i'm planning on later this week reaching out to some people to find out what exactly this study would look like potential costs I do believe we should do something like that. We've got a lot to talk about.

A lot to talk about. I agree with both of you on this. I'm going to skip over a lot of mischaracterizations of things that know mr sherman just uh presented especially joe fenora's letter as evidenced by the last paragraph but um i think i guess work sessions were a lot but very nice yeah this is this is a public hearing and so we are to listen to the public yeah and ask questions that will help us in our work session discussion

If there's no questions for the applicant from the board, I'll open it up to the public. Demarest, I believe, is online. Pam had requested to speak up a little louder.

Oh, sure. Yes. Having a hard time hearing.

Yeah. Pam Demarest had been the first person to ask to speak today. So I'm going to call on her first. We have a PowerPoint presentation. It is 24 screens.

It's okay, Amber. It won't take long, trust me. I understand it's a lot of information, but it's information that, honestly, I don't think that the town engineer saw. I don't think that EM consultants saw this information. I mean, Joe based his review on the available information that he was given. I don't know what that was. So I will say it start this way to say that I went to the WAC list of all the studies that have been done on groundwater and surface water and because they were asked to compile that list. I went through those studies. So included in these 20 pages of slides that I can go through. Let me just pull this up. What we're looking at here is that I looked at the 2014 Shelter Island Watershed Management Plan.

Hold on just a second. I'm asking Federico.

I'm just going to give you a preview before we get started with that. I just want to give you a little introduction. So I looked at the 2014 Shelter Island Watershed Management Plan, the 2015 Suffolk County Comprehensive Water Resource Management Plan. Nelson Pope and Voorhees did an alternate water supply study in 2020, no, probably 2015. I'm sorry, I don't have that. I looked at the Shelter Island Hazard Mitigation Plan, the Community Housing Board Plan, the Comprehensive Plan, a few of the USGS studies that were available and some of the things that the Border Advisory Committee had mentioned to look at whether or not it meets one, if not all of the criteria delineated in 133.12, okay? So it's fine, you know, obviously as an applicant here, she has a right to claim that, you know, you know, this parcel doesn't fit. I'm going to show you why I think it does from that data that I collected. I just want to say that the claim that the zoning changes related to community housing goals in the comprehensive plan isn't really true. Maybe it creates a two-person apartment in someone's basement, but it's not restricted on the rental income, and therefore it's not really affordable. Yeah, it's community housing. but it's not affordable housing. And I think that that's quite important in this case, because if it were affordable housing, maybe it would be a different story, but it's not. I ask you to look at the comprehensive plan, the final generic environmental impact statement that went along with that, along with the growth and comprehensive plan document that also was part of our comprehensive plan while you're looking at this review of this application. There's a lot of information in that. What I'd like to say is that in September of 2023, there was a public hearing on the comprehensive plan update. And during that meeting, there were boards put up, display boards where people could put green and red dots marking what they liked, what they didn't. There were a lot of red dots against spot zoning, which this appears to be. I'm not a lawyer, but it appears to be that. And after that, Councilwoman Ion Fowler wrote a letter to the paper and to clarify some of the statements that she heard during that hearing. And I'd like to read this. The plan does not weaken the Nearshore Overlay District, nor does it encourage promote accessory dwelling units in the Nearshore Overlay District. Action item 4.4a states the Nearshore Overlay District code regulations and boundaries should be maintained and strengthened. Sarah Mastrianni, current regulations prohibit at us in the near shore overlay district, therefore, by maintaining and strengthening existing regulations, the plan states no at us. Sarah Mastrianni, Further, the town should explore limiting housing size on small undeveloped parcels in the district discourage variances from pre existing structures and establishing further protection of the near shore overlay district. and then she finally says finally the plan recognizes the island character depends on low density residential zoning and that's what double a is um and it's addressed in goal 4.1 on a new update it is important to affirmatively state that if public sewers and water supplies are built the residential density of existing residentially zoned areas should be maintained So I just wanted to go into that. And as far as the community housing plan, you know, for community housing licenses aren't going to be issued for for properties in the near shore overlay district, and nor would they be issued for the ADU plus one state program grant program. They're also, you know, eliminated from that there's been discussions of changing that for over three years now, find that really concerning. But um, I'm going to go on, and we'll go with the slides, and we'll go with the criteria that's put together here. So is he going to put that up for me, and then I can just read through it? Do you want me to put it up, share my screen? Oh, he's got it.

Oh, not that one. That was the last slide. There was one.

That's just the one indicating the near shore overlay district. It's something I put together just as a reminder to myself where the district lines lie. It's not important. We have it from the GIS.

It would have been the one prior, but let me just resend it to you right now. We should have that now. And while we're waiting for Federico to do that, I just want to remind anyone who gets up to speak today, we did have a prior public hearing. So if you could try and confine your comments to new information and not just a repeat of what was said last time, that would be appreciated. Just because you say it last time we say this time doesn't mean we're going to cancel twice. Kelly.

So this document, obviously, got it. This document, I don't know if you can zoom in on it, but obviously it's from the Suffolk County Department of Health Services from 2002. It's very light. This came from an appendix to the Nelson Popenvorf, his alternate water study, alternate water supply study. And obviously this is Camp Dresser and McKee, very reputable firm. It is hard to see, but the inner line basically is where the saltwater intrusion can come after a certain period of time. When there is a drought, obviously. And we could move on to the next one. The next one also shows what happens in drought conditions. I mean, if I could, I can't quite circle where the property is because I don't have a cursor on this. I have no control of showing where the property is, but Frederico, you can go to the next one. I think we all generally know the area of the property. So again, same source of information. You can see what happens regularly in the steady state with no fluctuations. And then when there's a drought and if it's a five year drought, and how sensitive these areas can be. And you can see the red encroaching into the blue, which means that that's where your saltwater intrusion is coming from. And if you go to the next one. Okay, this one shows on the very far right side of the top where the blues are kind of meshed together, how close the interface is between the groundwater and the freshwater lens and the saltwater interface. You know, Mr. Sherman just said that groundwater fluctuates wildly. Yeah, well, that's the whole point here. It fluctuates wildly all the time. Yes, you're right, Mr. Sherman, it does. And if you're sitting at one and a half feet more or less, which is in the comprehensive plan, then even if it's two foot groundwater depth, these fluctuations that close with the saltwater interface, you're sort of at a risk of saltwater intrusion. And that's what it says in the code, a risk of saltwater intrusion. Not that there has been any there, but there is a risk there. We'd like to move on to the next one. This is also another indication from the same source. It shows you what they Decline in the water table would be with the drought after four years and the water table impacts of the drought of five years. We all know we have some drought. Oh, you have to go back, Frederico. That one. So this is a four-year look at the water table and a five-year look at the water table. You can see how drastic that can be if you were in drought conditions for a long period of time. Clearly, where the niche is, where her property is, we have a problem. an impact there. And I think right then and there with the groundwater being at a two foot depth, and these indications from these sources that you know, it meets that criteria to be in the to be in the near shore district. We go to the next one. This is from the this is from a 2018 study. That was done it does indicate at the very bottom of that picture and it does show where the monitoring wells are and the depth of to the water table below the land surface kind of in our neighborhood yes she's dwindling between less than 11 feet whatever. It in any case, we know that the land is close to the freshwater table. and and um when you go and look at the nelson poppin voorhees watershed management plan it even says the quality and quantity of fresh groundwater is a matter of local concern increased withdrawal of fresh groundwater in the near shore areas will can will uh cause further land movement of saline groundwater in other areas excessive pumping may cause upconing So that is in my letter. I think that sort of answers that. They also go on to state on page 212 of that document, the nearshore area is most susceptible to change in water table elevations. influencing the position of the interface. So again, I don't know that Mr. Panora saw this. I don't know that he had the time to do this. He's the town engineer. He's not really supposed to be looking at private projects, but obviously the board had asked him to take a peek, but he should absolutely look at this. The Voorhees study also says that the near shore areas are most susceptible to pumpage and water table fluctuations as a result of, I'm sorry, changes in the recharge, thus making the areas most susceptible to saltwater encroachment and upconing. I think that meets the criteria. The next slide, please. This is a little cut out off of the green stamped plan that you have approval from the Suffolk County Department of Health. Obviously, it sounds like Mr. Sherman is aware that he needs to go back to get approval for this additional accessory apartment. I guess there's really no reason to talk about that. But clearly, it says that what she has is only for the single family dwelling, not including the accessory apartment. Go to the next slide. And number three says that the land drains toward the creeks or bays, increasing potential pollution from surface or below ground. So from the top or bottom. So here's a picture from the hydrological study that was done in 2014. Again, if you look at the blue lines, the blue dotted lines on this photograph indicate where the groundwater flow edges are. There's a couple of different districts on the island. So that's sort of the divide. And then as you can see, the arrows are pointing toward Congdon Creek and Cockles Harbor. And her property is going that way. The groundwater clearly drains that way. I can't dispute this data. I didn't make it up. But looking at this, that's the way the groundwater drains and could increase potential pollution. And we don't, and then again, You know, I think that that's something that needs to be investigated because also the underground seepage is also going toward the basin harbors. I think this is a criteria that applies and would then keep this property in the district. And again, I did a few other pictures. You can go to the next one if you're not familiar with the topography. I know Ms. Larson asked for a topographical map. This is from the USGS. For those of you who don't know how to read these kinds of maps, where it's darker, it's higher in elevation, and where the lines are further apart, the elevation sort of smooths out. So you can almost see that dark ridge line encircling her neighborhood, and that's an indication of the high points. If you go to the next picture, it might be easier to understand because this is in relief. And you can see the higher, darker areas of this map are the higher points on the island. So surrounding the neighborhood, I did put a little dot on it where her house exists. Clearly, the water is going in that direction. We can move on to the next slide. and i'll just mention that pw grocer was interested in more information about the groundwater flow direction and the time of travel so on this slide i got this information from when pw grocer did the tdr study for the town and in here you can see what basically uh if you look to the top right corner it notches out into that yellow area, orange area, that's where the property is. And that says it's a groundwater travel time of 0 to 2 years. So there seems to be a little conflict in that information if it's 0 to 2 years or is it 0 to 10. But this is information that P.W. Grosser supplied to the town years ago. I don't think that that's changed. I believe that they added it into their submission this time around. So again, low groundwater, a quick travel time. We could go to the next slide. This just shows you the contributing areas. This was also done in conjunction with the county. It's from the Suffolk County Comprehensive Water Resources Management Plan. So you can see Shelter Island on there, surrounded by that yellow area. Mostly all of the areas of Shelter Island are contributing areas to the surface waters and supply wells. And then the next slide, shows you a little bit about what happens with sea level rise. So right now the white dots are kind of where things are and where they stand as far as these discharge nodes. But as sea level rises, the red dots come into play and you can see more red dots developing around her neighborhood. So that's just something I wanted to point out, again, from the Comprehensive Water Resources Management Plan. Also, I believe that covers the criteria. It's your call. then we'll talk about the density of development now this information came from shelter island gis uh some of it may be from the assessor's office but most of these uh properties and on the direct street are non-conforming lots and most of them have full basements some of them have partially finished basements already now I have to say that there are 10 non-conforming lots in this neighborhood. And should they all decide that they want an ADU in their basement? Is that where we move the line? Do we keep on moving the line toward Congdon Creek? I'm not really sure. But given the information, the property itself is the highest property in density in the neighborhood at 12%. The next highest one, is at eight point five six percent and then eight point four percent and then the rest of them are hovering around three or less so to allow her to increase density in a non-conforming lot on a non-conforming structure seems against town code so it's not low density it's technically it's low density now but if you start to turn those properties into JoAnne Hanrahan, At us at at us we you're going to have a significant impact on the neighborhood. JoAnne Hanrahan, And finally, the question about the freshwater ponds yeah they're they're not near anyone go to the I don't have another slide for this right now um but. The freshwater ponds, the issue with the, you can hold on to that one for a minute there. This is a slide that shows all of, no, go right to that one, Frederico. That's fine. This shows more of the properties that are in the near shore overlay district along that road. And I've marked out how many of those are also non-conforming lots. And that's what we're talking about here. Again, this will have to go back to the ZBA to get a huge area variance to be allowed to do this construction. This is just an indication of the density of the neighborhood. I did put some indications on here with this RG1 and RG4, and those are indications from the assessors of what accessory buildings are already there. We could do further investigating, and maybe it's necessary to find out what the square footage is of those and see what's really happening. Anything labeled RG7 is a garage with sleeping quarters. So that one could immediately be converted. if you give a change in zoning. So it seems to me that this application at least meets one of the criteria indicated in the Town Code under 133.12. And that's all you need to determine at this point. That's your charge. And I think that this scientific data supports the fact that, in fact, it does meet one of the criteria. And I'd like you to consider that. Frederico, did I have anything else in the slides? I think I did, right? Okay, this just shows you how many lots there are that are small in size, how many quarter acre lots there are, and how many half acre lots there are. We're looking at over 500 of them. You can go to the next one, please. This shows you the impact of the density and nitrogen levels that would change if you increase the density.

You're more than welcome to look at that another time.

You can go to the next one. This is from the Nelson-Pulpen Voorhees, again, the Watershed Management Plan. It shows the ecological areas in the neighborhood, the marshlands, the freshwater wetlands, which again, I'm not really certain if those are hydraulically connected or not. I would assume that they are, but that's not my call. And perhaps we could get somebody to answer that question. And if you move to the next slide, please. This is from the Hazard Mitigation Plan. It's worth a better study, but when you look at the plan, this map that Chief Reed had put together, it does show stormwater surge, which is called Slosh. And if you go to the next slide, this shows what happens under a Category 3 storm surge in her neighborhood. So we know that we have these storm surges now. We know climate change is gonna increase this. This is something to take into consideration when you're looking at the environmental impacts of anything happening in the near shore overlay district. You can go to the next slide, please. This just shows you sea level rise. Again, on the far right, what will happen in the area. Again, for your further study, but again, another thing that supports that sea level rise will increase the impact of saltwater intrusion, which will increase the houses in the neighborhood the next slide please this this shows you over time this is this is going out in in decades what it could look like in 2030 i think is the last date on here the third one the real it's a real problem for the island that needs further study i agree with the town engineer on that and the last slide i think is the last one This is interesting. This is MTBE. This has become a pollutant that's of concern on the island. I did a little insert on this and I did it to enlarge the one section on the left there because there is a green dot amongst all that blue in the center. So there's definitely some problem with MTBE in the center properties. Again, that's the high point of the island. That stuff's running down into the harbors and bays. So that's another thing that needs much more further investigation. And the next slide shows the volatile organic compounds. We certainly have an issue on this island that I think needs further review. as far as water quality and what's going on. And this is just the ecological resources. This came from the 2020 comprehensive plan update. It was done by Dodson Finkler. It's a great plan. It shows you what's important, what we're trying to protect, what we're trying to preserve, what belongs to everyone, and why removing this property from the zone and changing and giving people the ability to do it with such ease with no real reason, with no plans of the construction of this ADU, I'd like to see those. All I hear is that there is one, but I've never seen the plans for it. It seems to me that should be appropriately submitted for this application before you make any further determination. And I thank you for your time. I hope that didn't take up too much time, but I just wanted to make sure that everybody got an understanding and a better look at what's really out there and how much the town has paid for in these studies. I mean, this is hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of studies. And I think I've made my point that the parcel belongs and you should deny this application. So I thank you very much.

Thank you Pam. We have a few people who- I don't know. All right, Katie, I was going to go to the physical audience, but since you're unmuted, go ahead.

I wanted to say that I really think that- Can you state your name for the record, please? I'm sorry, Katie Ford. I live at 10 South Ram Island Drive and I live here full time and have for years. But I think this random allocation of properties, we need a plan. I mean, we spent so much money. on coming up with different plans. And now we're looking at one particular unit and second guessing also is presented at some as something that is going to help the police, the emergency care. I did think this was for affordable housing and I completely agree we need it. But once again, It is not part of a plan. It is just, we're going to go through how many of these are we could go through every meeting, having random opinions, taking everybody's time. We've spent the money. Let's have the plan and not approving something that is not affordable housing that we need the affordable housing. So this is to me ridiculous and sad since we've,

collectively all of our taxes have spent a huge amount of money on this that's it thank you thank you i'm going to go back to the list of signings um i'll call out your name and you can let me know if you signed up just because that's why you're here or you did wish to speak karen care i just signed up because i'm here saying michael shatkin

I have to say I was influenced by all of the data that was presented. I'll back up for a minute to say I'm somewhat conflicted on this in that I served for a period of time on the planning board. I take the zoning criteria, particularly in the near shore, really very seriously. What stands near shore overlay is what really protects our bays, our wetlands.

It protects all the things that make us unique as an island.

And it's important not to be doing one-off adjustments. We talk about the environment and we talk about preservation. We also included us human beings as a species that needs to be protected on this island. And I live here year round. And it's it's desolate. In the winter. We're tackling problems one by one medical services, you know, lack of of services, you know, there's no place to eat. Our school population has decreased to the point where it may be something that shouldn't be said, but is it viable when we have this few year-round residents on the island? I also think about it in terms of sharing resources. We are much more successful at granting or much more prolific at granting large houses. And the lion's share of the resources of the island, natural resources, are being utilized by people that are building extremely large houses and don't care to live here. And the result of it is going to be that we will ultimately become a residential community, which I use the word community advisedly, without any services without first responders that live here possibly without a school possibly without places of worship we're dwindling as a community and yes adus are part of the picture in addressing housing equity within this town because it's not just the people that fall into this narrow slot of houses that are for low income individuals or people who can't obtain houses. We're talking about providing housing for middle income people that are professionals that work on the island and they have no place to live. And that housing stock is rapidly decreasing. We should not be addressing and spending the board's time on variances and adjusting zoning districts.

The board should be thinking big picture.

And there is absolutely no reason why this island, with the intellect, with the capabilities, with all the studies that have been done, that we cannot figure out a way of having ADUs island-wide, they are inherently affordable because they're not burdened by land costs and they're smaller than other units they're not you know yes some of them occur on smaller properties but these properties are grandfathered and we are literally talking about three bedrooms one of which is an ADU, and the other one is another living unit. We're not talking about something that constitutes a significant zone of change. It doesn't feel right, the way we distribute our resources within this community. I just feel it's beholden to the town board to look at this thing in a way where we have ADUs and housing stock for all islanders, a diversity of incomes throughout the island, including the near shore overlay. Because the near shore overlay has been abused by the way in which we chose enforce our laws we had a wonderful concept that said the most significant element of the near shore overlay was a vegetated buffer but you can buy on the low and tear it down and because the vegetated buffer was mowed by the previous owner you no longer have any obligation to maintain to there if you in any other portion of the code if you have a non-conforming building or property there's an there are obligations to restore the condition with the code intended when the project is significant and large enough on scale and we we chose not to do that and we are welcoming environmentally challenging development on the island And we're struggling with providing a diversity of housing for people that we count on to be here and to be part of the community year round. I can't equate that. I can't intellectually, orally figure out on what grounds we can't do both. We should be able to do both.

I'm for the environment and I'm obviously for housing. We have the ability to do both. It's not a one or the other.

There are many island families that live in that Cartwright area that have purchased small houses and they would like to be able to make those available, not as summer rentals. They'd like to be able to make those available for the community at large, the year-round community, we should figure out a way to make that happen. Thank you for your time.

One and a half.

um at the last public hearing about this property former superintendent stiller said that no one was talking about zoning that everything was housing housing housing there is however another issue on the island that many of us are talking about which is supported by zoning regulations water water water jerry himself worked on a near shore regulation so at the time must have thought that the aquifer was worth protecting I think there's little doubt about which way this board is going to go, but I would ask you to consider what Lori Baird Raymond and Bill Mastro talked about at the last hearing process. Responding to this request, the spot zoning is shortsighted and irresponsible. If you all believe that sections of the near shore overlay are inaccurate, then fix them. Don't just poke holes in the code. After all, it was written 25 years ago and maybe some pieces should be adjusted, but fix the zoning. Just pulling one property out of the overlay opens the town up to more lawsuits and more holds. The code is Swiss cheese already and remember the next person to ask for zoning change may not be a pillar of the community. I also want to comment on Matt Sherman's choice of Little Ram as a counterpoint to this property. It's a really specious example because That's not what, in terms of people coming in and asking for readjustments, I don't think the people of Little Ram who know that they're basically sitting on top of the water are the people who are going to ask for them. They probably are more likely to be the neighbors in the same neighborhood. A little bite here and a little bite there, all board approved. And we have over large houses that everyone complains about with vast lawns that don't retain water. We now have the formerly mysterious cistern at Gardner's Bay approved much to the dismay of the people in Hay Beach, which also affects the aquifer. I suggest that you do this in an orderly fashion. And I think that Joe Fennor's, the end of his letter is really pertinent because it really should be done in an organized fashion. Spot zoning is just, everything on this island seems to be spot zoning and it's dangerous. Thank you.

That is it for people who signed up.

I didn't sign up for the speech.

Oh, yeah. That's why I was going to deny the sign-ups.

I'm Kathy Kaye. I live in Silver Beach, another overlay district. There's an expression you hear in law school a lot. It's bad cases make bad law. And when you look at a statute and you go, how the hell did they come up with this? And it was really a reaction to a difficult case.

um and that's what this is um why do we have one acre zoning anybody on the board want to tell me why this is an opportunity for you to no it's a question i i don't know why staff county department of health regularly this is one acre zoning okay that's our base layer of zoning and we chose to have different zoning like two acres zoning for double a but so the county department of health okay is there another reason we don't have a public water system that's the real reason

So is there any other reason? No. Nothing to do with density? No. That's the reason why Suffolk County Department of Health chose one acre zone. So that's why this application, forget about when the water table is up or down. That's why this application should be rejected. This house is on a quarter of an acre. Today, you could not build that house. And now you're going to permit a two family house on that quarter of an acre? Does that sound sensible to you? I don't know if this should not be in the, I'm not an expert on that, but I think this should be rejected just on that basis. And I think Linda already addressed, I'm gonna quote Matt Sherman's analysis to little ram a red herring. That's another expression you hear in law school. To say that, to respond to the concerns that people have, that you'll be hit with a plethora of applications, even in civil beach settings, And he compares it to, you couldn't possibly, the word he used was you could not possibly have another. This property is so unique that you have to grant this because you would not get inundated with other applications. That's ridiculous. Nobody can buy that. Mr. Gaynor, if her application's in support with Mr. Gaynor, you're in trouble. Anyway, his emphasis was on affordable housing. And Pam also mentioned it, and so did Linda. Our card doesn't require affordable. Is this applicant going to charge affordable rent, or is she going to have market rent? So that's also a specious argument. She can charge whatever she wants, and that's where our approach from is. And John Prone, in all due respect to his expertise, he actually admits that this is a spite zone issue. I don't know if he quite needs because if the letter was read and I haven't front, but that's the implication, you also mix this is a spot so and that's a better person, I also submitted a memo to the board, I hope you read it your time.

Anyone else with this audience.

My name is Sian Sodor. I'm a resident of Sholta Island. So I wanted to talk about something else, but since the people spoke before me, so they covered lots of points. I'd like to concentrate on, or maybe start with this. Matt Sherman's testimony. I'm honored that he singled out my property for environmental review and assured me that nobody can put up an EDU there. And he presented some data I've never seen before. Particularly interesting chart was this bubble chart with varying levels of water, about level of water above sea level. to plus 1.5 okay so that's interesting he didn't provide this analysis for the applicant's property showing the variations which everybody knows about that uh the groundwater level will be different when you know spring summer and fall and support depending on the rainfall he just provided one spot which is the test well dug out for, in conjunction with the installation of AI system, judging by the days, it was done in 2020. And that showed that, that one test showed that the level of the groundwater was two feet above seawater. And the town code says, paragraph 133, that's 12.1, the frost rotate table is close to the sea level, okay? It doesn't say exactly how much, but it's close. So to him, the test resolved that one spot in one time and not where the well is, but where the AI system is, showed two feet above sea level. And so he says, oh, comprehensive plan is plus minus 1.5 feet. I'm six inches above in that one spot. That's great. I'm home free. And there's nothing to look at it. And like I said, the town code says close to sea level. So two feet to him is not close. 1.5 would be close. So I would like him to provide the same analysis that he did for the well. near my house for the applicant's property, showing different sea level, water table level relative to the sea for various points of the year. Perhaps there is another test well in there, in that neighborhood, Cartwright. Anybody knows? U.S. Geological Survey test well? Okay. So second, I would like to verify the data that Mr. Sherman provided for the well on my street. Because I've never seen it before and I actually ran into the a USGS engineer who was doing this level a few months ago. My background is in engineering too, so I'm always curious how the things work. I was watching what she was doing, she was dipping the support and she was commenting how great this water is there and that the water level is really high and the lens is deep. So I'd like to get those test results so I can be assured that nobody can convert their accessory slipping quarters to ADUs. But that's not, my area maybe not representative. There is entire coast of Sholta Island when people will be able to say, oh, you know, provide some test result and say, okay, I'm one point or two feet above, I'm home free. Take me out of the area. out of the so I can put up ADU, rent it year round, or maybe just for summer people, or make money. Just wanted one more point on this fresh water table elevation over sea level. you know, there's a saying, there are truths, there are lies, and there are statistics, you know what I mean? You can pick any data to fit any conclusion you want. So he cited in his narrative that implying that there is 42 feet depth of the water because well is drilled to 60, 60 feet on a well test report, okay? Now, just because the depth of the, the depth of the well at 60 feet doesn't mean that there's 60 feet of water in there. There may be some freshwater lands and then saltwater below. And the same well test result shows that the water starts at 18 feet below surface, which would make it 0.5 feet above sea level. Not two feet, that was done in another test, but 0.5. So that alone, that criteria, this is very shaky. He picks the data that fits the narrative, but ignores his own data, which he provided in the application, the wall test result that shows 0.5 feet elevation of the freshwater over sea level, which would but even the comprehensive plan 1994 that was talking about 1.5 feet plus minus okay whereas the uh the code says close to sea level which is close enough you know everybody knows what it is more or less what it is so that criteria alone is qualified since prime the land surface the next condition land surface close to the level of freshwater table okay so one 15 and a half feet to groundwater is not close to him even though it's the second lowest of the 11 categories of depth on a water table per new york state data this is one categories of between you know depth between the surface and the water and this is the second lowest okay so 15.5 to him is not close the code says the land surface is close to the level as well So you're getting the point, OK, that basically all those five criterias that he argues, he paints the data that fits the narrative or provides his opinion on what's close or not close and so forth. So based on the review of the criteria, which I think This property meets four, if not all, five conditions for inclusion in the NSO. There's really no grounds to take it out. So that's what I want to say about it. Oh, and the applicant's attorney relied on Mr. Sherman's kind of creative interpretation, selective bias interpretation, then to draw conclusions. OK, it meets all the criteria. It should be taken out. you know reasonable people that look at this so that at the data would not agree um second thing that i would like to comment on is the applicant's attorney letter in which she claims the application is not an application for sponsor when you take out one one um property out of an nso and all other properties all around you uh are still in NSO. I mean, no matter what gymnastics you're going to do, it is a sponsor application. Okay? Case closed. I mean, there's nothing to talk about. I want to comment on this city of development and anticipated future development with threatened ecological senses vary. Pam already talked about it. I'm just going to repeat. that out of this whole area, which has 12 houses, it's double A zone, two acre minimum parasol sacks. Except one house, all 11 houses are non-conforming. So they already it would not be possible to build them today. They're all non-conforming. And the applicant's property is the most non-conforming. It's quarter acre into acre zoning. So it already has eight times sanitary density of the property that's normally allowed in AA zone. So now we're going to be putting two families in there. So we're going to be doubling this still. And all those houses there, if applicant's property gets spot zoning application uh what's gonna stop them from applying for the same okay and then you go to other neighborhoods all over until shower will be the same okay um next thing i would like to comment the precedences so mr sherman says oh don't worry about it there won't be any precedence on sports okay here we're going to have an application for quarter acre zoning it's a quarter acre lot in two acre zoning and if uh this application is granted then what's going to stop all other non-conforming properties in double a zone for applying the same silver beach all properties that are because they're all half an acre lots. If there's a one acre property, it's big for Silver Beach.

Starting to hit on some of the same topics you talked about at the last public hearing. Up until you got to spot zoning and precedents, you were talking about new stuff. So I just want to remind you, like we wanted to hear new information.

Okay. Well, anyway, I just want to emphasize again that So this is like intellectual gymnastics. Finally, I would like to address the issue with this ADU program.

When this ADU program- Just for your clarification, the ADU program is not something that is run by the town. It is run by the state. So we don't have control over who is eligible or who gets accepted.

Well, perfect. That's exactly what I wanted to talk about. There was an article in a newspaper recently. The Community Housing Board said, oh, it has nothing to do with ADUs. It's just candidates applied to come into development of Long Island, and that gets decided. So this is not exactly forthcoming, because they actually because people uh what the guidelines for edu plus program okay said property has to be one acre has to conform to zoni uh and so forth okay and i have cpa already granted a permits from non-conforming properties to crumb ADUs in there. I myself watched one CPU hearing when somebody came in with half an acre a lot, which is already non-conforming, and crumb an ADU in it, so effectively converted this to quarter-acre zoning. Like, where do we have any code that a quarter-acre zoning is allowed on Salt Island? We don't. And so effectively, I've already seen three or four applications processed and allowed in CBA, where we have high density in the center, okay, which already has elevated tanking levels, so we give it more density, okay? So you can say, okay, fine, the, you know, the new AI systems will take care of it because new nitrates, okay? I'm not even convinced that all those things the ai systems to start with uh number two ais just reduce the nitrates generation from 60 to about 17 18. uh number three they don't remove any other pollutants number four uh that has nothing to do with water consumption if you double the density you double the water consumption language okay so So I have a certain, you know, that's not how this ADU Plus program was supposed to run. It was supposed to be conforming to the town code and not threaten the environment. Implementation of it, which is the town that allows this, exceptions, that's the town problem. It's not CDLI.

It could be the CBA board, not this board. Just to clarify, it's a separate decision-making board.

Just clarifying that. So I'm going to conclude my remarks. And I'd like to see this data that Mr. Schomer produced. And I would like to see him provide the same data for the applicant's property, the variations of the water level throughout the year, different times of the year, different rainy seasons, dry season, and so forth. And then we'll see what happens. Not rely on one data point. which is already contradicted by another data point that he provided in his application, which he used when it suited his preferences, but disregarded and it didn't fit his narrative.

Thank you.

Anyone else? Greg?

I'll be brief. Say your name for the record, please. Greg Tolerant, and I'll be brief. I've been in the party for this week. Last week, Karen Kerr had a letter in there saying what a very rational approach to this. Don't rush it. Don't spot zone it. Don't, as Linda said, Swiss cheese it, or somebody said. I think that it is really important to figure out how this works because most people here are thinking AUD, that magically the only thing anyone will want to buy there or build there uh two or three of the houses could go to one very well-off person and suddenly you wind up another one of these six thousand eight thousand square feet houses that everybody is so concerned about and it could it could happen it could be an unintended consequence of rushing this thank you i tried to think of a joke but and you repeated yourself last time

Karen, I saw your hand up first.

If my name was mentioned, I'd better get up. Karen Care, Hay Beach. I've been here for 54 years, and I've watched this sort of favoritism trend go over the last five decades. And in my letter, I tried to be really clear and simple. Everyone agrees we have a housing problem here, affordable housing. I don't think there's a person alive that doesn't know we need to solve that problem. But this application, I think, is the wrong way to do it. And in my letter, I said, why doesn't the board step back and say, yes, let's review this. Let's establish a process that looks at this overlay district properly and not start doing this smart zoning, which I've watched for 50 years. I've seen the cronyism, the favoritism. I know about all the you know 1500 illegal ADUs on the island, because I had one 40 years ago, I don't know if any of you remember. I guess you don't. It was illegal because I had an oven in it, and at the time ovens were not legal. So I had a lovely ADU, I had a garage that I changed into an apartment, now Provence Piconi owns the property, but so I'm very familiar with all this stuff, but I just would encourage the board. Don't set a precedent for breaking the law and breaking the code. I mean, I don't know why people can't follow the law and follow the code. And if something needs to be changed, then do it properly and have a proper process. And don't set a standard for breaking our laws. Thank you. Thank you. Steven.

Steven Jacobs. Good evening. For the initial hearing, I submitted a fairly lengthy memo. I'm not going to repeat the details.

Don't wave me off like that.

Well, you waved me off.

I didn't. I should have been in the middle of my comments and woken people up.

I just want to start by sharing some of the bullet points and tweaking one of them. What I had established is that the change of zoning that's sought simply cannot be reconciled with the comprehensive plan. And that's a requirement for any zoning change. The nearshore overlay has stood the test of time. It's been acknowledged. a bunch of studies that were cited in my submission, was recently reaffirmed by the town board in a 2023 housing plan. The evidence shows that this property, in fact, does belong in the near shore overlay. And the fact that the near shore overlay may not have been perfectly created, that there may have been arbitrariness in some portions of it, frankly, that's not relevant. What's relevant is, does it fit the criteria set forth in the town code, which directly flow from the 1994 comprehensive plan? and the arguments that it does not are based on unsupported statements and incomplete data as jan pointed out the contrast between mr sherman's analysis of his property and of the applicant's property could not be more stark Finally, the emphasis on affordable housing that has been placed, that has been emphasized by many of the supporters of this application really is misplaced because, as has been pointed out, the unit would not have to be affordable. And like it or not, the evidence does appear to show that the applicant does not meet at least two and probably three of the criteria for the ADU program. Now, I was not planning to submit anything else to the board, but Friday night I saw there was a lengthy, fairly lengthy memo submitted by the law firm representing the applicant, and I felt that required a response. I'm not going to in any great detail go through the response it's there for the board to look at among other things it emphasizes that a law firm relies repeatedly on unsupported claims selectively chosen and incomplete data In fact, in one instance, it misrepresents the data it's relying on and how it relates to the comprehensive plan. The firm, as I think may have already been pointed out tonight, failed to acknowledge that the applicant's own paid consultant recommended additional testing. TAB, Mark McIntyre, place great emphasis on the memo received from the town engineer. TAB, Mark McIntyre, aspects of that have already been mentioned, I won't go into that, but what jumped out at me about the town engineers memo was that it did not address the standard set forth in the town code section 133 12. TAB, Mark McIntyre, And those standards, as mentioned flow directly from the comprehensive plan. Instead, it enunciates an entirely different standard, which, if it were not quite this late, I would read, but is in what I submitted today and I urge you to look at because it simply cannot be reconciled with what actually is in the town code. To make that even more glaring, the memo from the town engineer goes at some length into an analysis of the regulations applicable in Southall, Southampton, and East Hampton. And putting aside the fact that the regulations cited have to do with setbacks, putting aside the fact that the geophysical aspects of the towns differ significantly, it doesn't matter. It's an issue of Shelter Island, the Shelter Island Town Code. And with respect to this application, what controls is the Town Code and particularly the Comprehensive Plan, because any modification from the Town Code, any change in zoning, has to be consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. The case law on that is clear. I just want to end, and this is me being more black than traditional, but at the initial hearing last month, two of you were ready to close this hearing, despite a chorus of folks, members of the public, even the town's environmental consultant, urging the need for further information and analysis. And at least one of the two of you has a longstanding desire to remove the prohibition on accessory dwellings throughout the nearshore overlay that's documented. So I would like to focus in closing on the other three of you and particularly the supervisor. Your positions are secure. No one is challenging you. You have the freedom to do whatever you think is in the best interests of the town of Shelter Island as a whole. And in considering how to proceed, I respectfully urge you and the others to ask yourself these questions. What do I want my legacy to be? How do I want to be remembered? Do I want to be remembered for starting to dismantle the island's environmental protections where they are most needed in the context of this application? Do I want to be remembered for approving an application because the applicant is well-recognized as a good person and community member? And nobody is questioning that. Nobody. Do I want to be remembered for being unable to resist the appeals of applicants' supporters? Supporters including applicants' friends, work colleagues, and other members of the school community, appeals from some of your political patrons and former colleagues, and various supporters who have agendas that go far beyond a basement apartment on a quarter acre lot in the near shore overlay. Agendas including prioritizing housing over the island's environment, even in the most environmentally sensitive areas, pursuing public water, and or wanting development that will be good for their business. Do I want to be remembered for giving in to the emotional appeals and frankly, understandable emotional appeals of other islanders who have, sorry, I missed my thought here. I'm sorry. To the emotional appeals of those who are justifiably angry, annoyed as I am, about some of the eyesores that one sees walking around or driving around the island, eyesores that have been permitted by the town code or variances approved by the ZBA. And finally, do I want to be remembered for brushing aside the concerns expressed will have no connection to the applicant, nothing personal against her. And the concerns expressed by local community organizations representing hundreds of members of our community or by the group for the East End I want to be remembered for starting down the path of greatly increasing housing density in the near shore without proper environmental review. We're fashionable narratives, but waiting for serious scientific studies, some of which are already underway, and for a wider, better informed public discussion. Those are the questions I hope you will think deeply about. I respectfully submit that your legacies and the island's environment hang in the balance. Thank you for listening.

At the beginning of June, someone came to me and said, I have three weeks left. I have to work here. but I have to leave my rental. Can I live with you for three weeks? And I said, sure, come on over. And so she did. And as she was leaving, she said, just spend the summer looking for a 12 month rental. Hope I find one. And that's what we're faced with. It's easy to say, oh, the environment is really, really important. Affordable rentals that's important to but not as important as the environment, frankly, I don't think you have to choose one over the other, you can have both. just have to think it through, but you can't lose sight of the fact that we are desperate for rentals 12 month rentals both for families working families which which which support our schools and for individuals professionals. who cannot afford to buy here. My kids make good money. They cannot afford to buy here. It's just incredibly expensive. We have gone down the road long, long way of an incredibly wealthy island. And that consequence of that is that working people can't live here. So you've got to balance it. And we've got to come up with more rentals. I hope there are more ADUs. I want a lot more ADUs. It doesn't mean that we'll sacrifice our environment. We just have to figure it out in terms of where we could put the ADUs, where we could put two and three bedroom houses, which is desperate for working families, but we can do it. But don't try and take one over the other. We need both.

I saw Jan raised his hand, but before I call on you a second time, is there anyone in the fiscal audience who wishes to speak before I go to Zoom like this?

Lynn? I was hoping to not speak this evening, but I will speak. Lynn Pollock and the applicant. And again, if I did last time, I crossed out half of my notes, so I'll be as brief as I can. The fact that I am the first applicant for a zone change does not make it an inappropriate action. Neighboring towns in the East End have active procedures for zone changes. And just because I'm the first resident of Shelter Island to apply for a zone change does not mean that to build an ADU with a zone change partially that my intentions are egregious. So I just wanted to point that out. I wanted to comment on some of the demarists. She said, quote, I'm not a lawyer. I also believe she's not a civil engineer. I also believe she is not an environmental consultant. And I also believe she's not even a property owner on Shelter Island. I would love to know how she concludes that my ADU will not be affordable housing. Is she a profit? Does she know what I plan to charge for my 600 square foot apartment that I would hope to have a teacher in? The affordable rate for a one bedroom apartment in Suffolk County is $2,600 a month. That's not affordable. So nobody can predict what I will charge if I even get this ADU. So to pretend to be a prophet and say that I will not charge an affordable rate, I intend to charge under $2,600 for a single person to live in my ADU. And my hope is that it is a teacher. or a firefighter or a local person. Ms. Demarest's information is not specific to my site and it's dated. And now she's questioning the credibility of Mr. Finora, who I don't know, who is our town engineer. Mr. Finora's report does say that my property does not meet the criteria of the nearshore overlay. So I know that you did read Mr. Dixon read the last paragraph, but if you read the rest of it, he did concur with Matt Sherman and with my engineer from E& Consult. Ms. Demarest also quote said, I am not certain and that's not my call. And that's true, Ms. Demarest, because you are not an expert and therefore she is not a credible witness. Mr. Shatkin, I agree with, you that we can do both. I am trying to be able to stay on the island. I am trying to participate in an initiative, the plus one ADE program. I am trying to serve the community in different ways. And I think we can do both. And if people think that I have no regard for the environment, that's not true. I got an AI septic when I didn't even need one. And many of the people who are opposing me don't even have AI septics and they live on the water. Ms. Ford, who just came on, who just chimed in about the problem of building ADUs, I believe she just built a home greatly in excess of 6,000 square feet, or 5999, which is the town limit, which is on the water and has accessory sleeping quarters. So I don't know why she's concerned about a 600-square-foot apartment 800 feet from the water. Matt did use the Little Ram Island. example based on Mr. Sudol's comments at the last meeting. So it's not a red herring. Mr. Sudol invited them with his previous comments. Mr. Sudol, like Mrs. Demarest, is not an engineer. And what he just told you was a gross misrepresentation. I'm sorry. That's where I am. Oh, I'm sorry. I apologize. Electrical engineering, all right. I'm sorry. He's not an environmental engineer. And I do believe there was a gross misrepresentation of the data um i would like to remind mr sudol that we are in a drought and that we're not supposed to be watering our lawns between nine and four maybe you have a cistern and maybe you have an ion septic i don't know um i would like to applaud mr jacobs for using the three modes of rhetoric in his closing comments um the first one being ethos he actually is a lawyer and he does have some credibility to be able to speak logos is your ability to use logic. And I believe that many of his arguments are flawed. But he did lay it on thick with the pathos. Pathos is where you guilt people into thinking a certain way. And in this case, he was pulling your heartstrings about your legacy, about you don't want to be the one who created this 600 square foot ADU in a place that's 800 square feet from the water that never belonged in the near shore overlay. So I give him credit for using the three modes of rhetoric, ethos, logos, and pathos. In closing, I would like to urge the board to rely on the town attorney and the actual engineers to make your decision. I'm sorry, the town engineer and the actual engineers To make your decision, and I would like to thank you greatly for your diligence and your attention, thank you very much.

Do any repeat people is anyone everybody here. So I want to go to the. people. I didn't say I want to go to the zoom audience and see if there's anyone who wants us to speak first.

Yes, if i'm mad mad to the rest of the park you may speak.

Yes.

Thank you very much, and I will be brief because it's past my supper time. I'm going to try to get my camera to work here. I guess that's okay, right?

Yes.

Oh, dear.

We'll imagine what you look like, sir.

Well, it's a little scary, you know. Anyway, I'm not successful with the camera. First of all, I would echo what Ms. Kaldeman just said about the previous speaker who tried to use guilt and shame as you do your job and talk about your legacy. I personally know every one of you, and you didn't deserve any of that. You were people of honor and integrity. You served well, and you have for years. So shame on anybody who would try to manipulate your thinking by using such rhetoric. You don't deserve it. So disregard anything that gentleman said about your legacy, because your legacies are good. I just want to say I know every one of the people who spoke on behalf of this, I know Joe, I've worked with Joe, Rob, John Cronin, Jerry Siller, Karen Hogue. We built a very nice barn a couple of years ago. We added to the South Ferry. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm Cliff Clark and I work at South Ferry. And we added a nice extension on our office building that was originally built in 1987. It's interesting because that was exactly the team I picked. And somebody alluded to the fact that they may not be qualified or they may be run of the mill or something. I could have picked anybody on Long Island. I could have gone to New York City and picked people. And Joe was a town attorney, a town engineer. But I chose Rob and I chose Karen Hogue and I chose Matt Sherman. And I worked with Jerry Hill on many projects, Jerry Siller on many projects when he was the town supervisor. And I just think that there's a place, this is one of those moments in time where common sense should play into how you decide. If these guys say that it's not in the overlay or should not have been on the overlay, doesn't meet the qualifications, I think that you can take that one to the bank. I believe these are thorough people. When we were trying to do something that was on the barn, saying, do you want some special exceptions? Same with the office. Each of them, Karen was in on it, said, no, you can't do that because it doesn't meet this. And Rob said the same thing. And Matt would say, no, Cliff, we're near overlay. We can't do this. I just want to say that I think these things should be given very serious consideration. These units, we need housing. And if we don't have a board who can use more than just the letter of the law, or the letter of the code or something that's a work in progress. If we don't have you be able to do that, I think you'll miss some opportunities to provide very good housing for good people that will be the core of Shelter Island. I am so grateful that there are quarter and half acre lots that pre-existed zoning, pre-existed the codes that are in these one A and double A. South Ferry provide housing for about seven people each summer. This is very affordable. We have a family and a captain and others who have year-round housing, and they're in parcels that are nonconforming, but everything's by code. We have to be able to address those, in my opinion, where we can say to a code or a zoning law that this is practical, this makes common sense. We need to try to help people have housing on Shelter Island. And I thank you for listening, and I thank you for your time. And do not be messed over by people that want to guilt you. It's better than that.

Thank you. I see I have four repeats later. We've got Jan, Michael Shatkin, and Pam. And I see David Lopez, you've raised your hand for the first time this evening, although you have spoken before. So hopefully your comments are new.

Yes, they are. Thank you. They are new. It's David Lopez. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I indicated in my prior comments and in a letter that I wrote to the board that I'm opposed to the application. I gave a variety of reasons. One of them, and I won't repeat those, one of them though that I want to elaborate on is that, you know, I said I was troubled by the use of spot zoning to modify the NSO. And I said that because this process is a one-way street. which will allow applicants to come out of the NSO, but there's no process for getting people into the NSO. I think that's really important in light of something that I failed to mention last time. Mr. Sherman at the ZBA hearing said, as he was going through his analysis, that there are properties in the NSO that shouldn't be included, but that there are also properties that aren't in the NSO that should be. And I think that's an opportunity to take the NSO, which is intended to protect all of us, to protect our drinking water and protect our bays, and fix it so that it does the job it was intended for. And we can do that through a holistic, independent review by experts who are seeking the truth and are not trying to favor one side or the other, but who are really trying to give us an honest analysis. So I would really urge you to substitute that kind of process for the process that we're in the middle of right now. Separately, I want to focus on something tonight that I think should be of concern to the board, but also more importantly, to the members of the public who were in favor of this application and of this particular process for the application. And the concern is that if the board grants this application, a trail of consequences could easily follow over a pretty short period of time that will impact, I would say property rights and taxes for all residents and potentially dramatically change their neighborhood. So I'm going to give a really quick sketch of how things could play out. This is just directional and people can agree or disagree with it, but let's assume that the board approves this application. and then assume over a year or two, it approves a large number of similar applications. And that it also, the board also takes other steps on a path to undoing other parts of the NSO and other code provisions that protect our water by limiting density. I think those are reasonable assumptions, based on some prior public statements made by some town officials, but everybody should judge for themselves whether that's reasonable or not. What those assumptions in my sketch lead to is a steadily increased water pumpage and septic discharge. And at some point in some number of years, that will cause the water table in larger and larger sections of the island to shrink or be polluted, and it's gonna cause problems in our bays. And at that point in my sketch, here's where it gets interesting. I suspect that some board members will declare of the then current board will declare that there's a crisis and that we have to solve that crisis by doing something. And the question is, what can you do at that point? I think your options are pretty limited. One of them is gonna be, I'm sure is gonna get discussed and maybe will actually happen is the implementation of municipal water. And municipal water has got a lot of consequences. Some of the downsides include, it can mean that you lose access to your well And in exchange, you may receive water that's actually of lesser quality than what you have now and you're paying a higher price for it. But then municipal water doesn't actually help the bays and creeks. So then municipal sewers and water treatment follow. And of course, all of those things cost a lot of money that's going to come from increased tax bills to taxpayers. Now, some people say, oh, there's going to be grant money. And that may be true, but that relies on the fact there's going to have to be a grant program available when we need it. And in any case, it's still a bit of a distraction because those programs only cover a fraction of what is a very large cost and remainder is gonna come from taxpayers either directly or indirectly. So with all of those pieces of my puzzle, my sketch in place, the last thing that happens is that once you have municipal water and municipal sewage, You then have a license to really loosen zoning and to increase development, including building large numbers of multifamily homes, which will forever change the character of neighborhoods. Now, you may say that that is fiction, what I just described. You may say it's improbable, or you may say that it's a reasonable, at least directional guess as to where the board might want to go. And I think that if you think it's a reasonable guess, then everybody should want this process to stop right here, right now. And we should restart with a very well-informed, balanced discussion about what makes sense for the island. Because as somebody else said, or a couple of people have said, housing and the environment can work together, but we really need a plan to make that happen. And that's what we aren't headed toward right now is a plan. So that would be my suggestion. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. Anyone else on Zoom who wishes to speak? All right, since we just have duplicates, we'll go back to Jan, if you wish to go first. Yes.

Yeah, I just wanted to follow on what David Lopez said. And I actually wrote a letter to the editor a few weeks ago when I called for the same. It's that there should not be piecemeal spot zoning being approved anywhere. What we need is the study. And actually, also the letter from Stella from Heights Property Association. calls for a study. And even Matt Sherman suggested that perhaps there should be a study, this opportunity to review NSO. And remember, the NSO was put in place 30 years ago. Since then, we've had definitely rising sea levels and so forth. If there is a study, it is quite likely that we'll find that NSO needs to be expanded, not picked off here and there and not shrunk but expanded okay but whatever the qualified people should come in and do independent study of the near shore overlay and environmental protections which are needed so that's what i would like to leave you with michael

Just repeat your name for the record.

Michael Jepkin.

Just for those on Zoom who can't see you.

So many wonderful things occur. So many wonderful products are designed.

And you suspend current realities when you think what should be rather than what is.

I encourage this board to come up with a vision for housing. creates housing opportunities for all that live on the island and serve the needs of the community, housing that yields a year-round community, not a summer only population, and a vision for the environment that rethinks the near shore overlay in a much more effective manner.

We've given it away to large houses on the perimeter.

We've given up the idea of a vegetated buffer because it was disturbed in the past. When somebody has come in and asked for the world, we've said yes to that. We haven't taken the opportunity to mitigate community. First, I say you have, I say that as an example, because you have tools, you have laws that people are talking about it and nausea this evening, that no longer apply.

And we don't have a vision, start with a vision.

rewrite laws to support the island that we all deserve. Thank you.

Yeah. i'm sorry did you call on me yes i did yeah i just have one question for the town board um this being a zoning change when will the town board present this to the suffolk county planning commission for review since that's one of the things that they will review and it's not part of the agreement that you made with them it's already been submitted and they said it's a matter of local jurisdiction

TAB, Because it's just an overlay district it's not an actual change of zoning, so it will stay double a zone it's just being removed from an overlay so they said it's local determination and they don't need to see it further.

Is there anyone else?

Okay, let me just let me just follow up with that. So could we get that posted? Because I'd like to see that I didn't know even notice it was on their agenda at any time. I've been watching their agendas knowing that it should have gone to them. I'd like to see that memo posted if you may. We don't have a memo.

We spoke to them at a meeting. And they said they don't want to see it. It's a local determination.

Did they understand that the overlay district is 78 acres in size? Yes. Okay, then I would just like to remind the board that this is, in fact, you know, a zoning change basically for a request to eliminate the land use variance that was required by the ZBA. So, you know, it really becomes a very. Excuse me. You know that. This is a land use issue, so if you will permit a zoning change without a full application, which I will contend this still is without any information on the construction of this ADU, as Mr. Sherman said at the first public hearing, this could affect any district, any zone, any property. So again, a double A property in residential zone that the business is sitting on. Oh, well, maybe they want to change to commercial property now so that they can have amplified music without having to get a noise variance. You know, there are a lot of implications in making this decision. And I really do request that you take a hard look at it as required by SECRA. It's my understanding now this is an unlisted action. So you do have the right to request a full environmental assessment form to get more information about this piece of property and how it will affect the area. Perhaps that's a good way to go. I would request that the town board also ask the planning board, the CAC and the ZBA to weigh in either as interested or involved agencies on this application, given the, what do I want to say? The magnitude of it. because that's what we're talking about the magnitude of this changing districts zoning districts throughout the island without any particular procedure or consideration to that so I thank you for your time thank you okay anyone else before I bring it back to the board I'd just like to respond to Stephen Jacobs I'd just like to respond to the critique of my comments

Various applicant supporters have stressed how good and deserving a person she is. Others have emphasized the obvious need for affordable housing. Some might say that was an attempt to guilt you into approving this application. I was definitely not attempting to guilt you into denying this application. I was simply encouraging you to look at the facts the law and the consequences rather than who's advocating on each side thank you anyone else before i bring it back to the board what do we want to do is there any additional information other than

looking at everything that we have received in all of the letters that we've gotten they just shared information that there was a conversation with the planning commission i i had no idea when when did this happen why wasn't the board apprised of it at least it happened

twice that I know of. Once was at an actual Planning Commission meeting. I was at a meeting with Christina and the members of the Planning Commission and the members of the Suffolk County Planning Boards and we were discussing things like zoning changes and I was talking to them about would this qualify as something that you would want to see and i laid out all the specifics this is a near shore overlay district on a double a zone property the intention of the near shore overlay is to protect the coastal areas and i explained to them that we're getting an application because the applicant doesn't believe that their property belongs in the near shore overlay district is this something that you would want to see and they said no they said it is not going to impact any neighboring communities or towns it is of local

next gen it's not even next to like a county property so they said no they don't want to see they've told us that we could still ask for a review and maybe that's something that we would consider but i didn't know about it until just now or perhaps not maybe we wouldn't consider it interesting but that's going to be their response

where you haven't been called on. Is that something that you want us to do a formal request for them?

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's worthwhile. I don't. It's a zoning issue.

I'm just a little shocked that this is the first time I heard of this. Is it now? So yes, I would. No, not that I agree.

Not that I recognize it.

It would not be a bad thing to submit to them and get something in writing since this is news.

Is there any other information that we think we need?

DW Brooks indicated they were going to do the environmental review.

Yes, they have to finish the secret and they can't complete that until we close the public hearing. do you want to speak to that at all?

So we do have everything that we need to make a determination of significance at this time to complete the seeker.

That generally doesn't happen until we close the public hearing and then we get the final report and then we discuss it when we get to a work session. So even if we were to close this this evening, we wouldn't put it on for like we wouldn't have it on the group session at all so that they have time to complete the report.

Also, just for the public's edification, this matter started at the ZBA and it was withdrawn and then brought to us. Can you elaborate on that? I mean, I guess I should have asked Lynn when she was there.

Yes, Matt's still on. Because Matt was the one who did the process.

I think he spoke to it today.

He did. And he spoke to it last time.

Yeah, thank you Matt Sherman again for the applicant. I spoke with it last time and I kind of started off this hearing with the same thing. What we did was When we realized we needed to do a zone change or a use variance at the time, there was no process that had been created at the town to do his own change. So, having the only, the only avenue ahead of us was to do a use variance. We got through that process of the, the initial application and the hearing, and they had actually closed the hearing. when the town finalized their procedure and their process for doing the zone change and at that time we withdrew the zba application because now we had the proper avenue in place to come to you guys for a change in zone thank you for that yeah you're welcome

All right, so from what I'm hearing then is we've got just a request from the Suffolk County Planning Commission for determination.

I had one of the engineering letter, but we got that.

Right. What I would like to suggest then is we close the public hearing except for written correspondence being the written correspondence

I would like to keep it open. I would like to adjourn it. If there's more correspondence coming in, more people can talk. I don't think it hurts another three weeks to have another hearing. I don't know what the rush is. This is a huge issue. it's a huge issue but I don't know I mean people were starting to repeat themselves today um and I are we going to hear anything new I don't know I I wouldn't want to give up on that Amber I really wouldn't another three weeks is that a big deal honestly in the whole scheme of this application honestly I don't know if it will

If we don't know you just said we don't know push anything I don't I do not believe that it will accomplish anything more and we've got like a stack of letters duplicate submissions at times I just. We got criticized in the editorial this past week about the length of our meetings, how long have we been on this public hearing how long to contribute to the last public hearing that lasted. Part of trying to manage these agendas is trying to make sure that what we have on the agendas fits into a reasonable timeframe when we keep continue to have hearing active hearing held open, which we did last year repeatedly.

this is a huge issue i don't know how you could possibly minimize this in two in two scheduled hearings honestly i don't know how you can sit there and say that and argue i really don't i don't get it it's like if you guys just want to it seems like you three just want to clear this off the table let's move on that's the impression i'm getting Am I wrong?

Yes. So I think that what has happened is the application itself is specifically to determine whether or not the property belongs in the nearshore overlay. We're not approving an ADU. We're not taking a stance on ADUs in the nearshore overlay. We're not determining whether or not we need to reevaluate the nearshore overlay. We're not determining whether or not we're going to rewrite the nearshore overlay. This is a very specific application. and someone is taking advantage of the opportunity that's in the code to request that this review happen because when the nearshore overlay was written, they understood that there might be errors and people need a relief file. This application is asking us to look at that parcel for that reason. There's a lot in the letters and everything that goes beyond the application. That is something that we do need to look at, but it's not necessarily COB, Elaine McLaughlin, The focus of the hearing this needs to be taken outside of the hearing outside of the application and discussed. COB, Elaine McLaughlin, I think that what the application is requesting, I think we have the information necessary to evaluate that I think the larger questions need to be handled outside of this hearing.

COB, Elaine McLaughlin, I think that we need to, I think this is a big issue with you. And that's why I think we need to bring it to a work session and start working through it. We've got a lot of information here and we have to decide what we're going to do about it. This is the first thing. This is the first one that's ever come before us. And there are a lot of questions. So I would imagine that it's going to take us a while to work this out. And so I think we should start.

In a way, I agree with Meg in the fact that this is about whether or not this property belongs in the near shore overlay. And to be honest with you, I don't think that's really a question for us. The piece of legislation that provided a relief valve was, It wasn't a proper relief valve. The ZBA, that's why they exist. The town board writes legislation that deals with everyone. And if you need an exception, you go to a different body

to get yeah i don't know applications for a change in the zoning map or this chapter shall be submitted in a form required by the town board yeah it's to the town board like this is what we have we need to fix that i don't we need to fix that i never want to look at another one of these again we do need to fix it and if we're not going to talk about um what we're going to do to have this make sense

And maybe we can use the hearing for that.

The hearing is at least how I see it.

The hearing is us hearing from the public, which we have heard a lot. We've got a lot of correspondence, you know, but now exactly what you're saying. We have to figure out what to do and the where we do that. is not here where we don't speak and we listen which is listening is important it's important for us to get the feedback it's important for us to get the information well we've got a lot of to figure out and like i said i'm for we should dig in and start thinking about how to figure it out do we need to address the code that says don't changes come to us you know what i mean like there's so many pieces of this that we have to work through And so I think we should start.

There will be public hearings once we come up with legislation. There will be public hearings for that.

But before that happens, you're going to.

But this application, we have to do it.

We have to do it.

We have to evaluate it, because there's five criteria that we need to sit down and review. What's been submitted, all of the letters, all the information.

I mean the proper way that we've got the problem is to do a study and rewrite the dear shore old life I'm sure this property will get written out of it in that process yeah but we still have to address the application yeah we still have to we could talk about that we could talk about a study we could talk about the code we you know what I mean there's so many follow-up things just saying that what would the application

We have to deal with this application. We have an application before us. We have to make a decision. We can't just ignore it.

We can't ignore it. We don't have to approve it. There's no need to approve it. We could just say no.

That's a discussion that we should come to a work session.

Is that something that would be considered? I don't know where...

Isn't that where we would decide yes or no in a work session, not in a public hearing? Right, so you have to close the public hearing in order to have that discussion. We can have that discussion.

I know that. OK. I just think another public hearing is warranted. That's all. I don't think it does any harm to have another public hearing three weeks from now, honestly.

I disagree, but I hear your opinion.

weeks um it depends on how long it takes them to respond okay we probably need to set some sort of like a time time deadline like three weeks yeah we could keep it open now we could keep it open now and make a request to the subject planning commission that we would like a comment i would want come into it but if you don't know if they comment at the next end at the next monthly meeting closer

No, keep it keep it open now we don't know how when when they respond in the next meeting at that meeting, do we then close it because that's the one thing that's being held open for.

Well, we want to leave here we leave on what was public hearing suffer written correspondence and so that one piece of correspondence is what we would accept into the record. And in my. Estimation it's. subject to lowest local jurisdiction or this is what we this is our opinion on it it's one of the other it's not going to be 99.9 of the time it's local jurisdiction because we don't abut any other jurisdiction and we can always if we think that they come back and say oh no it's not subject to local jurisdiction we have this and we want to reopen the public hearing we can't but my question to you thomas is you're talking about a time frame tell like what i thought um for this there wasn't like a 60 day like it's automatically granted okay so yeah what kind of time frame are we under for having to make a decision there's it's just like any other legislation legislative act it's like you know when you close a public hearing on a code change there's no 62-day limit so it's you know up to you i just it's either a reasonable estimation of what it will take and

Three weeks at least for Suffolk County to respond. Yeah, I'm not sure.

I don't know. ZBA people. ZBA liaisons.

We submit a lot of things to... How long does it usually... Christina usually gets them back within a week, two weeks.

So do we think like two or three weeks?

Probably two weeks of submission.

And so here's my question, just for understanding, like, if we did, like, let's say we did two weeks, what would happen if we didn't get the correspondence? So we just keep the like, it's just like procedurally, you know what I mean? Like, we said, like, we said a certain amount of time and they're on vacation or whatever, like what happens? Like, would we just make a motion to keep it open an additional amount of time? You can do that.

Because we don't have the 62-day clock.

I just didn't understand how that worked procedurally.

Making it too short for no reason doesn't make sense.

Yeah. And I didn't want to risk that it's automatically approved because we don't get correspondence back. And so we take it out of our decision-making hands.

It feels like three weeks is a reasonable amount of time. But two weeks is not enough.

it is july and august but you were suggesting a time frame because why like does it need to be written into i mean i just added cleaner but just to be clear i mean i guess because there's not a 62-day limit you can just leave it until you get the correspondence yeah but it i think you know just specific in the motion that it's you know for this only so that's the only

Okay, I see Pam, you raised your hand. Was that still raised from earlier or was it a new public?

No, I just have a new question for the town board because it seems to me that you're not going to require any plans submitted or site plans or surveys or anything for the construction of this ADU. And in doing that, you're creating a situation of segmentation under CEQA. There's two actions and CEQA, On the short form, I think it's question one even. It says, what's the project and what's the intent? What's the need? What's the necessity for this? And you're eliminating any information on what seems to be the necessity for this, which is the construction of this ADU. So I think that you're making a mistake closing this hearing without demanding those construction documents from the applicant. I just don't see how you can close this hearing without it. That's the reason she is applying for this use variance via a zoning change elimination. So I'm not really sure I understand how you can close this without requesting that from the applicant. And how can that be separated and how possibly can P.W. Grosser do a proper analysis of it if that's what this is all about?

interesting point but thomas is it relevant or can caitlyn speak to this since they're doing the review yeah okay like caitlyn do i all right sure i can speak to this so i mean the action here is the removal of the near shore peninsula overlay district for an ADU, it's not end an ADU construction. So there is a difference in that approach. This is a conversion of an existing basement for an ADU, but before the board, the action before the board is the removal, again, the removal of the zoning overlay for the ADU, not end the ADU. It's not construction of the ADU. I hope that clarifies it a little bit.

We need to know what the ADU is and how it will be built. We need more information on the ADU.

The ADU, I mean, as we talked about earlier, the governor just signed a bill to make ADU construction a type two action anyway. So I don't think there's a segmentation issue with this, but

Correct. The ADU itself is a type two action. Before you, it is the removal of the overlay zoning district. And yes, it is to eventually be able to have an ADU. But it does not involve the construction of the ADU, this decision.

I can't wrap my head around that. It sounds like there's an open issue here. I really can't. I don't know what you're saying.

If I may jump in again, Matt Sherman, for the applicant, as Caitlin just very concisely described, the nearshore overlay, the change in the overlay district is the ask in and of itself. The desire that precipitated that is the construction of the ADU. They're two separate things, even though they are intimately connected to one another. I have no problem submitting if the board would like to close the hearing tonight and say, We're closing the hearing except for written correspondence from the Suffolk County Planning Commission to confirm that they don't, that this is for local, that have been submitted to the town and other, through the ZBA and through other avenues previously. I can submit those tomorrow. That's not a problem at all. So that could put that whole question to rest. You'll have them if you want to look at them. You can. If you don't want to look at them, you don't have to look at them. But we can submit those to the town tomorrow morning. That's not a problem at all.

The criteria that we're looking at is the freshwater table, how close it is to sea level and saltwater intrusion. The land surface is close to the level of freshwater table. The land drains towards creek or bay waters. Density of development and anticipated future development threatening ecologically sensitive areas. The land drains toward freshwater ponds. So number four, density of development. Do you need the plans in order to make that? I guess that would be my question, just like, we're looking at the criteria.

Density not an issue?

It's a... Well, the question is asked here, one bedroom ADU.

A two bedroom, a two family house, and that's a... That's what it becomes, not a single family home. It's a two family house.

The real rub here is this is not the way to do this. This is what we're stuck with. Yeah. I mean, making a one off exception to this is not the way to do this.

We're going to have to make a decision. So what we can work on is making this not come to us again.

Okay. I'm with you on that. I never want to see another one of these again. I mean, if we're going to sit down as a board and take a real look at the near shore overlay, which I think we should, because it was done 25 years ago, science has changed. I mean, there's so much more information available to us now that wasn't available 25 years ago. i'm all on board for that and let's redraw this thing and i'll tell you from what i can see this will probably be out of the near shore overlay if we redraw it and that's how we should be doing it so this to me makes no sense so just what are you suggesting that we do with the application that's before us

But don't we have to close the hearing to even have that discussion?

Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

I mean, what should we do with the application? I said tonight.

But I know, but what I'm trying to get to, like, regardless, we have to do something here. Right. We've got to prove it. We've got to deny it. We've got to deal with the issues that it brings up.

Right now, we're just getting our own personal issues out on the table because we've listened to everybody else. And I know we normally do this in a work session, but it's also still public. This is a public hearing that we're supposed to be listening. I just think that we...

I think that we have a lot of things. We've got this application, we've got the process, we've got questions about the new, like it's brought up so many things. And like I said, I've said it before, I think we need to start working on all of them in a work session.

It's in the name. Exactly.

There's a lot of work to be done that this brings up.

So just who thinks we need the site plan? for the ADU in order to evaluate the criteria on density of development?

Well, I think we should see it again. I mean, it's readily available, so let's have it. It's not like it's going to slow this down.

What exactly are you asking for? I think he's asking the site plan we have. You mean the construction of the ADU? I don't think it's necessary. But if other people need it, then that's fine.

Because this is a request for a zoning change for an 80 year.

Right.

Like I said, it's readily available. It's not going to slow anything down.

Then what I would like to do is we hold it, we adjourn, we adjourn the public hearing. But can we leave it open for just the Suffolk County Planning Commission and then the site plan so that at the next public hearing, we are just discussing those two topics. Not all of this other stuff.

You can do that. You can leave it open for written correspondence to include those two items.

I say you can leave it open to the next hearing for those specific items or you could close it and leave it open for written correspondence for those two specific items so we closed it then we wouldn't we would just accept those only the site plan and the whatever the letter is the county gives us and we would we be able to once we had both of those things in hand would we be able to start working on it in the work session if we did the the ladder okay yeah

I would like to do that, I would like to be the latter also is it to the written correspondence.

I would like to adjourn. instruction plan.

i'm sorry, but how do you close this if you're going to.

You are out of line I haven't called on the public again, I see your hand is raised to see bill mistress from candace race, but you have to wait, please.

Well, we're closing it, waiting for it, so that's fine.

Well, no, well, written correspondence only or leave it open for public hearing?

I'd like to leave it open for public hearing, but I hate this case. Good job. I did not say this was fun.

It's not fun. By not closing it, you just prolong the agony.

Because we can open it again and just close it if we have everything we need. We're still in the same place.

Okay, so what are you suggesting?

Adjourn it. I mean, leave it open.

Leave it open for just discussion on these two topics. You're just saying adjourn it and then anything can get regurgitated. Like i'm trying to get the worst thing is that really the worst thing it's 920 yeah wait.

We go to this it's not because the report of putting the paper that.

My legitimate question is, as part of this leaving it open in general, whatever you want to call. How can we work in the I guess we have to wait for the work session and discuss you know what we do with.

That's the issue. But we can start to discuss because we're going to start to talk about the legislation. We can talk about the legislation separately from this application.

How we get the studies done and how we pay for the studies.

Yes.

Because without that piece, it's hard to do this.

It's a totally separate topic. That's on my to-do list.

My lengthy to-do list.

But we can discuss that separately i'm just what i'm trying to accomplish is not having like a free-for-all on all the topics like we limit it to these two items would be what we would discuss like we would leave the public hearing open but limit it to only the Suffolk County Planning Commission letter and Karen Grovely, The density of development that gets discussed with receiving the site plan on me, or the you know construction plans on EDU.

COB, Steve Armstead, And receive. COB, Steve Armstead, To close it to get research report, I guess yeah. Karen Grovely, yeah.

Karen Grovely, Can I just make it make a point on behalf of the. Karen Grovely, Just not yet Karen. Sure um.

Karen Grovely, I mean Albert you're still you want to leave it open and. COB, Steve Armstead, Free for you.

So I'm still in the same place.

Yeah. Leave it open. But like I said.

Broadly open.

Broadly open. Well, is there anything else that you're going to need, Alfred, other than these two items?

I don't know what I might need, Ben. What expertise do you have regarding the zone change? Anybody here at the table have expertise? Let's let people come in. This is a big issue for the island. A very big issue. Adjourn it. Does another three weeks hurt? We're going to have to wait for the planning commission to come back to us? I love that plan. I don't know what the rush is. Absolutely. This is a... We can close it, yes.

Nothing major happens in three weeks. I will vote to close it.

All right. Let's see. Pam, there's a number of people who had their hands up. I think Pam had hers up first.

Okay. I'm just concerned that you were going to close it and then accept additional information from the applicant. And I think that that's poor process. So if you're going to ask for the additional information from the applicant and keep the hearing open, that seems reasonable. It's a reasonable decision in this case, because it really is the intent of the application to build this ADU in the near shore overlay district. And I think it's an important point and I don't think it should be overlooked. So I would appreciate it that you do in fact adjourn this, let us see the application for the actual construction, give us a chance to look at it, make comments on it, and then take it to the next hearing and see where it goes. I agree that it's a waste of time to go over all the criteria again. And then you have control over that during the course of the public hearing, of course, but this is important information. And I think the public has a right to see it and not get it submitted behind closed doors where we can just look at it and not really have time to comment on it or get some answers that some questions answered that we might have. So I'd appreciate you to consider that. Thank you very much.

Can we leave it open so the public can discuss the things they're waiting for? The letter from Suffolk County.

That's what I was suggesting, is that we leave it open, receive these two items, and the next public hearing is only for these two items. That's what I was suggesting.

OK. I didn't know.

Stephen Jacobs, I see you have your hand up.

Stephen Jacobs again. Just wanted to throw out a possibly more efficient alternative, and that is for the next hearing, set time limits. Give each side 20 minutes or 30 minutes, or each speaker three minutes. And I think that would actually give you better control of this, because I get the regurgitation point. I'm probably somewhat guilty of it myself. And I think we don't need the beeping stopwatch that we had before, but something like that, I think just might be a good way of disciplining everybody. Thank you. Bill Maestro.

I should say Bill Maestro. I see you have a hand up.

Yeah, I've had my hand up for a little while. I hate to put it up at the end of this. One thing before I say anything, just recognize, because this is an issue of first impression, It's going to be really messy and it's been messy. So don't beat ourselves because it was messy. Anyway, I had a real easy point of clarification. If you close the hearing or if you adjourn it just for those other two items, are you still accepting correspondence from the public? because I didn't speak tonight because not everyone was speaking forever, but I have two or three points I was gonna submit as a piece of correspondence. So it's just a point of clarification. You guys have gone on way too long.

I was going to suggest that only correspondence for these two items. So do you wish to

I don't know. I'm not going to torture anyone. I would rather just submit something that's one page and say a few things, but it's gone on too long tonight. I don't want to contribute to the messiness. I may be the only one who still submits something, Amber. Okay.

you know i guess these leave it around these two items yeah and but having public discussion about them yes yeah yeah no it would be for this public hearing but i mean that's what i was suggesting karen ho wanted to say something yes karen

Yes, I would just, I think for efficiency purposes, I think, and I'd respectfully request that the board close the public hearing and leave it open for written submission of the Suffolk County Planning Commission letter, as well as for the construction plans, which Mr. Sherman said he can get to the board first thing in the morning. I don't see the ADU construction plans as really having any meaningful impact to neighbors as part of this application. It's a 600 square foot footprint. But, you know, limiting If you keep the public hearing open just for discussion on those two items, you know, I would expect that that would evolve into similar conversations that are being expressed tonight because people want to have an opportunity to be further heard on that. And I just I mean, we assume that the Suffolk County Planning Commission letter is going to come back and say that it's a matter of local determination. And then that's a question of what everybody wants to comment on in terms of the floor plans of the ADU. So I just don't see what keeping the public hearing open for those two limited items would be.

I don't hear what people say about it.

Yeah, I think criteria dealing with density, that's the challenge.

don't think it has any impact on the density in the basement the existing house she can build a sleeping quarters in the basement right now getting a basic building permit and no one will say boo it's just the fact that she wants to rent it year round that requires this Janet Callahan- This jump she could have a finished basement tomorrow and no one would think twice about it, no one know about it, so.

Janet Callahan- I think that. Janet Callahan- She could.

Janet Callahan- live in here full time well she absolutely could.

And if we find out well.

Janet Callahan- it's just.

Janet Callahan- It's just silly. Janet Callahan- Our kitchen.

This process of us making an exception to this one piece of property. And that's why I made a projection of all this. It's not the way to do this.

I understand. Unfortunately, that's what the code says we have to look at.

No, we don't have to. We can stop and fix it. And so.

Still have to finish the process.

Yes. So.

Beyond you.

at 22. uh sorry that's the really board you won't be surprised how many people watch your meetings right um so what and there will be a reporting in the reporter and suppose many more people might want to comment i actually didn't submit my own letter but i'm i'm gonna write down my uh concerns here uh no more than two pages um so i would suggest because there may be more people coming, okay? A second thing, I just want to comment on something that you just said that she can build a basement tomorrow. It's actually not true because the AI septic system, which is best fit, strictly says no change of views, no expansion, no new bedrooms and so forth, okay? Did you read that?

I should have specified she can also get an updated health department permit to go with the basic department.

Ah, so she has to get the process, so she cannot build it.

There's a process, Jan.

I'm not saying there's not a process, but it's been three hours.

I have a massive headache and I would like to move on.

She wouldn't have to come back to the town. She wouldn't have to have a CBA hearing. She wouldn't have to do a lot of things.

I am for leaving it open for these two items and having public comment on these two items, which may be nothing. Who knows? Yes. Okay.

And how do you feel about leaving it open for any general written comment? We'll call it the Bill Maestro.

General written comments don't love the idea.

Okay.

But I'd love to hear from Bill. We just limited to him. No, we cannot.

Okay, so we're going to adjourn the public hearing, leaving it open for response from the Suffolk County Planning Commission on whether or not it's a local determination or not. Receipt of the the plans for the ADU. We'll post those on the website. And then written correspondence on anything for one week. How's that?

Oh, okay. That's good. Jan, Bill, did you hear that?

You can get your headers then. I will never say I'm happy after sitting through this tonight.

Don't worry, we'll do it again in three weeks. So we will limit the public sections for comments.

For one week. No, three weeks for just these two items. So we're closing it to these? No, that's not the point.

No, we're just going to. Yeah, that's the hearing is going to be the hearing. I was like, we're just going to do this again. I was, I mean, I will do my best. I did start to remind people because I have my notes.

Okay. Yeah. You've already talked about this. It's not going to happen. No.

I have faith in our supervisor.

If that's what everybody wants to do, I will take extra Advil before the meeting.

That's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to rewrite this legislation and get studies.

We can discuss that a different day. I'm putting that motion on the table.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Hearing's open.

for these two items plus written correspondence for one week on anything except for those two items.

No, I'm going to. No, I'm opposed to that. I'd like to have the hearing open. If you oppose it, then it's going to get closed.

She is leaving the hearing open. This is leaving the hearing open. She's proposing to leave the hearing open.

I thought you were just saying only the correspondent.

For these two topics. It's open for the public hearing next time for these two topics, Suffolk County Planning Commission determination and the

I thought you said you were going to take a lot of Advil and have the hearing open fully.

I'm not taking any Advil. I'm not sure I support that. I'm taking Advil. No, I'm not.

Okay. No, you don't want to keep the hearing open.

I want to keep it open for everything. Not for everything. I want to keep it for these two items.

Okay, a limited opening. Okay, I'm opposed to that.

Okay, all right, then my alternative proposal is we close the public hearing, except for a formal letter from Suffolk County Planning Commission. Yes, yes, yes.

I mean, no, but that was our opportunity right there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's what it is then.

So it's Planning Commission and the ADU plans, or just the Planning Commission?

Just the Planning Commission.

Okay, I did not go over my thoughts.

No, not at all.

All right, we will now open.

We have one more hearing.

We do, but I think that's going to be shorter.

It won't be longer.

No correspondence. Nope. I was hoping for it, but no.

Only two of us voted for that.

Didn't get it.

We are doing the continuation of the public hearing for Southern Water Authority West Neck Water Site Plan Review application. And I had on this for a second. There's a few people.

I think the only question we had left was about the right of way. And that's something that's sort of outside the application.

Yes.

So yes.

Yeah, I think what we need is I think we need to have the site plan done with the road going down the easement. So if we look at the current plans, right now it leads across the wall. So I think we need to have it so that the site plan gets represented with the proper road driveway utilizing the easement. And once we have that, we can continue the public hearing. And the reason I think that we need to keep it open is that I think that the adjoining neighbor has asked for screening. And I think they need to understand what the new driveway would look like and the impact that that will have on screening.

You don't be able to get screening on the fair side of the driveway.

No, there isn't. So that's why I think that we do have to . So I will make the request.

OK. I second that.

Is there any public comment on that? Knowing that we will continue this public hearing in three weeks, if we can comment on that. I think you should be able to get the site plan done. So no public comment. Then we will adjourn this public hearing to August 10. All right. All in favor? Aye. We will reopen the regular meeting. And we have one resolution. I don't even know where we are.

I'll read it. It's always short. Whereas the public hearing was held on Monday, July 20th, 2026 to hear any and all persons either for or against a local law entitled a local law amending chapter 53 docs. Now therefore be it resolved that the town board does hereby adopt local law number five of 2026 being enacted by the town board of the town of Shelter Island as follows. Local law number five of 2026. 53-8, design and construction of private and commercial docks. Splash boards are discouraged but may be allowed if after review and consideration of the criteria set forth under, and this is the change, 53-17 is changed to 53-16 of this chapter. The town board determines that they are suitable. This local law is adopted pursuant to the authority granted by municipal home rule section 10, general powers of local governments to adopt and amend local laws. If any section provision or part of this local law shall be adjudged invalid or unconstitutional by the court of competent jurisdiction, then such jurisdiction shall not affect such adjudication shall not affect the validity of the local law as a whole or as any section provision or part thereof, not so adjudged, invalid, or unconstitutional. This local law shall take effect immediately upon filing the secretary's plea. So moved.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion carried. All right. Now we open it up for general public comments.

If we just wait, or if we just make it go really long. Nobody's even awake at the end. Is that the strategy?

I'd like to make a motion, too. Thank you, everyone.