Zoning Board of Appeals - Regular Meeting

Very nice. Are we ready, Christina? Okay, we're going to call the meeting to order. 7:30. Roll call. Liam Johnston here. Uh Tom Graanino here. Lynn Colligan here. Lisa Parkler here. Uh Phil Dario is excused. Also present, we have Timothy Hill, ZBA attorney. Uh first order of business is to review and approve the March 18th, 2026 uh minutes. Can I get a motion? I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second it. All in favor? I I

Okay, we have a uh we have one resolution today. I'm getting some back feed from someone's computer. You need to turn off your speaker.

Thanks, Christina. Then I'm gonna uh we have one resolution today. We have 80 Cartright Road in Great Trust. Christina, are you able to give us a reading here? Application by Finger Rob Press for an area variant at 80 Cartwright Road, Shelter Island, New York, Suff County Tech Map 700-8-3-15. This is a type two action and no further secret review is required. The applicant is seeking to demolish an ex existing accessory structure and to construct detach accessory structure with sleeping quarters. The applicant request an area variance for relief from the requirements of the town code section 133-7E3 which provides that the floor area of accessory sleeping quarters shall not be less than 480 ft. Here the floor area of the proposed sleeping quarters is 270 ft. Accordingly, the proposal is deficient by 210 square feet, the tolerance of which is requested by the instant area variance application and considering all of the factors implying the balancing test under New York State town law 26 uh 267-B applying the relevant section of the town code. The town board the zoning board of appeals approved the request for an area variance for relief from the requirements of the town code section 133-7E3 to allow construction of the proposed accessory structure with sleeping quarters containing 270 square ft of floor area.

Thank you. Uh can I get a motion to approve? I'll make that motion. Uh second. I I do. Okay. And we will do a roll call vote. Uh, William Johnston, yes. Thomas Graphanino, yes. Lisa Crackler says yes. Uh, Link Holligan. The wording of this because I wasn't at the hearing. You are at the hearing. So, you can abstain. Okay, I'll abain. Okay. Uh, motion passes. Yep.

Okay. We have two applications uh that we're going to be hearing today. And I know the agenda lists 44 Gardner Bay Drive first, but we are actually going to start with 44 St. Mary's Road first. Christina, can you please read the notice hearing on the application of Shelter Mary Property LLC, owner of 44 St. Marriage Road Shelter Island, New York, which is located in zone C and is more specifically described on the Sappa County text map at 700-15-4-4. The applicant seeks relief from the requirements of town code section 133-10B6 to permit conversion of an existing unconditioned garage into conditioned garage resulting in a total of 14 uh 14,155 square ft of living area where 5,990 miles.

Um and do we have any correspondence on this? Yes. The correspondence in support of the application was received from Edward Brennan 75 57 PCI Avenue. Correspondent Rosemary Ryan of 19 Burns Road and further letters of support were submitted by Jennifer Sullivan 36 St. Mary's Road Christian White Oak Manor LLC of 29 St. Mary Grove, Susan and Darren Bender of One Burton Road 125 North. Thank you. And who is here to present?

Thank you. My name is John Bennett. Pleasure to be with you as always. Thank you very much the opportunity to hear. Um Le 212 L, Southampton, New York. Uh with me this evening are the two project principles, Ken Troen and Kate Lawson. and have them say a couple of words after my introductory remarks and then I'll continue with both parts of my argument. Could you speak up a little bit, Mr. Sorry, I apologize. And Michael from Interest Research Associates is here as well.

So, we're here regarding a garage that is nearing completion at 44 St. Mary's Road, I think. Can we have uh just so that um so that you have a visual as what was there? I'm sure you driven by it. Uh but we're handing up uh photographs of the uh of the garage which is taken uh today. Uh along with a cross-section detail from the plans and the floor plans just so that you can everybody can see what's there. This is a garage um reduced to its essentials. Uh it adds climate control, heating and cooling of this legally construction build constructed building is under construction now really uh you know it's hard to see respectfully how the sole that sole fact control heating and cooling can have a negative effect on a neighborhood that's merely introduced into this existing garage. The garage is legal in dimensions, legal in setbacks and legal coverage. So question before the board is whether the introduction of the HVA system into this garage affects the calculation of SLA. At best at best the code is ambiguous under proper construction. Uh we submit the code allows conditioned garages without requiring their inclusion in the SFLA. uh candidly uh the building inspector uh because of the way the code was drafted was left with a really unenviable task of trying to make sense of a poorly drafted code. I'm going to demonstrate the rules of instruction, but I think you self yourself will be able to see that this is a this was a poorly drafted code and um Karen uh that is is a good faith great building inspector um was

was met unbendable task trying to make sense out of this code which is just a poor drafting. um no question about it as someone who's drafted a lot of municipal codes. Uh so there are two arms to this application. One is the code interpretation organ regarding the code section sections defining what goes into SFA and two if necessary uh is the variance application to allow uh assuming that this building is being subject to the SFA calculations uh HAC at garage. We'll present them both. Uh, one thing I will probably repeat, excuse me if I do, is that what this building is and what it is not. This building is a garage. And a garage is a defined term under 1331B of the town code, which is quote an accessory building used by occupants of the principal building located on the same lot as the principal building allowing storage of vehicles or other items without compensation private. This defined term is also important for the proper interpretation because it appears in the sentence which I'm going to talk about uh as a distinct word a defined word. What is this not? It's not a house. It is not habitable space under any stretch of any regulations. This is not and will not there will not be any plumbing in the interior of the building. No bathrooms, no cooking, no sleeping. We'll covenant that. Not a problem at all. It does not meet the state code definition of a house. You can't sleep there. You can't cook there. There are no sanitary facilities. It's just storage, plain and simple. Um, it's not a house nor an accessory structure with sleeping or cooking because you won't be able to do either. And I think that's really really very important because you don't want people to stretch this if you're this sort of a case.

There are a few closets uh but uh it's an open floor plan. That's why I started out with not only a photo but the floor plan. Um so essentially it's all open space with minimal finishes. Uh and the minimal finishes are going to become important because of some poloquy and uh terminations that the building inspector initially made. Uh and and again I'm not trying to sand back the building inspector. I think it was struggling with a code that was just is it's it's just doesn't work. Um again, it meets the town code's definition of garage. Um the interpretation argument, which we'll talk about in a second, is the matter of calculation of the SFA. And I'll just remind everybody that zoning laws are construed against the municipality. To say the least, the code is not sufficiently precise. Um, our reading is the garages are not prohibited from both being conditioned and being included in the SFLA just by the mere conditioning of it. Uh, you don't include it in the SFLA. But there was obvious trouble based upon the affidavit that have been submitted to you and based upon what we will present to you tonight. Uh, there was obvious trouble in defining the code limitations. Nevertheless, the code we should we submit as a matter of law allow the introduction of HBAC and custo without the need for variance. But again, we're going to present the variance arguments as well, which we trust you all agree it's strong. Uh to be mild, there's been confusion about the regulation and it was actually indisputably unfair that the building inspector is charged for interpreting the law. It was just not well drafted. But again, there was ambiguities fall to the favor of Orlando. I'm going to talk a little bit about a case uh out of the Supreme Court Suffach County that came out of um a sister zoning board of appeals on the east end where the court said that the board properly took into consideration confusion about code definitions as

a variance. So not only the interpretation but the the variance. But it's one of the principles uh Ken Tro and Kate Austin to be speak to be able to speak so you get to know them u see who they are uh and uh and that they'll they'll tell you that what their vision was for this property and is for this property. Ken if you could come up and introduce yourself and give us your address. Good evening everybody. Uh my name is Ken Tropen. I live at two Sylvester Road in Shelter Island. I'm the principal owner of 44 St. Mary's Road on Shelder Island. And as you know, we're here requesting either a variance or code interpretation for condition space for the car garage at 44 St. Mary's Road. give you a little background uh on myself. Uh I've been coming to Shelter Island since 1983 and I've owned a home on the island since 1991. My partner Kate Lawson, who's also here, and myself have been looking for several years to identify an appropriate property uh pretty close to where we live at Sebasta Road and Darren Village to build a car garage to store a classic car collection and to build a home for my children and their uh my grandkids. Um to begin with, uh the location of 44 St. Mary's road was pretty close to where we live in Darren Village. So, it was appealing. Second of all, because it's a 9 acre lot, it was appealing because it was plenty of room uh to accomplish what I wanted to do. When we identified the property, we wanted to be sure

that prior to closing on the property, I wanted to approach this in the most conservative manner and be very confident that what I wanted to build on the property was consistent and permissible um by the building code for the district. With that in mind and the advice of my attorney, uh, at that time, we hired Inner Science, a land use consultant with considerable experience working with Shelter Island to perform an evaluation of the property with our building plans in mind so that I could be confident before closing that we could proceed and build within the code without any issue. I'm a very conservative person by nature and I wanted to be sure that I could accomplish uh my building plans without a problem. Put differently, I didn't want to proceed and then hope this would be acceptable. Inner science was engaged and they started to go through the procedures to evaluate and assess what could be done with the property with the within the current building code for the area. As part of their process, they spoke and exchanged emails with the building department. After this, the final valuation was that so long as the garage was just that a garage with no bathroom, no sleeping quarters, no kitchen, and very minimal finishes that we would be able to heat and air condition the space so that it is able to house plastic car collection. their needs which is they have a game heated and conditioned space. Thereafter we proceeded to close on the property and made plans to build the structure and plans were approved by the building department and we began to develop the site as approved. After building commenced on the garage, an

issue was flagged by the building department uh that perhaps the garage could not be heated and cooled as was initially stated could be done. We received word of this from my architect and builder November of 25 and at that time the structure was about 97 oh was about 70% complete. Following that, there was some time spent in limbo waiting for a definitive answer on this and eventually we were issued a turndown letter uh from the building department that in fact we would need to seek relief in the form of a variance from the ZBA to be able to condition this space. So to summarize, I would not have closed and proceeded to purchase this property if I hadn't received the advice from the land use consultant inner science based on their uh interaction with the building department that uh this my plans were uh permissible and that I could build a car garage and a home for my kids. As a fractional matter, because this property is so large, most potential buyers were developers who would subdivide it to build several large homes. That's not my intent.

I want to express my appreciation to the members of CBA for your time and for your consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, board. Uh my name is Kay Lawson. I love it too. Sylvester Road on Shelter Island and president of Shelter Mary LLC which owns 44 St. Mary's Road. You just heard from Ken Troen about what brings us before you tonight and we're requesting various heat and air conditioned a car garage at 44 St. Mary's Road. It was a property we carefully evaluated to achieve our objective which is build a garage, store antique cars and h and a house for our kids and grandkids to be able to use. Just for some additional background, I'm from Sy Harbor and I served on the planning board for six years and I was chair for three. When I moved to Shelter Island, I um immediately began serving on the architectural review board in Daring Village as well as now in last year um the zoning board of appeals there. So from my experience on these boards, I can certainly appreciate and have a good understanding for the land use perspective that applies here. You heard just just heard from uh Ken that we received an evaluation from Inner Science who relied in part on communications with the building department that yes, in fact, we would be able to within the code as it exists build the three buildings and condition the spaces under the current code as interpreted by the building department at that time. that uh initial interpretation by the building department was relied on um that we could build the garage and condition the space so long as it had very basic finishes, no sleeping quarters, no bathrooms. This garage will only be used to store cars. It only has very basic finishes. No sleeping quarters, no bathrooms, no kitchen. The code is confusing at best and this is further supported by the building department's initial interpretation of the code and then the reversal of that initial interpretation which is why we're before you tonight. Um, as Mr. Bennett will say again in a

minute, there are other factors that do support um the granting of a variance. Uh, the size of the lot, it's a very large lot. the zone the lots in residential CZ zone which specifically allows for accessory buildings and that this space will only be used as a garage to store cars and we will cover that. So with all these facts and arguments in mind, we respectfully ask you grant our relief request. Thank you very much. Thank you.

I do have one question for you um if that's okay. Um when you bring up you know the initial interpretation from the building department was relied on is was that a conversation was there an email was there what documentation do you have of that and what was actually issued both conversations and there is emails and and Mr. Red will go into details of all that and I think it's all been submitted uh to you guys. Yes. Yeah, it's been submitted while I'll go through this part later. Anything anything else? Um, not at this point. Okay. Thanks. Thank you guys so much.

So, thank you and thank you for your um the code section and issue. So, I'm going to talk just about the interpretation argument uh and then the uh the variance. Um the code section in mind code section an issue and whether or not the code section includes restrictions on heating and cooling within garages is subject to certain interpretive maxims which can advise that one could heat a garage and not have included the SF. The section which is formula model of drafting does not include a garage within those structures that were required to be included in the SFA if they're condition the interpretive maxims regarding the location of words in sentences critical. So I'm going to read the code section in and then I'm going to talk to you about not only interpretive maxims but some case law that demonstrates how this should be should be interpreted all the while remembering that um zoning laws are to be interpreted against the municipality because they're interrogation of common law. So if there's any interpretation uh that would allow the HVAC without it being included in the SFLA the law says that's the interpretation supposed to prevail. So code section 113-1B defines square foot living area and it says also known as FF excuse me also known as SLA the square footage of heated and/or air conditioned area within outer walls of all structures on a residential lot

not including an unfinished basement or attic garage punctuation structure without heat or air conditioning. The language regarding heat or air conditioning specifically excludes garages based upon general rules of construction. Why? The quantify the qualifying without heat or air conditioning applies to structures which precedes without heat or air conditioning. our garages which are specifically to find buildings within the code. At the beginning of the all the New York laws, there's a book called McKin's statutes uh and it explains the various doc doctrines of interpretation and your council is aware of that that that one volume it's called McKini statute. But uh there's a doctrine known as the doctrine of last antecedent. And remember these these these these codes take away rights of common law. So what so they're to be construed against the um municipality. What does that mean? Rights of common law. The common law you could do you could sorry you do whatever the heck you wanted with your property as long as there was no the only thing that limited you under common law and how you could develop a property was the law of nuisance. uh but then in a supreme court case uh it's the Ullet case uh they said no zoning is okay but it has to be strictly construed. So what is this doctrine of last antecedent relative and qualifying words phrases and clauses are to be applied to the words or phrases immediately preceding in this case the word structures and are not to be construed as extending to or including other words.

What that means is that the antecedent word structure is the only word that's modified without by without heat or air conditioning. There wouldn't be a need to put this defined term garages in there as a separate word unless it was meant to be included in the not including because the garage is a structure. So, why would the drafter have put a garage in there? And candidly, that may not have been in the drafter's mind, but that's the way you interpret it because the laws are to be construed against the municipality. It was a case American International versus Bank of America court. Uh, it's a 2013 case. Um and the second circuit court explained referential and qualifying words and phrases refer solely to the antecedent. What are the methods by which a writer indicates whether a modifier that follows a list of nouns or phrases is intended to modify the entire list or only the immediate antecedent. In other words, when I say immediate antecedent structures is by punctuation specifically specifically by whether the list is separated from the subsequent modifier by a comma when there is no comma there's no comma here as in the statute considered before us. The subsequent modifier is understood only to apply to the last and the cedent. thus without heat or air applies only to structures but not garage. Now that's not a lawyer's fancy argument. It's a rule of construction. If the town

meant to say garages that were heated, it should have said that. But it didn't say that. It excluded certain items including garages and then it put in after that after they put them out structures without sloppy drafting maybe uh we tried to do some uh legislative research on it. The only thing we came up with when um what's his name was a great guy was the pro he was the town attorney

Bob the Stephano amended it uh back some years ago and added the word I think he added the word air conditioning but didn't change the the punctuation the structure of it either. Um and then we we submitted an affidavit of Mike Shiano uh uh this file as part of the application. The building inspector's final position interpretation on whether an unfinished garage without any sleeping or cooking um was based solely on the reason of the climate control and this interpretation appears to have changed of the course of conversations and meetings with the building department. They had initially taken a position that the proposal did not impact SFLA. This demonstrates the inherited ambigu ambiguity of the statute. So including the affidavit of my channel and I'm I'm not I'm not jumping uh on on on on read was given an impossible task as far as I'm concerned knowing what he knows about you know where the where these limits on SLA were meant to to be how they were meant to be interpreted. But we did receive an email from Reed where he stated, "If you want to condition it, then it cannot be finished." It's not going to be finished. Meaning no trim. There's no trim, no decorative lighting, only bulb. So the most basic functional lighting. I think we have some cut sheets for the lighting specs. No paneling, no decorative flooring. It has to be purely utilitarian. It has to be a storage garage. That's all we want. No water, no bathrooms, uh, no cooking, no sleeping, none of that stuff. So, so the building is not a finished building. It has no trim, no decorative lighting,

no paneling, no decorative flooring. It's purely it's a purely utilitarian storage. And what I'm why I'm emphasizing those terms is I'm simply paring Reed's email which is contained in Mike Shano's affidavit that's read email um zoning codes being in dergation upon the law must be strictly construed against the reenacting municipality and in favor of property owner. Uh ambiguities if any are to resolve the property owner. Again the existing building falls squarely within the definition of garage to be used solely by the occupants of the principal building for the storage of theater. It was designed to be unfinished space and tracking what the building department said in that email. Minimal trim concrete floors utilitarian. And again finally the antecedent words without heat or air conditioning modify only the word structure. This is proper construction. Um it doesn't really matter what the uh what the drafter meant if the drafting is improper for the finding that uh the uh heat uh uh or air conditioning makes the building have to be included in SFLA. This is proper construction what we're purging. Um again there would no need be no need to separately include the word garage since that is a structure unless it was to be treated separately in the sentence that it's a garage and not a structure is modified is the the modifying language without computer air conditioning pertains only to the anti but

without I'm an English teacher so I'm in your anticedent and punctuation argument. Um, uh, so you would prefer that there had been a comma after the s in garages. Well, if there had been a comma, then it would have the modifying the heater air conditioning would have included all of those. U, I'm just trying to understand your argument with regard to the comma. That would have included That's exactly right. Yeah, but there is no comma.

So, does it please you that there's no comma or does it displease you that there's no comma? It doesn't it doesn't please me or displease me. The absence of it means that you have to interpret it so that without heating or air conditioning modifies only structure but not garage. But as read it says garage structure. Oh garage that's you don't assume that I'm just trying to come clear on what you're saying. You don't assume that somebody is going to put a superolous and unnecessary word there since the garage is a structure. Why put a separate word garage in there? Okay. But as read, there is no comma. So you're saying that that's helpful to me. I'm sorry. That's helpful to me.

Okay. Under those interpretive uh maximums and the case law. Yes. Okay. Just want to be clear on that.

I I I it's interesting that you say that because the first thing I said when I looked at this statute, it says that uh um sorry um I said, "Bailey, you're a Hamilton College English major. Come help me with the comments of there should be two. If you'd like heating or air conditioning to apply to every area within that definition, it should be unfinished basement, garages, column, and then structures. So pool houses like pavilions by tennis courts, those as long as they were unheated would be excluded. But if they were heated then they would need to be ined.

Okay. But the argument is hanging on the absence or presence of comments. Thank you. Um but I think you got my point. I have a point now. Thank you. Sorry about the bearing. Sorry. I think it's very compelling. Um um are you still talking about lighting and finishes because I do have a question about that. Sure. Oh, sure.

Okay. Cuz we were on site. We visited the site uh earlier in the week. Um, I wouldn't consider consider the high-end industrial lighting utilitarian, nor would I consider the Vermont post and beam construction or the polished concrete. It is basic, but it's very high-end and um, modern and in fashion right now. So, okay,

it's it is utilitarian, but it is very polished in that it could be a welcoming space for gatherings. said, "I'm not implying that you intend to hold gatherings, but we did look at the what you're calling utilitarian lighting, and it it isn't. It's very it's high-end industrial lighting, a polished concrete floor, and a custom post and beam Vermont construction is all doesn't look very much like a garage. It looks like a could be a beautiful gathering space or a home. Not that it will be, but I'm just trying to say that

your interpretation of what utilitarian lighting is, we didn't get that feeling when we did. um uh garage floors, polished concrete. My brother-in-law is lucky enough to own three Ferraris and he keeps them in his garage in Garden City and the floor of the garage can eat off it. It doesn't change the fact that it's still a garage and there's no habitable space in there. Um I don't know by dressing up uh post and beam construction which is a matter of choice uh that it changes the function of it. And I think really what Reed was going at if he when he when he had that init initial interpret interpretation it can't be anything that's going to lend itself to somebody being um attempted to inhabit it.

I mean it is pristine and it it looks habitable to us. Um I have a question about the we're we'll cover it against no cooking. Yes. No, I understand. And it's not going to be inter any interior water. Yes. You'd have a gathering. I don't know where people would go to the bathroom. And what would be the function of the um upper spaces? The the loft spaces is storage of automobile parts. Okay. The garage, the definition of the garage also states that it's for storage of automobiles and other items. So, okay.

Um, as Mr. Trogan explained to me, a lot of these classic cars come with replacement parts. Sometimes uh engines and engines and certain uh items of the car are swapped out, but the original parts are kept and that preserves uh the integrity of So, it's exclusively for automobile parts. exclusively for okay great thank you

so with that with your permission um I'll I'll roll into the variance uh argument so uh which is again to permit the uh existing garage to be heed and air conditioning which we submit will have no impact on the character of the neighborhood for which there is significant neighborhood support that's demonstrated by the letters that were previously submitted with the board the garage has 5790 ft addition space between the first floor and and second floor lofts which are open to the floor below totaling 2430 for a total of 8,134 square ft. Now this is relief uh I mean I'm going to talk about some of the uh relief that my firm has been able to obtain when when the town board did this work. Um, in other words, allowing for h housing over 5,999 ft. But in every one of them, the request was for more actually habitable space, and they granted it. That's not what you have here at all. This is something a little bit closer to, I think, overandion where you allowed uh an accessory space and said it could be heated. But uh I think that's the first application you guys handled for a space over 500.

Yeah, that was during the moratorum. Yeah, those were extenduating circumstances. Yeah.

Um storage lots are open spaces, not enclosed uh rooms and again only for storage and with the exception of a few uh corner storage closets, this entire structure is a single open space lifted up. Storage loft above Um there's an under construction principal residence on the property which is 5,222 ft and a gate house containing 7,000 752 ft of living area. You can see that the the the main house the 5200 and change main house. It's pretty much just the foundation there. The um the gate house, you can see it's it's it's up. Um if um so what you have under construction is the the garage what we what we're calling the gate house and um and the uh the main the main residence. Uh we submitted correspondence dated April excuse me March 19th 2026 which include the affidavit of Anthony Sarah an expert in storage and maintenance and maintenance of vehicles. Mr. Sarah is familiar with Trobin's Mr. Trobin's vehicle collection and as explained by Mr. Sarah due to the age and historical significance of the car collection there are certain climate control and humidity control requirements to maintain the condition of the vehicles and I just I think it's helpful to quote this uh Mr. Sarah's affidavit. Uh, I'm familiar with the applicant's feasible collection. Due to the age and historical significance of the applicant's collection, there are certain climate control, humidity control requirements to maintain the condition. Climate control storage with stable temperatures 55° to 71° and humidity control providing 40 to 47% humidity is necessary to maintain the vehicles and avoid costing repairs. Climate control storage reduces the risk of rust by up to 90%, extends the

interior lifespan by up to 50% and preserves paint and mechanical parts. Um, as this as as the board is aware, the town previously required property owners seeking to construct more than 500 5,99 square sa seek a permit from the town board. So we do have um copies which I'll ask to submit of those prior uh decisions. Um and I think exception why don't you confirm all the um I'll just take you through those. It's it's that's what what we're trying to look at is how your sister the trustees handle these applications because I don't think there's a lot of I don't think there's a lot of precedence at all for this other than the one hand um so in matter of Harris that was down at the end of bootleggers uh was originally owned by clients latian there were two parcels six bootleggers Alley and three Parkway and a special permit is granted for 11,000 SFA on a 3.1 acre lot located in the AA zone slightly less than twice the permitted SFLA was permitted on a property smaller than the two times required lot under zoning and again that was for I handle the application that was for 11,000 square ft of living area on a 3.1 acre Uh, and it was all habitable space. So, you could live there, you could sleep there, you could cook there, you could go to the bathroom there. Excuse me. And the reason I say that is because it's pretty significant. No plumbing. No plumbing. That was a that was a that was a long and hard discussion.

And with the client, it's like my car collection, a friend coming over. Got to go back to the house, go to the bathroom. And I said, "We have to let the board know to give the board all asurances that this is not going to become habitable space." So no interior water, zero. No, no, no, no, no plumbing at all. But again, in Harris, the the town board gave 11,000 SFLA for 3.1 acre lot. 42 Gardener's Bay, uh, which is again, I think we all that, isn't that David War? Yeah. uh 10,7379 SFA permitted on the property uh of of about 300,000 ft in size two lot yield on the property uh and almost twice the permitted SFLA is permitted on the property to support two buildable lots covenanted against any further subdivision. The whole idea is if you want the additional SFFLA which is the same thing that happened in the um in the Harris previously property. Look, I want you know pretty much twice the SFLA I could have but I'm going to give up a lot. So net net I'm not I'm not gaining anything here in terms of SFA.

Is your applicant willing to do that as well? We right in the record. We said this six like Janna was here. Uh we've demonstrated a six slot yield. We would covenant that would never be subed more than four lots. It's a six slot yield. Never be subated more than four lots. And we'll coant that this building this building will um will always be accessories. So really the only way covering four lots really the only way you could get there is essentially to do three because you'd have to marry this accessory of accessory structure to one of those lots.

If I'm saying I'll never do more than four lots but I want to keep this structure really going to have to have to marry it to one of the other lots. So really you're you're at an effective field of career and as Ken and K don't have any intention to do that but I said you know you you can't you have to you have to assure the board that you're giving up density because that was been the pattern in the past. um and that um that density is going to be uh to be I mean you could subdivide the property into into six lots and those lots would would have the 5,99 ft houses. I think it's this is it's a great opportunity uh to to uh to to limit the the potential subdivision there,

but they're still looking they wouldn't want the ultimatum of no further subdivision. are looking to still be able to do three. Three. Three. Okay. And I said four, but in thinking about it, yeah, it's got to be three because I've got to marry one of those lots to the start that I'm getting the variance for. So, three, no more than three lots ever. That's we put that in the comment. Not a problem. Okay. And again, there's no intention to do that.

No, I think that's something that's definitely something that, you know, this board has, you know, looked at and and has done in the past. So, it's something that we it's worth a discussion. Yeah. No, I I think it's a I think it's a generous give back if I may. I mean, we're asking for relief, but so we have to demonstrate that net net you're actually going to come up with less than if it was traditionally developed. So, great. Thank you.

Um and then in the matter of Northwick, uh was it 10,33 ft was permitted on 1.264 264 acres and the applicant is going to merge the two approved parcels to permit the construction. So again um that give back of density and in green wall he approved a variance permit the air conditioning of an existing accessory building board recognized the property is oversized that property was 3.3 acres I think he gave like somewhere between 1500 and 2,000 ft of relief. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to overstate it. I think it was

1500 or,400. Um, but I um, so that's I think that's the only time you folks have looked at it. So, this property is significantly oversized. It's 8.119 acres in size and located from the sea zing district which requires 40,000 ft. Mike submitted a yield plan just demonstrated table of six lots. He talked about all this. be essentially capable four lot yield, but again really it's three cuz you have to marry uh one of the lots to this uh accessory garage. The zoning district requires a minimum setback of 30 ft. Uh here the garage was located 75.7 ft from Ram Island Road more than double the front yard setback. Uh we've already planted trees to provide vegetative screening. Copy the landscape plan was submitted uh and the applicant intends to further supplement the existing landscape screening particularly along the Ram Island road frontage. The width of the ve the width of the vegetate vegetative screening is between 30 and 50 ft. Um again the garage as it exists now is fully permitted. It complies with the height requirements and greatly exceeds setback requirements. The property overl complies with the lock requirements. It's only the request for conditioning the space. It's in the now existing structure uh that is before the board. We also submitted letters of support. Uh I think uh they were written out but just to make sure that everyone's aware of them. We mapped the location of the property owners only by the individuals who provided letters uh showing the proximity to the property was Jennifer Sullivan at 36 St. Mary's Road, Christian Clark at White Oak Manor, Susan and Darren Binder at One Burns Road. Uh Stephan ShraMM at 125 North Ferry, Rosemary of Ryan. Uh Sullivan and Ryan are budding property owners

and we humbly submit that the letters of support demonstrate a lack of charact impact on the character of the neighborhood. And that's authority on that. It's Dolphin versus Sony Board of Appeals of Town of Shelter Island case that I handled some years ago. There were there was a variance requested and the neighbors had u all letters of support and uh the variance was denied. We commenced an action and one of the things the court said and was confirmed by the appellet division says that's a pretty indisha. There's no character impact on the character of the neighborhood of the neighbors or again the structure is already there. is well screened the landscaping and settled in certain close neighbors and two abuing neighbors have indicated no no objection uh we don't think there's going through the um criteria I'll get there in a second and then I'll wrap up I don't mean to um it's respectfully submit the conditioning of the structure will not cause it would be impossible for it to cause any undesirable name change in the character of the neighborhood uh as mentioned and Mike's affidavit to the applicant closed on the property and reliance on the specialist of planet work that proposed garage could be heated air conditioned as proposed. Um now I understand you know the tension between what's utilitarian uh but essentially what we were trying to do was map uh Reed's u read email and then building permit was obtained to commence construction of the property as expeditiously as possible and we tried to amend it as we told the building department we were going to uh to um include the HBHC Um,

Mr. Ben, do you have any new points that you want to make? Yeah, I'll be quick. Thank you.

Sorry. Um, did we have we talked about I think I talked about that one case 175 Mohawk, a case that I handled. Um, and because uh the uh there were there were errors made uh back and forth in and conversations between the building department. Do we have the actual language back? Let me read it. this case for building department made an error or errors which contributed to construction of the non-compliance structures. So, um, and this was one of the things that the that the that court, this town of Southampton zoning board appeals used in its calculus as to whether or not it was appropriate to grant a variance. It wasn't an interpretation case, but it's a it's a variance case and it it it goes against any of the bad faith. Just quickly going through the standards um using the criteria um the largest criteria in terms of the weight is impact on the neighborhood. Uh Terry Rice and his commentaries uh the village law and the town law say you have these criteria but the really they're not they don't all have the same weight. Character of the neighborhood is clearly the most important. And we submit that the letter of support demonstrate the lack of impact. And again, it's also hard to fathom what um what negative impact mere heat and air conditioning could have in terms of this committed structure. The negatives actually show that there is no negative impact. What do I mean by negatives? There's no decrease in residential density, no cooking, no sleeping, no worries. So those are actually very

positive. Show no impact. There's no this is not a substantial request reduced to its essentials. This is request for heating and air conditioning garages. We will covenant will not be capable of cooking and sleeping and not and will coven against that. No adverse impacts on the environmental conditions. Quite the contrary. The lack of water wastewater system and no increase in density is a positive impact and of course it's a type two action. It's really no other way to achieve the benefit sought than the relief. And then the last criteria is is it self-created? The applicant tried to do their homework prior to closing on the property. The building department at least for time agreeduct at least for time agreed the structure could be heated even if it's self-created. This is not determinative and we don't see there's any issue of bad faith here. We're here asking for variance really if you don't agree with the interpretation and I simply see no negative impact. It's not they're not pressed for um habitable space. the impact on the land, the neighborhood is given the fact this is already built and permitted is I think is hard to it's it's hard to it's hard to argue that there would be any but I I it's not ready to answer any questions and uh I thank you for my somewhat lengthy interpretation but there's a lot on the line for this trope and so I wanted to make sure that I I explained it fully.

So I I do have two questions. Um the first one is you're here for AC heating. Correct. Correct. Do you have mechanical plans showing that? Where are the condenser units going? What type of heat's going in there? Where's the mechanical room going? I'm not the explan. I don't know. We will absolutely I can't I mean we're going to need submitted I believe I don't see them apologies if I if they have been

the Michael Shiano from Associates on behalf of the applicant. Uh the turndown letter uh that we prepared for this was based on a survey that identified where the AC units would be going. They are will be located on uh the um north immediately on the northwest side of the building. Uh they comply with all of the setbacks and they are properly screened from the street. I just want to make sure I want to make sure that in in the in our ZBA application that we have a copy of that. Apologies if I overlooked it, but I just want to make sure

it's actually on the survey. Yeah, that would be great. here AC unit and then what type of mechan uh there would be heat pumps. So

you have a plan for that like a document that shows all the plans for heating and air conditioning. um because it is a uh heat pump there's they'd be attached to the outside of the building and not so there's not a separate room that is required for them. I had conversations with the so there's those condensers which are the conditioning units and then uh they would just be the the uh devices on the outside of the building that then do the heating and cooling. So it's they don't require any the mini splits. Mini splits. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I didn't and there was nothing about the mini splits or anything. So, I had no picture of how the whole thing was going to work together.

Um, you know, I I wanted to make sure that there's, you know, there's no radiant heat going in there. There's no Um, and then as far as as far as mechanical storage for the heating and air conditioning system, will there be anything inside in any of these storage areas? No, those are intended to be storage for storage. Okay. Yeah, there is no proposed mechanical space within the building for the heating and cooling aspect. Okay, I know. And the floor plans we gave in this evening are the floor plans that are on file with the building department showing exactly what's in the building. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Which also would have been the same ones that Reed reviewed in order to tell us.

Why don't you keep making I'm gonna make sure that that this is actually in our packet, but I'll I'll double check that. Thank you. No, no. Um, and then I get my second question was um, so this is, you know, for car storage and all these antique cars. Um, how do these cars get service? Do people come do mechanics come in service or do they get taken away? Just state your name again for the record. Mhm.

Uh the cars will be driven off island because they're classic Porsches, older cars. Uh there no resources on the island uh to take care of them. So one by one they're driven as needed for service. So there's going to be no servicing of these vehicles taking place in that washing of them. But no beyond washing of them. Yeah. How are you washing them without washing? Well, there's a a the house the main house or the driveway and use so you would drive the car from the building to the house and use that it all needed you know okay all right and thank you um are there any plans to entertain in the space

okay it's the floor plan it's chalk full of we were in there and it looks like a beautiful entertainment space can I address that yes me yes

yes uh so for sure Uh the space is beautiful. Uh I saw it, you know, uh over the last couple days. It it came out very well. Uh you asked about post and beam. Uh and one of the reasons we chose post and beam is while it looks very very beautiful, it also is the least expensive way to erect that structure. Our building cost per foot was uh frankly the main consideration of going to a post beam. uh Vermont, you know, one uh you know uh type of a construction technique. And in terms of the floor, um yes, it's a classic car collection. I wanted the floor to look nice, but I have no intention whatsoever entertaining there.

Okay. Thank you. And it keeps keeps the floor real clean. Keeps the cars clean, right, Mr. Tobin? Exactly. I mean, it's uh, you know, it is one of these things where I happen to be in love with classic cars and, uh, you know, I want to be able to uh, drive them and I want to be able to, you know, maintain them, but uh, they're not it's really not for uh, me to show them to other people or any of that sort of thing. It's not my style. It's your hobby. Excuse me. You're a hobby. It is a hobby indeed. A passion.

Approximately how many cars will will go in the bar? Perhaps 15. It's a shame that you can't have a a sink in there if you want to pull a dipstick on your car working in your own garage and you want to wash your hands afterwards that you can't even do it. Well, uh it's a it's a compromise that I was willing to make because uh I understand I I got a a pretty uh lengthy conversation with inner science before I purchased the property about what I could and couldn't do and it was compromised I was willing to do

and that was a hard conversation. Um I said we've got to go to this board and make sure that they don't think this is a Trojan horse. Uh, so you got to do everything condition the heck out of it and the way it's constructed. So it's going to be storage because you know it wouldn't be the first time that somebody you know not Mr. Troen but on the east end had a building permit to do something with the structure and did something else. So what we tried to do is make the construction of it such a way that it can't be the law can't be broken. I believe there were 24 bays for vehicles. Was that correct in our visit to uh you know I never thought of it in terms of bays. Oh okay.

You know uh on site that was the term that they had used. So there's room for 24 vehicles perhaps. Okay. But uh you know basically the intent is not to have them on top of each other.

Right. Okay. Thank you. Uh, and I I think the nice thing about it, I was have to say, I know you're not an architectural review board, uh, but it really uh it looks like uh it doesn't look like a house. It looks like uh sort of agricultural slash storage/g building. The lights, the windows on the top are only 11 ambient light. It looks like the typical garage, you know, garage with barns. It's not a barn, it's a garage, but they have there's no uh windows in the sidewalls. So, I think it's pretty unique and pretty nice. It's nice for the neighborhood. Not that you're an ARB, but it's nice in terms of impact on the neighborhood. I think it's a positive impact. In my own words, what I would say is this. this property very large um and a very sensitive having been on this island for a very long time that uh I was not to I was not going to buy this property unless I had a conversation with the town first about what I wanted to do and moreover I'm very sensitive to the fact that the property is pretty close to the well of the well of the town

whale of the town and at night that's not a particularly wonderful thing to be so close to because it has a lot of lights and so on and so forth. And so my intent has always been to screen out Mhm. both for my neighbors point of view so they're not going to see anything on the property, but also I wouldn't want to see uh the lights of the whales tail because I don't find it attractive. Your grand your grandkids are going to go as my kids did. But um anyway, happy to answer any other questions you have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.

So, I think uh Mr. Bennett, I I still would like to see some sort of mechanical plan with the mini splits and what that's going to look like. Okay. Sorry. Is there a way we could Is there any comments? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Is there a way we could make that a written submission subject to what anybody else has to say? Uh, we need to continue on with the hearing, but um it's a premature request. It's premature request. Yes. Just I just want to make it clear that that is something that the board is going to be looking for from the applicant.

Okay, great. Thank you. Um, who else? Anyone in the audience would like to come forward and about this application? I am not a lawyer or a public speaker. We are the property immediately above the garage 33 ft from the garage right here on your maps. And um uh I just wanted to respond to the question number one about will the granting of variance have any detrimental effect to the properties nearby and it seems like there are plenty of people who are not nearby but we are right there. It looms over us. We are a 1500 square foot house on top and being loomed over by an 8,000 square foot structure in very close proximity and what do I say? Um, to properly condition an 8,000 square foot space year round likely means that several large units will be running 24/7, 365 days of the year. The noise and vibration from such unit, it will be constant and unremitting in especially at night in proximity to sleeping areas. added to the construction noise of this past year and I'm sure for the next year, this will most definitely be a detriment to our property and our persons. The solution to this, should the board

grant an a variance, is to condition such approval on moving the units, the air conditioning units that you were just speaking about to the gate house side or front of the garage with soundproofing mitigation. The air conditioning units in one point type, half a point type are right next to our side of the property on the back in the northwest corner right next to us.

We don't have a problem. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Oh, wait. And since it was brought up, they you have noted the applicant has noted that they provided a 75 foot setback from Ram Island Road in the front which is the back of the building and but we only got a 33 foot set back on the side. So the 30 to 50 foot buffer of trees are for the cars that drive down the street and don't stay there 247. So we have a line of trees we would like to be increased in depth and length to cover the the property because it is a large structure. It's way higher than our building. It looms over every aspect of our house and we would like to request that if you do go forward with this uh variance that landscaping be added. May we unsure about what happens with fencing? That's a question my husband has some questions. Um and regarding the question number two, we would um regarding the limiting use of the garage farm. If the appeal is granted, we are in full support of a covenant prohibiting the use for sleeping, cooking, and bathrooms. We accept that the building is there. We don't dispute that they have every legal right to do what they've been doing, that it's a lovely building, etc. It's the scale and scope and if you looked at it from our perspective, not as a lawyer, not as anything else, it's overwhelming and upsetting as you can

see it in. Um, we would like to know that there's the lighting is not shining on our house, that dark sky laws are are respected, and that any cameras that are on the property are not facing our house recording anything that our grandchildren, tiny little grandchildren, are doing in our yard and that it feels like another invasion if that's true or if it ever comes to pass. So those are our requests to this board for this moment and I'm not sure we have time for our questions but let's just ask ahead. Yeah. So just so you know um

state your name please.

Jeff Hecman. I'm the next door neighbor island road. Uh I reached out to the owners um last February. I had one conversation with um Kate uh was regarding it fencing as my wife just mentioned. Uh that it's a picket fence. It's been falling down on our property. Uh it's their fence. They should fix it. Um I've been using basically chewing gum and bailing wire to fix it. It's not my fence. The deer come through there. We don't want the deer. The deer knock down our beehives in the back. So, I I want to get that addressed as part of this process. I don't know how you guys work in terms of um we have other questions and concerns. Lynn, you brought up the lighting. That's a big issue for us because on the two corners of that face our property, there's electrical conduits for, you know, lighting and I I don't want that lighting shining into my bedroom hall night. I I want the dark skies. Yeah, they they do have to be dark skies compliant according to

that's you here and I now 6 months from now who's going to enforce that, right? That's not this is this is my we need dialogue here. We need to have some conversations.

Um surveillance cameras Julie mentioned are important to us. We have grandkids. We don't need to have them photographed. Um, and I just want to double check in terms of this plumbing issue. I find it odd that there's no water to wash cars. Um, I don't understand that, but thank you for clarifying there's no water, but um, you mentioned, I think it was Lynn who said there's um, storage for parts upstairs. So, there will be mechanical things going on with these cars in the shop, I assume. Well, I think as as I think as he explained, so when you have vintage cars, a lot of them have been modified. And when you purchase that car, along with that purchase comes the original parts pre-modification. So the car doesn't lose its value because it still has its original parts,

right? So I I don't think that from what I'm gathering is those parts aren't get being installed or swapped in that bay. They just have the original parts. So, there's no hydraulic lifts, there's no pneumatic um repair shops. Okay. Okay. Um let's see what else.

Um I'm glad that you've seen the house. I wish you had seen it from our property because you didn't get a good feel for it. And I invite you to come over to six Ram Island Road and take a look for yourself. I think it's important before you make a decision. Um, and I guess my last point is um I don't know how you guys work or how you arrive at a decision, but uh we still have some other questions about this. I think we've given the applicant uh a fair and reasonable alternative to move back heating and air conditioning to the front. I'd also want that to be covered with soundproofing and I want to make sure um if there are generators for these machines, okay, that those are also covered and in the front of the house by the gate house.

Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Um I I actually I I would like to invite Mr. Bennett up um Thank you. Um to address some of these concerns. That' be great. You know, would you be willing to move them relocate the HVA system on the opposite side of the folks who just spoke? That's not a problem. We'll do what we need to do to do that. So, re we will relocate them so that they're not on their side. We'll adhere of course to dark sky requirements. Um, we will place no um um we'll place no

cameras. Oh, cameras uh looking into the You can put these as conditions to the approval. That's fine with us because there's no going to be a good neighbor. Uh so dark sky, no cameras looking into the neighbor's property. I certainly wouldn't want that. Uh and I and I and I respect that request. We'll move the HVAC uh over to the opposite side. Uh and we'll fix the big fence. And will you um increase the foliage along that property line? Yes. Yes, we will increase the on that property line. Will uh that's that could be a condition as well.

What sort of lighting? Are there receptacles on that side? Did you envision some certain lighting over there on that side of the home? There's no lighting. No lighting on that side. Okay. Thank you. And we can increase what's the depth of that of it's 33 ft between their property line. It's 33 ft between the property. And what is the what is the current proposed screening depth if you know on that side? Yes. 15 15 ft. We'll Yeah. I got to have for fireatics. I got to have I can't put Oh, hold on. Hold on.

I will You can't talk. You just have to address only one person can address the board at a time. We're going to give them a number. Yeah. Give the board a number. And you guys can figure that out and then and submit plans to us so that we can review them. No, we're going to it's 15 ft now. We'll increase it to 22 feet. I can't have it. It creates a real pharmacatics problem if it's that if it's right on top of the of the building. Um, so and are there any plans for a generator at this for this building? I don't know. But if the generator is going to be there, it'll be on the opposite side of the building. Okay. That would have to be part of the that would have to be part of like of conditions. Sure.

Okay. Fine. Absolutely. You can condition this in any way you want to make sure that there's no that the impacts that the neighbors uh are concerned about are alleviated. We're fine with that. We really are fine. If I go ahead rather than encumber any determination with a laundry list of conditions, there may be certain covenants that are absolute, but in in terms of the concessions that you're referring to now, um, you want to see it on? Yes. So rather than this be all conditioned, the the single condition would be that it's in compliance with the plans as submitted and you'll submit a plan that shows all of these changes.

Including a generator because we haven't spoken of that. Thank you. Done. Done. Absolutely. Absolutely. No, no, no argument at all. Okay. Great. Thank you. I don't want I I I can understand why these constraints are there, but we can take care of everyone. Yeah. No, we but we al we absolutely need a plan so that we can plan. Great. Okay. Um okay. Uh any other audience members, please?

Good evening. Um, I'm original hower and I'm a neighbor next to Jeff and Julie just uh gave you their comments and I wanted to support their request for relief and um support their um observations and I also wanted to say the definition of a garage versus a structure here I think is significant issue and um because I heard a lot tonight that I didn't know coming here. Um, so I'll just leave it at that's an important issue that the board should be very confident on. Um, it certainly looks like a museum to me. And from the sounds of it, it's closer to a museum, I think, than a garage. I don't know if we have any air conditioned garages on Grand Island Road right now. Most of those houses have no garages. It certainly is a change for our neighborhood. Uh not that that's any judgment at all to us. Um I also have uh I me I mentioned to John Bennett earlier this evening in month of February there are three weeks of pounding of the earth right in front of the garage. I walked over there at one point and spoke to the contractors. They said they were trying to level the road into the garage. had to be done by May 1 or May 30th and that they were breaking through the frozen earth. Uh I spoke to Jean Shepard around the corner, another neighbor and recently and he said, "Yeah, the earth is probably in the mid of February was probably 2 ft thick of frost." They showed me a dent in the bucket loader that had been caused by this pounding of the earth. My house was shaking and I'm two houses down. Uh, and they also

showed me a pile of boulders that were actually frozen earth. Um, I then noticed a crack in my foundation, uh, which I don't think was there before they swinging. I don't know that caused it or not. Um, and last thing, uh, I don't I'm not going to I'm here as a neighbor, not as a lawyer. I don't know. I but I do want to say I don't see any hardship here. I don't know if that's an issue. Uh I think there's a lawful remedy. I do appreciate the applicant, Mr. Topin, is following the process, following the law here, coming to the board of appeals. Not everybody does that until um but I do uh um I do think there for part of this request variance there's a remedy with doing this three or four lot subdivision that would solve the conditioning problem. Uh that's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Are you here? Any other audience members? Anybody in Zoom wish to speak? Christina, do we have anybody? I think we have a hand raised in Zoom. No. That's a

Okay, Mr. Bennett. Yes. Yeah. If I may, uh, I I haven't asked, uh, Mr. Trump this, but I'm sure he will, if there's some concern, was there some concern about damage to your structures, uh, Mr. Hower? Because if that's the case, we can, it's not something that you, right? That's something that you guys can have a private conversation about.

No, that's Yeah. Yeah. Um so my my humble request would be uh I think you've heard from neighbors they've uh given their concerns. We've offered all of these conditions and council has properly stated that those should be on a plan as have you and I would humbly request that you close the meeting but for written submissions uh that will demonstrate u plan and the conditions to your as as stated I think at this point I I do want to keep it open because I think it's important for us to come together look at the plans in case we have any questions or need to have a discussion about it. Very good.

Um that's a question in that light. Um is there anybody else who would like to speak on this application? Okay. So if not, Tim, help me with the language here. We're going to

adjourn. Um and we do have um a full docket for April. So it's going to be um adjourned to the May 27th hearing. possibility given the fact that uh we're trying to move this process to fruition. I think all you're going to be is talking about whether or not these documents, these plans that were submitted meet your satisfaction. That could probably be happen. You probably come to a determination level before that meeting. I would again humbly request that your full docket aside that would be on that on that uh on that document. We do have applications already scheduled for April. So,

but but again, I'm not going to be it's not going to be anywhere near the amount of time. It's just really going to be be handing submissions to you and you're going to be you'll know beforehand whether or not they meet your requirements. It's going to be a 3 or 4 minute conversation, five minute conversation. You can adjourn tonight. Um and you know, the the setting of the date that it returns on, you know, it's a matter of the agenda for those upcoming meetings. So we can do our best to make it for April, but right now it's May, right? Or or not specify either way. And and but yes, do your best. We do need to have a date though for the submission though. Well, we don't have a submissions.

So So if um if we were to be on if you were to be uh kind and and give us this short, it's not about being kind. We have other applications already. Use my grammar. I don't mean to I just if there was the possibility of discussing them on the April session, how much in advance of that would you like? Two weeks before the session. Yeah. So I would say we would like them by April 10th. You'll have them by April 10th. Um but that's still not Oh, the 8th. I'm sorry. Tell me when you want them. We'll get them to you. I mean,

but that doesn't mean that we're going to put you on April. We'll do our best. We need to move on. But yeah, thank you. Okay. So, you're going to adjourn it to possible April date, but perhaps May? Yes. Okay. Thank you. And we'll we'll get the documents to you by April 8th. Perfect. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you.

It's going to take a minute to reset here. that I'll be late. No. No.

It's a good pour, right? Yeah, it is. oxygen.

Oh, these are so big. You wanted a That's on my can make sure you can proceed. Thank you.

We're just going to give a few more minutes for members to come back here. water.

Yeah, it's a type of Oh, um environmental. Yeah.

Get the water off the property. Yes. Who's there? I know you like the plants better than I do. Do you want to turn this or you like I'll be here in a minute.

Washing his hands. I told my wife it was going to be a late night. We haven't had late nights in a while. No, we haven't. No, it was that 15 minutes.

He'd like to hear. Yes. Yeah. Next month we quite quite a bit right three or four. Do we have any um for May yet potentially or you would say coco Oh, it is. Yeah. Oh, that's so wonderful. They're really something.

I like the look of it from like from the ones that were here before. You guys doing a site visit? Last night I couldn't make it my show. My show came on at 9:00. I fell asleep 10 at night. Keep it together.

Woke up when it went right off. Okay, we are back. We're going to continue with our other application. Uh 44 Garden Space Drive. Christina, can you read

the notice? Legal notice. are hearing on the occupation of Alpha Nest LLC, owner of 44 Garners Bay Drive, Shelter Island, New York, which is located in zone AA with the nearshore overlay district and is more specifically described on the suffer county tax map as 700-1-2-73.3. The applicant seeks relief from the requirements of town code section 133-6B6 to permit proposed construction of a primary dwelling poolhouse barn and condition storage building resulting in a total of 10,081 SFLA where 5,999 is allowed. Respond. Thank you. Okay. Who's here to present?

Hey, good evening. Matthew Sherman, Sherman Engineering Consulting here on behalf of the applicant Alpha Nest. Um we've got several uh members of the design team here in person tonight as well as some on Zoom. Um depending on questions that the board has and and various things will uh different uh different members of the team will chime in as needed to fill in gaps of information. Uh I'll give you a real quick real quick uh background to this project and then uh describe the project to describe the property and then hand it over to the uh the architect who will describe the buildings, what the the design uh uh interest is, what the goals were for the property owner. Um this property, excuse me, this this project really first started as far as town permitting was concerned in late 2022. Um, early 2023, we were in front of the town board for a special permit for a a version of this project that was substantially similar to the one in front of you now. Some minor tweaks to a couple of the buildings, uh, but the square footage was was fairly fairly close to the same as what we're looking for right now, that um, that just over 10,000 foot living area. One thing to clarify just right out of the gate is our proposed plans are for 10,115 square foot living area. Uh there was a typo on the building uh department letter of denial which I think then got rolled over into the uh into the notice. So the notice 10,8 ft

81 10,81 they had Yeah. And we were at 10,115. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Not not a big difference but just wanted to make sure that that was clear. Um, in 2023 when we went to the town board for a special permit, uh, we had our hearing, um, the town board at the time had asked for some additional information on the vegetation plan, some irrigation information, things along those lines. The hearing had been closed, gave them the information, they discussed it during a town board work session or a a couple of work sessions, and they were poised to vote on it for a special permit. Um, at that time, the town put in the moratoriums on special permits. So the property owner decided rather than than you know fight the system or or cause any issues they would let the dust settle however it happened if it came to the ZBA we would come to the ZBA if the town board had done a proportionality provision in the town code which is what we were expecting them to do um we would have gone that route either way whatever however the chips fell that's what we would respond to which is what brings us here tonight now so we waited a Well, we got the town uh you know, put this over to the the zoning board's jurisdiction. So, now we're applying for a variance for essentially a very similar the essentially the same project as what was in front of the the special permit uh um review previously. Um there were no significant issues raised by the town board. Um they again, as I said, they asked for some uh some clarifying information on the vegetation and on the irrigation. We provided that and then uh we moved on. Was the size not an issue with the town?

They didn't get to the point that they could vote on it, but during the hearing they didn't say anything and during the work session they didn't say anything. Okay.

Um it's important too to remember or to to to focus on the idea and Mr. Bennett had said it during the previous hearing. This application was on the heels of 42 Gardener's Bay Drive immediately next door. Very similar size property. That's 6 1/2 acres with a halfacre of wetlands. This is 6 acres. Uh we're at just under 11,000 square feet or or just over 10,000 square feet, excuse me, at 10,115. They were I think at about 11,000 and change I believe. I've got the number in my presentation here in a second. So the projects were were very very similar one to the other and the town board had just approved the other one. So that was a good indication that they would have been uh wouldn't have been hostile for this application. Um, if I could share my screen, I'll put up a PowerPoint. And I've got just a handful of slides again just to kind of give you an idea of the property and what it's um what its overall characteristics are. All right. So, this is the existing site. It's It's a little hard to see on this screen with the white background, but the um Garner's Bay is to the right hand side. Over here to the east, Garter Creek Drive, the left hand side, on the west. As you come into the property, there's an existing tennis court. Uh there's several out buildings right in the middle of the property right in this area here. And then just to the east of those, you've got the existing dwelling. The high point on the property kind of runs right along where that existing dwelling is right now. And then as you head further to the east, we've got a

swimming pool and a pool house. The pool house has just been constructed and the swimming pool has just been reconstructed. That's a permit that is um we're we're really on on a at a spot there where we could close out the permit, but we're holding off because depending on what happens with the ZBA and the um and the variance, we're going to have to modify the health department approval and no sense in closing out the health department approval for the pool house if we're just going to turn around and and put it back into play for the the main building. So, the pool house, the pool, the patio, and things around that are all are all permitted, and we're basically at the 11th hour on that project. Uh, we're in double A zone. So, down here on the roadside, we've got a 50ft front yard setback. We've got a 30ft uh sideyard setback for principal structures and any accessory buildings that have living space, two stories, things along those lines. And we've got a 15t sideyard setback for things like the tennis court, patios, one-story accessory buildings with no living space, um, uh, outuildings, things things along those lines. This is 100 foot, uh, wetland setback that runs right along here along the between the house and the uh, and the harbor or excuse me, and the bay. So everything is substantially landward of that 100 foot setback. So there's no wetlands issues on this site as far as a town is concerned. And we've got a DEEC letter of non-jurisdiction for everything land where the top of bluff and you can see that in this drawing where it's where these contour lines get real tight together. It's like a thick gray line. That's the bluff. On the western end of that is the top of bluff and that's where we're uh that's where the DEEC jurisdiction stops. So what we're proposing and this is a little bit hard to see again unfortunately because of the the screen

and I'll give you a better version of it now. Uh but what or in just a second but what I want to show you here is the proposed site and the existing site are very very similar to one another. Again the swimming pool the the pool and pool house are there. The tennis court stays. Um one thing I didn't mention a second ago is there's an existing cottage. Yep. Bunch, you're you're you're nodding your head like you're familiar with that cottage. I know the property very well.

It was moved to the site in 1963 from Gardener Farm. And one of the things that we want to do is maintain that cottage to as great an extent as possible. And um the plan right now is to keep it as living space, but to remove the plumbing from it because we've got as an accessory building with sleeping, we've got the pool house. The cottage used to be up until we built the pool house, the cottage was its own standalone accessory dwelling. So you had a nearshore overlay property with two dwellings on it. The main house and the accessory dwelling. Um, in order to do the pool house with sleeping, we can only have one building with sleeping accessory building with sleeping, excuse me. So we took the plumbing out of that building, put it into the pool house. So now we've got the main house and then the accessory sleeping building, which is the pool house building. and we'll get to that in a second because it's it's it's an important distinction to what the application is currently asking for and something that we would like the board to consider. Um, but right now there's also a small there's a sports court right here that's within the sideyard setback that's going to be coming out.

You're going to remove that that basketball court. Yep. Exactly. Yep. That was my question.

Yep. There's a couple of sheds. One shed is going to stay in its current location. another shed is going to move just down to the uh southwest a little bit from where its current location is. Um we've got a existing garage that's going to remain and we've got a new garage bar and maintenance building that's going to be down here on the cursor on the the west side just southwest of the tennis court. So right in the middle of the property but near the road. um that building is going to have a half a bath because we can't have a full bath. Having a full bath, the town would consider it accessory sleeping. So, we've got a half a bath that we're looking to put into that. And it's really more as a convenience for the people who are working on the property. Um as you come back up here into the main part of the property, the new house is going to be basically over top of the footprint of the existing house. And this is just a cleaned up version. So you can see the way the driveway comes in. It loops around. You've got that shed that's being relocated has come into right here. The other shed stays. The existing garage stays. And this is the new house. So everything is well within all of the zoning setbacks. Um again, this is a 6 acre lot, 5.9 and change. So, there's plenty of room to have these new improvements without having to get close to any of the property lines or any of the uh any of the minimum setbacks. When we did the application for the special permit at that level, you have to get the health department approval first before you can go for a special permit. When we're going for a ZBA ZBA approval in front of your board, we have to get that first before we can get the health department approval. So, we're kind of a little bit we're inverting the process a little bit at this point. Um, as I said, we had that health department approval. We installed the system for the pool house.

We've got a new IIA system for the main house, and we've got a new IIA system for that maintenance barn that's up by the tennis court. What we would be looking to do since we've got that system going in for the maintenance barn is to be able to put a toilet and sink in the cottage that we removed all the plumbing from. We don't want to put in a shower because again that would make it accessory sleeping, but they want to use it as a gym or some some function like that. So, we don't want to have to cross the line. We don't want it to cross the line to be something that would create an issue with the town code, but along the same lines as that maintenance building, we would want to just have a convenience for the people who are using that building. Um, that's what we've got as far as our overall site is concerned. I'm going to hand it over to the architect now. If you, you know, he'll go into details on the proposed construction. If you've got any questions for me about the site, I'll be more than happy to answer them now or later. Uh,

were you thinking I'm sorry I've ran out of pen ink. What were you talking about putting into the old cottage? Um, just a toilet. A toilet in a half bath. Yeah.

Yeah. We've done that on several applications, not necessarily ones that have come to the CBA, but ones that have gone into the building department to get a sign off. And historically, they didn't make that differentiation between a full bath and a half bath. Several years ago, the town felt, hey, you know, if you got a shower in there, then it kind of leans it, you know, pushes it to the area of being a convenience for sleeping. Let's remove the temptation. Just do a half bath. So, it's it's a convenience. It's not something that someone will really be using as a as a dwelling unit or even as a as a part-time dwelling unit.

And this is for the structure closest to the entrance. Uh that's that we've got uh the town the building department has already signed off on that. Yes to the halfbath. It would be for the cottage that existing cottage which is right down here on that south side about a third of the way down which you said you removed the plumbing from. Y So now you just want to add the plumbing for for a half bath and Yeah. Cuz it was a full cottage. It was there was a kitchen. There was full bathroom upside down. Yeah. North side. Yeah. Yeah. And what's the size of that cottage? Do you know?

Uh, yeah. Total square footage of it is,241 ft. Two floors. First floor is 668. Second floor is 573. Okay. So, so you want to put in Sorry. Now that we know what we're what structure we're looking at, you want to put a half bath there as well.

And actually, I'll go down to this. This is the cottage. This is an architectural rendering of what the cottage looks like. Um, it's a great little building. Uh, that one of the the the things that has traveled through this entire process is the owner's desire to try and keep this building and keep it as close to its current state as possible. Um, it's just, you know, it's kind of like a it's a little piece of island fabric. Um, and this is a thing from 1963. It shows the uh um the cottage going down the road on the back of a flatbed um and you know where it came from on gardener's farm and then as it got to this site. So this is from Hey Beach association. It's it's there's a pretty good story to this this property.

Yeah. My father moved it pulled across lots with a bulldo and I knew it. I figured you I think what were you 15 years older than the guy? I figured you No, I was older than that. You were older. I was giving you the No, it was my I'll get you wanted a whole story. My relative owned that Sylvester Prime. He owned a whole Hay Beach. Yeah. And he put that house built the house. What was on Corbett's Lane and and Maner Road duplicated. That was the cook's quarters for that main house on Corbett's Lane. This cottage was the cook's quarters. Okay. And Billy Hannibbury lived in that house for quite a few years as a policeman. Okay.

I can tell you a lot more, but we we're getting late. Enough of time. Yes. Yep.

Good evening. My name is Jim Taylor. I'm the architect for the applicant. And if I may share my screen, let's see if this works. Okay. All right. Does that work?

All right. Okay. So, following on from what Matt just presented, um I'll give you some color and some context and um maybe just some of the design thinking around this project. Um just uh by way of introduction, I think Matt's covered lots of this. Um so I won't read the whole thing. Um I just want to say that our client um instructed us to produce a design for this site um to enhance its uh structures and its setting which they've admired as stewards of the property for the last seven years. To this end we proposed a renovation and rebuilding program for the site that will maintain or improve the structures to remain improve the compound with new structures to replace buildings that are not salvageable or at end of life and to enhance the atmosphere and the surrounding context. I'm going to skip the rest of this because we coded it and it's late. All right. So, here are some aerials. Everybody knows where this is. On the left, you can see the little red square. So, it's far north end of the island. Cornelius point um is so the lot faces uh on the water side. It faces east. On the right side of my screen, on the left side, it faces to the west to Gardeners Bay Drive. and then uh in the long direction. So you have about 590 ft from east to west across the whole site and 5.9 acres as Matt has already pointed out. Um this is maybe a more colorful diagram of the site. I can even zoom in. Does that help? Maybe I can't zoom in. Okay, fair enough. Um okay, so highlighted in blue are existing structures today. Uh the red line that runs approximately north south is the high point of the site. So kind of the topographical ridge line. So everything to the right of the red is visible from the water. Everything to the left is not. The green circles represent significant and um really lovely mature trees which we've been instructed to keep as best we can and we've done that in conjunction with the landscape architect which is Hollander

Design. I think they have somebody on the call this evening. So blue is existing. The next slide shows the proposed um sort of intermediate stage. So the blue cottage you see at the bottom right, I'm sorry, this the pool house at the bottom right of the site. Um and there's the new pool. Those were actually when we rebuilt the pool, we rebuilt it, I think around 10 ft further away from the lot line. So that's been moved into the lot to keep it further away from the neighbors. Um, the cottage bottom of the screen in the middle here, that's the one Matt was just talking about. That stays. The existing garage building stays in its current location. That's this large blue structure. And then the existing shed right here, the little one right next to it, that will also stay. The red footprint shows existing house to be removed. And the smaller red footprint is um is an existing uh sort of industrial storage building which would be removed. You can see obviously it conflicts with our proposed site plan. So that's the one that gets removed and then replaced with the new barn which is uh west of the tennis court. Um some images for character. Um top left is the existing main house. It's a 20th century structure. Um you know vaguely traditional in form. It's been added on to extended um altered messed around with. It's sort of uh mildly incoherent I think. And you know that's the main thing obviously we're doing is replacing this building. The cottage is middle top row. The potting shed that remains is the right side of the top row. And then on the bottom row the new pool house which as Matt says we're we're really it's really complete. Um the middle image is a little fragment of the garage building that we're keeping with um a very bizarre but charming Dutch gable window in it which everybody loves and uh we plan to keep. And then that that storage shed, the kind of industrial structure is bottom right.

That's the one we're removing and replacing with bottom. Uh so final site plan would look like this. Starting moving from right to left, it's pool house, pool, new house on the side of the old house. Then the existing garage that doesn't move, the shed that does not move, the potting shed that does move, and that now sits at the top of a smaller parking area. And you can see from the site plan, we're holding or we're trying to hold the improved parking surface as far away from the main house as possible. So current driveway makes its way all the way up to the main house. Uh going forward, the plan is to have an improved surface so that you can drive on it, but the aim is to discourage all the tra any traffic from getting past this point in the middle of the site. So that means the FedEx guy, the UPS truck gets to that point, drops off packages in that little structure, and then turns around and leaves, and you don't end up with them in the middle of the site. Um, then on the where am I? The existing cottage we talked about, uh, the basketball court turns into overflow parking if necessary. And then that barn location, um, exactly where Matt showed it just a few minutes ago, between the tennis court and the road. Um just a quick stab at the statistics. Um total lot area 257,000 ft. The total um of the of all the condition space would be 10,115. Um the next two statistics I'm giving here obviously are not regulated, but I just think it's interesting for context to look at this um to show that we're under 4% of condition space as a percentage of lot area. I know that's something that doesn't factor here, but it gives you a bit of context to understand what could be done on a lot in the same zone, 80,000 ft with the maximum area as of right of 6,000 ft would be 7.5%. That's just an idea of

how much bigger the lot is that it would have to be to support this. Um, some more context pictures. Um, that top left is the view of the property today from the water. So that would be the little pool house you can see on the left and then those amazing trees, those big mature trees uh screening the main house completely because it's behind them from the water side. Top right is standing approximately at the main house looking back towards the water view of the tree canopy to your right. Um I put this one in because there are no leaves on these trees. So you can see the locations of where those mature trees are. And you can see another view of the main house just um sticking out there from uh on the right side. So we would be standing north of the house here looking up from the water side. And then bottom left image shows driveway um mature evergreen um heavily planted no view of any buildings from Gardener Bay Drive. Um when it came to character of the main house um we were looking at uh the American shingle style of the mid to late um 1880s um those buildings uh you know were particularly attracted to MK of white and to key body and sterns and those kinds of architects um seems like an appropriate architectural style for this kind of property. Um we and hopefully our client liked the um very simple roof massing. Um and in particular we were drawn to the habit of these architects to have a first floor level roof eaves and then the second floor poking out from the roof with dormers which helps lessen um the overall mass of the building and helps uh keep it sort of supple and seem as if it has some kind of relationship with the with the shape of the lot. Um, why is this not working? Okay, here

we go. Plan of the main house. The red line shows those roof eaves. So, that would be the edge of the roof eaves. And then as you look at the structure, you can see that um uh I think I have a number here. Yeah, only 60% of the um roof eaves shape. So, the the roof mass itself, the footprint of the building is actually conditioned space. It's really a very simple building. Um living room. Uh there's a guest bedroom on the northwest corner here. Um possibly for an older family member or a parent or a grandparent because that's on the first floor. Um and then mud room, kitchen, and uh dining room and a single step in this house. Second floor has an even smaller ratio of condition space to the to the to the house footprint. That's 48% because obviously I'm trying to cram all of these bedrooms into a smaller area. Um and this again very simple bedroom 1, bedroom 2, bedroom 3 and then associated bathroom closets and secondary space and then the stair hole obviously stacking above the ground floor stair hole um basement space. So toned in brown here is the conditioned basement space which is included in this calculation. And then everything to the right would be um unconditioned unbuilt just um empty space. The elevations then cue very closely to those models, those precedences we looked at from our favorite architects. So the roof eaves at first floor level. This is standing on the north side of the building looking south. So the north elevation. So the building's actually very narrow when you look at it from the end and the massing um you know sort of stacks towards the ridge line. There's a single chimney on this house which you can also see in the view from this is from the west looking east. And so that is um you can see there's a very that very deep porch that contributes to the sort of overhanging of the of the um

roof eaves and then all the mass of the house. So the condition space is pushed way back. Then we show the family wing. So it's at a different angle. So we show it in elevation in a different drawing. Again, deep porches. You can see from the little red arrow which way we're pointing on the bottom right of my screen there. Then the south elevation. very similar things. It's just a it's a it's essentially a porch building with vent edition space tucked away into stuff. And then the only elevation that isn't hidden behind porch is actually the landside elevation. So this is what you would see if you drove up and then continued up to the house and then the water would be beyond. And finally the family wing the same. And this I thought would be useful just to show um so the two red lines on my screen do those show? Yes. Okay. So those are approximately where the lot lines would be. This is from the water. So southern lot line is on the left. Northern lot line is on the right. The blue outline on the left is the existing pool house which is just completed. Um those significant trees are very approximately outlined in green. And then the existing blue line right here in the center of the site is existing house and white is proposed house. So a little bit taller in the main wing, but then the family wing um is shorter by 5 ft. It's going to be uh it's going to diminish that family wing off to the left side of the house. Uh the garage building with its cute Dutch gable um is really cool. We will reverse this building so it stays in place. The garage doors are currently on the north side. We'll move them to the south side and then take the windows on the south and move them to the north. So then when you're parking in that building, you're doing it from the south and you're not driving all the way in front of the house just to get into

those garage bays. Otherwise, no change to this building. Am I not changing my slide? Oops. Went too quick. Okay, back. Okay, so this is the cottage. Um, I think, um, I just want to add something to what Matt said. We do plan to take off a 20th century addition to this building. So, that's highlighted in red. That's a modern porch edition um that was put on, I don't know, probably um probably not long after it was moved, in fact, just judging by the age of the windows. So, that will come off to restore this building back to a more traditional appearance. And so will this dark uh brown object which is a it's a it's a pen and then there's you know air conditioning inside there. So that will be removed.

Are you still going to have air conditioning in the building? Yes. But because this will switch to a heat pump system. We don't need to have that thing right there. We can have it pushed away somewhere

closed in so that you can you know see this building and not have it um have your view disrupted. Um so that red area again in the two plans that's that's what gets removed and then you can see um you know it's just a basic very basic four square plan and then a stair in the center. This is the proposed new barn that replaces the industrial shed. Um so double barn doors facing a little parking area there. um a little glazed door in the end of the building um for a caretaker to get access and then a window, you know, a couple of windows on each elevation. Very simple roof mass um not very complicated. And then here's the plan putting we put some mowing equipment in there just for scale so you can see. And then that convenience bathroom is right here. You can see uh the little powder room right there is tone being brown just so you can pick up that little piece of area. Um then this is my last slide just to show some of the character of the new pool house which then we'll take these same details and apply them. You know this is how we articulate the main house. Pool house is kind of a dry run for that. So those very wide spreading overhanging eaves with with a crisp edge. Um, we put in a um a I call this a Yankee gutter. It's a concealed gutter so that we wouldn't have the gutter actually hanging on the edge of the building. So, this is an internal gutter. And you can see from the middle image, it's pretty slick. You can barely see it. You can see that little dark line where you get an extra shadow. Um, the cedar shingles, these are Alaskan yellow cedar shingles, so they will go that beautiful sort of um, you know, cake colored gray color as soon as the tannins leech out. And you can see they're already they're already turning on the roof. And this building's not even a year old. And then on the right side, um you know, simple divided light

windows will make sure all the panes are the same size. Traditional wood moldings. Um very straightforward, not complicated shingled house. That's it. Thank you. Questions? Back to that. Anyone have questions? Do you want to ask? I think I Yeah, we're good. Okay. Um, any generator on site? Do we know?

There will be a generator. Let me go back to the um actually. Okay. So, the generator and the uh condensers will be rooted and they end up into this. Yeah, I think you can even see them. If I annotate here, so they end up in a pen right here in the middle of the site. Actually, not far from where that that industrial storage building was. So that gets removed and they end up here. So pretty much as far as you can get from anybody.

Okay. Thank um just for clarification, I don't know if this is a Matt or a you question. Um, I'm going back to your the loop you threw me for the existing cottage and the half bath. Absolutely. Um, I just want to be clear that that was not in this notice of disapproval. Square foot living area. Yes. So, what the variance is for, yes, that's in the that's in the notice of disapproval. The only thing that changes is it's still square foot living area, but we want to put a convenience bathroom in. Okay. So, the bathroom was not but the variance for was

um Tim, I'm just going to ask you quick. Is that something that we can consider? We can like is that something we should consider in this because it's changing the the like was that plan was not presented to the cowboy like there's different plans in front of us versus what was submitted. Yeah. Yeah. But the I think I think the basis for the denial is not the the contents of the room. It's it's that it adds additional SFFLA which in the aggregate is is over the the limit.

Isn't that another like uh variance need though to have the extra half bath? that I don't know because I don't I'm not again if if if that plan was presented to the building department they would have made that determination since it wasn't presented to them I don't know if that's something that we need to consult this them on

I can ask Reed for a letter detailing that um if that will help but yeah the variance was strictly for square foot living area um and said not what's inside that square foot living area you're not looking at the number of bedrooms the number of bathrooms you're not looking at any of that just we're at 10,115 square ft. What's in it is important because it adds to the color of the project, but the variance isn't for that. The variance is for the SFLX. I get that. We can we can do a little bit of internal checking. Okay. The the risk from the applicant standpoint is if that were you got approved for a variance and that was a trigger for another variance you needed, you would be you'd be another disapproval when you

again. And and part of my concern is that the building department got different plans and then we're signing off on something different from what they got. We're trying to have the same things go to each department, right? Yeah. Yeah. We This would came out of an internal discussion that we had cuz we were thinking about just, you know, leaving that building with no plumbing from the beginning and then we were talking, well, what can we use it for? And it it just made sense as a gym or something along those lines. I said, "Well, you're going to want to have a toilet, right?" You know, and they could go over to the the maintenance building. Yeah.

But that kind of, you know, that that doesn't really help or hinder anything. So, we figured, all right, let's ask you guys if it's something that we could, you know, ask for at this point. If it becomes a problem, we can take a half a step back. Um, if it, you know, I I don't think it will. And I I can talk to Reed and check. I'm not convinced it will either. I just want to make like you said, you know, um I don't know where the board to ask on that.

Yeah. And and and just technically you wouldn't be approving the bathroom structures. You by granting the V, you're you're approving the space. And I I just know again, especially since this is a a variance for, you know, a large, you know, 10,000 square feet. All of a sudden, there's another half bath that's going to it's going to have more water usage. It's going to it's just it could I just want to make sure that we're looking at it holistically. Absolutely. Apples to apples. Apples to apples. Yeah.

That's actually something that it's a good point that you bring up there about the water usage. One of the things that we included in this application which I kind of struggled with because you know whenever you give somebody something that they don't ask for they're going to ask for it the next time they what did I do and um so but I included the groundwater analysis because we had done it as part of the special permit and so what I wanted to show was we did the we did the modeling we looked at it we said all right the this building based on all of its fixtures and all of its uses it's going to have a negligible impact on the groundwater water even at the outer edges of the site more or less once you go beyond the site. Um the addition

that's without the half bath. Not that I think it's not that I think it's going to you know but it that data is without this half bath. Absolutely. And and so what I can do too is as you know part of written correspondence I can provide a modification to that report showing just that. Yeah. will have a very, you know, the very definition of a negligible difference. Yeah. But I certainly understand the point. Yeah. Yeah. Um Okay.

Um I also think along the same lines, um the reports are great and I know that was, you know, something required um with the town board. They're a little bit more equipped to handle those large reports. they they have a lot of more resources and and they can consult and I think it's I you know with this size project it might be beneficial to have us kind of consult have a consultant also look at that to see what other environmental you know to look at the report do our own environmental analysis and just make sure that we're in alignment yeah bring Teresa in on it Mason that's who the town board uses I don't know okay I'll have to person yeah ask Christina

Ger I know they use that for SRA. Okay. Um is is that something that the board feels is necessary for this? Yeah, when I saw the report, I felt a little bit ill equipped. So, I would like more time of it to Yeah. ask some questions. Okay. Okay. Those are my questions and points. Anyone else have questions for Matt or Jim? Okay. All right. Thank you. And All right. We will open it up to audience members.

Anyone in the audience want to speak? Then we'll open it up to anyone in Zoom. Just maybe for Matt. Um appreciate the comprehensiveness of the presentation, but you might want to just address the variance, right? The your your the amount that you're asking over the limit.

Um, actually, thank thank you that that's why we're here. Um, you know, basically what happened with this project, as I said, and I'm not going to rehash it all, but you know, we were going for the special permit for the over 6,000 ft. Obviously, it's a different threshold than for a zoning variance. Um, and looking at this property, you know, and considering whether a variance is justified, um, it it's a six acre property. Zoning in this area is 2 acres. So, it's three times the size of the, uh, the minimum required lot size.

Um, the property next door received an approval. Granted, it was a special permit and not a variance, but they received a special they received an approval for a significantly similar type of project with respect to the gross numbers, the actual square foot living area versus the lot size. Um, so it it clearly is in is in harmony with the area. It's clearly in harmony with what the town board felt was an appropriate use for the property right next door. Um, so I think that helps helps paint the picture that from a a town code perspective and a town board perspective, we're not looking for anything unreasonable here. Um, part of the need, and I'm a big fan that pretty much every variance is is, you know, the need is self-inflicted. People want to fix their properties. They want to change their properties. They want to uh um do whatever improvements. If you can if you can do it within the confines of the code, fantastic. You can't always do that. So, in a case like this where the project had already gone through very significant design and permitting and oversight when we got the rug pulled out from underneath us. In this case, the variance request. This is not necessarily a self-imposed variance. This was imposed on the fact that we got to the 11th hour of the special permit process that was stopped on us. And I think that's that's an important thing to keep in mind that had the town board decided two weeks later to put in the moratorum the house would be built early and you know so that that I think is something to consider. Um as far as the overall need one of the things I look at with the the square foot living area and the 6,000 ft limit my master bedroom might be 150 ft² you know just over a 12 x 12 room. Somebody else might have a 20 by 20 master

bedroom. That's 400 square feet, over twice the size for the same room. So the idea of the actual size of the building versus its impact on the immediate environment has to be taken into account. So a 6 acre piece of property with a 10,115T living area group of buildings. And remember that's not just the main building. That includes the pool house. It includes 57 square ft for the bathroom in that in that maintenance building. So, there's lots of different things that are factoring into this. So, the actual impact of the project on the property is extremely small. And as Jim had pointed out, you've got like I think it was a 7% ratio of square foot living area to double A zone properties and we're at you know 3.5 or 3.7 something like that. So, we're we're just we're about half of what the code would allow on an Azone piece of property. Um,

in that similar light, would the applicant be okay with putting a type of a deed restriction for any future development or subdevelopment of the property? If we, you know, if we're granting this, I can ask the property owner. I don't think that doesn't sound unreasonable to me. And you know, this is a um you know, I I think that that would be u um would be probably taken in the light that it's being asked and but let me get with the property owner and I'll let the board know. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. The and you know, depending on what kind of deed restriction it is and what the finer details are. You know, it's uh you know, putting on another building looking for a variance for square foot living area again obviously would be a problem, but um so we we would have to discuss that. But yeah, I think that's reasonable. Okay. Does that help? I mean, I'm sure that that doesn't completely answer the question. I I get hung up on the want versus need because, you know, how much of everything we do do we need, you know, we need a kitchen and a bathroom. That's what we need. But

and it's al the applicants been through this process already. They've submitted all this stuff. It is new to this board, though. So that's why, you know, we're taking our time to to I don't know what kind of records a town has, what kind of minutes from their meetings, but I can see if I can dig into that and it may help, it may not help. You know, if we can give a little color to what their discussions were. Um, again, different board with a different purpose, correct? But, you know, any information is good information. We did try to access the site Lisa and I earlier in the week and we did make um two phone calls and we had a person exit and reenter seeing us um but ignored us and didn't allow us on the property. So it would be good if we could inspect the property. Yeah, absolutely.

Someone there every day so we can arrange for you. Okay, great. No, they saw us there and then we kind of ran after the car but they chose not to see us so kept that. Okay, great. Thank you. Two crazy people chasing them down. Um, give me shoot me a text or give me a call and I'll be more than happy to help arrange something if it's if that's more convenient. Yeah. Okay, that would be great. Thank you. All right. Um, so I think Matt, um, I would like to keep it open. Yeah. Um, and we're going to,

uh, we're going to look for you, Matt, for a modification in that report. Yep. Um and then we'll also talk about bringing in um someone internally also to just do a quick analysis um for the environmental impact as well. Is did I miss anything? Did you want me to reach out to Reed about the bathroom and the cottage or did you want to do that? Either way works for me. Tim, what's what's the proper channel here? Yeah, I I think we'll do it ultimately. Okay. Um you know, yes, I think do it. It wouldn't be a new, you know, building permit request to read on the fly. It would just be our checking whether it's within the scope. Okay. Okay.

Did I miss any any item that we need? Anyone? No, I double check. I think we close and and we want to do a site visit. Yes. Okay, great. And if anybody else wants to just usually we'll have if you see one of us we'll we'll have an ID tag. Yeah. We can't all go together, right? Only two of us can at time one at a time by twos. Open sunshine, right? Yeah. So, we need to vote to adjourn. We can just You can do a motion to adjurnn.

Okay. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? to and Matt, we're going to have to do the May 27th because we're April. We're busy in April. Okay. Okay. So, now can I hold on? Can I get a motion to adjourn to May 27th hearing? Yes, I'll make a motion. All in favor? I Okay. Okay. Is that okay? No, I know. Yeah, I was just adjourning

and Mr. Prime all that land from Coritz Lane Golf Course all right to Dar Road original owner of the pledge where where the tides come from. I don't know where Garden Farm was. Gardener Farm. You know where Dinkl's house is? Yes. It was down in Sylvester Prime. All right, Punch. We want to close the meeting here. I thought we make No, I was just a motion to close meeting. I'll second. Yes. All in favor? I I