At its monthly meeting Tuesday, the Planning Board approved a resolution for the Dawson/Dimon wetlands permit, among other business.
Notably, the board also endorsed a wetlands permit for an accessory sleeping structure at 7 Chequit Avenue that neighbors and the Shelter Island Heights Property Owners Corporation opposed. Find separate coverage in this Gazette post.
Chairman Ian McDonald reiterated his position that the Planning Board has no jurisdiction over a Town Code ban on construction within 100 feet of a wetlands boundary that’s found in the zoning description of the Near Shore Overlay. And furthermore, he dismissed the requirement as a “scrivener’s error” (see details near the end of this post).
The board extended a deadline for the Nelson White Estate to complete the landscaping work promised as part of a subdivision with properties purchased by the Town for open space. It also extended another applicant’s deadline for deed recording relating to a lot line change.
A public hearing on the Hills/Tam application for a wetlands permit at 169 Ram Island Drive followed. During a work session after the business meeting, the board discussed that permit and checked the status of other pending matters.
Dawson/Dimon wetlands permit
A clerk’s mistake left Zoom participants out of the meeting for the first seven minutes (more in the 7 Chequit Avenue permit post). When the feed went live, the Planning Board was discussing the permit request of James Dawson and Roz Dimon for work proposed at their 57 South Ferry Road home.
They seek to relocate an existing, unpermitted, and non-compliant habitable accessory building currently used as an art studio so that it complies with zoning and wetlands setbacks. This aspect of the plan calls for rebuilding smaller, what’s now a very large set of steps leading to the studio entrance.
They also want to build a 15-by-15-foot addition with a full foundation below and a new master bath on the first floor. They’ll remove their conventional septic system, now 61.5 feet from the wetlands, and construct a new I/A system and a well outside the 100-foot wetlands boundary.
The Town has jurisdiction over 100 feet from fresh and saltwater wetlands, with separate rules applying to work within the first 75 feet (known as the vegetative buffer) and the next 25 feet (known as the adjacent regulated area).
Work on the existing house would increase the intrusion into the adjacent regulated area by 213 square feet.
Hard to follow
In addition to the Zoom glitch, the Planning Board’s refusal to share draft resolutions with the public made the discussion hard to follow. The board’s attorney, Elizabeth Baldwin, said keeping such drafts private until they’re signed off is a common practice for planning boards.
But that doesn’t comport with how the Town Board behaves or with the spirit of New York State’s rules for “Conducting Public Meetings and Public Hearings.” That document calls upon all public boards that maintain “routinely updated websites” — the Town does this — to provide materials up for discussion “to the extent practicable at least 24 hours prior to the meeting.” These materials include public records associated with the meeting agenda “as well as any proposed resolution, law, rule, regulation, policy or any amendment thereto, scheduled to be the subject of discussion.”
Whether or not the Planning Board’s action contravenes state intentions for open meetings, the failure to provide drafts obscures the meeting subject matter for those following along.
This was especially so when members referred by heading abbreviations to specific lines in the resolutions, as in this exchange about the Dimon/Dawson wetlands permit:
McDonald: “If we’re all OK, then I’ll make a motion to accept Resolution 26 of 2023 with the removal of H3.”
Member David Austin: “H2 of the approved landscape plan?”
McDonald: “It’s H2, but it’s also H3C.”
Baldwin: “Right.”
McDonald: “So, H2 and H3?”
Austin: “Yep. I’ll second that.”
It’s natural to use such shorthand when referring to a document, but from the audience’s perspective, the result was unnecessarily cryptic dialogue. Surely, people interested in these documents can be trusted to recognize the difference between a draft and an adopted resolution.
I asked for and received a copy of the resolution — read it here on our website — and was able to see:
- H referred to “Conditions of Approval,”
- H2 was the “Approved Landscape Plan,”
- H3 was “Additional Comments and Time Limitations,” and
- H3C was a requirement that “prior to the issuance of a public permit, [the] applicant shall submit a vegetation plan to the board for approval.”
In short, the Planning Board removed this demand for a landscape plan, having found the requirement moot, given that the project wouldn’t disturb abundant native vegetation already in place around the freshwater wetlands.
With the heightened attention since the Town Board shifted responsibility for wetlands permitting, it may behoove the Planning Board to make drafts available in advance, improving transparency and building community trust in this new procedure.
Other action
The board also amended conditional final approval for the Nelson White Estate subdivision, which was first authorized in 2014. At the board’s last work session, representatives for the family suggested reducing the number of evergreens to be planted, among other changes.
But McDonald said the board wasn’t comfortable with these alterations, and the family agreed to stick to the original plan.
The Town has an interest in the site; it negotiated details about a parking area off the access road and landscaping when purchasing lots for open space preservation. The board extended the deadline to complete landscaping work to November 23.
In August 2022, the board granted a lot line adjustment requested by Robert Lipsyte and Lois B. Morris at 74 West Neck Road, with a February 2023 deadline for recording deeds. The project includes the transfer of a portion of an adjoining property they own at 15 Stearns Point Road to the Suffolk County Water Authority (SCWA), now undergoing review at the Suffolk County Department of Health Services.
The board extended the deadline to November 23. McDonald noted that the transfer also involves sanitary credits associated with the restaurant Léon 1909, a customer of the Town-owned and SCWA-operated West Neck Water District.
Hills/Tam public hearing
Next, the board held a public hearing for the application of Patrick Loftus-Hills and Konnin Tam. They want to remove all existing construction on their property at 169 Ram Island Drive and build a new house, accessory building, decks/patios, swimming pool, plunge pool, tennis court, well, I/A septic, and other improvements.
Separately, they’re seeking a NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) permit to rebuild a bulkhead, possibly with upland rock revetments along the Gardiner’s Bay shoreline.
The project calls for construction at these distances from the tidal wetlands boundary: a new home at 99 feet, a pool at 77.6 feet, a patio at 75.2 feet, and a driveway with garbage enclosure at 53 feet. In all, 401 square feet is proposed for within the 75-foot vegetative buffer, and 771 square feet is proposed for within the adjacent 25-foot regulated area.
Matt Sherman of Sherman Engineering & Consulting, PC, spoke on behalf of the owners. He showed site plans, floor plans, and elevations and noted the new construction will significantly reduce intrusion in the two wetlands areas.
As currently developed, the 2.3-acre property includes 1,552 square feet of construction in the 75-foot vegetative buffer; the plan reduces that to 56 square feet. Now, the property includes 3,386 square feet of construction in the adjacent regulated area; the plan reduces that to 766 square feet.
Scrivener’s error
Howard Johansen, chair of the Conservation Advisory Council, said his group recommended the Planning Board reject the application, at least until the owners receive DEC and US Army Corps of Engineers approval for the bulkhead.
The CAC also wants to limit excavation in the vegetative buffer and move all intrusions beyond 100 feet of the wetlands boundary. “This property is over 500 feet long, and I can’t see — my whole committee couldn’t see — why we couldn’t move the whole project back 25 feet,” Johansen said.
He believes the Planning Board should apply a provision in the Near Shore Overlay (NSO) zone (with italics added for emphasis) that says “buildings and structures including wastewater disposal systems and sanitary systems shall be located at least 100 feet from the landward edge of tidal or freshwater wetland.”
But McDonald said the Planning Board has only been tasked with enforcing the Wetlands Code, not the Zoning Code, which is the duty of the Building Inspector.
Furthermore, McDonald said he believes the wording in the NSO description is a “scrivener’s error.”
The goal, he said, was to match a Suffolk County Health Department standard for keeping sanitary systems 100 feet from wetlands boundaries. The word “including” was placed in error, he believes.
“I presented it to the Town Board for clarification, and hopefully, they will take it up in the near future and correct it,” he said. Meantime, if the CAC wants the boundary enforced, it should present its case to the Town Board.
Michael Shatken, an architect and former Planning Board member, said applications often present issues relating to areas outside the board’s purview.
“The review process has been so parceled that your hands are tied,” he said.
Stella Lagudis, general manager of the Shelter Island Heights Property Owners Corporation, asked the board to clarify whether it can refer wetlands cases to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
“The board does not have that authority,” Baldwin said.
Work session
During the work session, McDonald provided a status update relating to pending applications and then polled members on their views about the Hills/Tam proposal.
The members present — McDonald, David Austin, Matthew Fox, and Marcus Kaasik — seemed to be in agreement that the plan meets the criteria for a permit as described in the Town Code Wetlands chapter. Austin singled out the landscape plan for praise.
“I was actually very impressed with the vegetation plan,” he said. “I think it’s probably one of the most thorough that I’ve seen.”
The next Planning Board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, November 14, at 7 PM in Town Hall. You can watch recordings of previous meetings on the Town’s YouTube Channel.
