Green Hill Kitchen looking to add outdoor seating, expand kitchen space
The owners of Green Hill Kitchen are seeking an expansion that includes outdoor seating and additional kitchen and storage space at the restaurant, located at 48 Front Street in Greenport.
Robert Brown, the architect for the applicants, presented the plans during a pre-submission conference at a Planning Board meeting Thursday.
According to the plans, a 20-by-16-foot first floor addition is planned to increase the size of the kitchen. A 20-by-26-foot second floor addition would house office and storage space, Mr. Brown said.
The applicants are also seeking approval for the existing performance venue space located on the second floor of the restaurant and to add outdoor seating on a rear patio on the ground level. The current site plan did not indicate how many seats would be added; one of several concerns that Planning Board members asked Mr. Brown to address in his revised plans.
Planning Board member John Cotugno asked if the additional square footage would require more parking.
“I know everything is grandfathered, but now we’re adding more space … it seems like it would be adding insult to injury,” he said.
Currently there are two or three parking spaces behind the building, which Planning Board chair Mary Given was concerned about losing.
“Two or three spaces in Greenport is like gold,” she said. “We don’t want to lose any that we have existing.”
Mr. Brown said the addition would not increase the occupancy of the building, but Ms. Given pushed back, reminding him of the new outdoor seating.
“It’s not the full width of the property,” Mr. Brown said. “There’s still room for cars.”
Ms. Given said the board would be looking into whether the property owners will need to add parking.
In a letter, village Planner Anthony Portillo made several suggestions for Mr. Brown to consider. Among them are a layout for the outdoor seating proposed, a buffer between the outdoor dining space and sidewalk and sound mitigation to ensure that noise levels from live music stay below levels set in the village code.
Live entertainment, he wrote, “will bring in larger crowds at later hours and should be taken into consideration regarding egress and noise.”
The new kitchen and cooler space would be subject to Suffolk County Health Department approval and Zoning Board of Appeals approval since the project would increase lot coverage from the allowable 40 percent to 49.3 percent.
