An eight-bedroom bayfront estate in Cutchogue’s Nassau Point that sold for $8.9 million in 2017 may be demolished to make way for a smaller, more efficient home, according to a variance request presented to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
Tag: Zoning board of appeals
The newly located Capital One Bank on Main Road in Mattituck requested a variance from the Southold Zoning Board of Appeals Thursday to place a freestanding sign on the property. READ
A recent decision to shut down a Southold winery appears headed for court. READ
The owner of a downtown Cutchogue building currently housing a pharmacy and an orthodontist’s office wants to tear it down and replace it with a similar sized building with space for five shops, according to an application before the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals. READ
When we first learned of a developer’s plan to construct a three-story hotel building with 16 rooms, an 80-seat restaurant and 715 square feet of retail space on a vacant parcel on Front Street in downtown Greenport, our initial reaction was: “Where could that be?” READ
On Thursday, Dec. 3 at 2:30 p.m., Carey and Regan Meador, owners of Southold Farm + Cellar, will go before the Southold Zoning Board of Appeals for what they — and a whole lot of wine lovers — hope will be the last time.
A month after Southold Farm + Cellar closed its doors at the request of Southold Town for operating without proper permits, several neighbors urged the Zoning Board of Appeals at its meeting Thursday morning to allow the business to reopen.
The Pour the Core hard cider festival at Peconic Bay Winery in Cutchogue in October attracted a big crowd. (Credit: Vera Chinese)
A quiet summer Sunday drive on the North Fork of Long Island — zipping past farm stands and rows of vines — may be a thing of the past. Thanks to an increase of tourism, the area is certainly changing and shows no sign of slowing down, longtime business owners and residents say.
And according to data from Southold Town, tourists are being drawn to the area for more special events than ever before. That means more festivals, more wine tastings, more fundraisers and especially more weddings. (more…)
It’s Sept. 12, 1957, and a Mattituck resident is appearing before the newly created Southold Town Zoning Board of Appeals. He wants to add an enclosed porch to his home on Bray Avenue. His is the 22nd appeal ever filed with the ZBA, which was established April 9, 1957, and approved its first variance that June.
The building department had denied the Mattituck man’s application to build the porch, records show, because the alteration would have extended beyond his property’s building line.
So the man applied for the variance. He said it was in the spirit of the law and that the porch wouldn’t change the character of the district because there were “mostly summer dwellings on this street.”
The variance was approved.
Fifty-seven years later, the man’s home appears to have been replaced by a newer, larger house — and the portion of the town’s zoning ordinance that pertains to variance powers has just been amended for the first time. The amendment, approved Tuesday night, dictates that any project requiring a variance must be completed within three years or else the homeowner will need to seek an extension.
The measure was approved 5-1 Tuesday with only board member Jim Dinizio, a former ZBA chairman, voting against it. His argument, which he strongly voiced at a Town Board work session Tuesday morning, is that government should not get a “second bite at the apple.” If a variance is approved, it should remain in perpetuity, he said.
We disagree.
More from our opinion section:
• Featured Letter: The benefit of the doubt
• Suffolk Closeup: Twomey was never, ever giving up
• Guest Spot: How deer have decimated our woodlands
The amendment is certainly within the spirit of what the town set out to do when it formed the East End’s first ZBA in 1957. As quoted from the April 12, 1957, issue of The Suffolk Times: “The sole purpose of zoning and planning is not to work a hardship on any individual, but to ensure residents of the Town of Southold that their homes and businesses will be protected against undesirable ventures.” The very section of the zoning ordinance amended Tuesday states that it exists, in part, to protect public welfare.
We recognize that it’s a reach to say the addition of an enclosed porch would be an undesirable venture today. But we couldn’t help but notice that the man’s argument in 1957 about why the variance wouldn’t change the character of the district would no longer be accurate. While Bray Avenue, like many other streets in Southold Town, was once filled mostly with summer homes, that’s not exactly the case today.
Communities change. Houses change. People change. Why should a variance be the one thing to remain constant?
Angela DeVito, president of the South Jamesport Civic Association, outside the Bayview Inn & Restaurant. The group has yet to take an official on a plan to convert the building to apartments, and split the parcel into two separate lots. (Credit: Barbaraellen Koch)
The new owners of the former Bayview Inn and Restaurant in South Jamesport are seeking a variance from the Riverhead Zoning Board of Appeals to convert the property’s main building into five apartment units.
Gattofreddo, Ltd., — which is headed by Southampton attorney Richard Mathew — wants to subdivide the 20,000-square-foot property into two separate lots, said Adam Grossman, the attorney representing Mr. Mathew. The Bayview Inn and Restaurant closed a few months ago. (more…)