Heart of the Hamptons Attains Last Approval Needed for Renovation of Former Ambulance Barn

Heart of the Hamptons can forge ahead with its plans for renovating the old ambulance barn on Meeting House Lane in Southampton Village into its new headquarters and food pantry.

On November 15, the Southampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals granted a variance to Heart of the Hamptons to allow a dormer to be added to the village-owned building. The variance is the last piece in a large puzzle of approvals that the nonprofit needed to begin the renovation project.

Heart of the Hamptons previously attained site plan approval from the Planning Board, a special exception use permit from the Village Board, and, more recently, a green light from the Architectural Review and Historic Preservation Board. One lawsuit filed by some Meeting House Lane property owners who are opposed to the food pantry operating there remains outstanding; the opponents’ past litigation to stop the food pantry proved unsuccessful.

The nonprofit is currently operating out of the lower level of the Basilica Parish of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary at 168 Hill Street, but its lease is set to expire. The Catholic diocese plans to take over the space for its own use and had asked Heart of the Hamptons to find a new home.

The Village Board has granted Heart of the Hamptons a 30-year lease for the former ambulance barn at 44 Meeting House Lane. While the cost of the lease is nominal, the nonprofit is responsible to pay for the renovations and upgrades to the facility to meet its needs.

Molly Bishop, the executive director of Heart of the Hamptons, explained last week that the dormer will accommodate office space.

“Downstairs will really just have enough room for food storage and some clothing storage and things like that,” she said, explaining that with the approval of the dormer the organization will now have enough room for two small offices and one more storage room or meeting room upstairs.

Originally, the renovation plan called for a dormer on the east side of the building, which would have been compliant with zoning regulations — so no variance would have been required. But the Architectural Review and Historic Preservation Board, known as the ARB, objected to the dormer being on that side of the building, facing a neighboring residential property, and ARB members suggested that Heart of the Hamptons ask the Zoning Board of Appeals for permission to put the dormer on the west side, overlooking the parking lot of the First Presbyterian Church.

Fortunately for Heart of the Hamptons, the ZBA members looked favorably on the proposal at that board’s October 27 meeting.

“The enlargement of the space is critical to the Heart of the Hamptons,” Linda Riley, the attorney for Heart of the Hamptons, told the ZBA. “This is not a case where they did not make any effort to achieve their goal without seeking variance relief. They tried hard to achieve their goal without seeking variance relief and found that there is no other reasonably feasible alternative location, because it was not going to be approved by the Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review.”

Riley said Heart of the Hamptons looked at building out the back of the first floor, but that would have been significantly more expensive, involving new foundations, and would intrude on the next door neighbor.

Anton Borovina, the attorney for the neighbors who oppose the plan, argued that the request for variance relief is not necessary and said the building can more than adequately satisfy the needs of Heart of the Hamptons.

But Bishop told the board otherwise: “The square footage with the dormer would still be smaller than what we have now, but we hope that we would be more efficient in this new space since we will not be in a basement anymore,” she said.

ZBA Chairman Mark Greenwald noted that the board must balance the benefits to the applicant with any potential detriment to the health, safety and general welfare of the neighborhood. He said he did not see how having a dormer face a parking lot would be a detriment to the neighborhood.

He pointed out that the applicant’s original plan to put the dormer on the east side was compliant with zoning.

“The ARB chose to accommodate a neighbor, even though, arguably, they could have not done that,” he said. “It was a bit of a stretch of their authority to say that a dormer could not be installed on the east side. It was within the zoning code. The only reason why we’re here is because we’re accommodating that neighbor and the ARB’s desire to cause this applicant to be perhaps a better neighbor and put a dormer that overlooks a parking lot.”

Jim McFarlane, one of the neighbors who hired Borovina, expressed to the ZBA his surprise that the ARB, after identifying a number of reservations with the Heart of the Hamptons proposal, had signed off on the project, contingent on the ZBA granting the variance for the dormer. “The ARB and the Heart of the Hamptons did a Pearl Harbor on us,” he said.

He offered to pay for an industrial engineer to look inside the building for a way that Heart of the Hamptons could use the space without the need for a dormer. No one took him up on the offer.

Fast-forward to the ZBA’s November 15 meeting, and the board approved the variance request unanimously.

Bishop explained that the ARB’s approval also hinged on moving a proposed walk-in refrigerator to an existing slab where the ambulance company had a shed, getting rid of a dumpster altogether, and abandoning plans to change door openings for window openings, and vice versa.

To meet the need for trash disposal, the First Presbyterian Church offered to allow Heart of the Hamptons to share a dumpster on church property.

“The Presbyterian Church has been really open to accommodating us, however they can, to see this become a reality,” Bishop said.

The new location for the walk-in is farther away than originally planned, which could be a problem in winter, when there is snow, she pointed out, but added, “We’re just happy to have it.”

“The building is not all that big, and so being able to utilize it in the most efficient way possible by having the walk-in on the exterior and having the second-floor office space now all helps us to be able to accommodate what we need to in the actual pantry itself.”

Manna at Lobster Inn and Richie King at North Sea Farms lend Heart of the Hamptons freezer space, because Heart of the Hamptons’ present location has no walk-in freezer, but having storage off-site is “kind of a pain,” according to Bishop.

“Food pantries were originally designed to be more like supplemental food,” she said. “But we often hear that the food coming from us is the only food coming into the household, or constantly. And so we try to give more and more fresh food, but to have enough storage to keep enough fresh milk or yogurt or eggs and frozen meats has been a struggle for us in the last year.”

Bishop said she expects Heart of the Hamptons will be moved into its new space by this time next year, but she also noted that litigation remains pending.

“Each time we’ve gotten an approval, the neighbors have filed a new lawsuit,” she said. “Right now, we are still awaiting the return date on the Planning Board decision, and … we’re prepared for them to file a lawsuit against the ZBA and the ARB as well.”