East Hampton Town Board Votes To Tighten Zoning, Building Codes

The East Hampton Town Board voted unanimously — albeit with some reservations — to amend the zoning and building construction codes, closing workarounds and loopholes that had enabled residential construction that egregiously contravenes the goals set by the code’s purposes and the Comprehensive Plan.

The vote on Thursday, December 5, came 19 months after formation of the Zoning Code Amendment Work Group, charged with identifying those workarounds and loopholes that allowed “a development boom that is currently authorized by the town code but unprecedented in mass, size and scale,” Councilwoman Cate Rogers said at the time.

The work group was charged with assessing residential zoning and, “where needed, reducing house size, clearing, total lot coverage, how we classify natural grade and below grade development, and other sections” of the code, she said at the time. A public hearing on the proposed amendments was held on November 7.

Among the changes enacted are a reduction in the maximum allowable gross floor area of a house from 20,000 to 10,000 square feet, which was codified over the objection of some builders and members of the board.

Despite concerns about supersized houses and attendant impacts, the board did not opt to count basements in a house’s gross floor area, or GFA, calculation. But it did add to the code two stipulations: that the footprint of a basement cannot extend beyond the exterior wall of the first story of the building, except for required egress, which cannot extend more than 10 feet from the foundation wall of the building; and that basements cannot exceed 15 feet in vertical distance measured from the top of the foundational slab to the lowest horizontal structural member of the floor system above.

Both had become common features in recent construction, the work group found.

To close a loophole that allowed houses to be effectively three stories, the code was amended to define a basement as the portion of a building that is partly or completely below natural or adjacent exterior grade, and that any portion of a basement be considered a story if any piling, pier or other foundation causes the building to be elevated more than 4 feet above adjacent natural or adjacent exterior grade.

The height of a residence was defined as the vertical distance measured from natural grade or adjacent exterior grade to the highest point of the highest finished roof or roof railing, regardless of material, whichever is greater. The latter element closes a “glass railing” loophole.

In another move to control massing and lot coverage, the code was amended to include accessory structures’ open-air appendages, like porches and roofed patios, to their GFA calculation. Accessory structures are capped at 600 square feet, with the exception of pool houses, which can be a maximum of 200 square feet, but with open-air appendages are permitted up to an additional 400 square feet.

Except for a permitted affordable accessory apartment, accessory buildings are capped at 15 feet in height, or 20 feet for a gabled roof, and a maximum height of 12 feet in the case of a pool house, 15 feet for a gabled roof.

Also added is the proviso that when a garage is attached to a principal structure, its square footage beyond 600 square feet is included in the GFA calculation of the principal structure.

A minimum of 2 feet of separation from groundwater is now required for all buildings and swimming pools, with the exception of nonleaching structures of a sanitary system and piers, piles, footings and other support structures where installation within groundwater is required.

For decking attached to a structure that is at least 10 feet above the ground elevation directly beneath it, the required railing system is now a minimum of 42 inches high.

Just prior to voting, Councilman David Lys told his colleagues that, while “the vast majority of this” legislation is reasonable and fits with the goals of the town’s comprehensive plan, he did not agree with the cap on house sizes at 10,000 square feet.

“That’s solely because I think there’s a different means to be able to get to a reasonable limitation based on lot size or different valuations,” he said. “But I do understand where the board is moving with that.”

Councilman Tom Flight voiced the concern about the stipulation that basement egress not extend more than 10 feet from the foundation wall.

“My concern there is that, if you have a 15-foot ceiling with a 7-foot riser and a 9-foot step, in order to hit that 15-foot rise, you need to go out 18 feet. That limits your options to having a staircase that’s parallel to the house instead of perpendicular, which I think is unnecessarily harsh.”

That may need to be revisited, he said — but he too voted with his colleagues on the overall suite of amendments.

“This is not the exact code that I would have written,” said Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte, “but that’s not the way this works. I think it was a very healthy discussion, and I think that this is good legislation that I support, even though, like David and Tom, some of the details I would differ on.”

The board then voted in favor of the amendments. “We’ve just closed the loopholes in the zoning code,” Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said.