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The backyard at 68 Madison Street, where a pool is planned for which a zoning variance was granted in 2021 allowing it to be five feet from the property line with 20 Union Street (at right). The gate leads to a short driveway off Jefferson Street.
Faced with having to pit one neighbor’s interests over another’s, and possibly put two municipal panels’ rulings at odds with each other, the Historic Preservation and Architectural Review Board of Sag Harbor Village last week dodged a bullet when backyard neighbors resolved their dispute over a proposed swimming pool 5 feet from a property line.
“We have arrived at a resolution,” John Minardo told the panel on September 14, when it resumed hearing the application of his husband, Jeff Sniggs, to put an in-ground pool 5 feet from the line separating the rear of their parcel at 68 Madison from east side of the so-called Chester Arthur “Summer White House” at 20 Union Street.
Minardo said the agreement called for reducing the length of the pool from 32 to 28 feet, providing a solid fence along the property line, and agreeing to limit to 10 feet the height of an evergreen screen in front of the kitchen windows of 20 Union Street.
The agreement had just “happened last night,” he said, so there had not yet been time to revise the site and landscape plan in time for the panel’s meeting.
Katy Frank of the law firm Kriegsman PC in Sag Harbor, representing the neighbor, whose name was not given, confirmed that an agreement had been reached. The property at 20 Union Street is owned by a limited liability corporation, according to the village’s tax rolls.
The panel, with only three of five members present, voted 3-0 to list the case on its “consent agenda” for its next meeting on October 10 for a quick approval, after the revised documents are submitted and two board members review them before the meeting.
The zoning code requires a 15-foot setback for accessory structures. Previous owners of 68 Madison won a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals in 2021, allowing the pool to be sited on a narrow section of the property that ends with a gravel driveway off Jefferson Street to the south.
When the case was first heard by the HPARB in June, attorney Alex Kriegsman vehemently objected to what Sniggs’s and Minardo’s pool contractor had presented as a straightforward case worthy of approval.
He told the board it had no obligation to honor the ZBA, which had found there was no other place to put a pool on the property and that the benefit to the property owner “outweighed any detriment” to the neighborhood.
“I’ve been hearing this board consider pool applications for more than 10 years,” Kriegsman said then. “On every single one of them, you consider the impact to the neighbors that might interfere with the neighbors’ quiet enjoyment of their property — and we’re talking about putting a swimming pool 5 feet from my client’s property. I can assure you this has never been approved by this board.”
The plan “makes no sense whatsoever in the Historic District,” he said. “They are essentially placing a pool in the middle of the driveway. It will look ridiculous from the street.”
The last time the case was aired in July, village attorney Elizabeth Vail advised the panel that “this board is not bound by the ZBA … You have a different jurisdiction. One board doesn’t have to agree with another.”
The panel’s chair, Steve Williamson, quipped then, “I don’t want to turn it into a courtroom.”
No board members have said whether or not they consider the pool’s location problematic, but the agreement to put the case on next month’s agenda indicates they do not.
Praise for Modest Project
Also at the September 14 session, HPARB members approved architect Gregory Lukmire’s proposal for additions at a cottage he owns at 7 Cornell Road, where he also owns and lives in the neighboring cottage at the corner with Redwood Road.
His plan is to extend the walls at 7 Cornell, add two more bedrooms at one end, and convert the porch into a new living room at the other end. The gross floor area will remain “way under what is allowed,” Lukmire told the panel.
Williams complimented Lukmire for his clear and thorough presentation to the board and member Judith Long added, “I just want to compliment you on keeping it modest” with a plan that she said reflected “the neighborhood the way it used to be.”
“I agree with Judith. We like you are old-timers here,” Williams added, who appreciate a plan “maintaining the character of the village.”
