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The gas ball parking lot in Sag Harbor, long used for overflow parking, will be transferred to developer Adam Potter on September 16, who has said he would close the lot if a lease deal could not be reached with Sag Harbor Village. STEPHEN J. KOTZ
Days before a Saturday, September 16, deadline that developer Adam Potter seemed to set last week for closing the lot to the public, the Sag Harbor Village Board on Tuesday formally proposed a change in the village code to allow private, standalone parking lots that are open to the public, free of charge, in the downtown resort-marina, village business and office districts.
“I’m doing everything I can on the village end to make sure that lot stays open,” Sag Harbor Mayor Tom Gardella said on Wednesday of the so-called “gas ball parking lot” off Bridge Street that is being taken over from the village by Potter.
The proposal will be the subject of a public hearing at the Village Board’s next regular meeting at 6 p.m. on October 10.
The code change would address Potter’s reason for saying he would have to close the lot on Saturday, the day the village’s lease on the property expires and his 99-year lease with the Public Service Commission takes effect. The lot will lose its status as a municipal parking facility, which is allowed under general municipal law, but the village code has no provision to allow a private parking facility anywhere in Sag Harbor.
Potter, who is planning a major retail and residential development nearby, won the bidding for the lease with the PSC earlier this year, a decision the village is appealing.
Setting off alarms as the village’s annual HarborFest celebration approached — it opens on Saturday — Potter told The East Hampton Star earlier this month that he would have no choice but to close the approximately 90-space lot to the public if a deal could not be worked out with the village for it to continue operating the municipal facility there.
There have been communications between the mayor and Potter since then, but “I haven’t seen anything in writing,” Gardella said in a phone interview Wednesday. “He has these ideas … but I never get anything in writing.”
“I did tell him if he does have something that he wants to present to the trustees and to myself … the document needs to be executed by him,” Gardella said. “Last time around, it was the other way around. Mayor [Jim] Larocca” — Gardella’s predecessor, who did not seek reelection this year — “presented to us a sublease from him. We approved it and then he didn’t sign it.”
Potter did not respond to requests for comment early Wednesday morning.
The proposed code change, the mayor said, will allow “somebody, anybody — I mean especially that situation that exists over there — to operate the lot for public parking. Right now, it’s not allowed to operate a standalone parking lot … What this does is allows it to be used by the public, free of charge. It’s a unique situation that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the village.”
Asked if timing is a concern, with the code change not taking effect until next month after the board adopts it, Gardella said, “I don’t think it’s an issue. I can’t predict what Adam’s going to do … I just can’t predict what his next move is going to be or what he’s trying to do.
“What I’m trying to do is give the opportunity to keep that lot open. The village is giving every opportunity for the public to use that lot.”
