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230 Elm Street, Southampton Village. DANA SHAW
Editor's note: Since this article was published, the public hearing date has been moved to May 16.
Over the objections of the applicant, the Southampton Village Planning Board scheduled a public hearing on a request for an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant entrance at 230 Elm Street, the former Southampton Polish Hall.
Elm Street neighbors have been up in arms about the hall’s new tenant, Elegant Affairs catering, and what the anticipated increased activity at the venue could mean for their neighborhood. Planning Board Chairman Anthony Piazza shared the applicant’s concern that a hearing that only pertains to an ADA entrance could become an opportunity for neighbors to voice unrelated complaints, but he said failure to hold a hearing would lead to a public outcry.
David Gilmartin Jr., the attorney for Elegant Affairs, told the board that the intention is to operate a catering facility wholly in the interior of the building “as it’s been operated since 1934 when the building was built.”
Gilmartin noted that the village code allows the Planning Board to waive a public hearing on the ADA entrance application. “I don’t see a point in having a public hearing on something that is a discrete issue and that the Building Department has passed on,” he said. “It would seem pointless to me, unless the opposition to the operation of a business there is only going to talk about the ADA-compliant access.”
He said a hearing would not be a fair use of the applicant’s time or the board’s time. He pointed out that there is recent precedent for waiving a hearing on a similar application: It was waived for Stevenson’s Toys, owned and operated by Southampton Village Board member Roy Stevenson.
“We would ask you to treat it just like Stevenson’s,” Gilmartin said.
Elegant Affairs founder and President Andrea Correale also addressed the board.
“We are a stand-up company,” she said. “I am not a bar. I am not a nightclub. I have no intention of doing anything like that. I saw a beautiful building in an area in Southampton that was being underutilized and was not being run well. So when the opportunity came up, I decided to sign a long-term lease with the Polish Hall and really beautify the building in a way that would be conducive to do private events — maybe rehearsal dinners, post-wedding brunches, things of that nature.”
She asked the board to help put the application to bed.
“I am inclined to waive the public hearing on this because I am not sure that the public will focus on the issue at hand,” Piazza said. “But I do feel that if we don’t have a public hearing that there’s going to be so much public outcry that I just don’t know how we would manage that.”
Piazza said he would limit speakers to three minutes and will “close down the conversation” if they veer off topic.
“It’s too hot a topic, and we will do the best we can to move it forward after that hearing,” he continued.
The hearing was scheduled for May 2.
The Planning Board held a public hearing Monday on the subdivision of 99 Sanford Place, which is located in an office district, the site of a law office — and the subject of a lawsuit against the Zoning Board of Appeals.
The plan calls for dividing the land into a half-acre lot where the existing office stands and a 0.7-acre vacant lot where a new medical office building could go. However, this was not the applicant’s original intention.
The applicant had asked the Zoning Board of Appeals last year for a special exception use permit to allow residences in the office district. Elizabeth Vail, an attorney for the applicant, argued that the Village Board had, by legislation, determined that residential was an allowed use in an office district and said the property is an area that is already more residential than office, and therefore residences would be in keeping with the character of the neighborhood.
The ZBA had asked the applicant to fund a study of the entire office district so the board would have adequate information to determine if granting the special exception would be wise. Vail countered that requesting such a study was outside of the ZBA’s purview and an undue burden on the applicant.
The ZBA rejected the request in October last year, and the applicant then sued the board in hopes of overturning that decision.
In a memorandum of law filed March 31, attorney David Gilmartin Jr. argues that the case involves the “abject failure” of the ZBA “to apply the law and evidence in denying 99 Sanford’s application” for residences where medical offices could go.
“In the height of absurdity, the ZBA concluded — without citation to any evidence or authority — that the proposed residential uses would more adversely affect the neighborhood than the medical offices,” Gilmartin wrote.
In a February 1 memorandum of law, ZBA attorney Jeffrey Blinkoff argued that the ZBA’s “interpretation of its local zoning laws is entitled to great deference from the courts.”
Blinkoff further asserted that the applicant failed to demonstrate that residential development would be in harmony with the purpose and intent of the village zoning code and “suitable for the location in the community.” The applicant also failed to show that granting the request would “protect the established character and the social and economic wellbeing of both private and public property” and “promote, in the public interest, the utilization of land for the purposes for which it is most appropriate,” according to Blinkoff.
Piazza emphasized during Monday’s public hearing that the hearing strictly concerns the subdivision and not how the property will be used.
Two neighbors spoke, both of whom said they do not oppose the subdivision but would prefer residences there rather than offices.
“The street, in the summer, is a zoo,” one of those neighbors, Michel Brogard, told the Planning Board. “It is a narrow street, one lane, and to imagine a commercial building at the back of this dead end is absurd. People are honking, people are parking all over the place. ... It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
Piazza said at the start of the hearing that the Planning Board shares the same sentiment as the public.
The hearing was kept open until the board’s next meeting.
