Application For New Storage Building Prompts Review Of Westhampton Beach's Permitting Fees

An application to build a 100,000-square-foot, three-story storage facility in Westhampton Beach—the largest commercial structure ever proposed for the municipality—has led village officials to reconsider how they calculate building permit prices for large buildings.

Metro Self Storage, a national company based in Illinois, has an application before the Westhampton Beach Village Planning Board that seeks to construct the storage facility on a 2.6-acre flag lot on the west side of Old Riverhead Road, just east of the Westhampton train station and near Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5350. Owned by Self Storage Westhampton LLC, the property falls within the village’s B-2 business district, meaning that a storage facility is an acceptable use under current zoning.

But due to the size of the building, village officials are estimating that, using their current fee formula, Metro Self Storage would have to pay more than $200,000 for the required permits, a cost that many at Village Hall consider astronomical. Noting that they do not expect another similar application to ever be filed, citing the lack of developable lots of that size in the village, officials are now considering modifying the municipality’s fee schedule to make the project more feasible for the applicant.

Presently, the largest commercial building in the village is on Sunset Avenue, and the 30,000-square-foot building houses the new Best Yet supermarket.

“It is not normal for a building to go over 15,000 to 20,000 square feet,” Westhampton Beach Building and Zoning Administrator Paul Houlihan said. “So our fee schedule wasn’t geared for this large of a building.”

The proposal itself, Mr. Houlihan added, is only unusual because of its size. The storage company has hundreds of locations nationwide, with the closest on Leecon Court in Southampton.

The attorney representing the company, Erin Sidaras of the Farrel Fritz law firm in Water Mill, did not return calls seeking comment.

The application has prompted the village to reevaluate how much it charges for permits when buildings are greater than 20,000 square feet, a move that, if adopted, will create three separate fee schedules based on square footage. Under the current building code, processing fees are determined by calculating the gross area of a structure’s finished space—typically a small figure with storage buildings. With larger projects, the village also takes into consideration estimated construction costs, though those figures will not necessarily reflect the actual cost of building a structure.

When determining a building’s estimated value, the village multiplies the number of proposed square feet by $250 if it measures less than 5,000 square feet, or by $350 if the building is larger than 5,000 square feet. Under the revised law, the village would only charge $75 per square foot for buildings larger than 20,000 square feet. The village then tacks on $6 for every $1,000 of a building’s estimated cost.

The building proposed by Metro Self Storage carries a $35 million valuation, based on village estimates, meaning that the company would have to pay about $210,000 in processing fees. That figure would be reduced to about $45,000 if the board agrees to change the schedule as the building’s estimated cost, as per village guidelines, would be reduced to $7.5 million.

“With our fee schedule open-ended the way it is, with the mini storage building going three stories high and 100,000 square feet [in size], it came up to a crazy amount of money,” Mr. Houlihan said. “It does not accurately reflect what the cost of the building is.”

The change will not impact any other buildings in the municipality, he added.

In order for the modification to be implemented, the village must hold a pubic hearing, which has been set for Thursday, November 3, at 7 p.m. at Village Hall. The board will then need to vote on the matter.

“Everything else is remaining the same,” Mr. Houlihan said. “This is abnormal for our buildings and it just didn’t fit into the fee schedule. Nothing else is changing—the cost of permits is not going up. For this instance, it will reduce the cost of the one building.”

Mr. Houlihan also explained that a traditional commercial building requires one parking spot for every 200 square feet of space, but a storage facility—like the one Metro Self Storage is proposing—only requires one spot for every 10,000 square feet of space. The company’s plan calls for 15 parking spaces.