As anyone who has sat through a meeting of the Sag Harbor Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review knows, they can, for lack of a better term, drag on for hours. That’s because the board is required to sign off on a wide variety of applications, from those as minor as a sign for a new village shop, to something as major as a restoration of a whaling captain’s house in the historic district.
On Tuesday, the Sag Harbor Village Board, which has made streamlining the development review process a priority, introduced a proposed code amendment that could help speed up those Thursday night marathons by allowing two members of the ARB to serve on a committee, on a rotating basis, that would review minor applications before deciding whether or not they should be presented before the full board.
For starters, “minor” means they cannot be applications for work on historic buildings that are considered “contributing structures” to the village’s expansive historic district. But generally, applications for new signs, paint color changes, roofs, decks, patios, gates, fences, walls, driveway aprons and driveways would qualify for the streamlined approach.
Obviously, someone who wanted to update a house that is currently colonial blue by painting it hot pink would probably not get the go-ahead from a two-member committee and would be referred to the full board instead. But someone who wanted to repaint that same house Georgetown gray might get a pass.
Board members had no comment on the proposed zoning code change, and agreed to schedule it for a hearing when the board meets in January.
Marta Goldsmith, the director of the Form-Based Code Institute, who is helping the village craft new zoning regulations for a portion of its waterfront, appeared at the Zoom meeting to offer a primer on what the term means when compared to more traditional zoning tools that rely largely on dictating the type of use and size of a given building that is allowed in a given zone.
M. Goldsmith said a form-based code focuses “more on the public realm and what happens outside a building than what happens inside a building” and seeks to capture a broader vision of what a community wants a neighborhood to look like.
She said that traditional zoning took hold in the 1920s and ’30s as a way to segregate different uses in a community. As Americans became ever more dependent on the automobile, “this really drove low-density sprawl in much of our outer urban areas,” she said.
Trustee James Larocca questioned how a form-based code would work in a community like Sag Harbor that is already largely developed. “A lot of it doesn’t seem translatable to a micro-community like ours,” he said.
“With the code you have now, what those properties are going to look like is pretty unpredictable,” Ms. Goldsmith replied of the swathe of waterfront that is currently under a moratorium halting major development. With a form-based code, she said the village would work with an organization like Bay Street Theater, which just bought the Water Street Shops building where the 7-Eleven is to make sure the design meshed with the community’s vision for the waterfront. “Currently, you have no way to influence what it will look like when developed,” she said. Mr. Larocca did not appear to be entirely sold, responding, “Our ARB might quarrel with that.”
Questions also came from Susan Mead, a member of the village Zoning Board of Appeals, who said the new code must impose specific limits for things like the height of a building and prohibit developers from trading a taller building, say, for wider side-yard setbacks for instance. April Gornik also said she hoped the new code would include strict height limits. Meanwhile, Jonas Hagen, a member of the village Planning Board, called for a code that would require more affordable housing.
Emily Hallock, a 2019 Pierson High School graduate who is on leave from Duke University during the pandemic and is working as an intern for the village, addressed the board about the effort to make Sag Harbor a Climate Smart Community. The state program recognizes communities that strive to employ clean energy strategies and other measures to promote sustainability and fight climate change.
Ms. Hallock said the village, which is just beginning the process to become certified, has been recognized for things like allowing the Sag Harbor Farmers Market to use village property because it promotes sustainable agriculture.
As part of her internship, she is cataloging ways the village could reduce its carbon footprint, from reducing electricity use at the sewage treatment plant by installing solar panels, to buying more hybrid vehicles, as the police department has already begun to do.
To qualify as a “bronze” community, which both Southampton and East Hampton towns have already been recognized as, Sag Harbor needs 120 points. It has 13 points now and is working to document another 62 points, she said.
The advantage of qualifying as a bronze community is that the village will both reduce its pollution and save money by using less fossil fuels. It will also automatically higher scores on some state grant applications, she said.
Stephen J. Kotz on Nov 11, 2020