Sagaponack Village adopted tough new standards for the demolition of old houses within its boundaries last week, with the passage of a law that requires the village’s Architectural and Historic Review Board to sign off on any demolitions, regardless of the age or location of a house.
Rather than the building inspector simply issuing a demolition permit for a structure if it is not protected by any historic designation, the owner will now have to apply to the review board for permission to tear it down. The board will have broad latitude to deny permits on a variety of grounds, including if its members find the house to be of historic or architectural significance or contributing to “the character of the village” in any way.
The new law, which was adopted unanimously by the Village Board on August 17, will also grant the review board the power to impose design limitations on alterations or additions to houses that the board determines are historic according to state guidelines, regardless of whether it actually lies within a historic district.
Members of the Sagaponack Village Board and residents had touted the law as a way to prevent the destruction of historic houses by homeowners seeking to rebuild by their own design. Many municipalities have designated historic districts that have strict controls on demolitions, but do not block destruction of houses outside those districts. In recent years, several structures on the South Fork, some more than 100 years old, have been torn down to make way for larger modern homes over the cries of historians and preservationists.
A small section of the village, roughly bordering the southern end of Sagg Main Street, is on state and federal historic registries, though many of the houses within the district are not historic themselves. Several historic properties, including a house dating to 1795, lie outside the historic district and will be protected by the new law.
Fines for violating zoning code provisions in Sagaponack cannot exceed $1,000, the maximum allowed by state municipal law. Sagaponack Mayor Donald Louchheim acknowledged that in the East End’s hyper-valuable real estate market, such a fine may not be a very painful punishment for someone who was to demolish a house without the proper permission from the AHRB.
“Believe me, if we could throw the book at them for doing such a thing, we would,” Mr. Louchheim said. “But we expect people to observe the laws.”
In other business, Village Trustee Alfred Kelman has announced that he will step down from the board after next month’s meeting because he is moving out of the village. Mr. Kelman was a leader of the drive to incorporate the village in 2004 and was one of the original four trustees elected to the board in December 2005. He was reelected to the board in March 2007 and again this past March
His seat will be filled by a replacement appointed by Mr. Louchheim. The replacement will serve until the village elections next June, when that person would have to run to complete the final year of Mr. Kelman’s two-year term and then run again to keep the seat for a full term.
on Aug 26, 2009