Thinking Ahead

On Tuesday, the Sag Harbor Village Board of Trustees held a public hearing on proposed changes to its zoning code on waterfront properties. This process has evolved over the last year and, if adopted, the new code is meant to protect Sag Harbor’s waterfront from overdevelopment and to preserve public access to the village’s most important resource.

Much has changed since Mayor Jim Larocca took control of the proposed code, and there is a lot to support within the first public draft — notably, the expansion of the waterfront overlay district to include important properties like Cormaria on Bay Street and key parcels to the north, on West Water Street and into Redwood. Maintaining height and setback restrictions is critical for this code to be successful in protecting public water views, as is prohibiting more condominium development on the waterfront — for a two-square-mile village, Sag Harbor already has more condominium units per capita than most historic waterfront communities.

It was also a relief to see a form-based code taken off the table. This is a village that has a regulatory board populated by volunteers; while they’re certainly capable, introducing code that is designed to leave much to the discretion of a regulatory board, rather than setting specific dimensional limits, never seemed like a wise concept for a community looking to curb development, not expand it.

There do remain some concerns with this first draft.

In 2009, the village worked tirelessly on a code revision aimed at protecting its mom-and-pop businesses and the general feel of Sag Harbor Village’s downtown, one populated by small stores with diverse uses that lend to a walkability coveted by communities with less successfully planned main streets.

Protecting the office district zone, which borders Main and Bay streets, from overdevelopment needs to be a primary goal. Drainage behind Main Street, in particular, is nightmarish and will only get worse as parcels are more densely developed — and climate change continues. Keeping any retail uses in the office district small is critical to protect against flooding but also to ensure that Main Street businesses are not disenfranchised by new stores in an area very specifically zoned to house offices and only ancillary retail uses. Main Street must be preserved as the primary destination for shopping and dining.

Lastly, allowing an elected body to weigh in on large development projects — as outlined in the proposed code — invites a lot of mischief, despite good intentions. Right off the bat, you can be guaranteed that an application approved by every regulatory board in the village — including a quasi-judicial Zoning Board of Appeals that is expected to operate with autonomy — and then rejected by the Village Board will be litigated, with village taxpayers picking up the tab.

While village campaigns have not traditionally had major campaign contributions behind them, we have already seen that begin to change in the last two years. Giving the Village Board any power to weigh in on large-scale development will increase that pressure. While the current board members may believe they can shrug off that kind of political influence, zoning codes are written for more than the sitting board. It’s a slippery slope, and inserting the Village Board into the process tells every regulatory board member that the faith in their ability to guide development, with the tools laid out in a zoning code and the aid of a planner and attorney, is still shaky at best. Leadership should find tools to empower these boards, not weaken them.

One of those tools should be a dedicated planner and attorney who attend every meeting of the Historic Preservation and Architectural Review Board, the Harbor Committee, the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals. Sag Harbor is a small village with big development issues: It’s time to staff accordingly.

Not long ago, when Sag Harbor first found itself as the new darling of South Fork developers, that is exactly what the various boards had at their fingertips: a dedicated planner and attorney at every meeting, people who could advise the boards on applications before multiple bodies. They also could serve as liaison to a Village Board, allowing it to remain a separate body not in the business of regulation — its role could remain, appropriately, drafting code and legislation with a vision.

For a village with a Building Department (with just a handful of staff) but no planning department, this is a no-brainer, especially now. Give the boards the tools through this code and the support services they need, and there should be no reason to muddy these waters that all of us are trying to protect.