The first public forum on Southold Town’s new Zoning Update was the hottest ticket in Peconic Monday evening, May 12. Nearly 100 members of the community turned out to give feedback on a long-anticipated project to completely overhaul a code that has been updated on a piecemeal basis over the last 50 years.
Pictured Above: Southold Town Planning Director Heather Lanza gave an overview of the town’s Zoning Update at Monday’s forum.
While Southold Planning Director Heather Lanza worked to encapsulate the 190-page document into a two-hour long presentation, members of the public asked pointed questions about the decision to not address coastal erosion in the update, the need for affordable housing, and the new code’s method of dealing with pre-existing, non-conforming uses.
Residents and business owners also shared concerns about how hotels are treated in the code, and on whether the residential lot coverage restrictions proposed were too severe.
Those changes would include pavement and patios, including gravel driveways, in calculations of lot coverage. Only buildings are included now.
The new code would change and consolidates some of the town’s many zoning use districts, and also provides new tables of uses allowed in each district, ‘Comprehensive Use Permissions,’ with the goal of making the code more user-friendly.
But many people present were confused by the changes, including the change in the definitions of several different types of transient rentals, including hotels, motels and cottages, which were spelled out individually in older versions of the code. Ms. Lanza said they are now all characterized as hotels, with the definition encompassing all those previous uses.
Others were concerned that the town would be taking away the right to pre-existing, non-conforming uses. Ms. Lanza said those uses that are already existing would still be allowed.
Some major items expected to change in the new code are the prohibition of new retail and restaurant businesses in new ‘Corridor Business’ zoning districts, said Ms. Lanza, though those uses could remain if they were already existing. Corridor Business would replace General Business in some areas farther from hamlet centers. Hotels and restaurants would be prohibited in the “Rural Business II” zoning district, which is replacing the “Limited Business” district. Restaurants would also not be an allowed use in a new ‘Transitional’ zoning district, similar to the previous residential office zone. This provision is an attempt to prevent suburban sprawl, she said.
New restaurants and hotels would also only be permitted in a Marine II zoning district as an accessory to a marina, “to ensure we don’t lose our marinas and working waterfronts,” she added. Hotels in Marine II would be capped at 30 rooms, “to limit impacts to the environmentally sensitive shoreline.”
Existing restaurants and hotels in these districts would be grandfathered in.
Business and Hamlet Mixed Use zoning areas, closer to downtowns, would allow more uses, she said.
“So, if the McDonalds in Laurel came in today to apply to be where they are now, that would not be an allowed use?” asked Mattituck-Laurel Civic Association President Chris Shashkin. Ms. Lanza concurred, to a smattering of applause.
The proposed code also changes the authority for granting special exception uses from the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals to the Planning Board, to streamline the number of boards applicants would have to apply to for permits and site plan approval.
The new code doesn’t address short term rentals or Battery Energy Storage Systems — the town is embarking on a separate effort to build a permitting process for short-term rentals, and is awaiting final state fire code rules regarding BESS before including those state recommendations in a new code, said Ms. Lanza.
The code also does not include overlay districts for coastal resilience or aquifer protection, said Ms. Lanza, although she said town planning staff are working out ways to map areas where coastal resilience is a concern, while aquifer protection is being addressed in part through water conservation legislation in the works.
The Town Board will hold a code committee meeting on proposed irrigation restrictions next Tuesday, May 20 at 10 a.m.
Southold Town Conservation Advisory Council Chairwoman Carol Brown said this project is a “once in a lifetime opportunity to effect change and define the future of our town.”
“I’d really like to support coastal resilience and aquifer districts because protecting our natural resources are of the utmost importance,” she said. “Not only do they need to be included in whatever iteration, whether an overlay, [or something else] but there need to be protections for what makes us Southold and for what the future looks like. I’ve got maps from NOAA and the DEC showing what the coastline is going to look like… We really have to take that into consideration in every aspect of this zoning update.”
Her comments were met with a round of applause.
Land use attorney Patricia Moore and Chris Talbot of Cutchogue, the Southampton Village Building Inspector and a Republican candidate for Southold Town Board, both said they’re concerned about the way residential lot coverage and pre-existing, non-conforming uses are handled in the code.
Realtor Tom McCarthy urged the board to reexamine what can be built in the general business zone, which he said has very punitive setback requirements.
“As a community, I believe we need to be more efficient with the resources that we have. We should allow more commercial square footage,” he said, adding that many business owners want to build out “campus-style” commercial sites, but the code doesn’t allow it.
“We have a chance to change a lot of things in the code that have been hurting businesspeople for decades,” he said. “You’ll have less sprawl and less big buildings. If we can be more flexible, that would be great.”
“I think there’s a lot of good that’s coming out of this,” he added. “We have to dig in deeper and consult with the business community, listen to their concerns. A lot of folks are very concerned about grandfathering, about their rights that are being taken away from their property. It’s their livelihood, their retirement and it is passed on to the next generation, and there’s a lot of concern in the room about those things.”
The code includes a section called “Non-Confirming Uses in Non-Residential Districts’ that allow businesses made non-conforming by the new code to “continue, expand and be transferred and continued indefinitely, even if the business is inactive for any amount of time,” according to Ms. Lanza’s summary of the changes.
Ms. Lanza said the new code includes several ways to make it easier to create housing, including apartments and cottage developments in business zones, employee housing and year-round housing for farm workers.
Cutchogue attorney and Democratic Town Clerk candidate Abigail Field suggested the town look to encourage the conversion of existing single-family houses into multi-family housing units.
“It seems to me we have a lot of housing in Southold that is not lived in,” she said. “There might be ways to not have to tear down trees to create more housing.”
Kristen Mullen, who was raised in Southold, is concerned that the town isn’t doing enough, fast enough, to address affordable housing.
“I’m not in the same age bracket as the majority of the people here. I’m 28 years old. I feel like my generation is going to be lost here,” she said. “I don’t qualify for affordable housing but I can’t afford an $800,000 to $1.2 million home. I don’t see any viable housing options that have been proposed.”
“In a couple years, there are going to be less and less people coming to these [meetings],” she added. “There’s going to be generations lost here. Southold High School’s ninth grade class is 30 kids. You can see the housing crisis here, and it’s very sad to see the greed that has taken over.”
Extensive presentations on the Zoning Update, along with maps showing how the update will change land use throughout town, are on display at the new Zoning Resource Center at the Southold Town Hall Annex in the lobby of the former Southold Savings Bank at 54375 Main Road in Southold.
The Zoning Resource Center is open Mondays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday evenings from 6 to 8 p.m. and Saturday mornings from 9 to 11 a.m.
Ms. Lanza said at the Town Board’s May 13 work session that the room will not always be staffed during weekdays, but people who visit can call up to the Planning Department office upstairs and ask someone to come down to speak with them. They can also submit written requests for someone from the Planning Department to call them.
At that work session, Councilman Greg Doroski suggested the board look at issues brought up at the zoning update forum, particularly the lot coverage restrictions, early on in the process of rolling out the new code.
“On controversial issues, I’d like the town board to have a discussion sooner rather than later,” he said. “I want to be able to say ‘we’re hearing you.'”
Ms. Lanza said the town’s volunteer Zoning Update Advisory Committee has already formed a subcommittee to examine the lot coverage issue. She added that, in addition to nine hamlet-specific meetings to discuss the impacts of the Zoning Code update in the upcoming weeks, the town is also planning meetings with the business community, the winery industry and environmental organizations.
“The more people look at this and point things out, the more balanced it will be,” she said. “There’s not going to be a golden moment of harmony… It’s going to be something that’s balanced, which means not everybody is going to get what they want.”
“They asked good questions,” said Town Supervisor Al Krupski of those who attended Monday’s forum. “People are asking about their specific properties, or ones they’re really concerned about, but that gives you an idea of what concerns the whole town.”
A Zoom-only repeat of Monday’s forum will be held this evening, May 14 at 6:30 p.m. Here’s how to register. Monday’s forum was also taped by students from Southold High School, and will be posted to the town’s zoning update website in the near future.
The complete proposed zoning code, along with details on upcoming, hamlet-specific in-person meetings and maps of the proposed zoning, can also be found online at southolzoningupdate.com.
Read Our Ongoing Coverage of Southold’s Zoning and Comp Plan Updates
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