Town Hall Notes: Dog park on track; Hogan house OK
The Town Board moved a few steps closer to allowing a private group to operate a dog park in the rear of the old town highway barn property on Tuesday at its weekly work session.
The board also convened a formal meeting and voted 5-0 to let Richard Hogan’s American Direct LLC build a house with more than 6,000 square feet of living space on the site of the 19th-century home of advertising mogul Artemas Ward in Shorewood.
A shingle style “cottage” like the demolished Ward house, it will contain less living area than the original structure, which was removed last year except for a water tower and a detached boathouse because it was rotting and dilapidated.
Unlike the original house, the new structure will not have a habitable third floor, which is forbidden by state fire code.
DOG PARK
Board members informally agreed that a letter of agreement, like the one that allows the Shelter Island Historical Society to use the old highway barn property for parking, should be used instead of a fixed lease to set out the terms for the proposed dog park.
They also agreed that the park proponents must create an organizational “entity,” as Supervisor Jim Dougherty put it, with which the town can enter an agreement.
Town Attorney Laury Dowd said the agreement should call on the dog park organization to fund any necessary fencing and any ongoing expenses; post and enforce rules; and prevent any public nuisances such as noise or effluent from dog waste. She also said it was essential that the town be protected from any liability for claims arising from the park use.
Jerry Berner, one of the park proponents, was on hand for part of the discussion. He said if the town required the users to have secondary insurance protecting the town from liability, they could easily obtain it for $1,500 to $2,000.
Supervisor Dougherty said they should provide protection of up to $1 million for each occurrence and $2 million overall.
AMERICAN DIRECT
After a brief discussion with applicant Richard Hogan’s attorney, William Fleming of East Hampton, the board unanimously agreed to grant a special permit allowing a two-story house and a detached garage with upstairs living quarters to be built on a 6.144-acre lot at 1 Shorewood Court. It will have a total of 7,524 square feet of habitable living area. The town code requires a special permit for any house that exceeds 6,000 square feet of living area.
The proposed house meets all wetlands and zoning code setbacks and lot coverage will be less than 2.8 percent, the board noted.
There are other houses in the area that exceed 10,000 square feet of living area so the proposed house “is not out of keeping” with the neighborhood, according to the board’s findings. It also will be somewhat smaller in living area than the original Artemis Ward house because its third floor won’t be occupied.
The board set a one-horsepower and 24 gallons-per-hour limit on the water pump at the property to protect the aquifer and the installation of an 8,000-gallon in-ground cistern to supply water for topping off the proposed swimming pool and for any future irrigation system. The cistern must be filled with water trucked in from off-Island. The pool must have a mechanical cover to reduce evaporation and “new design” filtration system.
The board required the cistern even though Mr. Hogan has renovated a water tower built by Artemas Ward that was designed to hold 70,000 gallons of water. Mr. Hogan has tested it with half that total, he told the board at a previous meeting, and found it structurally sound. Although he’s offered it to the Fire Department as a water source, most board members agreed with Councilman Paul Shepherd that it should not be considered an adequate, reliable source of water for the pool or any irrigation system that might be installed. As of September 2013, the town will bar automatic irrigation systems that are not supplied by a in-ground cistern filled with off-Island water.
ICE CREAM VENDOR
Also at the board’s work session on Tuesday, Mauro DiBennedeto appeared before the Town Board on Tuesday to explain his son Sergio’s plan to sell ice cream at local beaches this summer from a small vehicle like a golf cart with chilled storage racks. He said he had been coming to the Island for 22 years and wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt it.
Board members appeared to have no serious issues with the proposal. Supervisor Dougherty told Mr. DiBennedeto that his son should pursue whatever approvals he needs from the county Department of Health Services. The board won’t act to approve a town vending permit, however, until further details of the plan are provided, Mr. Dougherty said.
Mr. DiBennedeto, a plumber, said his son is a special education teacher in Roslyn who has a sideline in the plumbing supply business. He wants to sell ice cream at town beaches during his summer vacation.
Mr. Dougherty indicated he would favor a permit to sell only at Crescent and Wades beaches because he didn’t want “to make it look like Coney Island” at every spot that attracts sunbathers and swimmers on the Island.
“We have a nice stable situation with the beaches,” he said, and county health department appears satisfied with the town’s policies.
In other business Tuesday:
• Supervisor Dougherty announced that Dr. Frank Adipietro would be installed as president of the Lions Club on Thursday to succeed Police Chief Jim Read.
• Councilman Peter Reich reported that a redesigned town website was up on running.