Question Impact of Sagaponack Mansion
The Sagaponack Village Board put off a decision on Marc Goldman’s proposal for a 13,770-square-foot house on the corner of Daniel’s and Peter’s Pond Lanes until his representatives can show how much the house will hinder one of the last unobstructed views in the village.
At a planning meeting on Monday, Alice Cooley, an attorney with the East Hampton firm Eagan and Matthews, which is representing Mr. Goldman, told the board she had shown a 3D rendering of the 13,770-square-foot house at a Feb. 10 meeting. In an April letter, Mr. Goldman said the impact would be limited, and referred to the 3D model.
However, village officials insisted it was not in the record.
“Whatever it was that was presented here, we were not given a copy,” Mayor Donald Louchheim said. “At the moment, there is nothing in the file, and even in the minutes of that meeting, there’s just a passing reference.”
Rhodi Winchell, the village clerk, said she had been asked to go through the tapes from previous meetings in case something had been omitted from the minutes. “They were referred to as renderings, they were described as photographs taken with a wide angle lens,” she said.
Anthony Tohill, the village attorney, said the record only reflects the north side elevation and that the other sides are not shown to scale. “Nobody is going to be able to do anything in terms of visual analysis if you are missing three out of four sides of the house,” he said.
The village’s consultant, Richard Warren of InterScience, said he wants “an actual representation of a naked-eye view” of the house.
“For us, we are lay people. All we can do is go there and look. We stand on the corner, we stand on where the house will be on the site and we look across the street at the Gavalas house that is for sale and there is a significant visual impact,” Mr. Louchheim said. “This house is going to be twice as big as that.”
Ms. Cooley and David E. Eagan, a partner at the firm, said they would resubmit the information as soon as they could. The hearing was kept open for that purpose.
Under village zoning regulations, Mr. Goldman’s 43.5-acre oceanfront property at 451 Daniel’s Lane, listed under Sagaponack Ventures L.L.C., could have accommodated four houses plus a reserved farmland area. The farmland has already been set aside in a conservation easement.
At a hearing last month, more than a dozen residents spoke out against the proposal, arguing that it would destroy the unobstructed view to the ocean dunes. Many said they believe it is only the first step to re-applying to subdivide the land not already preserved.
The architectural and historical review board agrees. In a Friday letter, Thomas White, its chairman, wrote, “It is the consensus of the A.H.R.B. that because of the important scenic values of the parcel, the project should be located in the southern buildable portion of the parcel, seaward of the Peconic Land Trust open space easement, to minimize its impact on the vistas from the public rights of way bordering the north and west of the property.”