Say Buildings Are Game-Changers
A pair of identical eight-bedroom houses being built by the same builder in two different Springs neighborhoods have alarmed residents, who say they have been told that the structures will house boarding students attending the Ross School.
A handful of Manor Lane South neighbors, where a house is going up at number 49, have received anonymous letters to that effect. The other house in question is at 50 Cedar Ridge Drive, where David Buda, who lives nearby, cited “some astute and inquisitive neighbors” as the source of his claim that the two houses are being built as dormitories.
Kristen Hyland, a Ross School spokeswoman, would neither confirm nor deny the allegations. “We do not discuss the specifics of our day-to-day operations for the privacy and security of our school community,” she said.
Monroe Bloch, whose property abuts the Manor Lane South construction site, said he had had two conversations with the builder, who initially told him, he said, that a single family would occupy it. After the anonymous letters came to some of his neighbors, however, he asked the builder whether the intended use was actually for boarding students. He said he got an affirmative response and has not spoken with the builder since. That was about two weeks ago.
“I guess the town doesn’t care about the septic area, and there are all sorts of safety issues,” Mr. Bloch said. “This whole block is single-family dwellings. It’s a quiet block . . . this is crazy. It’s going to change the neighborhood, and it’s going to change the other neighborhood, too.”
According to East Hampton Town Building Department permits, each house measures just over 3,000 square feet on the first and second floors together, with a 1,130-square-foot lower level containing two of the structure’s eight bedrooms, with the required exits. Each house will have a kitchen and a 42-square-foot covered porch.
Another resident of Manor Lane South, Dave Milne, said in an email to The Star that even if the houses were not intended for boarding students, “the number of bedrooms (8) is still kind of alarming for a single-family house on Manor Lane (or anywhere else in Springs).”
If in fact the houses are what they are said to be, Mr. Milne wrote, “I think anyone you talk to would say what is going on here? If in fact the building is to be used as a dormitory for Ross School, neighbors can’t believe the town would let it happen.”
While it is the job of the East Hampton Town Building Department to make sure buildings conform to town code, people who apply for construction permits are not required to furnish explanations of intended use. According to the Building Departments permits issued for these two houses, the contractor is Dunn Development, based in Hampton Bays. The company had not responded to two requests for comment by press time yesterday.
Mr. Buda, who emailed a large number of Springs residents asserting that houses were being built in the hamlet as dormitories, suggested in the email that based on square footage, each house had space for more than 20 students. He blamed “two deficiencies on the part of the town,” namely, “the failure to ask the pertinent questions” and a “deliberate, but unofficial, refusal to enforce the current zoning prohibition against bedrooms being located in cellars or basements.”
Under town code, only four unrelated people may live together in a house located in a residential zone.
Yesterday, Loring Bolger, chairwoman of the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee, said she too has heard the houses are being built for Ross School boarding students to live in. It is “mostly hearsay” at this point, Ms. Bolger said, but it will be a topic of discussion at the committee’s next meeting, at 7 p.m. on June 22 in Ashawagh Hall.
“There is certainly a lot of talk, and the houses seem strangely large for single-family homes with, as I understand it, bedrooms in the basement, which are usually not condoned by the Building Department,” Ms. Bolger said.
According to its website, the Ross School has about 250 boarding students, who account for 67 percent of the total enrollment in grades 7 through 12. “Students live in intimate boarding houses with house parents,” the site says. “Each house has a common room that students can gather in to relax and watch television or movies. There are also quiet areas dedicated to studying.” Boarders have all their meals at the school.
The Ross School has come under fire before for its housing practices. In 2011, a parent of a student who briefly attended Ross was outraged that her son’s bedroom was in the basement of a house in Sag Harbor, and called Southampton Town to complain. The town inspected the house and did not find any beds in the basement, but did cite the school for several minor violations.
In 2009, an acting East Hampton Town chief building inspector said it was legal for as many as 12 unrelated people to live in single-family houses under the Ross School’s boarding program. While the town tries to enforce the code to prohibit large numbers of unrelated people — transient workers or seasonal renters, for example — from occupying single-family houses, the 2009 opinion ruled that “house parents supervise the activities of the students when not attending school and act in a capacity equivalent to their parents for the duration of the school year. . . . This occupancy is not seasonal or transient under the code.”
Michael Sendlenski, an assistant East Hampton Town attorney, said yesterday that the 2009 decision was still valid, as long as the occupants constitute “the functional equivalent of a family.”
“Both of those houses are single-family houses, not necessarily dormitories, although that may be what the intended use is,” Mr. Sendlenski said, adding, however, that that did not mean complaints of overcrowding would not be investigated.
“We investigate complaints around town all the time,” he said. “Overcrowding and safety issues can still be addressed, even if it is the functional equivalent of a family.”