Weeks after the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals denied the Jewish Center of the Hamptons’ appeal of a building inspector’s decision that the center is not a “residential property” as it pertains to the zoning code’s exemption of driveways from a parcel’s coverage calculation, attorneys for the center have sued to annul the determination.
The center, located on Woods Lane in a residential district, had sought a special permit to enclose two porches to add 788 square feet of gross floor area to the 3.3-acre property’s main building. The pertinent section of the code reads that “driveways serving residential property, walkways over dunes, and a postman’s walkway are exempt from coverage,” meaning, said the building inspector, property containing residential uses. It does not apply, he determined, to all properties located in a residential zoning district.
The center appealed, and the zoning board’s denial, announced on March 6, followed a hearing at which its attorneys argued that the building inspector’s interpretation was arbitrary and that the code is ambiguous. “There are 50-plus properties in the village that are impacted by the determination you’re to make on the interpretation in this hearing,” Leonard Ackerman told the board in February. “Why is this so important? Because every one of these, in every category, starting with the bed-and-breakfasts, the businesses, the not-for-profits, the schools, the religious institutions, the museums are all impacted by this interpretation.”
The Jewish Center, according to the center’s Article 78 proceeding filed in New York State Supreme Court on April 1, “believed that the denial of the building permit with respect to lot coverage was based on a flawed interpretation” of the zoning code “by the building inspector which led him to include the driveways and parking areas on the property in the calculation of coverage, and therefore filed an appeal to the Z.B.A. seeking a code interpretation” of the term “residential property.”
The center “submitted a variety of materials showing the varying ways in which the code’s exemption for a postman’s walkway and driveway had been applied over the years,” the filing continues, “showing that the code was ambiguous.” The effect of the Z.B.A.’s interpretation, it says, is that “properties located in residential districts that house nonconforming special permit uses are restricted to lot coverage of only 20 percent plus a possible additional 500 square feet, inclusive of driveways and parking areas, while residential users located in the same districts may cover as much of their property as they wish with driveways and parking areas, and nonresidential users in other zoning districts are allowed coverage of either 60 percent or 80 percent.”
Further, the petition argues, the Z.B.A.’s determination “ignores the evidence presented of ambiguity, of inconsistent application of the coverage exemptions as applied to nonresidential uses in residential districts,” of other provisions in the code, and of the legislative history of zoning enactments related to coverage.
The determination, it adds, “also fails to follow the common law requirement that ambiguous zoning enactments be interpreted against the municipality that enacted them and in a manner that is less restrictive on the property owner.”
