Justice Overturns Southampton Village ARB's Denial of Street-Facing Garage

A State Supreme Court justice has ordered the Southampton Village Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation to grant a Pulaski Street homeowner permission to build a street-facing garage.

In March last year, the board, commonly referred to as the ARB, denied Barbara Maddock’s application to demolish her garage and replace it with one facing the street. The board argued that a street-facing garage would be disharmonious with other properties on that stretch of Pulaski Street, and the ARB’s attorney argued in a court filing that the denial was a “rational and proper exercise of the board’s discretion, authority and jurisdiction.”

Justice James F. Quinn did not see it that way. On January 6, he annulled the ARB’s decision and reversed it.

Maddock’s attorney, John Bennett of Southampton Village law firm Bennett & Read, had presented her application to the ARB and filed the successful lawsuit to overturn the denial.

“The Architectural Review Board is supposed to review things pursuant to a standard, and that standard is not the subjective thoughts of the members,” Bennett said during an interview last Thursday, January 9. “That’s what’s gone awry.”

He said that the ARB can, within reason, tell an applicant what garage doors have to look like, and discuss the fenestrations, trim, color and shingles.

“They can’t tell me that I can’t have a front-facing attached garage,” he said. “That’s not their job — that’s the zoning code’s job. So they’re outside of their regulatory envelope.”

He explained that the reason the proposed garage faces the street is because the lot is too narrow for an attached garage that faces the side of the property.

“The only way to do it is to have front-facing doors,” he said. “There’s nothing in the code that says no to that. That’s a zoning issue.”

The plan calls for razing an existing detached two-car garage and pool house, then having a portion of an existing covered porch converted into an attached garage and having a new pool house constructed. Now, barring a successful appeal of Quinn’s decision, Maddock will get what she asked for.

“The board is, of course, disappointed with the court decision, as the board felt the front-facing garage design as presented to be not harmonious with the neighborhood,” ARB Chairman Mark McIntire said on Friday. Whether the village will appeal the decision is yet to be determined.

Bennett questioned the wisdom of an appeal. “How could an appeal of this not be a blatant misuse of taxpayer money?” he said.

The lawsuit made the case that the ARB members had exceeded their authority, and their decision was illegal, arbitrary, capricious and unsupported by substantial evidence.

Quinn agreed, and on January 6, he annulled the ARB’s decision and reversed it. He wrote in his decision that the ARB is “directed to issue a permit forthwith.”

Quinn noted in his decision that the plan conformed with local zoning codes and would reduce the number of structures and lot coverage on the property, which is not in a historic district. The plan did not require a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals, he pointed out, so only architectural approval from the ARB was required before a building permit could be issued.

Quinn wrote that the four hearings that led up to the ARB’s decision are significant to his determination. During those hearings, McIntire acknowledged that the lot was too narrow for an attached garage with a side entrance, the decision states, and the applicant agreed to a number of changes to the plan to address the ARB’s concerns. They included modifying the design of the garage door, moving the driveway to the other side of the house, concealing the garage entrance with landscaping, and moving the front entrance of the house forward, in line with the proposed garage.

As ARB members continued during hearings to object to a street-facing garage, Bennett provided examples down the street with such garages and pointed out that the ARB recently approved one nearby on the opposite side of the same street. Bennett also gathered letters of support from neighbors, and Quinn noted that “there was no public opposition to the application, only in support.”

ARB members countered that those street-facing garages were a distance away from the Maddock house.

Quinn took note in his decision that the ARB “decided to subdivide the street in half when characterizing the neighborhood.”

Board members argued that on the stretch where the Maddock house is located, between North Wooley Street and Elm Street, the traditional layout is “a detached two-car garage in the rear of the property.” The board’s determination states that the removal of nearly all of the front lawn and front yard vegetation to accomplish an “oddly shaped driveway, which crosses the entire front of the house” would be “disruptive and highly disharmonious” with other homes and the neighborhood.

But Quinn stated that the ARB “has failed to submit objective criteria or evidence that the use will have a significant deleterious effect on the community.”