Potter Says Scaled Back Plans for Sag Harbor Show He Has Listened to Critics

Adam Potter, whose plans to build a new home for Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor and, later, to create affordable apartments and commercial space on property he acquired nearby ignited a firestorm of opposition, is back.

This week, Potter, saying he had learned from the criticism his earlier proposals engendered, announced new plans to develop an approximately 1.4-acre site bounded by Bridge and Rose streets north of the main village parking lot behind Main Street.

The plans, which as of Tuesday afternoon had yet to be filed with the village, call for a three-story mixed-use building with approximately 10,000 to 11,000 square feet of commercial space on the first floor and 39 apartments, 19 of which would be listed as affordable, on the upper two floors.

Potter said a second building, with approximately 40,000 square feet, would serve as a community center, with a performance space, classrooms for continuing education, a youth center, art gallery and museum, and office space for local nonprofits.

A third component calls for a small park between the two buildings that will be open to the public but privately maintained.

Potter, who said his plans involved “a lot of moving parts” as architects put the finishing touches on them, could not provide precise sizes for the two buildings proposed for the site or the pocket park that would be developed between them. Nor did he provide sketches of his proposal, as he did when he unveiled plans for a new Bay Street Theater in 2021 and when he introduced his initial affordable housing development in 2022.

He said he learned that people fixate on what they dislike about a project when they see drawings, no matter how preliminary, and he wanted them to understand the scope and benefits of his project first.

Potter also said he plans to undertake the environmental remediation of the property, connect the development to the village sewer system, and devise a way to retain up to 65,000 gallons of rainwater to prevent flooding of the neighboring municipal parking lot. All required parking for the development will be contained on site, and Potter pledged to work with the village to keep the gas ball parking lot, for which he recently won a long-term lease with KeySpan, open for public use.

“I’ve listened to the various concerns of the Sag Harbor community,” Potter said on Friday, July 28. “I’ve heard people. I’ve heard their concerns. I’ve listened.”

In designing his new development, Potter said he tried to provide the types of amenities residents of the village wanted, including space for local businesses and community activities, as well as some affordable housing.

In something of a twist, Potter said his goal is to sell the commercial spaces and apartments in the mixed-use building as condominiums and not simply to rent them, although that would remain an option.

“I’m looking at this as a project that is going to add incredible resources and benefits and is vitally important for Sag Harbor,” he said. “Will there be more issues? Sure. But I will continue to listen. I’m looking forward to going through the boards.”

Mayor Tom Gardella declined to comment on Potter’s proposal, saying he had yet to see the plans, and they would have to be reviewed by the village’s regulatory boards, including the Village Board. Village Building Inspector Chris Talbot also declined to comment.

“We will need to work through some variances,” Potter conceded. “I’m not asking for special favors.”

Despite Potter’s optimism, it would appear that he faces a steep uphill climb for at least three elements of his plan, two of which are not allowed in the office district zone and would require use variances that are much more difficult to obtain than a normal dimensional variance, in part, because they require an applicant to prove that the variance is required for them to have any chance of making a return on their investment.

The first instance is the performance space. Under the code, a theater is permissible with a special exception permit in the village business zone but prohibited in the office district.

The second instance involves the proposed commercial space. Under the code, any store larger than 10,000 square feet is defined as a superstore, which is prohibited. That prohibition would apply even if the space were divided into smaller units.

Potter’s attorney, Tiffany Scarlato disputed the notion that the small shops proposed by Potter should be defined as a superstore, saying it was the role of the building inspector to make such a determination, which could be appealed to the Zoning Board of Appeals. She said each individual use is defined separately in the code and would be individually owned. “There’s no way on God’s green earth that any court would call that a superstore,” she said.

A third element of the plan that may prove difficult to achieve is the number of apartments. When Potter proposed a mixed-use development with 79 affordable apartments last year, that density was made possible by a newly passed village law that encouraged workforce housing. But that law was tossed out by a successful lawsuit filed by Save Sag Harbor and several residents.

Under current zoning rules, 7,260 square feet of lot size is required for each apartment proposed, which would require a major variance for the 39 proposed apartments to be approved.

Still, Potter said he is committed to moving forward. He has hired architects Salvatore Coco of Beatty Harvey Coco Architects of Melville and Chris DiSunno of DiSunno Architecture of Sag Harbor to design the buildings, and Bohler Engineering and Roux Engineering, two Long Island firms, to oversee environmental remediation, stormwater runoff, and other issues.

The mixed-use building would have an, as yet, undetermined number of individual commercial spaces. Potter said his goal was to sell or rent them to local businesses and said he had already been in talks with the UPS Store and Sean Edison Salon about taking two of the spaces. “I’m focused on tenants that are current Sag Harbor businesses,” Potter said.

Of the 39 proposed apartments, 20 would be market rate and 19 would be set aside as affordable. A total of 24 would be two-bedroom units, and the remaining 13 would be divided among one and three-bedroom apartments. They would range in size from 745 square feet to 1,320 square feet.

Potter said his goal was to mix affordable and market-rate apartments on the same floor, and that he wanted to sell them to tenants, including those listed as affordable, rather than simply rent them. He added that he hoped to be able to set aside some of the affordable apartments for local teachers and first responders and said those that were sold would remain affordable in perpetuity.

Potter said he would establish a not-for-profit to operate the community center, which would include the theater, although he said “it has nothing to do” with Bay Street Theater. Nonprofits would be given office space rent-free, he added.

Although Potter did not provide details, he said the not-for-profit that would own the community center building would seek grants and other funding to keep the operation afloat. A similar model would be employed to oversee the park.

Potter said his proposed development would include a number of additional environmental benefits. Testing of the site has uncovered 22 instances of contamination in the soil and another 39 in the groundwater. He said he was committed to cleaning the site and would apply for state funding to offset the cost of that work. “The area is close to the groundwater, so the remediation will be of overall benefit to the community of Sag Harbor and the environment,” he said.

Potter said four of the five properties he owns through a series of limited liability corporations “have old septic systems that are functional but very close to the groundwater, and they don’t meet current standards.” He said the entire site would be connected to the village’s sewer system.

Finally, Potter said his project would mitigate the flooding that often renders Rose Street and the main municipal parking lot unusable. Although he said the buildings he owns do not experience flooding because they are at a slightly higher elevation than the parking lot, they most likely contribute to its flooding.

He said engineers have proposed a containment system that will hold up to 65,000 gallons of water during heavy rains.