Quiet Farewell for Larocca as Sag Harbor Mayor Chairs Final Meeting

Sag Harbor Mayor Jim Larocca approached the end of his term Tuesday, overseeing a quiet Village Board meeting that did not include any of the verbal sparring that marked portions of his two years in office.

Instead, the mayor took a moment after board members presented their various reports to encourage the village to refocus its efforts on affordable housing and to keep its eye on what he described as “the two red brick buildings” flanking John Steinbeck Park, which, he said, could be ripe for the kind of commercial development the village does not want to see next to its newest park.

Larocca had made affordable housing a priority of his administration, and within a year of his election, the Village Board had adopted three laws making it easier to build mixed-use buildings with affordable apartments in office and business districts and to create accessory apartments on lots zoned for single-family housing.

Two of those laws were shot down by a lawsuit filed by a group of residents, who argued that the village did not properly follow state environmental procedures in adopting them.

“I find plenty of the sentiment that fed into the court case of not liking the approach that was taken in those three bills,” Larocca said. “I find almost nothing of what I would describe as a positive vein about what it is people are proposing.”

He said he believed the next Village Board would once again take up the issue of affordable housing. “Let us try in this next phase to bring forward the positive case,” he said.

The mayor also issued a warning about the future of 2 Main Street and the Water Street Shops building, which were purchased by Friends of Bay Street and a separate limited liability corporation, as part of the effort to build a new theater at the site.

“My fear for this village is, having honestly wasted two and a half years on an application that was never made, is that the combination of the two properties may well go on market in tandem for commercial development,” he said.

The mayor reminded his audience that Southampton Town and the owners of 2 Main were deadlocked in negotiations to sell the building through the town Community Preservation Fund, and that the village had sought to have the town buy the 7-Eleven building before it was outbid by Friends of Bay Street.

With the theater’s plans abandoned, “the only combination anyone sees is commercial uses,” Larocca said. “Just to raise a flag, it needs to be on everyone’s mind that there needs to be a fresh look at what this community would like to do with those two properties going forward.”

But later, the mayor was noncommittal when a small group of people came forward to urge the village to ask the town to use CPF money to buy the Marsden Street property that voters rejected last month for athletic fields and parking for Pierson High School. They asked instead that the land be preserved in its natural state.

Rob Calvert said the property was valuable as a natural sump and wetland and was unsuitable for development. “Marsden is part of our land-use legacy,” he said. “We have long expected land to meet our needs without sufficiently understanding how it and related natural systems supported our health and sustained life on the East End.”

Ken Dorph also called for preservation, saying the property could be converted into an outdoor classroom, demonstration wetland, or even a play area. “Our imaginations are the limit,” he said.

Susan Sprott also called for the land to be protected. “I would hope this board, representing all of our community, would support and join with us in finding a solution that can maintain a natural environment,” she said. She added that she would like to see it become something “bigger than one or two ballfields.”

Larocca said the group would be better off bringing their request to Pat Trunzo, the property’s owner, who has stated recently that he plans to build houses on the property, and the town. Trunzo, who has said he will proceed with building plans at the site, was at the meeting but left before the discussion and was unavailable for immediate comment.

Dorph asked if there was not some role for the village to play. After some discussion, Larocca conceded that the village “was there from the beginning” when the effort began to buy what is now Steinbeck Park from developers who wanted to build condos there. But board members indicated no strong desire to sponsor an effort to buy the Marsden Street property.

“I would like to see something happen there that would preserve the land,” Trustee Aidan Corish said, “but when it comes to the process, I don’t believe it’s appropriate for the village to be part of that process.”

In other action, the board held open two hearings. One would establish tighter clearing restrictions. Larocca said that the landscape architect Ed Hollander had wanted to share some suggestions for the law.

The second hearing involved a proposed rental registry. Architect Val Florio urged the board to require that property owners who want to rent their homes be required to have them inspected by a licensed home inspector. He pointed out that Sag Harbor had a large number of houses that predated modern building and safety codes and compared their safety features to those of an automobile built a century ago.

He said by requiring such an inspection, any prospective renter would be made aware of any potential safety issues that could be caused by lack of proper sized escape windows, exposed framing, old wiring, or other existing conditions. The board has already determined that the rental registry would not take effect until 2024 and held the hearing open to discuss Florio’s proposals in more detail.