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Latest rendering of the house at 207 Madison Street, with the proposed new addition in the rear hidden from view by shrubbery.
David Schiavoni shows rendering of his proposed retail building at 31 Long Island Avenue for the Zoom audience at the April 13 HPARB meeting. It was approved with little further discussion.
Two Sag Harbor building projects that have been in the news — one just recently, the other for years — got green lights from the Sag Harbor Village Historic Preservation and Architectural Review Board on April 13 without further fuss.
“We worked long and hard on this, so I think it’s time,” David Schiavoni said when the HPARB opened a public hearing on — and in a matter of minutes approved — his plan to replace his family’s one-story retail building at 31 Long Island Avenue.
The approval came 15 years after the building had to be demolished for a groundwater treatment project on the lot next door, where a KeySpan gas storage ball used to stand.
“This committee didn’t give you a hard time,” quipped HPARB Chairman Steve Williams, in a reference to the objections raised over the years by the Planning Board, the Zoning Board of Appeals and, finally, in court to previous three-, two- and one-story proposals that Schiavoni had first submitted.
The current plan duplicates the footprint, the volume and the layout of the original one-story building, which was a preexisting, nonconforming retail use in an office district.
The other project winning approval April 13 was an addition to the rear of Jessica Hockstra’s 1841 Greek Revival house at 207 Madison Street. The vote was 4-1, with Megan Toy voting no. She said it was still too large for the house and will be “a brutalist block taking up space in the historic district.”
In the Schiavoni case, only one speaker asked questions about the building. They involved the construction schedule and other practical details, such as how many retail units there will be. That will depend on how much space individual tenants want, Schiavoni said, but he has previously mentioned up to six retail spaces. He said that he had “nobody lined up.”
Applying for a certificate of appropriateness from the HPARB under the name VAC Enterprises, Schiavoni won a unanimous 5-0 vote to approve the new building, which features a clock tower and has been said to resemble a late 19th century railroad station. At least two board members said last month that was fine with them, because “that’s where the train came in” many decades ago, as board member Bethany Deyermond pointed out.
A building permit had not yet been issued for the Schiavoni project as of April 17, Senior Building Inspector Christopher Talbot said Monday. “He still has to submit a few more things we need,” including some structural plans, Talbot said. Once those are provided, construction can begin.
In the case of 207 Madison, Hockstra’s attorney, Tiffany Scarlato, told the board that a number of tweaks had been made in response to its aesthetic concerns. She agreed with Williams’s statement that the addition’s length had been reduced by 22 inches and its ridge height by 16 inches to make its roofline “subservient” to the main house.
Stone cladding on the foundation of the original house will be continued at the same height on the addition, which otherwise will be shingled. Shrubbery will hide the structure from street view.
“I second Megan’s feelings” about the impact of the project, “but I think you have come a long way to mollify us and some of our objections,” commented board member Judith Long.
“You listened,” Deyermond said, and the result is “a big difference from version one. I’m pleased.”
“I think they’ve accommodated us pretty well,” said member Christian Cooney.
“I concur,” Williams said, adding there have been “lots of modifications” resulting from the “back-and-forth” along the way.
