Southampton Village ZBA Weighs Another Application For A House In An Office District

The Southampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals, which already faces a pending lawsuit over not allowing houses on a property zoned for offices, is again being asked to permit a private home to be built in an office district.

This time, the request comes from Christopher Burnside, a local real estate broker, and it concerns his vacant property at 220 Hampton Road, where he would like to build one house. He indicated that he is prepared to hire a lawyer if the ZBA turns down his request.

“I’ve had this property on the market as vacant land or a build-to-suit for a commercial endeavor,” Burnside told the ZBA on April 19 during a Zoom meeting. “I’ve had zero interest since I listed the property, going on three years now.”

Burnside said he would like to put a traditional Southampton Village house on the property.

“Especially with COVID, in the last few years, office space is just — nobody wants it,” he said. “Nobody wants to be in an office environment. The real estate offices are empty.”

He pointed out existing office buildings on Hampton Road that are also empty.

One, at 300-310 Hampton Road, is 13,000 square feet and is being eyed by the Southampton School District. District voters will decide in May whether to approve spending $4.9 million to purchase the building. Its list price is now $5.35 million after it went on the market in 2021 for $6.3 million and saw two price reductions since.

When the district first explored purchasing the building in 2016, the asking price had been $7.6 million.

“They’re bleeding,” Burnside said. “Nobody wants office space. For me, as the owner, to develop a commercial office building on Hampton Road is just like suicide. It will sit empty. And then what? I’m going to sit with an empty building that I spend a couple of million dollars to develop to put office space that nobody wants.”

Granting that he is “a little bit jaded” because he wants to put a house there, he said he would be happy to put a commercial building there for somebody who would want to rent it. But when he advertised a build-to-suit opportunity, no one took him up on his offer. “I’ve had no interest,” he said.

“The house that I want to put there is so in line with the neighboring houses and what is consistent in Southampton Village,” he added.

He questioned the scrutiny his request was receiving. “I’m just having a hard time understanding why the village would want anything but a very pretty residential house,” Burnside said.

He noted that the property is not next to any other offices and was formerly the site of a grandfathered house that was razed by a previous owner who got approval for an office that was never built. “It’s going to be a paved 26-parking space office building that is going to sit empty, like 300 Hampton Road,” he said. “People are spray-painting that building because it’s empty.”

Seemingly kidding, but perhaps not, Burnside offered to unload his property: “I’m happy to sell it to the village,” he said. “You guys want office space? Why don’t you buy it and put office space there?”

He said if the board doesn’t see why it should be a residential site, he will hire an attorney to help him.

Aside from the issue of permitting a residential use in an office district, the ZBA is also being asked to allow a two-story building with 4,479 square feet lot coverage, while only 2,000 square feet is allowed under code, and to allow 4,676 square feet of gross floor area, while the code only allows 4,000 square feet.

ZBA members raised questions regarding how a residence should be treated when proposed in an office district.

“One of the issues that we always have with special use exceptions is that our guidance is unclear, because once you convert from office to residential, it’s unclear in the code what your zoning district might be,” Chairman Mark Greenwald told Burnside.

ZBA members wondered what the appropriate setback requirements are for a house in an office district — are they the same setbacks as an office is required to have, or the same setbacks as a house in another residential district?

“I don’t know what zoning district you would be in,” Greenwald told the applicant’s architect, Siyu Liu.

In the Hampton Road office district where the lot is located, the minimum front-yard setback for a principal structure is 35 feet.

Liu said it is a 30,000-square-foot lot, and she displayed the village code yard regulations for residential lots between 20,000 and 40,000 square feet, which show a front-yard setback minimum of 40 feet. Burnside’s application calls for a setback of 50 feet.

The ZBA voted to close the hearing on the application but did not immediately vote on the matter.

Last September, the ZBA voted, 3-1, to deny an application for a special exception permit to allow two single-family residences at 99 Sanford Place, the site of the former Platt, Platt & Platt law office. The board majority had questioned whether it was wise to chip away at the office district, even when the village code allows residential uses in office districts with a special exception permit.

The owner, 99 Sanford Place LLC, filed a lawsuit in November in hopes of overturning the ZBA decision. The case is still pending.