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220 Hampton Road
A Southampton Village property owner says he will sue the Zoning Board of Appeals to overturn the board’s rejection of his request to build a residence in an office district.
The lawsuit will be the second of its kind in recent months against the village’s ZBA, which was similarly sued in November 2021 over a decision last year to stop the owner of a law office building from replacing it with two houses.
The ZBA voted, 4-0, on Thursday, April 28, to deny a special exception permit for a single-family home at 220 Hampton Road, a parcel in the Hampton Road office district. The owner, local real estate broker Christopher Burnside, previously said he would enlist an attorney’s help if the ZBA did not see fit to grant him a special exception permit.
The day after the vote, he confirmed over the phone that he was going down that path.
“There is a special exception for a residential house to be built in the Hampton Road office district already, and I comply with all of the requirements,” Burnside said.
While the village code does allow a residence to be built in an office district, a special exception permit from the ZBA is needed first. The permits have not been forthcoming in the past year.
Burnside argued that a residence would be low impact and better for the community compared to an office and said it would sit well among other homes in the area, including the new Hampton Designer Showhouse.
Pointing out that there are existing office buildings on Hampton Road that are vacant, he said he doesn’t want to build an office for $2 million that will sit empty. He noted that he took out advertisements offering a “build to suit” opportunity, but there was no interest. There was a cafe owner who wanted to build a coffee shop there but that would only be possible with a special use variance, he added.
There was a house at 220 Hampton Road previously, but it was torn down in 2017 by the previous owner. “One of the board members actually lived in the house, and he remembers it quite well,” Burnside said.
Other than losing an office parcel to a residence, ZBA members’ concerns include the setbacks, lot coverage and gross floor area of the proposed house. Because it would be a residence rather than an office, which setback requirements should prevail was in question.
The previous owner subdivided the land in two, and Burnside bought both parcels. He already built a house designed by Fleetwood & McMullan on the second parcel, which fronts Bellows Lane, and sold it in 2020. He said that buyer does not want him to build a commercial building at 220 Hampton Road.
An approval is already in place to build a 4,000-square-foot office building with 26 parking spaces, Burnside said. In the time he has owned it, the restaurant Red Bar and a funeral home across the street have used it for parking.
He suggested that if the village wants more businesses on Hampton Road, the village should buy it. He offered to sell it to them at a loss and later suggested it could be an location for four units of affordable housing.
The ZBA’s earlier decision denying a special exception permit for residences in an office district concerned 99 Sanford Place. A majority of board members wondered if it was wise to chip away at the office district.
Chairman Marc Greenwald pointed out that the village’s comprehensive master plan drafted in 2000 called for a study of the office district, and he pressed for the applicant to foot the bill for such a study. The applicant’s attorney argued that ordering such a study was the purview of the Village Board, not the ZBA, and that the responsibility for paying to study the entire office district should not fall on her client. The ZBA voted, 3-1, to deny the application.
The Sanford Place lawsuit is still in court. The ZBA attorney has a May 5 deadline to file a memorandum of law in the case, and then 99 Sanford Place LLC will have two weeks to respond.
