Residents blasted a proposal for a new home on North Street in Greenport that some fear could become an overcrowded “rooming house” with unsafe conditions.
The Greenport Village planning board discussed a proposed site plan for a new home to be constructed at 216 North Street at its meeting last night. The property is owned by Thomas Spurge and Steven Summer and is currently a vacant lot.
According to the planning board, the owners tore down a two-family home previously on the parcel, located in the R-2 zone.
The applicant was denied plans for a new two-family because village code indicates that it’s not possible to go from zero to a two-family home, the planning board said. The owners resubmitted a plan for a one-family home.
But according to an irate public and concerned planning board, the proposal seems to indicate a two-family dwelling with potential for a “rooming house” on the street, anyway.
Planning board chair Peter Jauquet said issues included an “intensive use” on the interior, with no living area or backyard and a balcony that will “change the look of the block”.
Spurge asked if anything in the code prevented him from having the balcony; Jauquet said there wasn’t but no one else on the block had one and the balcony overlooked three neighbors.
The plans, Jauquet said, include two separate heating systems, more than one laundry room, three parking spots, five bedrooms and four bathrooms.
“How is any of that germane to the house?” Spurge asked.
“It’s germane to livability on the block, the potential number of people and the intensity of use,” Jauquet said.
Spurge said the board was making a “presumption” that the building would be a rooming house.
Any lay person looking at the plan would think that, Jauquet said.
Spurge said he’d invested over $800,000 in other properties to create affordable housing for long-term tenants. “I’m not an airbnb kind of guy,” he said.
Planning board member Chris Dowling added that it “looks like you are building a two family home.”
Spurge wanted to know what difference it made if he had eight people living in a one or two-family home, if the actual footprint of the home was the same.
Village attorney Joseph Prokop said the two-family home was not allowed under code.
Jauquet said that number of individuals could lead to a spike in cars on the street, “people milling around,” unrelated individuals renting bedrooms and “a lot of activity” on the street.
Residents then had their turn at the podium. Chatty Allen said some families did have two heating systems and a number of family members sharing a home.
Capt. Bob Lehmann said the village should allow for two family homes for young families and said some residences have 16 to 18 people living in unsafe conditions.
Resident Jill Ward, who lives immediately adjacent, had a long list of concerns. She said the owners were “being devious and blatantly fraudulent regarding their intent . This is a plan for a multi-family use dwelling, a rooming house, to maximize income by cramming as many as possible at $300 per head.”
Two heating systems, a “miniscule kitchen”, a basement with no mechanicals such as a furnace, no separate outside entrance from the basement, and no side or rear door were some red flags, she said.
As for the second floor balcony, Ward said she was told by Eileen Wingate, building inspector, that the owners could legally run an accessory staircase to the balcony, allowing for separate entrances upstairs.
“I can imagine multiple roomers going up and down near my house all night,” Ward said.
She agreed that 1.5 parking spaces would be more suitable, allowing for a backyard where children can play.
“This is no more a one family dwelling than a bus is a car,” she said. “If this plan is approved, neighbors will be watching and counting.”
She added that her complaints were “not a diatribe against renters or undocumented” residents. She was worried, she said, that the structure would be “dangerous to life, limb and property, with blight, excessive traffic and parking problems. I urge the applicant to build a true one family house, not the bastardized fiasco he has presented her tonight. I implore him to build a house in harmony with the neighborhood.”
In addition, Ward begged the board not to be “hoodwinked by their tricks.”
Spurge suggested placing only one condition on the approval, that he be asked to sign saying the structure would not be a rooming house. “Then all of this goes away. I’m innocent until proven guilty but instead, I’m being vilified as a slumlord,” he said. “I take offense at that.”
Other residents filed to the podium to echo their objections to the plan.
The matter was tabled until March 26.
Jauquet said the application could be approved based on conditions, including only one laundry room, two parking spaces, screens on the balcony, a single heating system, one bedroom being labeled a living room, and drainage indicated on the site plan.
