STATEMENT OF THE
LONG ISLAND BUILDERS INSTITUTE

TOWN BOARD MEETING
HUNTINGTON TOWN HALL
AUGUST 23, 2005

RE: PROPOSED LOCAL LAW, INTRO. #29 OF 2005 AMENDING CHAPTER 198, ARTICLE 10, STEEP SLOPES

The Long Island Builders Institute, on behalf of those LIBI members who build in Huntington and those associates who supply goods and services to our builders wishes to go on record about the pending Steep Slope proposal.

Proposed local law #29 would restrict building of homes on any parcel with more than a 10% slope. The impacts of the restrictions in a hilly town are significant, since we believe there are several hundred vacant and several thousand existing home parcels involved. The basic effect is to increase home costs by reducing the lot yield from lots over a 10% slope, reducing building sizes, and by making scattered lots nonconforming and therefore less valuable. Lot yield for slopes over 30% is eliminated on the essentially nonsensical grounds that a builder can’t build on the 30% slope. Neither can a builder use the front yard or side lot setbacks, but these are not excluded.

We also understand that several large proposed projects offering a significant number of housing opportunities for seniors and moderate -income renters may also be dramatically impacted.

The proposal also prescribes significant new costs on permit applicants in terms of engineering requirements.

All these requirements are ostensibly based on the concept that building on sloped lands could cause more problems than building on flat land. We concede this point.

The proper answer is not indiscriminate density reduction in subdivisions, reduced building sizes and the wholesale creation of non-conforming lots. The application of Best Management Practices that use soundly engineered construction techniques is the way to minimize erosion and drainage impacts.

A similar town sloped land proposal was addressed in Ginsburg v. Town of Cortland, 150Misc2nd 24 in 1990. The court required the town to complete a thorough environmental impact study, which included impacts on existing patterns of population growth and affordable housing and required an analysis of alternatives. LIBI will insist on the same here if Huntington decides to proceed.

Contrasting the proposed new law with the existing Chapter 198 illustrates the over reaching nature of the new proposal.
1. Old law applied to only subdivisions. New law to apply to special use permits, use and area variances, and any land use approval.
2. Old law did not apply to R80 or R40, or residential development in C-1, C-3, C-4, C-8 districts.
3. New law applies to 50% increase in an existing home, if any part of building or clearing is in the hillside area (10% slope) including garages, pools, pergolas, greenhouses and any habitat able space.
4. New law requires increased minimum lot area from 10K Sq. Ft. to 15K Sq. Ft. at 10% slope, 15K Sq. Ft. to 20K Sq. Ft. at 15%, ½ acre to 1 acre at 20%, 1 acre to 2 acres at 25% slope.
5. Lot yield goes from
3.27 to 2.18 at 10%
2.18 to 1.85 at 15%
1.85 to .85 at 20%
.85 to .45 at 25%
6. Under new regulations added requirements include
-Application of article to all residential building permits
-Photos and notarized affidavits for any building permits on slopes over 10%.
-In addition, there may be required engineering affidavits and topographic maps.
-Planning department gets all applications from the engineering department, meaning significant delay.
-New are limits on building footprints for buildings in sloped areas, including detached garages.
-Also new are prohibitions on tennis courts and recreation areas
-And also new are yield regulation on multi-family.

LIBI objects to describing the proposal as protecting against abuses of sound construction practices on a few lots. No, the extent of the new law makes it clearly a reduction in residential construction potential of large scale. Property values for vacant and existing parcels will be affected by yield reductions, construction size reductions, and limitations on out buildings and expensive new planning and engineering requirements.

We urge the Town to declare this a significant action under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) and cause a preparation of an environmental impact statement before enactment.

Attachments: Ginsburg v. Town of Cortland