At their last meeting in early February, the Lloyd Zoning Board of Appeals held a public hearing on former town Supervisor Ray Costantino’s request for area variances for his property that is located at 136 Bellevue Road.

Costantino is looking to divide his 7.5 acre parcel into two lots that would allow the construction of two homes. He is seeking relief because both lots would fall short of the required lot widths as stipulated in the town code.

The code requires that lots must be a minimum width of 150 ft. in a Residential 2 acre zone. Surveyor Patti Brooks submitted layouts on behalf of her client, showing that lot 1 would be 2.8 acres and have a lot width of 105 ft, needing a variance of 45 ft and Lot 2, at 4.7 acres with a lot width of 91 ft, would need a variance of 59 ft.

Brooks also submitted to the board a ‘flag lot’ layout that the zoning board requested. She said this configuration is permitted by the code and would not need variances but she favors splitting the lot, “because the variances would allow the lots to be much easier to take care of, look better and the house placement on lot #1 would be more appropriate and have less disturbance of land, but the driveways would be the same regardless.”

ZBA Chairman John Litts said he is not in favor of the flag lot configuration but instead likes splitting the lot.

“For myself, I don’t like this, it still puts two driveways out on Bellevue Road,” he said.

Board member Russell Gilmore said he appreciates the flag lot layout, “because the southern lot #2 would then be a conforming lot that we created and that only brings the issue of the flag lot. We want to look for the minimum amount of intrusion into the construction and design of this lot. Giving one property legal frontage and making it a non-issue would seem to be a better direction to go in creating the flag lot and then addressing the issues on the flag lot seems to me a smarter thing to do.”

Litts worries that a flag lot layout would place one of the houses too close to the bluff edge overlooking the Hudson River, calling this “undesirable.”

Bordering neighbor Paul Curren, at 138 Bellevue Road, said he purchased his lot to build a primary residence. He said he is concerned about this application because the request runs counter to the code, which requires 150 ft of road frontage.

“It is confusing to me why we’re now trying to subdivide something which the same owner subdivided into the four lots that were originally done, including ours and the two further north” he said. “We’re just concerned by it and we’d like to make sure that we are kept in the loop going forward to the future meetings as well and to understand how this process is to work out.”

Curren’s lot, which is 4 acres and the two further north are 3.7 and 3.59 acres respectively, along with Costantino’s parcel, were part of a subdivision that was created in the late 1990s.

Brooks said when the original subdivision was created the zoning code did not have a minimum lot frontage but only a minimum lot width, which was measured at the building line and written on the initial subdivision map.

“It was always the understanding of the applicant that he would be able to further subdivide this lot,” she said.

Brooks said her larger two lot layout would not have a negative impact on the health, safety and welfare of the community, “and in fact it would benefit it by allowing a home to be placed in an area of the lot that is more appropriate, it will be less of a driveway, less impact on the land, and easier for fire service access and for all of those reasons I think that the area variance is more appropriate for this lot rather than the flag lot.”

Land use attorney Paul Van Cott said the zoning board regardless of whether there is an alternative layout, “still has to conduct a balance test to determine if the impact to the applicant is more significant than the impact to the town.”

Board member Alan Hartman said with a flaglot the fire, police or ambulance service may “end up in the [Hudson] river” if they were unfamiliar with the lot. “From a design standpoint I would say a flag lot could be a liability for everybody.” Brooks pointed out that a flag lot would require more re-grading, “all the way to the boundary line in order to get an acceptable grade for emergency service vehicles to meet the town code.”

The board read into the record Brooks’ responses to the five required questions/considerations that make up the standards for the Balance Test. She said that subdividing the property is consistent with the character of Bellevue Road, with lot sizes and widths at the proposed building line meeting or exceeding the surrounding lots. She also noted that the two existing driveways will not change the length of the road frontage whether a flag lot or the requested variance is granted and would not change the existing character of the neighborhood.

Brooks said a flag lot would require locating one of the homes closer to the bluff overlooking the river, resulting in more land disturbance and forcing construction to be done on steeper grades.

Brooks addressed the issue of whether the requested area variance is substantial by pointing out that because of the shape of the overall lot, “the requested variance for the road frontage is 30% and 35%, however, it is not substantial in light of the flag lot allowances.”

According to a document by the NYS Division of Local Government Services: Zoning Board of Appeals pg. 19: When granting either a use or an area variance, a zoning board of appeals must grant the minimum variance that it deems necessary and adequate, while at the same time preserving and protecting the character of the neighborhood and the health, safety and welfare of the community. Thus, the board need not grant to an applicant everything he/she has asked for. Rather, the board is required to grant only the approval that is absolutely necessary to afford relief. To illustrate this point, in Nardone v. Zoning Board of Appeals of the Town of Lloyd [1988], the applicant requested variances to locate 12 one bedroom and 3 two-bedroom apartments on one parcel, and 6 two-bedroom apartments on another parcel. The board, instead, granted a variance allowing only the construction of 12 one-bedroom apartments on one parcel, and five two-bedroom apartments on the other. The court held that the board had acted rationally and within its scope of discretion in granting a modified approval that, on the facts presented, would afford adequate relief to the owner.

Brooks also pointed out that no adverse physical or environmental impacts would occur by granting the variance because the proposed improvements (houses) are being placed in areas that will cause the least amount of disturbance.

On the question of whether the difficulty was self-created, Brooks said Costantino’s lot was formed by subdivision in 1997 and that, “the difficulty was created by a change in the zoning code bulk table requirements and was not self created.”

Gilmore disagreed, saying Costantino’s desire to subdivide it has created the difficulty.

“He has a single lot that he is now looking to subdivide and in that practice alone, he’s created his own difficulty in splitting the lot up. It was certainly, I think, self-created,” Gilmore said.

Chairman Litts asked attorney Van Cott to draft a resolution, “reflecting the narrative Patti [Brooks] has provided to us, with some small tweaks like we had discussed during the meeting, so we have that available to us at our March meeting...If we have a draft resolution and there aren’t any significant changes, I think we can go ahead and vote on that at our next meeting.”

The board kept the Public Hearing open until their next meeting on March 12 at 7 p.m.