By Caroline O’Callaghan

During the April 10 Incorporated Village of Port Jefferson planning board meeting, town officials conceptualized potential expansions to various properties, as they grappled with hypothetical stipulations and amendment alternatives from zoning standard compliance to parking accessibility. 

Those properties included a long-overlooked site, 100 Arden Place, formerly known as the Gap clothing store location. 

Senior Planner Daniel Gross summarized the applicant’s plan of developing the site into a boutique hotel. The project, in preliminary stages, is a four-story proposal with “mixed-use developments on the ground floor, a hotel lobby, [and] two stories of a 40-unit hotel space on the second and third-story.” The fourth story would house a rooftop bar and outdoor dining space, potentially, something Gross said would be “a unique feature within the C1 district.” The impacts on parking accessibility were a concern. 

“Valet parking for hotel guests at St. Charles is the ideal solution,” said planning board member Laura Zimmerman. Zimmerman was referring to a lesser used parking lot located on the grounds of St. Charles Hospital. By giving the hotel guests free valet parking to the lot, this would avoid any further parking congestion issues in uptown Port Jefferson village. Parking is a big consideration for the project, since the rights to the parking adjacent to the Gap site have changed numerous times since it was initially bought in 1985. The Port Jefferson Gap was operational from 1992 to 2019. 

Board members addressed prospective zoning conflicts. The scope of the project may change over time and require rezoning, based on the State Environmental Quality Review Act classifications. The project is considered a Type 1 action pursuant to SEQRA, requiring a full environmental assessment based on the tall height of the building. Gross explained, “a short environmental assessment form has been submitted, but hasn’t been reviewed by SEQRA staff yet.” Gross mentioned potentially seeking rezoning from C1 to C2 district in order to maintain compliance, since C2 has a higher floor area ratio than that of the C1 district. 

The fourth-story bar and restaurant would require its own assessment in order to review how noise and lighting impact the community upon its completion.

The applicant of the proposal would prefer to have a larger restaurant space and smaller or less hotel units, citing it as being more convenient for the mobility of Port Jefferson village residents and visitors. Advertising would be seen from the ferry, all the way into Connecticut. 

The planning board discussed more than the hotel boutique. The meeting started with a review of draft minutes from last month’s meeting on village code: Chapter 129. The code aligns with issues pertaining to steep slopes and subsequent flood damage. They segued into other matters, which included another proposal for a four-story mixed-use property. 

“When it comes to impacts, SEQRA gives the board all the latitude beyond our code to look at things and issues and request supplemental information, so in this discussion I was saying that SEQRA and Chapter 129, which is the VEQRA — Village SEQRA — allows the staff to go

ahead and go contact [property owners] to work on these issues without having to have a code section that says steep slopes,” said Lee Rosner (planning board trustee), who led the meeting. Rosner continued, “Village SEQRA gives the board’s ability to review all the latitudes to pull up any steep slope of a property to see a slope analysis.” This renders 129 unnecessary. It was determined that the village should have some of its own guidelines while complying to SEQRA standards when it comes to steep slopes. 

The board motioned to approve the minutes as amended, citing that the code should state “allows staff to work with property owners to address environmental issues” rather than “allows staff to contact property owners.” 

Board members also heard a presubmission application of a four-story apartment building project at 1506-1512 Main Street. The current building would be demolished and replaced with a 35,000-square-foot apartment complex that would house 40 apartments — seven studios and 33 one-bedrooms. The building meets all zoning requirements and FAR standards.