Over the coming weeks the Town Board will develop a priority scheme for addressing the 76 action items the committee recommended. Public comments will be sought on the top priorities.
A summary of the development challenges the Town Board is reviewing can be divided into major categories, as summarized below.
Standards Of Living
The committee projects that an increased cost of living and demographic shift will cause the Island to lose the “balanced community” of full-time and locally employed residents alongside retirees and second home owners.
Among the committee's action points is a review of the town's business zoning code, including whether the pattern that would result from development is what the town in fact wants. It says the current layout encourages “strip zoning,” something that would be problematic in a small community like Shelter Island.
The committee recommends creating a light industrial zone (BLI) near the town's Recycling Center. The committee encourages reviewing and standardizing the apartment code and policy for second floor units in the “B” zone because rent would provide a year-round cash flow, as opposed to being wholly dependent on seasonal commerce.
Residential rentals should also be explored as a way to counteract the possible loss of a “balanced community.” The town should explore allowing permits for year-round rentals of accessory units “subject to careful restrictions including exclusion from sensitive water resource zones, and mechanisms to assure that Island housing needs will be served by such units.”
The committee writes that it believes many units have been upgraded, but that of between 250 and 300 units, only five are licensed. The rest could be considered illegal under the current zoning code and the action plan goes on to say: “The current code ... is not consistently or regularly enforced.”
Committee members believe these apartments provide cash “off the books” that does not go toward income tax filings, an incentive for non-disclosure.
Instead, partly through inspection, the town should look to turn these units into safe and affordable housing. These types of units, and the main buildings on those properties, the report states, are prime candidates for knockdowns, typically older, smaller houses that are bought with the intent of building a new house on the lot. The report estimates there to be 614, many of which are located in the Near Shore and Peninsular Overlay District.
Natural Resources
Those knockdown candidates “encourage[s] denser development as we move closer to full build-out,” the report states. “Greater development in these areas could reduce the greenery of these localities increasing a suburban look.”
To avoid this, the committee recommends completing an analysis of sustainable capacity of the Island as a whole as well as of each of its major sub-areas. No such studies exist but available numbers show that further build-out would put outlying flat areas like Silver Beach and Montclair at risk during prolonged droughts.
The committee also recommends developing an incentives program to limit the development of pre-existing non-conforming lots in sensitive shoreline areas.
Another main threat to the aquifer is groundwater contamination, either through septic systems or through pesticide and fertilizer use. The report states that there are no regular or standardized septic inspections, meaning there is no procedure to identify problematic systems even though the town code says sub-standard structures must have been removed or permanently blocked by May 2005. According to the report, there are 294 houses older than 100 years on the Island and another 579 that are more than 50 years old. “If only 25 percent of these homes have older septic systems, some no doubt with leakage, there are 218 septic [system]s which are likely to be below standard on Shelter Island, presenting a serious risk to the aquifer especially as many of these older systems are likely to be in the Center and along Cartwright Road, and others along the waterfront in the outlying areas,” the report says.
The committee recommends that the Highway Department and Department of Public Works inventory all pipes and culverts on town roads and in town buildings.
The town should also focus on enforcement on commercial sprayers from off-Island. The report estimates 300 homes contract for chemical applicators, many of whom “show the yellow flags in the Near Shore area.”
Control over rules and their enforcement is another major challenge to meeting the goals of the comprehensive plan. “It is clear that enforcement of the current codes as drafted and applied is difficult and largely ineffective,” the report states. The committee recommended requiring that all professional applicators be licensed by the town, renewable on an annual basis, and that those licenses can be pulled if violations occur.
All in all, to meet the challenges before it, the town must “clarify and enforce codes equally for all, use technology to promote transparency and distribute information to the community, and respect sustainability of our resources in decision making.”