The Zoning Board of Appeals lost half its agenda on Jan. 20 and spent much of the twenty-two minutes that remained explaining to the neighbors who had turned up anyway what a zoning application can and cannot do to a property while it is pending. Chairman James Tuman opened by reporting that the applicant for 52 Mount Airy Road had emailed that afternoon asking to adjourn. "The applicant requested an adjournment of this application until the next meeting, which is February 17," Read 0:15▶ Tuman said, and told anyone there for it that they were free to go. Several stayed. Asked whether anything would move on the site before February, Tuman said the zoning review is only the first stage of a longer process: "this is the first step, the zoning board, and then it has to go to the planning board," Read 1:23▶ he said. "It's not something you're gonna suddenly wake up and you're gonna see something." Read 1:23▶ A board member added a qualification that mattered to the people asking. "It may be important to note that the property already has a building permit for doing modifications to the original structure," Read 1:47▶ the member said — meaning work unrelated to the pending variance request can lawfully continue on the site. A neighbor, who identified the property he was concerned about as 48 Mount Airy Road, said he had already gone to the village. "I'm specifically talking about mature trees that have already been cut down on some of my neighbor's property," Read 2:45▶ he said. "So I've already approached the engineer's office to please just take a look and do a site visit." Read 2:45▶ He asked the board to make its own site visit before the February hearing. Tuman declined to go there. "Let's wait until we have the actual application so we can comment on it. We're all speculating right now," Read 3:52▶ Tuman said. The board would take the request under consideration, he added.

A door on the wrong side of a cottage

The one application heard was a return visit. The board granted variances on Dec. 16 for a detached accessory cottage at 43 Riverview Trail — one for its height, one to let it sit closer to the street than the main house — and the owner was back because the engineering department had since told her the front door could not face the street. Norm Jansa of Westchester Modular Homes Construction Corp., representing owner Rosanne MacDonald, said the department's reading came as news. "The actual zoning states that we should not have a door on the main, facade of the, new ADU that we are proposing," Read 5:34▶ Jansa said, "and it should be on the side." The applicants had read the provision differently: "We, read it as, meaning that it's an apartment that's attached to a house, to the exact the actual house, but this is an actual cottage." Read 5:59▶ MacDonald put the same point in the code's own words. "It does say accessory apartment. It doesn't say accessory cottage," Read 7:29▶ MacDonald said, and told the board the purpose she understood behind the rule — not wanting two front doors on one building — is not engaged when the cottage is a separate structure whose door faces the opposite way from hers. The physical case against moving the door was the one the board found decisive. There are mounds on both sides of the cottage: the garbage receptacles sit on one, and three large propane tanks for a generator sit on the other. "They're huge," Read 12:32▶ MacDonald said of the tanks, and shifting the entrance would mean steps and "a lot of digging and grading" Read 12:32▶ on ground that does not allow for it. Board member Doug Olcott asked why the question had not come up on an earlier cottage on Van Wyck. "I'm wondering why this didn't pop up on Van Wyck," Read 13:08▶ Olcott said. Assistant Village Engineer Ron Wegner said the difference is visibility: "The accessory is behind, and the one the cottage in the back is behind the primary house. You really can't see it," Read 13:13▶ Wegner said. A board member said the plan had not changed since December. "I have no issues with it. I think it's, it was indicated on the plan that was submitted last time," Read 12:00▶ the member said. Working through the five statutory factors, the board accepted that the door could physically be moved but concluded the result would be worse: "I would say it could be. Could be, but it would look funny," Read 18:28▶ one member said. "It would look like the house is turned sideways." Read 18:28▶ Olcott moved to grant the variance — "I'll make a motion to approve approve the variance for, front end for accessory cottage," Read 13:40▶ Olcott said — and, according to the minutes, Bill Goldsmith seconded. The vote was 5-0, with Olcott, Goldsmith, Tuman, Daron Weber and Ethan Lewis all recorded yes. The minutes also record the board's finding that the hardship was self-created, arising from the applicant's own design and reading of the code.

The February date, and the school calendar

With the cottage disposed of, the Mount Airy neighbors came back to the table with a calendar problem: Feb. 17 falls in school vacation week. "We all have, like, children, and that's school vacation week. So almost all of us are going to be out of town," Read 14:22▶ one resident said, asking whether the hearing could be moved. Wegner said the date follows the applicant. "The applicant applicant makes the submittal, and it's it's the regularly scheduled meeting," Read 14:49▶ Wegner said. But he added that a hearing, once opened, does not have to close the same night: "there there will be an open public hearing. I don't know if it's gonna close that quick considering." Read 15:04▶ Tuman sketched the likely shape of it. A site visit discussed in February "will push it off a decision off into March, and we'll keep the public hearing open," Read 15:13▶ he said. Olcott was blunter about the odds: "Typically, in a case like this, we will we will have a site visit," Read 17:15▶ Olcott said. Olcott also noted the board is not going in cold. "As far as next month goes, we have a lot of written commentary that we received today," Read 17:44▶ Olcott said. Written comment goes on the record whether or not its author can attend. Tuman would not be drawn further. "Obviously, there's a lot of community interest in this application," Read 16:27▶ Tuman said. "I can't comment on an application we don't have." Read 16:27▶ The 52 Mount Airy Road application was heard on Feb. 17. The public hearing opened that night and was left open.