The Zoning Board of Appeals refused to decide a proposed two-lot subdivision at 52 Mount Airy Road on March 17, sending it instead to the Planning Board for environmental review after the chairman said the application left too much unexamined. Eleven residents then spoke on it, all of them opposed. Chairman James Tuman ran the meeting, with members Ethan Lewis and Matt Berger and alternate Patrick Turner seated; Bill Goldsmith and Doug Olcott were absent, according to the minutes. The board began by going into a closed advice-of-counsel session at 7:03 p.m. and returned at 7:17 p.m.

Thirty trees and no analysis

The application by 52 Mt Airy Rd, LLC seeks two lot-area variances under Village Zoning Code § 230-33A so that a parcel in the RA-25 district can be split into two residential lots. Attorney Kory Salomone of Zarin & Steinmetz appeared with owner Andrew Cortese and project engineer Michael Mastrogiacomo, who had submitted new topographic surveys, landscape drawings and a rendering since the last hearing. Tuman went at the applicant's own submission letter, which said the proposed tree removal could not reasonably be considered impactful. "Can you explain how you came to that conclusion? Because 30 trees seems like a lot of trees," Read 20:08▶ Tuman said. Salomone answered that clearing is ordinary. "Anytime you're gonna develop a piece of property to build a single family home, trees are coming down," Read 20:39▶ Salomone said, adding that the project was not clear-cutting the parcel. Tuman pressed the point that no study backed the conclusion. "But there's you've done no analysis on the impact. That's just more or less your opinion that there's no impact," Read 21:47▶ Tuman said. The project engineer said the replanting would leave the site better than it is. "We're we're also planting a lot of trees. So we are putting back, and we're actually making the the property better," Read 22:02▶ Mastrogiacomo said, describing a planting plan drawn from species already found in the area. Tuman was unconvinced. "I find it hard to believe that asphalt is better for animals than what's their existing," Read 23:05▶ Tuman said. Lewis asked whether the design could take down fewer than 30 trees and pushed for study of a shorter driveway, according to the minutes. Mastrogiacomo said the removals were needed to stabilize slopes, grade the area and build the drainage, and that the location of the house was set by zoning setbacks and by an old septic system in one corner of the lot. Cortese said the front of the parcel is narrow and widens only toward the rear, which makes it hard to pull the house toward the road — then told the board the house could be redesigned and moved forward anyway. "We'll redesign the house and we'll pull it forward, and we have no problem doing that," Read 30:33▶ Cortese said. "We didn't consider maybe as much as you guys are as as the trees." Read 30:33▶ Retaining walls drew the same treatment. Tuman put some of them at 10 feet on the plans and as much as 14 feet in places, and Mastrogiacomo said moving the house forward would take most of them away. On stormwater, Mastrogiacomo said the system was designed to the 100-year storm, with drywells, chambers and pre-treatment structures, and that maintenance would amount to an annual look into an inspection port. Then Tuman stopped the hearing. "My thinking on this right now is there's a lot of, uncertainty, a lot of analysis that you would have to do for the planning board that may factor into our decision here, and we're and we're not typically the board for that," Read 37:05▶ Tuman said. He moved to refer the application for the Planning Board's review and recommendation; Lewis seconded, and it passed 4-0, with Tuman, Lewis, Berger and Turner in favor, according to the minutes. The public hearing stayed open.

Eleven speakers, none in favor

Ed Ward, of 55 Quaker Bridge Road, read a memo from Stuart Greenbaum and a second resident who could not attend, arguing that the application had been wrongly classified as a Type II action under the state environmental review law to avoid a full review, and that creating a new lot and a new house makes it an unlisted action. The memo also asked the village to hire its own engineer. "I request that the village retain, as it does in some instances, an engineering consultant to evaluate the application and advise the board," Read 42:31▶ Ward read. Gabriella Mirabelli, of 21 Mountain Trail, argued the applicant had not met the legal test for a variance at all. By her figures, the RA-25 district requires 25,000 square feet a lot and the parcel is 49,437 square feet — 563 square feet short of two conforming lots. "This 563 square foot gap between what they own and what the rules require is not a hardship that the village created. It is a gap they bought," Read 45:40▶ Mirabelli said. "Wanting to build more houses and increase the value of a parcel is not a hardship. It's a business objective." Read 45:40▶ Vincent Cohan, of 8 King Street, made the same argument from the other end. "The hardship goes away quite simply if he limits his ambition to the one legal residence that existed on the property he purchased," Read 56:55▶ Cohan said. A neighbor from directly across the street spoke on ecology, telling the board that the village's own tree law requires replacement trees worth at least 90 percent of the environmental value of what comes down, and that young nursery stock cannot do the work of mature trees. Ashley Steele, of 56 Mount Airy Road South, said she watched roughly 29 trees come down branch by branch last autumn and listened to a week of wood chipping. "A bobcat that was walking through there, that to me is thrilling," Read 65:07▶ Steele said. Dan Cayer, of 40 Mount Airy Road South, had sent the board videos of stormwater running across his lawn. "I submitted some videos to the board that showed video videos of flooding on King Street during rainstorms, and these rainstorms were before the 29 large trees were taken down," Read 68:59▶ Cayer said, noting that the area had seen two 1,000-year floods since 2021 and asking what a system designed for a 100-year storm was worth against that. David Steele, whose property abuts 52 Mount Airy Road, said the damage was not hypothetical. "I can say that we're next to the property. It's been an enormous impact already," Read 71:42▶ Steele said. Mike Knaggs, of 71 Mount Airy Road South, told the board that moving the house forward was no fix. "Though I don't see the solution of moving the house forward, it tells me you haven't been to the location because there's quite a big hill there," Read 74:51▶ Knaggs said, contrasting the scrutiny he faced applying to remove one dying tree with what he saw in this file. Claire Hilbert, of 60 Mount Airy Road South, spoke on the street's history. "This is this is not a standard lot we're talking about in a standard town," Read 77:34▶ Hilbert said. Shari Trewin, of 25 Mountain Trail, said a variance granted near her own property had already changed its character. Board members and village staff answered that the technical questions belong to the Planning Board, and that the referral does not hand away the decision. "The planning board will, issue a recommendation to the zoning board, and we will still vote on it," Read 81:47▶ Tuman said. Associate Village Attorney Jeannette Koster told the meeting the referral would produce a fuller record before any final determination, according to the minutes. Tuman also said the boards would try to do a joint site visit.

Sunset Drive: hearing closed, decision held

Architect Joseph Arnow presented the evening's second application, for Meredith and Eric Korn at 59 Sunset Drive: side yard, total side yard and lot width variances under § 230-33(A) for a two-and-a-half-story rear addition and a replacement deck. The house dates to 1929 and predates the zoning; the addition would sit on the existing side setback lines rather than move closer to either neighbor. "The existing lot width is five feet short of the 50 foot requirement," Read 106:22▶ Arnow said, tracing the lot lines to Clifford Harmon's 1907 subdivision and naming two nearby Sunset Drive lots with the same defect. The work adds roughly 615 square feet — a larger kitchen, with a bedroom and bathroom above. One neighbor objected. Bernard Yozwiak, of 64 Sunset Drive, said he could see the Hudson River through the gap between the Korns' house and the one next to it, and that the addition would close it. "When this addition gets built there, that'll just that'll go away. That'll be massive," Read 115:02▶ Yozwiak said. Yozwiak, who had himself been refused a similar side yard variance by this board about 20 years ago at 61 Sunset Drive, asked whether the width could be pulled in or the roof pitched differently, and raised tree removal and parking at the Lexington Drive corner. The applicants said no trees would come down and the driveway would not change. Steve Krisky, of 49 Sunset Drive, spoke in support, calling it a modest request in the village's narrowest zoning district and pointing to variances the board has granted for the same kind of rear expansion, including at his own house. Tuman had floated a site visit while Yozwiak was still speaking. "I'm I'm thinking we may wanna do a site visit," Read 119:54▶ Tuman said. The board went on to close the public hearing 4-0 on Lewis's motion, seconded by Berger, and then held the decision: Berger wanted to see the river view for himself, and the minutes record that a visit would follow within weeks, with the board reconvening afterward to vote. The board also approved its February 17 minutes 3-0, with Turner recused. Sources: March 17 ZBA minutes, April 21 ZBA minutes, and May 20 trustees’ minutes.