Lucky Seven Properties Project Moves Forward

Plans for a new business at a vacant Montauk Highway warehouse, just west of the Wild By Nature shopping center, moved forward this week as the Southampton Town Planning Board reviewed the applicant's final proposal.

Lucky Seven Properties is seeking permission from the Town to start a company that cleans, repairs and stores dumpsters at the site of the former Inter-County Building Materials.

At a meeting on Thursday, following a review of a staff report on the project by Town Planner Claire Vail, Planning Board members asked for photos of the roof, specifically behind an existing sign advertising the former tenant.  The applicants submitted those photos on Friday.

Lucky Seven plans to change the façade but will not expand the size of the 8,000-square-foot building. Under conditions of approval proposed by town planning staff, existing signs will be removed and landscaping along the perimeter will be required.

The application, which requires a change of use under the zoning code, was submitted in 2008 but subsequently delayed by a building moratorium in the hamlet, which ran from 2008 until last March. Lucky Seven Properties sought an exemption from the moratorium but that process, public hearings and consideration by the Town Board, extended beyond the expiration of the building ban.

Although the moratorium expired earlier this year, an accompanying study of the cumulative impact of hamlet development is still in the works. Some community members want the application for the Lucky Seven Properties project delayed until the study is completed.

Hampton Bays Civic Association members have repeatedly argued that large vehicles and chemical run-off from the cleaning process associated with the dumpsters could create problems for the community and should be considered more carefully in concert with the pending cumulative impact study.

But the attorney for the applicants, John Bennett of Southampton, told Planning Board members that the change of use has no elevated impact on the hamlet.

The Hampton Bays building moratorium, enacted in 2008, was intended to give the town officials time to review all the pending applications and new construction cumulatively. Initially approved as a 12-month moratorium, the  Town Board extended the ban twice and it expired ultimately in March of this year.

The 8,000-square-foot brick building, at 280 West Montauk Highway, has been vacant for several years. Lucky Seven purchased the land and building from Castle Harbor Associates earlier this year.