Dan's Papers - May 1, 2009 - THE LONG WALL AT THE BEACH IS COMING DOWN

Billionaire Ron Baron, who last fall built a seven-foot reinforced concrete wall across protected dunes in front of his oceanfront mansion in East Hampton, is now removing it. He has his demolition permit. And as you read this, workmen are busy with a special kind of saw that can carve through reinforced concrete. Five hundred feet of the 1,100-foot long wall will be removed before May 15. Another 300 feet in front of his property at the western end of East Hampton Village (the wall extends into the jurisdiction of the Village at the western end) will be removed after the Village approves an application he is making to them. Only the 300 feet in front of his property at the eastern end of it, which is in East Hampton Town, will, at this time, remain standing. What will happen to that part of the wall will be decided at a later date.

Baron built this illegal wall late last summer without a building permit and without informing anyone he was going to do so. When strollers along the ocean side of the dune noticed it, he at first said it was simply a retaining wall. When it was clear it was a wall high enough that it would have to be scaled by any climber or hiker wishing to walk through the dunes, he said he would fight it in court. The fine for building a wall or other structures on protected sand dunes, even sand dunes you personally own, is $500 a day. Five hundred dollars a day is pocket change to a billionaire.

A huge public outcry ensued after photographs published in various newspapers showed what he had done. The dunes, or in this case the double dunes, which extend about 500 yards from the beach back to the buildable land on Further Lane, are natural features that have been in place since the last ice age 20,000 years ago. No one before has ever built a wall on it designed to keep people out. Until this.

At this writing there is no deal regarding the 300 feet that remain. After the wall was put up, the Planning Department announced that it would not even consider a plan by Baron to divide this huge parcel of land - the largest vacant parcel on exclusive Further Lane - until he took his wall down. Baron owns about 40 acres here. He had a preliminary plan submitted to the Planning Department to divide it into several building lots.

There is little doubt that Baron could have simply outspent the Town in court. It is unlikely he would have ever gone to jail for what he did. He'd just keep paying the $500 a day. Nevertheless, the local judge, ruling in favor of the Town, demanded that Baron personally appear in court to talk about his property, something that any billionaire does not necessarily want to do in these circumstances. The law that would require Baron himself to appear was written long ago to protect any private citizen from hiding behind a corporation and just having lawyers appear in his stead. The property is owned by 260BC LLC. But the law says that in these circumstances, when there is a violation, the judge can call any person that appears to be controlling the property and in this case, that would be Baron.

Several postponements ensued. And then, out of the blue, Baron's lawyer, Tina Piette, appeared at Town Hall with an application for a permit to tear down 500 feet of the wall. In it was the promise to apply for a permit to tear down the 300 feet in the Village. For both teardowns, Baron would restore and re-vegetate the dunes he damaged. In there was a request for a zoning variance to the Zoning Board of Appeals to be allowed to keep the remaining easterly 300 feet up, and a request to the judge that Baron's name be removed from the ordinance violation charges. In addition, he asked the Town to agree to release the hold on his subdivision request. All this is fine with the Town.

There is no deal that he can keep the final 300 feet up. He is merely applying for a variance to be able to do so. The ZBA is free to reject that application. We hope that they do. You have to show a hardship to get a variance. Keeping others out of property is not a "hardship." But we shall see what we shall see.

Anyway, he made a mistake and he is rectifying it - 75% of it so far anyway - and we applaud him for doing that. I think others do too.

Incidentally, the wall is seven feet high and sits on three feet deep footings that go down into the dunes. The approved request allows for the below ground part of the footings to remain, since removing them would require heavy equipment to further disrupt the dunes. Their tops will be one foot below ground. You won't see them, at least until the sand shifts, at which time, presumably, they will also be removed.