Dan's Papers - November 7, 2008

Just last week, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) gave a nod to the Ross School's plan to complete construction of six professional dome-covered tennis courts and an athletic facility, despite a claim brought forth by Scott Rubenstein, a neighbor and owner of East Hampton Indoor Tennis, which could soon be in competition with the Ross facility. (In fact, Ross will take its own business from EHIT, since the school used to rent space from Rubenstein.) Rubenstein and his attorney state that the Ross facility is not your basic school gym available to the community at large. Chief Building Inspector Don Sharkey said the private school's plan to open the facility on weekends and evenings to the community is no different than what any public school does. Rubenstein insists Ross is running a for-profit business. Sharkey says it's running a semi-public facility.

That show is far from over.

But another showdown has come to an end, after three years of appeals, denials, law suits, code changes and NIMBYism.

Happily for the hundreds if not thousands of children, adults and community members from Southampton to Montauk, the fate of the Buckskill Ice Rink is no longer on ice. On October 17, New York Sate Supreme Court Justice Arthur Pitts ordered the East Hampton Town ZBA to finally issue a certificate of occupancy (CO) to the facility. At a hearing October 28 that followed Pitt's decision, Kathryn and Doug DeGroot, the owners of Buckskill, got the green light. "[The ZBA] complied with the court order," said Ted Sklar, attorney for the DeGroots. "We got what we applied for."

The Buckskill rink opened in January 2005 for two seasons before it was put on ice. From the start, the Winter Club, as it is also called, quickly became wildly popular, with offerings like adult hockey with scheduled games in the mornings, junior hockey and clinics to help children develop their skills, figure skating and private lessons, as well as public skating sessions, memberships and private parties.

Visiting the facility for the first time two years ago took this writer back to childhood, to a public, man-made pond that was thick with skaters, and a round house where kids would throw potatoes onto the coals of a raging fire and drink tea and hot cocoa from thermoses.

There were no coal-baked potatoes at Buckskill, but it felt like a throw-back. It was a decidedly un-Hampton spot, in the best sense of the phrase - all fun and no pretense. The Buckskill club house was as close to Norman Rockwell that we can get in these parts: the smell of popcorn popping, home made soups cooking and hot chocolate brewing, mixed with that evocative scent of a wood burning fireplace. I looked forward to when our son got a bit older (than 4) and could learn to skate there. It was an exciting thought, even though, personally, I hate ice skating. I tagged along as a kid only for the baked potatoes and hot chocolate. But I loved the feeling of that place, and I loved Buckskill. I envisioned, in a year or two, a day of family fun, with my partner and son enjoying themselves on the ice, while I sat by the fire reading a newspaper and drinking coffee.

But that was not to be.

The story of the not-so-little ice rink that finally could started in December 2004, when the town passed a law allowing the construction of seasonal ice rinks on tennis courts. In mid-December, the DeGroots filed an application with town to convert four of their ten Hamptons Tennis Club courts into an ice rink. They got a building permit in mid-January 2005, and opened the rink January 21. Word spread quickly.

There was one problem. Well, two really. First, the DeGroots didn't file for a CO right away. Second, neighbors complained noisily about, well, the noise. In August of 2005, after a successful season (perhaps too successful), the East Hampton Town board passed a new law separating rinks into two tiers: a seasonal rink that exceeded 7,200 square feet (which applied to the Buckskill rink) would require a site plan approval, not just a building permit.

Why did the town change its mind? Was the public outcry of a handful of neighbors who already lived near the railroad track, an industrial park, a kid's camp and another tennis club (EHIT, mentioned above), strong enough to change the law? That question has never been sufficiently answered, but the DeGroots, with tremendous support from happy skaters, had a long fight ahead.

In December 2005, after the rink had been open for one season and after the Town had made it law that rinks must include site plans, the DeGroots applied for a CO under the first law, which required only a building permit. They were refused in January 2006 by Building Inspector Sharkey. Strike one.

In mid-March, they filed an appeal, which wasn't heard by the ZBA until the end of August, 2006. At that meeting, via a memo, Sharkey laid out his reason for the denial (a generator that the deGroots claim was removed before they applied for the CO, a Zamboni shed which was also removed, and an ADA ramp). In late October 2006, the ZBA denied the appeal. Strike two.

The DeGroots went ahead and opened the rink again for the 06/07 season without a CO, with the agreement of the Town. But in July 2007, the town issued an injunction, shutting down future operation of the rink.

In November 2007, the DeGroots moved outside East Hampton building department, and filed their first suit against the town, and Judge Pitts ruled that the hearing was defective because Sharkey was absent and the ZBA relied only on his memo. Pitts ordered the ZBA to hear the case again. In January 2008, the ZBA did rehear the case, with Sharkey in attendance. And in February 2008, his original decision was upheld - the board denied the appeal a second time. Strike three. But the game wasn't over.

In March 2008, the deGroots filed a second appeal and six months later, just last month, Judge Pitts knocked down the decision, ordering the ZBA to issue the CO, which they did last Tuesday. Score.

Looking back on the chain of events, Attorney Sklar said that perhaps the bugaboo was that the DeGroots didn't request a CO prior to or immediately upon opening the facility. That became the chink in the ice, so to speak. "The town used that [the lack of a CO] to close us down," said Sklar. "After the rink opened there were complaints from the community. The town had approved the plan. They gave us a building permit. Then the neighbors complained and the town amended the law."

If the DeGroots had the CO before the law was changed, the facility's activity would have fallen under "pre-existing uses." But according to Sklar, "They said we couldn't operate a rink under the old zoning. The town's position was: once we passed the law, all bets were off. And we then needed site plan approval."

That approval is still pending, and would only apply to changes to the existing site, like the addition of basic lighting. But that was not a part of the DeGroot's most recent case. "We wanted to focus on one fight at a time," said Sklar.

From a call in to the Winter Club last Friday, we learned that they hadn't converted from the tennis courts to the ice rink yet, but that they are "shooting for a mid-December" opening, maybe sooner.

Sharpen your skates, folks. Or grab your paper and coffee mugs, as the case may be.