Sea Cliff officials eyeing more housing options for village's future

Sea Cliff’s Victorian style prewar houses long have enchanted both natives and newcomers to the North Shore village.

But a desire by the village's board of trustees to preserve that residential charm without transforming into an exclusive enclave could lead to housing policy changes under a new comprehensive plan the legislators approved last week.

“You always see the bumper sticker ‘Keep Sea Cliff Weird,'” Mayor Elena Villafane said in an interview. “Well, if we're all bankers, lawyers and accountants, that's not really a weird group of people. We need our artists and our musicians and the only way we're going to do that is if we diversify our housing stock.”

Besides addressing the future of housing, the plan makes recommendations and suggests potential action on issues such as land use, transportation, economic development, historic preservation, the protection of natural resources and climate change.

The first new plan since 1970, the document went through a series of public presentations from village officials and Manhattan-based consultant BFJ Planning in the past year before being finalized.

The plan doesn’t commit the village to any course of action; rather it's intended as guidance for future actions — such as overhauling the zoning code and the adoption of new local laws.

“This is an aspirational document,” Villafane said. “This is 'How do we envision our future? What are the things we think we could do? What are the challenges?'”

The plan’s chapter on housing suggests a raft of changes that could address affordability issues.

One housing recommendation in the new plan is for the village to allow accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, by special permit. Such units are secondary living spaces on the same lot as a single-family home — in garages, attics, basements or detached cottages — that boost affordable housing options.

Currently the village only allows a second apartment within the lot of a larger single-family home for occupancy by the children or parents of the property owner.

Another plan recommendation is to change zoning on Glen Cove Avenue, a largely commercial strip, to allow commercial properties to include one or two units of housing, depending on property size, without a special permit. 

Another option for consideration would be to allow multifamily housing on commercially zoned properties on Glen Cove Avenue, either by special permit or by designating specific locations where it would be allowed.

Eric Alexander, director of Vision Long Island, a downtown planning organization, said Sea Cliff’s approach to its comprehensive plan, particularly with housing, was tailored to its future needs. 

“These are really wise recommendations and this is why the 'planning locally' message that we’ve put a stamp out on is so much more superior to an Albany mandate or any kind of top-down mandate out of New York City,” Alexander added.

The village's plan also contemplates developing housing on the property of North Shore Country Club if the club should ever close down, while requiring that at least 50% of the 74 acres of the club's land within Sea Cliff's boundaries be preserved as green space.

The Coalition to Save Hempstead Harbor, an environmental organization, wrote in a June letter to the village trustees that preserving green space "is increasingly important in the context of global warming mitigation efforts."