Doug Rose, the board's treasurer and the member responsible for membership development, reported signing up 600 "founding members" in the organization's first year. In a town with 160 miles of shoreline and 3,800 waterfront properties, he noted, the group's membership stands at just "15 percent of the available audience," and he called on members to spread the word to their neighbors. "SoutholdVOICE is looking to represent your views," Mr. Rose said.
John Betsch, the group's vice chairman, reported that since the organization's first meeting of six volunteers, who together contributed $650 toward the new group's start-up expenses, SoutholdVOICE has formed a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation, applied to the IRS for tax-exempt status, established an interactive Web site that's garnered more than 23,000 "hits," published a full-color monthly newsletter and monitored and reported on all Town Trustees meetings.
SoutholdVOICE is involved in a stormwater runoff initiative with the town, Mr. Betsch said. The group's members are going to put drain markers at every storm drain that empties into the bays, creeks and Sound, Mr. Betsch said, to help raise awareness of the runoff problem threatening the town's waterways.
"People just don't understand the problem," Mr. Betsch said. "Since 1640 we've been draining our roads into our water. This is the problem," he said, "not your boat, not your dock, not your cesspool. Road runoff is the big polluting influence."
He urged people to register to vote in Southold Town, even second-home owners. "Our vote is so much more important here. Register to vote here instead of your primary residence. This is important. Elections in Southold can be decided by less than 100 votes," Mr. Betsch said.
Southold attorney Pat Moore, a member of SoutholdVOICE's board of directors, gave a long presentation on the issues confronting waterfront property owners and detailed a litany of problems homeowners have faced in an environment she termed "a regulatory nightmare."
"If you're a waterfront property owner," she cautioned, "don't do anything -- anything -- without the trustees' permission." The trustees' jurisdiction has expanded over time, she said, from just regulating underwater structures, to regulating wetlands, to regulating 100 feet from wetlands and 100 feet from the top of the bluff.
"There was an old joke that you don't own your property, the bank does. Well, guess what? The town owns your property."
Ms. Moore told the audience that trustees permits don't "run with the land" anymore, as had been standard practice. Now, she said, permits must be transferred to the name of the current owner of the property. "Or else, even if you want to do maintenance or repairs, a whole new permit process has to be started," she said.
Complaining of the "adversarial role" assumed by officials, Ms. Moore said, "There's a disconnect between you as property owners and our government."
Ms. Moore, who once served as Riverhead town attorney, said she's seen an incremental growth in government land-use regulation over the 20 years she's been in private practice. The definition of "buildable land" has changed, she said, effectively reducing the number of building lots in a subdivision where the acreage includes wetlands. Now, "buildable" land excludes lands seaward of the coastal zone erosion area, as well as beaches and bluffs.
The designated coastal erosion area brings with it "very strict regulation," Ms. Moore told the audience. "Now they've taken that and incorporated it into your setbacks. Let's say the coastal erosion line is in the street, and in many cases in Southold town, it is, you're entire house is in the coastal erosion zone. Now, no matter what you want to do, you have to go to the ZBA and beg them to let you do it," she said. "This directly affects the marketability of your property.
"Someone that owns an acre of land on the Sound will find that with the stroke of a pen the government has effectively taken away three-quarters of your property. So everything you want to do you have to get variances from the ZBA," Ms. Moore said. That is "always a crapshoot," she said.
"God forbid you ask for a pool," Ms. Moore said. "You might as well be an ax murderer."
So many actions require variances now that the ZBA is completely overwhelmed, according to Ms. Moore. Its calendar is now backlogged three to four months. Ninety percent of the town is non-conforming, she said. "Something's inherently wrong with our zoning code if every action needs a variance."
Ms. Moore urged SoutholdVOICE members to aggressively lobby elected officials "to put some common sense back into the code."
"You have to be aggressive," she said. "You have to protect your property rights. Don't sit back and think it doesn't affect you. It does."