Zoning board says no re-do of Waccabuc beach club renovation

Docks at the Waccubuc Country Club beach front.

By NEAL RENTZ

The Lewisboro Zoning Board of Appeals has voted unanimously to not reopen the review of the Waccabuc Country Club’s beach club renovation project, which has been criticized by several neighboring residents.

The ZBA took its action Jan. 22, after providing approvals for the project Feb. 24, 2023.

The club is located on two parcels on a 9.1-acre property at 19 Perch Bay Road, Waccabuc. The site is in a residential R4-A zone.

ZBA chairman Robin Price Jr. said at this week’s meeting that there have been “no violations or changes from the approved plan so far.”  

Following the board’s decision to deny residents’ petition for rehearing, Mark Blanchard, an attorney representing some of the homeowners who live in the area, responded to the ZBA’s action. 

“We are not surprised by this vote this evening,” he said. “We have options of ways to proceed.” Those opposing the project have contended that the public could not address the ZBA for nine months during meetings, and that public notices were vague and misleading.

In a recent letter to the ZBA, neighbor Cathy McGowan said a rehearing was needed. “What is being built is materially different from the plans the zoning board approved,” she wrote. “The community notice process was deeply flawed.”

McGowan said examples of material differences from the plan approved by the ZBA included no mention of a walk-in refrigerator or commercial-grade chef’s kitchen; replacement of an outside shower space with a full-service bar; expanding the grilling area which now includes a professional, architect- quality grill and a wood-fired pizza oven; and an extensive outdoor speaker system, which covers the outdoor spaces as well as an outdoor television which might be seen and heard by anyone on the lake; and an outdoor heating system.

“All of these speak to the creation of a new commercial enterprise in a densely populated residential area, one focused on large-scale entertainment events held throughout the year, as opposed to what was presented to the community as “beachfront improvements for the Waccabuc Country Club snack bar,” McGowan said. 

Asked for a reaction to the criticisms of its project recently, the club provided its response to the petition for rehearing made by their attorney Michael Fuller Sirignano.

Sirignano stated, in part, in a Jan. 13 letter to the ZBA that residents had the opportunity to challenge the ZBA’s actions by filing an Article 78 lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court, but did not do so within 50 days of the ZBA’s action. 

Sirignano stated that New York state courts have consistently ruled that a board cannot open a matter “after a property owner’s rights have been vested by reason of good faith reliance on the earlier decision rendered.”

Sirignano stated that the residents petitioning the ZBA were wrong in contending that new facts have been revealed by the club following the ZBA’s approval and that facts were withheld from the ZBA during its public hearing Jan. 23, 2023, when the project was carefully reviewed.