As the village of Mamaroneck Board of Trustees takes preliminary steps toward revising village zoning code to accommodate the now-controversial Westchester Sandbox Theatre, the efficacy of the village Building Department has fallen under scrutiny.
Last week, the village board voted to schedule a public hearing on a resolution that would alter C-1 zoning districts villagewide to allow for “performing arts studios” and “performing arts schools” to apply for special permits.
The initiative—which comes after the East Boston Post Road theater was cited with multiple building code violations and found to be non-compliant with zoning laws in December—marks a shift in an approach which would have altered the entirety of the C-1 district to allow theaters seating up to 125 people.
According to Trustee Keith Waitt, a Democrat, the ideological shift from board Democrats comes as a result of concerns over how theaters would continue to negatively affect noise and traffic in surrounding neighborhoods.
“The idea of having theaters in a C-1 district was not acceptable,” Waitt said. “There is no real place to have a theater.”
Mayor Norman Rosenlbum, a Republican, who initially criticized Democrats’ hesitance toward approving a change in C-1 districts, said that he will keep an open mind on upcoming changes.
“I’m very much in favor of continuing a review,” Rosenblum said.
Residents that live near the theater—more than a dozen of which showed up to a recent public hearing on the topic—have complained of excessive noise, parking conditions, and, as a result of attendance, safety concerns, since the issue over Sandbox boiled to the surface last month.
According to village resident Meg Yergin—who lives adjacent to the theater—while complaints are just now surfacing regarding Sandbox, the conditions have been ongoing for some time.
“Right now in the small stretch of [Boston] Post Road, between Sophia Street and the end of Stuart Avenue, our neighborhood contends with five popular businesses operating without a parking lot,” said Yergin citing various storefronts in the area like Sandbox and a popular restaurant, Andrea’s 25 North. “The majority of these businesses operate into the night, disturbing our quiet neighborhood.”
Trustee Leon Potok, a Democrat, said that if the owner of Sandbox, Dan Ferrante, had not failed to renew a special permit granted in 2008, the board may have had a chance to review issues regarding the theater’s impact on surrounding residents.
“Unfortunately for the Sandbox, when its special permit expired in 2011, they didn’t come back for renewal,” said Potok at the public hearing last week. “All of the issues that have arisen in the last six years would have come up if they had come back for a special permit.”
According to Building Department records, Ferrante, on behalf of the theater, was required to apply for a special permit in 2008 to operate a “dance and music school.” While that permit was granted in the same year, it expired in 2011, and according to multiple members of the Board of Trustees, it was never renewed.
Ferrante told the Review earlier this month that he was “unware” that the permit had expired.
While the Board of Trustees will now consider a change in zoning code that would allow for the Sandbox and businesses like it to provide acting classes and small-scale rehearsals via a special permit process, Potok said the engine driving the theater’s violation of the zoning code—in addition to the violations of the state fire code—may be a more fundamental problem.
Among the building code violations were multiple electrical violations, and also New York state fire code violation issues as a result of the theater section of the building’s lack of a sprinkler system.
To help address the flaws in enforcement, Potok said that the village board may be inclined to turn inward and assess what he described as gaps in the Building Department’s enforcement.
This week, the Board of Trustees began initial discussions on how to best streamline and clean up Building Department procedures and processes.
“We’ll retain a consultant with experience in municipal operations,” Potok said. “It’s a question of what the processes are, and whether or not they can be improved upon so we don’t have things falling through the cracks.”
Potok added that the village will be evaluating processes of the Building Department as opposed to personnel.
Recently, a controversial business, Ralph’s Italian Ices & Ice Cream, located just across the street from the Sandbox Theatre on Boston Post Road, has been the subject of public backlash and scrutiny from village land use boards after it was deemed wrongly classified as a retail establishment by the Building Department last summer.
According to Trustee Victor Tafur, a Democrat, Ralph’s is just another example of a flawed process.
“[Ralph’s and Sandbox] are two reflections of issues with interpreting the code and the timing of the enforcement,” Tafur said. “It raises a lot of flags.”
A change in village zoning law allowing Sandbox to continue its operations as an acting school will be vetted by the board and an interested public in the coming weeks, with the first public hearing on the proposed change set to take place in early March.
