After much delay, demolition finally began late last month on Cathedral Avenue, between Fourth and Fifth Streets, on the property formerly known as St. Mary's. The Konner Development Corporation of Bridgehampton bought the land from The Cathedral of the Incarnation for an undisclosed amount of money this past summer. Eight new "traditional Garden City homes" will replace the longtime vacant school for girls, a building that had become somewhat of an eyesore in the village.

Carol Konner, president of Konner Development, after four years of negotiating with The Cathedral of the Incarnation, closed on the property back in July with intentions to begin demolition approximately three weeks later. A minor environmental issue, however, put the demolition process on hold.

According to Mike Filippon, building superintendent, the soil on the property was tested and trace elements of a variety of substances known as VOCs - volatile organic contaminants - were found. These VOCs could have come from petroleum byproducts, according to the H2M environmental report, Filippon said.

"There was a parking lot in the back of the property and old cars could've dripped some oil and gas. That residue remains in the soil. Working with certain thresholds, if these traces go slightly above a threshold they have to be removed. "For instance," Filippon said, "they found trace elements of lead in the ground directly beneath some old fire escapes that had been painted with lead paint. Little chips fall off over time.

"Officials test for a whole variety of substances and if any of them exceed the established thresholds, something has to be done, such as removal. In some cases officials had to scrape off six inches, in other cases 12 inches and some soil had to be removed in a limited area behind the building," he said.

Konner Development was waiting for a closure letter from the Health Department, a local arm of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, letting them know the remediation process had been completed. To allow health officials to review the test results, the entire environmental report and remediation plan was submitted to the Health Department. "If everything is done to their satisfaction, they release what we're calling a closure letter - essentially a letter saying everything is OK on the property," Filippon said. "We got the letter late Wednesday night, Nov. 14."

Filippon notes, however, that there's no law stating demolition could not begin without the closure letter. The village opted to hold up the demolition permit until it got a clearance on the soil removal project. "The soil situation has nothing to do with making a decision on subdivision," Filippon said. "The application before the Planning Commission is an application to take one parcel of property and divide it into eight separate plots for the future construction of eight homes. Site planning is a two-step process where the Commission approves it first. The board of trustees, however, has final site plan approval. The Planning Commission, once satisfied, recommends that the board issue final site plan approval.

The board of trustees acts as lead agency when the village has multiple agency involvement, such as in this case, Filippon said, where the Planning Commission, Architectural Design Review Board and board of trustees are involved. In some instances, the Board of Appeals also becomes involved if a variance is needed.

The soil issue affected two things, Filippon said. It affected the Building Department issuing a demolition permit, which could have been done at any time but village officials opted to wait for the environmental test results.

Secondly, it affected the board of trustees rendering final site plan approval on the project - one of their requirements is that they make an environmental determination on subdivision, specifically determining whether subdividing the property into eight lots will have a significant detrimental effect on the environment. Trustees are required to discuss a project's environmental impact under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). Konner said she'd keep all trees in mind when issuing each house's own site plan to the Architectural Design Review Board. "I am environmentally sensitive. I don't want to take any trees out if possible," she said.

Filippon said the village was reviewing the environmental assessment form and recommending to the board to adopt a negative declaration on environmental impact when the "so-called anonymous letter about the soil contamination" surfaced. "That letter brought everything to a screeching halt. We had to resolve that with the cathedral since they owned the property at that time. That's what caused the rather long delay of about a year and a half.

"The Planning Commission had already approved the subdivision and it was on its way to the trustees when everything went on hold. As a matter of prudence, we asked Konner Development to resubmit the application to the Planning Commission because it had been so long so the commission would have another opportunity to look it over in case some conditions had changed or they saw something needed to be addressed," he said.

"Konner attended last month's Planning Commission meeting for a re-review if you will," he said. "The commission wanted to know exactly what action they took last time before they re-acted again on the project. The commission adjourned until next month for an opportunity to review their previous action and with the understanding that it wouldn't do any harm to the applicant because demolition itself is going to take some time. It appears that the environmental issue has been addressed and we can restart the project where we left off a year and a half ago," Filippon said.

Konner Development will probably begin making preliminary applications to the village's Architectural Design Review Board to begin review of each house's design, generally, one or two at a time in which a site specific review will take place of each individual lot in terms of its positioning, designing of house, landscaping and other related issues.