Expressing concern about how a proposed new nail salon might affect on parking near Love Lane, the Southold Town Planning Board is requiring the property owner to undergo a site plan review.
The nail salon has been proposed at the former site of Bauer’s Love Lane Gifts, in a building with four other storefronts.
At issue is the impact the change of use from a gift shop to a nail salon might have on parking along Love Lane and in neighboring municipal lots.
“[At a ] gift shop one or two people go in and browse,” Planning Board member Mary Eisenstein said at a work session Monday. “With a nail salon, a lot of the services, you could be there for an hour to almost two hours.”
Town planning director Heather Lanza referred to an August 2015 parking assessment the town did in the area, which showed that more public parking spaces were needed. The town addressed that problem by acquiring the Pike Street lot, which helped it reach the approximately 270 spots that were needed at the time. Six years later, however, as business uses have changed, planners say the time has come to take a fresh look at the needs there.
The building in question has four units currently in use: Lombardi’s Love Lane Market, the Mattituck post office, Haircutters of Love Lane and a Daniel Gale real estate office.
Initial plans for the new nail salon show it would feature eight stations, which means the town code would require the property owner to designate 20 parking spaces for that unit alone.
“It increases fourfold the amount of parking needed there,” Ms. Lanza said.
Planning Board chairman Don Wilcenski said it’s clear the board needs to re-evaluate all the uses for the building, “so it is up to date.”
The other members agreed.
“Our emphasis is to try to help people in downtown hamlet business [areas],” said member Jim Rich. “But I think that the math just makes [a site plan review] necessary.”
The building is owned by 80 Love Lane Associates LLC. The proposed salon, Love 7 Nail & Spa, would be owned by Zhang Ying, Huang Xiao Yan and Li Shiqian, according to a building permit application filed with the town.
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