Last reviewed October 31, 2026.
Every windy night, a few more cedar shingles land in the side yard of a house a couple of blocks off the Sag Harbor waterfront. The owner gets two quotes. One roofer says the village will want paperwork and a board approval. The other calls it a simple repair and offers to start Monday. The village code has something to say to both of them.
What Sag Harbor’s building code says about reroofing
Start with section 92-7, in Chapter 92 on building construction. No one may begin the erection, alteration, removal, improvement or demolition of a building without a permit from the Building Inspector. Then comes the one exception that matters for roofs: no permit is needed for “ordinary repairs which are not structural in nature.”
The chapter never says the word roofing. We found no village page, form or guideline that puts a full tear-off and reroof on either side of that line, so for any given house the call belongs to the Building Inspector. Write the job down, including how much sheathing the price assumes will be replaced. Then call the Building Department, 55 Main Street, at 631-725-0224 before anyone climbs a ladder.
The historic district and roofs seen from the street
This is the rule that catches more roofs. Section 300-13.4, in Article XIII of the zoning chapter, requires a certificate of appropriateness from the Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review (BHPAR) before two kinds of work. The first is any exterior alteration, restoration or reconstruction on a landmark or on property in the historic district. The second is any material change in appearance visible from an adjacent street or adjacent property that affects the look and cohesiveness of the district. Read as written, that requirement stands on its own, apart from the building permit question above.
To decide which buildings count as contributing, the article points to the National Park Service register nomination for Sag Harbor dated March 8, 1994, which it describes as covering about 870 contributing buildings, sites or structures and about 15 landmarks. And order matters: the Building Department’s page says permits that need board approvals get processed only after those approvals arrive.
In the sections we could read, the current article spells out no exemption for matching repairs. An older document did. A 1986 village waterfront revitalization program, an archived planning document and not current law, described the historic review of that era as excluding ordinary maintenance and repair that did not change design, material or outward appearance. Whether a like-for-like roof needs a filing today is a question for the Building Department.
Roofing on the BHPAR consent agenda
Here the news gets better. Local Law 5 of 2021, adopted April 13, 2021, let the board approve some applications by consent agenda. The board’s policy lists “Roofing and New Roofing” and “Repairs, replacement in kind” among the eligible items. The catch: the application has to cover only eligible items, follow the village design guidelines and meet any Building Department permit criteria.
The Building Inspector may place a complete application on that agenda. A rotating committee of two board members checks it against the guidelines. The board can then approve a batch in one motion, with no discussion and no public hearing, and you do not have to attend. A majority of members present can still vote to discuss an item or pull it off the consent agenda. Tack a dormer or new windows onto the same application and it no longer fits the list.
Sag Harbor permit fees and the 12-month clock
The village Building Permit Checklist sets out two charges: a $150 application fee filed with the application, and a building permit fee of 1.25 percent of the cost of construction, paid when the permit is issued. The same checklist asks for the contractor’s license and a workers’ compensation certificate naming the village.
Applications stall for familiar reasons. The Building Department page lists the usual ones that get an application marked incomplete: no workers’ compensation certificate, the wrong address on that certificate, a blank cost of construction, and missing energy or wind resistance details. It also says no exact processing time is available because of the backlog.
Once issued, a permit runs 12 months under section 92-8, and the Building Inspector may grant at most two extensions of up to three months each. Let it lapse and section 300-17.5 calls for a new permit, with the fee prorated to the share of work left. The code’s own example charges 30 percent of the original fee when 30 percent remains. Crews should also mind Chapter 167, which allows construction noise from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, except public holidays.
Which contractor license a Sag Harbor roofer needs
Chapter 115 of the village code splits the license rule at the town line. On the East Hampton side of the village, a home improvement contractor needs a license issued under East Hampton’s Local Law No. 1 of 1975. On the Southampton side, the license comes under Southampton’s law of the same number and year. Jobs with a total price under $500 are excluded, unless the work was divided to get under that figure. Working without the license carries a fine of up to $250 or up to 15 days in jail, and each contract counts as its own violation.
Suffolk County Consumer Affairs lists roofing among the work its home improvement license covers. Our Suffolk license guide shows how to look one up.
Fines and stop-work orders in the village
The roofer who offered to start Monday should read this part. Chapter 92 makes anyone who knowingly violates the state building code, the chapter or a lawful village order liable to a fine of up to $1,000 per day of offense, up to a year in jail, or both. Under section 92-11, the Building Inspector can issue a written stop-work order, served in person or posted on the building and mailed, and revoke the permit if that order is ignored. Zoning violations are a separate matter: section 300-17.5 sets a fine of up to $1,000 or 15 days, with each day counted as a new one.
One village, two towns, one permit office
Suffolk County’s list of towns and villages files Sag Harbor under East Hampton, with village hall at 631-725-0222. The village code itself refers to the parts of Sag Harbor in each town. Either way, a house inside the village gets its permit from the village, not from Town Hall. Homes outside the village line follow the East Hampton or Southampton town rules.
Check the line before you check anything else, because a Sag Harbor mailing address does not prove a house is in the village. North Haven, a separate village that Suffolk County lists under Southampton, runs its own Building Department at 335 Ferry Road, and its forms carry a Sag Harbor, NY 11963 address.
