East Hampton Town

Montauk Beach: Easements Are In

East Hampton Town has obtained all of the needed agreements from the owners of Montauk properties along the downtown shore where the Army Corps of Engineers plans to build a reinforced sand dune.

While the project is being designed and funded by the Army Corps, it was the town’s responsibility to obtain the property easements. Last week, with a deadline looming, there was one property owner who had still failed to sign. Supervisor Larry Cantwell announced on Tuesday that, thanks to continued efforts by and a personal visit from his executive assistant, Alex Walter, all the easements are now in place and the project will proceed.

Town Acquires Lot Off Old Stone

The town will purchase a property along Accabonac Harbor in Springs using the community preservation fund, and will remove a house there and return the land to its natural state. Following a hearing last week, the town board approved the $650,000 purchase of approximately one acre at 243 Old Stone Highway, owned by the Emily Cobb Trust. The property has often been a stop on spring garden tours. Its owners, the late Ann Stanwell and Ms. Cobb, planted many hundreds of tulips, daffodils, and other bulbs, and tended other gardens as well.

For Farmers and Food Producers

A town agricultural advisory committee is likely to become a permanent fixture with an addition to the town code. The committee is charged with advising the town board on matters important to the continued existence of agricultural activities here. Members of the committee appeared before the town board on Tuesday to stress the importance of an ongoing advisory group. Local farming and food production, said Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the liaison to the group, will continue to be “part of a sustainable community” and should always be considered in setting town laws and policy.

Three-Year Plan to Reduce Town Debt

A three-year capital spending plan presented Tuesday by Len Bernard, East Hampton Town’s budget officer, includes annual expenses for items such as police car replacement and road and sidewalk maintenance and repair. It calls for $4.9 million in bonds for this year’s work.

The town’s goal, said Mr. Bernard, has been to retire more debt each year than is added through new bonding, “while being free to borrow to do the things that need to be done.” With $3 million in projects slated for next year, and $2.5 million worth of capital improvements included in the plan for 2017, the town’s overall indebtedness, at $109 million at the start of this year, would be reduced to $75 million by the end of 2017, the budget officer said.

Susan Knobel, who for more than a year has sought permission from the East Hampton Town Trustees to move her house from a severely eroded shoreline at Lazy Point in Amagansett, had reason to celebrate on Tuesday night. The trustees, who have debated the request while often asking for additional information, voted to authorize Ms. Knobel to apply for the variance relief that she will need from the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals to relocate her house to nearby lots that are at a higher elevation.

The lots in question are seaward of the coastal erosion hazard line, necessitating the Z.B.A.’s approval. Ms. Knobel will also need permission from the Suffolk County Department of Health for a septic system to be installed on the new lots. Should she receive the approvals, the trustees, who own and manage the land on behalf of the public, indicated that they would transfer her lease to the new lots.

The nine-member body has been divided over Ms. Knobel’s request, with Bill Taylor and Brian Byrnes, its newest members, most forcefully in support of the move. Others have expressed worry about the environmental impact of the move as well as the potential precedent set by their approval.

With six trustees present, the vote was unanimous, though Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, said that she was voting yes with great hesitation. “I honestly don’t know if you’re going to get a permit to put a septic system on that lot,” she told Ms. Knobel. “Part of me wants to ask you to move forward without us saying yes or no. . . . I’m getting the impression it’s not going to be feasible, from looking at the placement of the house and the septic on the lot.”

Brian Frank, the Planning Department’s chief environmental analyst, had given qualified support for the move last month. On Tuesday, Ms. Knobel reiterated Mr. Frank’s assertion that moving the house, removing its existing cesspool, and allowing its parcel to revert to a natural state would be a net benefit.

An engineer with the county’s Health Department, she said, told her that the proposed new septic system is far more environmentally friendly than the current cesspool, and its installation would require only small equipment, or could even be done by hand if necessary.

“I just want a chance to save my house,” Ms. Knobel told the trustees.

Residents’ anxiety over being priced out of the modest houses they own on land they lease from the East Hampton Town Trustees at Lazy Point in Amagansett was evident during a lengthy and sometimes tense meeting on Tuesday night, with accusations heard that the members of the panel were continuing to be adversarial and belligerent.

The trustees had previously announced their intention to raise annual leases to $6,000 per lot per year. Leaseholders now pay $1,500 per year.

As Lazy Point residents crowded the meeting room and spilled into the hall of the Donald Lamb Building in Amagansett, Rick Drew, acting as a spokes­man, presented a counterproposal.

Agreeing that the lease fee had historically been low, Mr. Drew noted that it had more than quadrupled since 2005, from $350 a year to $1,500. “A lot of people bought in and paid a lot of money for these little houses because the leases were low,” he said. “When you switch things up, it changes the whole game.”

He proposed a modest increase for the coming year, coupled with doubling the 2-percent lease transfer fee now charged, while the trustees and lessees agree to pursue a new, longer-term fee structure.

“We can work on this until next fall and really make a plan, and next January start having a better discussion,” he said. “I think it’s going to take six to eight months. Get something down for this year, and let’s go to work.”

The trustees have said that the Lazy Point leases and 2-percent transfer fee account for roughly half their annual revenue and do not reflect the privilege of living in a pristine, shorefront community. They argue that residents benefit from services the trustees provide, such as shoreline protection and environmental initiatives such as eelgrass restoration.

Residents counter that they lack the benefits of homeownership elsewhere. “Yes, they’re waterfront,” Linda Badkin said of the houses, but “the main point is that we don’t own it, and therefore it does not have the same value that even a comparable lot size would have in another community.” The trustees, she said, should keep that in mind “when you’re thinking about us paying our fair share, which you obviously don’t think we’re paying at the moment.”

It was not the board’s intent to drive residents, many of whom are over 60 years old and living on fixed incomes, out of their houses, Diane McNally, the presiding officer, or clerk, said. “All we’re trying to do is be fair with what’s comparable for our community, and recognize the uniqueness of Lazy Point.”

Residents remained skeptical. “These people are blue-collar workers,” Elaine Jones said, “and if you do what you say you’re going to do, you’re going to force these people out.”

“Elaine,” Ms. McNally answered, “didn’t I start this conversation by saying that’s not what we are trying to do?” “It sure sounds like it,” several residents said angrily.

Among the options Mr. Drew presented were a 10-percent increase over the current fee, possibly to be revisited next year, a 20-percent increase to be in place for two years, or a 33-percent increase that would be in place for three to four years. Coupled with a doubling of the transfer fee, the trustees would realize significantly more revenue, he said, and all parties would benefit.

Mr. Drew said he would call Ms. McNally the following day to schedule a meeting, and, after a nearly two-hour discussion, the Lazy Point residents stood to leave. “Diane,” said Carol Bennett, “I would like to thank you and the rest of the board for hearing our concerns tonight.”

On Tuesday, the Sag Harbor Village Board will hear from residents and business owners on a proposal to prohibit single-use plastic bags at retail stores. The proposal is part of a movement on the East End to ban such bags in time for Earth Day 2015.

Last month, there was some question as to whether the proposal would apply to all plastic bags, like the heavier plastic bags used at the Wharf Shop on Main Street. Nada Barry, an owner of the store, also told the board that many businesses order plastic bags in bulk, and they likely couldn’t use all of them up before April.

The hearing will be held at the start of the village board meeting at 6 p.m. at the Municipal Building.

A proposed 120-foot-tall cellphone monopole along with a vinyl-sided shed on a parcel on Napeague received negative signals from the East Hampton Town Planning Board on Nov. 19.

The pole, to be used by AT&T, would be placed at the rear of a nearly 16,000-square-foot parcel on the north side of Montauk Highway owned by an entity called Surf Barn. The site has one house on it and a store occupied by Goldberg’s, a bagel shop that opened there earlier this year.

From the moment Eric Schantz, a senior planner for the town’s Planning Department, began his presentation, based on a 19-page memorandum, it became clear that the proposal had virtually no chance of succeeding. Among the negative factors Mr. Schantz laid out were that it would require 22 variances from the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals, that it had the potential to damage the structures on the site and buildings on four adjacent properties, and that it could end up blocking the Long Island Rail Road tracks to its north, or Montauk Highway to its south in a hurricane or other emergency.

Mr. Schantz said that the town code offers guidelines for erecting such towers, and said the chosen location did not meet them. Furthermore, the code specifically prohibits such towers in places where they could potentially strike other buildings.

However, he also pointed out that the code requires the Building Department to offer two alternate sites. He then suggested a Long Island Power Authority site to the west, where T-Mobile has antennas on  a 70-foot-tall wooden pole, or the roof of the building housing Goldberg’s, which he said would require the construction of a cupola.

 Janine Brino of the firm Re, Nielsen, Huber & Coughlin, which has handled many applications involving cellphone towers, listened as board members then weighed in with objections. “That fall radius is very much a concern to me,” Reed Jones, the board’s chairman, said. “How are people from Montauk supposed to get out of town?” he asked, if the tower were to fall. Even the planned accessory shed for the tower was taken to task by the board, with Ms. Weir telling Ms. Brino that vinyl siding was a poor choice for East Hampton Town.

Ms. Brino told the board she would go back to the owner of the property and develop a response to the comments, as well as discuss possible other locations with AT&T.

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals approved the reconstruction of a dilapidated dock in Gardiner’s Bay off the subdivision known as Broadview at its Nov. 18 work session in Town Hall.

The old L-shaped dock had served for most of its roughly 80 years as a groin, running out over 100 feet into the bay, perpendicular to the shore. Originally built for the late Dr. Dennistoun M. Bell’s yacht, drifting sand has almost completely submerged the structure. The Broadview Property Owners Association of Amagansett had appealed to the board after Tom Preiato, the former town building inspector, denied a building permit for it.

Brian Frank, chief environmentalist for the East Hampton Town Planning Department, had told the board on Oct. 28 that a rebuilt dock with steel sheathing, as the deteriorating dock has, would help build up the beach to the north, all the way to Albert’s Landing Road. The dock is about halfway between that road and Barnes Hole Road.

The zoning board had made it clear earlier that Mr. Preiato’s decision to deny the permit had been correct under the town code, and that the appeal provided the board with an opportunity to make a thorough examination. Normally the board cannot consider such docks. The vote was 5-0 in favor of allowing the work.

Another decision by the board that night was not as harmonious. A variance allowing a garage to be larger than the 600 square feet permitted by the code was approved by a 3-to-2 vote.

 Mr. Preiato, who is now the building inspector for Sag Harbor Village, had issued a stop-work order for an almost completed garage at 30 Association Road in Wainscott, after discovering that it was 771 square feet rather than 576 square feet, as the building permit showed. In addition to the oversized first floor, what Mr. Preiato saw as a second floor had been built as well, which would double the floor space to about 1,500 square feet.

At an Oct. 6 hearing, David Eagan of Eagan and Matthews, representing Thomas P. Odgen, as trustee of the property, admitted that “there were obviously mistakes made.” As to the second floor, he said it was intended only for storage. Mr. Preiato argued that in order to conform to the code the ceiling would have to be low enough to prevent an adult from standing up beneath it.

Mr. Eagan also said the garage had been expanded to make room for the house’s mechanics and that the house itself, at 4,440 square feet, was modest by neighborhood standards. The record was kept open for a revised survey.

On Nov. 18, however, David Lys made it clear that he was likely to vote against the variance.  “They knew they were building it incorrectly,” he said. “They disregarded what the code is. They admitted that it just kept getting bigger and bigger.” He warned that by granting the variance, the board would be sending the wrong signal to builders. His argument resonated with another board member. “They were issued a permit for a 576-square-foot garage,” Lee White said.

Elizabeth Baldwin, the board’s attorney, cautioned the board to make decisions on the merits and not be “punitive.”

“It is always easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission,” Don Cirillo said. “I learned that in parochial school.”

“They did not build a massive house,” John Whelan, the board’s chairman, pointed out, while saying that he was as frustrated as his colleagues. “Too many times, people are coming in and saying, ‘This is a building mistake,’ ” he said. Nevertheless, he cast a “yes” vote.

The issue of the second floor was resolved when the board agreed that a covenant should go along with the variance limiting the ceiling height to five feet, although the new survey had showed the ceiling at six feet.

In the end, Mr. Cirillo and Cate Rogers joined Mr. Whelan in voting to grant the variance.

The Suffolk County Legislature approved a measure last week that could bolster the county’s drinking water protection program by paying reimbursements for the salaries of employees doing water quality work back to the program, rather than into the county’s general fund.

According to Legislator Jay Schneiderman’s office, a portion of the drinking water protection fund has been used to pay those salaries, parts of which are eligible for federal and state reimbursement. A resolution put forward by Mr. Schneiderman and passed unanimously by the Legislature on Dec. 2 would ensure that reimbursements are credited to the drinking water program, bringing an anticipated $300,000-a-year increase to the fund. County Executive Steve Bellone is expected to sign it into law in short order.

It was a good year for piping plovers on East Hampton beaches, Juliana Duryea of the town’s Natural Resources Department reported to the town board on Dec. 2. The birds are considered an endangered species in New York State. Their East Coast population is on a federal list of threatened species, and they are protected.

A program to protect them and increase the chances of successful breeding begins in late March each year, Ms. Duryea said, and the results are reported to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the state.

Staffers, including volunteers, patrol the areas where birds have previously nested, and to which they normally return, for tracks or sightings of the birds themselves. When found, the areas are flagged. After nests are built, many are surrounded by wire fencing with netting on top that enables birds to get in and out but excludes predators such as raccoons, foxes, cats, and dogs.

When eggs hatch, Ms. Duryea spends her days keeping track of the fledglings through her binoculars. They immediately range away from the nest, she said. “They’re pretty much on their own; they’re pretty small and pretty vulnerable.”

Twenty-seven pairs of plovers nested in East Hampton this year and hatched 42 young. Eighty-five percent of the nests produced a brood, Ms. Duryea said — “a really, really good number.” The success might be due in part, she added, to fewer foxes in evidence this year.

Plover reproduction numbers out here hit a low in 2010, Ms. Duryea said, but have been steadily growing since.

Nest locations are identified using a global positioning system and plotted on maps. The birds, she said, took advantage of a pond area in Wainscott, where an overwash of tidal water during Hurricane Sandy “created a really good habitat.”

Another pair successfully raised young this year at a nest site near Sammy’s Beach, where last year a high tide during a storm washed away their nest. This year, Ms. Duryea said, the plovers built their nest high on the beach near the dune, away from the tide line.

The Natural Resources Department also monitors the numbers of least terns and the distribution of seabeach amaranth and seabeach knotweed, two rare and protected plant species. J.P.

The Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee voted on Monday to inform the East Hampton Town Board that it is considering whether to request a hamlet study in which problems related to housing, wastewater, transportation, utility lines, and beaches would be identified and addressed.

The resolution, approved unanimously, came after monthslong discussions in which members agreed that problems should be foreseen rather than reacted to. “There seems to be enough support to at least keep the conversation going,” Kieran Brew, the committee’s chairman, said. “I don’t think we’re making any demands right now.”

 East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell, the town board’s liaison to the committee, had advised the group to be on the record as weighing a request for such a study.

Affordable housing for year-round residents and overcrowded houses, particularly in the summer, have long been topics of the committee’s deliberations. Apartments above businesses in the hamlet’s commercial district have been eyed for possible affordable housing. But, Mr. Brew said, “the county has flat-out said it is not going to approve any more septic wastewater processing within the downtown district of Amagansett until we come up with a more effective plan” for wastewater. The town board is now reviewing a draft of a wastewater management plan, which was recently prepared by a consultant, Pio Lombardo of Lombardo Associates.

Mr. Cantwell told the committee that recommendations on  the potential leasing of 18 acres on Montauk Highway now known as Amagansett Farm were likely to be presented to the town board early next year by Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, and Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management. Of the proposals received, three finalists were chosen and asked to provide additional details. Although he did not name the finalists, he said, “Everyone will have a chance to understand better what the proposals are, with the clarifications,” at a public meeting.

The town is under no obligation to rent out the land, he said, “but there is a substantial building there that is going to have to be cared after and maintained, and it’s a wonderful 18 acres of land.” 

A mention of Monday’s announcement by County Executive Steve Bellone that a plan to install cameras to monitor vehicles in school zones had been abandoned led to a discussion of speed limits. Residents of some narrow streets both in and outside of Amagansett have at times asked for  lower speed limits than the state minimum of 30 miles per hour. Because East Hampton cannot set a limit lower than the state minimum, Mr. Cantwell said, he had asked State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. to consider introducing legislation “that would give a town such as ours the authority to lower to 20 miles per hour where it was appropriate, under certain conditions.”

Such a move would be popular in the community, Mr. Brew said, and he suggested the committee write to Mr. Thiele expressing support for such legislation. Tom Field, however, a committee member, objected, saying the committee ought not advise any government entities except the town board.

Mr. Cantwell suggested that the committee instead write to the town board asking it to encourage Mr. Thiele to introduce the legislation. Over Mr. Field's objection, the committee voted in favor of the letter.

Citing recent heavy rainfall and stormwater runoff, the State Department of Environmental Conservation has temporarily closed several waterways in East Hampton and Southampton to the harvesting of shellfish.

As of Wednesday, part of Northwest Harbor, all of Northwest Creek, all of Sag Harbor and its tributaries, and a portion of outer Sag Harbor were affected by the D.E.C. action.

The portion of Northwest Harbor east of a line extending northeasterly from the westernmost point of land at the entrance to Northwest Creek, to the foot of Mile Hill Road, has been designated as uncertified, or closed to shellfishing. The affected waterways will remain closed until the D.E.C. determines that the hazardous conditions are no longer present.

The D.E.C. takes such action as a precaution against the potential health hazards of consuming shellfish contaminated by bacteria and other pathogens carried into waters by heavy rainfall. More than three inches of precipitation fell within 12 hours in the affected areas this week. The waterways will be recertified based on analysis of water samples taken from the affected areas over the next several days.

In addition to the affected waterways on the South Fork, the D.E.C. closed several other water bodies in Suffolk and Nassau Counties. In Babylon and Islip, all of Great South Bay and its tributaries lying westerly of the northbound span of the Robert Moses Causeway bridges were closed. In Huntington, all of Northport Bay, Duck Island Harbor, Centerport Harbor, Lloyd Harbor, Cold Spring Harbor, and Huntington Bay lying south of a line extending easterly from the southernmost point of East Beach to the southernmost point of West Beach were closed as of Tuesday at 3 p.m.

In Nassau County, affected waterways include all or part of Hempstead Bay, East Bay, South Oyster Bay, Oyster Bay Harbor, and Hempstead Harbor.

A recorded message that will be updated during the course of the closures can be heard at 444-0480. A more detailed description of the closed areas can be heard by calling the D.E.C.'s Marine Resources office at 444-0492 during normal business hours.