East Hampton Town

Heating Oil Assistance

East Hampton Town residents who wish to apply to the federal Home Energy Assistance Program for help in paying winter heating bills can get some one-on-one assistance with the application through the town’s Department of Human Services. Also available are emergency benefits, to pay for heating costs when fuel is running low or heat is scheduled to be shut off, and grants to low-income homeowners to cover heating equipment repair or replacement.

Eligibility for HEAP benefits are based on income, household size, the primary heating source, and the presence of a household member who is disabled, under age 6, or 60 or older. Maximum monthly income for eligibility is $2,194 for a single-person household; $2,869 for a two-person household, and $4,219 for a household of four.

Additional information and applications are available online at otda.ny.gov/programs/heap, or by phone through the HEAP hotline at 853-8825. Those who wish personal assistance may call Liliana Rodriguez at the town Human Services Department.

Kiln Proposed

The members of the Clay Art Guild of the Hamptons would like to put up a kiln on a former Bistrian property off Fresh Pond Road in Amagansett that now belongs to the town. The group has 90 members, said Jim Zajac, who presented the proposal to the town board on Tuesday, but the kiln would be open for use by the public as well as members. Mr. Zajac said the kiln, which would be fired by wood, was chosen for its low carbon footprint. He added that wood firing can be done safely and without excessive smoke.

Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell asked that the group submit a plan showing public access. Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who is the board’s liaison to the East Hampton Arts Council, and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, who works with a committee assigned to develop use and management plans for public properties, said they would work with the guild on the proposal.

Septic Plant Shuttered

East Hampton Town is no longer accepting septic waste at its shuttered scavenger waste plant for transfer to treatment facilities elsewhere, a move that town officials expect will eventually save $800,000 a year. The treatment plant has been inoperative for several years while its future has been debated, but the town continued to accept septic waste from private carters and arranged to have it trucked away.

The town board voted to stop that practice earlier this year, based on the recommendation of a consultant who is preparing a comprehensive wastewater management plan. Only two businesses had reportedly been using the service.

The future of the plant, which would require costly repairs and upgrades to be reactivated, is to be determined in the context of the overall wastewater plan.

Jet Skis at Town Ramps?

Personal watercraft such as Jet Skis could take off from East Hampton Town launching ramps under a proposed change to the town code, discussed by the town board at a work session on Tuesday.

The Springs Citizens Advisory Committee, which had been asked by Martin Drew, a resident of the hamlet, to consider the idea, endorsed it in a split but majority vote, Ed Michels, who heads the town’s Marine Patrol, told the board.

Mr. Michels said he would not object to allowing the craft to be launched from town ramps, but suggested that only certain ramps be designated — those in close proximity to open waters, where their use is allowed. They are prohibited from use in harbors.

Jet Skis and the like are quieter and more stable now than they used to be, Mr. Michels said, posing less of a noise nuisance or safety issue. Allowing use of the ramps could curb a growing trend for personal watercraft owners to launch from various bay beaches, he added, which he said was becoming a problem.

Supervisor Larry Cantwell asked if anyone was seeing an “overwhelming demand” to open up town ramps for use by personal watercraft, and both Mr. Michels and Diane McNally, the clerk of the town trustees, said adequate parking could be an issue at the town dock site at Gann Road. Fishermen using the dock also use the parking lot there, they said, as do out-of-towners. That lot is not limited to resident-parking only.

Call for New Center

Calling the building on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton now used as a senior citizens center inadequate, a committee appointed by the town board has asked that the town come up with a new one.

A report presented to the board at a work session on Tuesday by Mary Ella Moeller said that in the coming years residents of East Hampton aged 65 and up will be more than double the number of school-age children.

The town also should study ways to increase transportation services for senior citizens, Ms. Moeller said, and create a committee to work with Southampton Town representatives and Southampton Hospital on improving access to medical services. In the short term, Ms. Moeller said, a committee should be created to develop new programs for older adults and an information campaign, including an online and printed calendar, should be launched.

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.

After finding considerable erosion on the downtown Montauk beach from a northeaster last week whose high tides and heavy surf pummeled the shore, the Army Corps of Engineers is revamping its beach reconstruction project there and will add more sand than was planned to a berm to be placed in front of a sandbag-reinforced dune.

The changes, East Hampton Town officials learned during a conference call with the federal agency yesterday, will make it impossible to complete the project before Memorial Day and will add to its $8.9 million price tag. The town had set Memorial Day as a drop-dead date so that the work would not interfere with the key tourist season.

Because of the changes to the project specifications, bidding will begin in February, rather than this month, as had been planned. The project will get under way this spring but be suspended for the season on Memorial Day and continued in the fall.

Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and other town officials spoke with the Army Corps, along with regional elected officials including New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and representatives from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation and Representative Tim Bishop’s office yesterday. The project calls for creation of a 16.5-foot tall dune along 3,100 feet of shoreline, with a core of 14,000 geotextile bags filled with sand trucked in from an upland quarry, and the berm, using a total of 71,000 cubic yards of sand.

The Army Corps has estimated now, Mr. Cantwell said, that up to an additional 100,000 cubic yards of sand could be needed.

Mr. Cantwell said construction of the controversial project had already been envisioned in phases.

Pieces of the dune and berm will be erected and finished along sections of the beach, rather than phases of construction taking place along the entire downtown stretch. That will allow for summertime use of the downtown beach without obstructions from a partially finished project.

“It’s really the only alternative other than delaying the project,” Mr. Cantwell said yesterday. Delaying the start of construction until the fall, in “storm season,” he said, is less desirable than beginning the project in spring, when fewer people use the beach.

Before the project can begin, the Army Corps will undertake a new beach survey and a new cost-benefit analysis based on the increased cost of using more sand for the berm. The original analysis had placed the project well within the Corps’s criteria, Mr. Cantwell said, so it is not expected that the increased cost will push the project past what the Army Corps deems economically feasible.

Before last week’s storm, the Army Corps had already pushed back the completion date for the project, which will be at 100 percent federal cost, from Memorial Day to mid-June.

Mr. Cantwell said Tuesday that the federal agency told the town last week that the timeline for completion of the project had been extended to “at least June 15, which I immediately objected to.” He said he had contacted other elected officials representing East Hampton, including Senator Charles Schumer, Mr. Bishop, Assemblyman Thiele, and County Legislator Jay Schneiderman to express his concern about the revised schedule from the Army Corps.

Town officials have said from the start that construction on the beach, a centerpiece of the tourist economy in Montauk during the summer season, must be completed by Memorial Day.

Preliminary steps that had to be undertaken by the town to survey properties in the project area and obtain easements, as needed, from private property owners, are on schedule, the supervisor said this week.

The project has engendered opposition from some residents, particularly members of the Eastern Long Island chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, which has said that the reinforced dune will act as a hard structure and accelerate beach erosion. The dune, they have said, contravenes the town’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Program criteria, which prohibits the use of hard structures on the ocean beach

In an analysis of options for the Montauk beach, the Army Corps had determined that a “soft solution,” or placing sand only on the beach, was not feasible under the agency’s cost-effectiveness formulas.

 

The public restroom to be constructed in the parking lot north of Main Street in Amagansett is “ready to go,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell told the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee on Monday night. Mr. Cantwell displayed the latest blueprints prepared by the architect, Joseph Catropa, which he said he considered the final design. The next steps, he told the committee, are to solicit bids, choose a contractor, and complete construction of the cedar-shingled building before next summer.

Concurrently, the lot is to be restriped, which will result in a small increase in the number of parking spaces. “It’s been vetted, the committee worked hard on it, and the architect did a good job of revising plans and putting it together,” Mr. Cantwell said. “We’re ready to go.”

Not everyone agreed. “It is probably way too late in this process,” Rachel Gruzen, an Amagansett resident, conceded before asking if the restroom “absolutely has to be in the location it is,” behind the library. The second floor of the library, where she and others often work for long periods, offers “the most extraordinary view,” she said. “All that common space was designed to look out over the fields.”

Tina Piette, whose law office is adjacent to the parking lot, also objected to the location, pointing out that the Suffolk County Department of Health Services’ approval of the restroom was for a site toward the west end of the lot. “Now I’m 50 feet, or 80 feet, whatever it is, but looking at a bathroom.”

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re ready to go with this,” Mr. Cantwell repeated. “Tina doesn’t want it in this location, I’m sure there are a few others. But I’ve worked on this now for nine months, and I think there was a strong consensus of opinion that this was the location.” The town, he said, will obtain Health Department approval for the spot as proposed. “There was strong consensus,” he reiterated. “In the center, as opposed to stuck in the corner.”

A proposed town law establishing a rental registry, which would require prospective landlords to provide detailed information about their houses and tenants, was also discussed. Several committee members stated that the law as drafted would punish the majority for the acts of a few who turn a blind eye to overcrowding and other code violations.

“It seems like overkill,” said Michael Diesenhaus, the committee’s vice chairman, “and like we’re asking a lot of people to go through a process to make sure that some people don’t take advantage of it.”

Jeanne Frankl, of the committee, disagreed. The discussion, she said, “should be reoriented a little bit from this idea of ‘Are we punishing people who have done no wrong?’ . . . We should be considering this from the vantage point of ‘Will it help us to enforce the law?’ Maybe that requires a little more investigation than has yet been made of why the law isn’t being enforced.”

There was a point at which one simply wanted to be left alone, Mr. Diesenhaus said. “My difference with you is, now we’re talking about your home.  If a couple hundred people per summer are nuisances, that’s not a high enough bar for me for crossing the Rubicon to now having everybody be in a process.”

“We’re still in the informational stage,” Mr. Cantwell said, acknowledging that the proposed law has drawn much criticism. “There are those people who perceive this as an unnecessary intrusion.” Contractors, for example, are required to be licensed, he said, and to include that license number when advertising their services.

Similarly, the proposed law would shift the burden of proof toward the homeowner, he said. A house with two mailboxes or utility meters, for example, might lead to a presumption of violation. “People object to the collection of information,” the supervisor said. “They feel it’s an imposition on their privacy. But the flip side is, there’s a database. If there’s an absentee landlord that lives someplace else, there is contact information.”

Mr. Cantwell acknowledged insufficient code enforcement efforts, but said that the town budget for the coming year allows for an additional officer and that another building inspector has recently been hired. “I’ve worked hard to try to get the code enforcement units of the town to work together,” he said — the building inspector, code enforcement officers, police, and fire marshal. “We’re trying to fill in the void and are doing the hirings as quickly as we can.”

Proposing and vetting a rental registry, Mr. Cantwell said, was a first step “to see whether or not this was something the community would support. There are a lot of questions to be answered. The last thing you want to do is create a system where it turns into a useless bureaucracy that bogs down and frustrates everybody.”