East Hampton Town

Balasses House Rezoning Hearing

       The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing next Thursday on a request by the owners of the former Balasses House antiques shop, a building on Main Street in Amagansett, to rezone the half-acre site from residential, with a limited-business overlay, to a central business zone.

       The change would allow the building, now housing an art gallery, to be put to a wider variety of possible commercial uses. The hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall.

Tax Receiver on Medical Leave

       With a resolution passed unanimously on Jan. 21, the East Hampton Town Board granted a leave of absence, under the Family Medical Leave Act, to Monica Rottach, the town tax receiver.

       Neide Valeira, a town accountant, was appointed interim tax receiver earlier this month to replace Ms. Rottach, after issues with delivery of tax bills to residents were uncovered for the second year in a row. Town officials are trying to determine why numerous taxpayers did not receive their bills in the mail, and Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday that a full report was expected within a few weeks.J.P.

New York State

Bow-and-Arrow Setback Reduction

       In his proposed state budget for 2014, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has included a provision to reduce from 500 feet to 150 feet the setback from buildings and dwellings for bow-and-arrow deer-hunting, according to a release from Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. Mr. Thiele said the measure would “greatly increase the areas available for deer hunting on the East End.”

       The state Department of Environmental Conservation recommended the move in its Deer Management Plan. The change would  be consistent with the setbacks for bow-and-arrow hunting in most adjoining states, Mr. Thiele noted.

       Bow-and-arrow hunters need permission from landowners before they can hunt on their property. The new provision, if enacted as part of the budget, would apply to a neighboring structure.

       Mr. Thiele, who introduced an identical proposal last year at the request of East End government officials, called enactment of the measure “a good first step” in reducing the number of deer on eastern Long Island.

       The East Hampton Town Trustees determined on Tuesday night to write an official letter to the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals concerning the Maidstone Club’s application to expand and modernize its irrigation system. At issue is the proposed project’s potential impact on Hook Pond.

       Today was the final day for public comment. The consensus among the trustees was that the application would be approved, a determination that is expected at the zoning board’s Feb. 14 meeting.

       “If something really detrimental happens to this pond and we don’t say something strong, we’re going to look poor to the public that we didn’t protect their assets,” Deborah Klughers told her colleagues. “This board will be not providing the public the protection we’re supposed to be giving.” The trustees oversee the town’s beaches and waterways on behalf of the community.

       Ms. Klughers told the trustees that Linda James, a former president of the Hook Pond Associates homeowners group, has enlisted a consultant to develop her suggestion that the Maidstone be required to fund any mitigation and restoration  work necessitated by the irrigation system. Ms. James urged the zoning board to attach such conditions to its approval at a recent hearing.

       Ms. James, said Ms. Klughers, “has already spoken with the town and village and they are on board with discussing remediation.” Ms. James has asked whether the trustees would join the effort, and Ms. Klughers, who is in favor of joining it, suggested that the trustees include that information in their letter. 

       Bill Taylor, a trustee, agreed and suggested including an insistence that the Maidstone ensure sufficient water-quality monitoring, funded by the private club, and share the results with the trustees.

       Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, said a letter would be written, sent to the trustees for approval, and delivered to the zoning board ahead of today’s deadline.

       In other business, Stephanie Forsberg told her colleagues that a report on last year’s water-quality testing, performed by trustees in cooperation with Dr. Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University, would soon be complete. “I’m working on coming up with a date for a public talk that will be giving those results,” she said. The report will be presented at Town Hall, probably late next month or early in March.

       Ms. Klughers also told of a “shoreline sweep” to be held on Feb. 8. It is hoped that the beach cleanup will include the oceanfront from Montauk to Wainscott, she said, and asked the trustees if they would help to collect bags of trash using the board’s truck. The town board, she said, supports the project.

       In her clerk’s report, Ms. McNally told the board that the East End Trustees, comprising the trustees of East Hampton, Southampton, and Southold, will meet on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Southampton Town Hall. Each of the boards has new members, she said, and meeting to discuss common issues is important.

       The trustees were cheered by Ms. McNally’s news that Elizabeth Baldwin, an assistant town attorney and counsel to the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals, has spoken with that board and that it will amend its application forms to include language stipulating that the trustees must be notified when actions are to be performed on land or waterways under their jurisdiction.

       The trustees are often frustrated by such projects as the installation or repair of shoreline fencing, bulkheads, and revetments that proceed without their consent, sometimes even without their knowledge.

       Ms. McNally also announced that an operation and maintenance grant of $10,000 had been received from the state for its pumpout boats, which are stationed in East Hampton and Montauk.

    Tenants and administrators of Windmill Village II, an affordable housing complex for senior citizens off Accabonac Road in East Hampton, brought long-standing complaints about mold in the basements of the buildings there, and its potential effects on health, to a meeting of the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday.

    Although Windmill II was built and is operated by the independent Windmill Housing Development Fund Company rather than the town, as are Windmill I and the newer senior citizen complex at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett, town officials have inspected the basements there and at one point withheld rents provided through federally subsidized programs until repairs were made.

    Bill Smith, whose sons own Mildew Busters, a company based on Shelter Island, which was called in by the tenants, said efforts to eliminate the mold, which he called “alarming and off the charts,” had been ineffective and even made matters worse.

    But Michael DeSario, the president of the board of the Windmill company, told the board that the situation had been properly addressed with the help of a firm called Insight Environmental,    **Insight Environmental was first called in April of 2009 after water runoff and plumbing leaks had gone undetected in ceilings, causing water to seep through to Sheetrock in the basements, causing mold. He said  Sheetrock was removed, uncovered areas were treated with a moldicide, plumbing fixed, air-circulation systems installed, and new Sheetrock put up. Outdoors, land was regraded and leaders and gutters installed to prevent future problems.  

    “We spent over $70,000 in doing it,” Mr. DeSario said, after which the buildings were tested and deemed clean.

    Last spring, when mold was again found in Windmill basements, Mr. DeSario said the board of directors asked tenants to remove the items they had stored in the basements, particularly upholstered furniture. “The residents had a problem with that,” he said, which resulted in a decision to allow storage only in plastic bins.

    Insight Environmental was called in again and began additional remediation work in August, Mr. DeSario said. The wet Sheetrock was removed, areas treated and vacuumed, and dehumidifiers installed. Tests in four buildings where the work has been completed have shown good results, he said.

    A test in November at the most severely affected building revealed mold levels similar to those found outdoors, which is the goal, according to an Insight Environmental spokesman.

    “We’re trying to do everything that we can. It’s a serious issue. We do take it seriously and we’re going to do everything we can to remediate it until the problem is resolved,” Mr. DeSario said. Nevertheless he said mold was “almost like a nonstop, recurring problem. The main culprit is the Sheetrock.”

    With six apartments per building, it is not uncommon for an overflow from a tub or sink or a plumbing leak to create a wet environment in the basement ceiling, he said. The long-term solution is to remove the ceiling Sheetrock so that leaks can be immediately detected, Mr. DeSario said. Although the state fire code requires Sheetrock, it could be eliminated, he said, if a sprinkler system were installed, and the basements kept empty of flammable items.

    But Mr. Smith said tenants “are clearly all suffering from symptoms that have to do with mold exposure.” He said initial test results showed several types of toxigenic mold, which are not in themselves toxic, but can produce toxins. According to the Centers for Disease Control, mold exposure does not always present a health problem indoors, but exposure has been linked with upper respiratory tract symptoms such as coughs and wheezing. People may experience nasal stuffiness and eye or skin irritation, according to the C.D.C. website, as well as more severe reactions.

    Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell asked Mr. Smith to submit his information to the town housing director, Tom Ruhle. He also asked that Windmill board members, tenants, and their respective mold experts meet, along with town housing officials, to map out a mutually agreeable course of action.

    On Tuesday, the East Hampton Town Board rescinded an earlier vote of the board in November that had paved the way for the town’s participation in a United States Department of Agriculture deer culling program.

    The program, which had proposed to eliminate 3,000 deer across the East End, caused a public outcry before even getting under way, and several towns and villages have withdrawn from it.

    The resolution passed unanimously on Tuesday states that East Hampton Town “is committed to considering the potential environmental impact” of a deer cull, following New York State Environmental Quality Review Act guidelines, and that, because that process has not occurred and “will take a significant amount of time,” the town will not enter into a contract regarding the deer cull during 2014.  

    Tom Baker, an East Hampton Town fire marshal, served a notice of violation on the East Hampton Town Justice Court Friday after finding a dead battery on an emergency exit light during his routine annual check of the building. The staff of the court should not feel singled out; Mr. Baker has written his own office up for a violation during an inspection. He said that he felt obligated, when he found the dead light in the office, to write it up.

    He walks from building to building, armed with a pole with a point at its end to reach smoke detectors and emergency lights on high ceilings.

    Neither the courthouse nor the town fire marshal’s office will be any poorer for receiving the summonses, Mr. Baker said as he made his rounds through the courthouse building, checking each and every emergency apparatus there.

    “We believe it is better to encourage people to take the money and put it towards fixing the violation, as opposed to paying a summons,” Mr. Baker said, as he headed out of the building toward Town Hall, where, he said yesterday, he found only one violation, an emergency light with only one of two bulbs working.   

       Members of one of East Hampton’s founding families made emotional pleas last week to the town board, seeking to have the zoning changed and agricultural protections removed on their 19 acres of farmland so that it could be subdivided into more house lots than currently allowed.

       Eleventh and 12th-generation siblings and cousins in the Talmage family argued that two upzonings of the land located between Cedar Street and Long Lane, designed to protect the farmland, were based on an erroneous classification of the soils there as “prime,” and that the land is actually virtually unfarmable.

       Town officials had scheduled the hearing on a request to rezone the site, now in a five-acre residential zone with an agricultural overlay, to one-acre zoning, without the agricultural zone, but the family had changed its application just before the hearing to request three-acre zoning. The land is held in a limited partnership known as Diamond T.

       Four adult siblings, their mother, and their children invoked generations of community involvement and ties to the land, and a desire to provide younger members of the family, who have been priced out of East Hampton, with an ability to stay here.

       Stephanie Talmage Forsberg, an East Hampton Town trustee, described how her ancestors accepted 12 acres from the King of England and gave additional land to the trustees. “My family has continuously given back to the town,” she said.

       “I may soon have to face the hard reality that I may not be able to live here,” said Sarah Talmage, a college student and 12th-generation member of the family. “Our beaches may be some of the best in the nation, but our close-knit sense of community is that times 10,” she said.

       All three of his children “want to live here and build homes,” said Tom Talmage. “Please approve the zone change to help my family provide for themselves.”

       Kayla Talmage, who, like her cousin, served as a trustee, for two terms, said she moved four years ago to Hampton Bays, which was more affordable, and that her brother, sister, and their families also moved there recently. Returning to the family property, “to be able to build on it, would be the only way I could return to live in East Hampton,” she said.

       Under the current zoning, four house lots could be created, with 70 percent of the agricultural land set aside. The family’s original request, a change to one-acre zoning with no agricultural protection, would have allowed 16 house lots. Under three-acre zoning, it is estimated that six house lots would be allowed, with one designated for affordable housing. Seventy percent of the farmland would remain untouched, if the agricultural zone also remains, or 50 percent if it is removed.

       Previous zoning changes to the property in 1984 and 2005 and the establishment of the agricultural overlay zone were based on the land’s classification as prime agricultural soil.

       The town code, in its description of farm soil categories, references the United States Department of Agriculture’s soil classifications, but, Laurie Wiltshire, a land planner for the Talmages, said those classifications have been revised, and an error acknowledged.

       However, JoAnn Pahwul of the Town Planning Department said that regardless of how the U.S.D.A. now classifies the “Plymouth loamy sand” soil on the property, that soil type is considered prime soil under East Hampton Town Code. The type of soil on the Talmage land, according to the U.S.D.A., is still considered of “statewide significance,” she said.

       Those driving by need only look at the row of cedar trees planted at the property’s edge along Cedar Street, Jane Talmage, the family matriarch, said. “They are the sorriest-looking trees I have ever seen — and on Cedar Street, no less.”

       “Keeping 70 percent of the land after the discovery of a mistake is just stealing, in my opinion,” she said.

       “This is the perfect place to do something for our youth for the future,” she said. “One by one we are running them out of town.”

       Christopher Talmage, whose two children are 13th-generation Talmages, said he lives in Hampton Bays but commutes to the family driveway business, D.L. Talmage, on the homestead land. “The history and heritage of East Hampton Town has always been based on the people who live here and their commitment to the quality of life in the town,” he said. The zoning restrictions on the family land, he said, have “cost the family substantially” and are “breaking the roots to our family ties in the town.” 

       Debra Foster, a former town councilwoman who participated in crafting the comprehensive plan, also choked up, like many of the Talmages. “You’re not going to find a better family than the Talmages,” she said. “They’re the epitome of the kind of family that this town can be proud of.”

       But, she said, overall community goals were applied objectively in adopting the comprehensive plan and enacting agricultural and other zones. “You have to decide what your goals are. One of our goals was to preserve farmland.”

       A change to the way farm soils are categorized is of concern, Ms. Pahwul said, because it could set a precedent that could be applied to other farmland in the town, allowing increased development.

       Ms. Wiltshire said her own review of other parcels that could be affected by a change to the town code regarding soil designations resulted in a much smaller list. Even if the owners of all three sites that she determined could be recategorized also successfully made that request to the town, she said, the result would be a potential for 10 more new house lots, with one required to be earmarked for affordable housing.

       Ms. Wiltshire argued that the goals of the town comprehensive plan also include meeting the housing needs of current East Hampton residents and their family members.

       “You could end this thing by Dec. 31,” Ms. Wiltshire told the board. She suggested board members have the required environmental review completed by the Planning Department and vote for the zone change at a special meeting before the end of the year. “I would kindly ask you to do that,” she said.

       Because the County Planning Commission voted against the original zone change request, four out of five town board members would have to approve it to override that agency’s vote.

       “You have my vote,” said Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson. Councilman Dominick Stanzione agreed. But Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, who will remain on the board next year, said it would be premature to make a decision without having the Town Planning Department and planning board, as well as the County Planning Commission, weigh in on the revised zone change request.

       “I think it’s really important that there be a process followed from start to finish, and it’s fair and it’s the same for everybody,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

       “I’m being pressured to make a vote on something without really having all the information, and that’s not really fair,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

       Ms. Overby said she could sympathize with the Talmage family members, but, she said, “the town expects a level playing field” regardless of how many generations a family has been in East Hampton.

       The hearing is being held open while comments are sought from the other agencies and an environmental assessment is done on the new three-acre zoning request.

      A site plan that would legalize expansions at two of Morgan Neff’s seven cottages on Fort Pond Bay in Montauk is among the applications scheduled for hearings at the East Hampton Town Planning Board’s first meeting of the year on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

       Another hearing on the site plan for Crystal Mews, the former Crystal Room property on Pantigo Road in East Hampton, where six units are proposed in two buildings, was noticed incorrectly and will have to be rescheduled. The board will also hear comments Wednesday on a new septic system and interior improvements to the Animal Rescue Fund property on Daniel’s Hole Road in East Hampton, and the Town Lane Estates subdivision in Amagansett, on the east end of that road.

       The Neff site plan is now over four years in the making, and has generated some controversy along the way. The modest cottages were once facetiously labeled Millionaire’s Row, a name that stuck. Built as fishermen’s shacks before the zoning code was written, they are now summer rentals that go for between $30,000 and $55,000 for an extended season. The site plan before the planning board is for two of the cottages that were expanded without a building permit, one called the Crowley, which was increased from 122 square feet to 289 square feet, and the other called the Sharkey, to which Mr. Neff added a 480-square-foot deck.

       Mr. Neff applied for site plan approval for the Crowley and the Sharkey early in 2013, but had to first go before the zoning board of appeals — the Sharkey because its deck was 121 feet from the beach where 150 feet is required, the Crowley because a crawl space under it is considered a cellar under town code and cellars are forbidden in that zone.

       The Sharkey received the variances it needed from that board. The Z.B.A. approved some of the variances Mr. Neff requested for the Crowley, but it specifically denied the request to keep the basement beneath the building. However, the Z.B.A. did give Mr. Neff an out, according to the memo prepared for the Planning Board on the proposal by JoAnne Pahwul, the town’s assistant planning director. Mr. Neff could, she wrote, “excavate the exterior grade along the east foundation wall.” This would, Ms. Pahwul said, change the cellar into a crawl space according to town code.

       Mr. Neff’s attorney, Richard Whalen, told the board at its Dec. 11 meeting that his client would agree to the excavation. But there remained one more sticking point: the board voted to require Mr. Neff to submit a revised drawing of the building to reflect the change to the east side grade.

       “I’ve waited 300 days. I still don’t have a C. of O.,” Mr. Neff said from the audience.

       Patrick Schutte told Mr. Neff that the board was doing its best to move the process along.

       Mr. Whalen presented the revised plans to the board later that week.

       As for the Crystal Mews, the hearing notice placed in The Star incorrectly included a description of the Animal Rescue Fund property. The Crystal Mews property has a rare zoning status that allows multiple units on one parcel. Mr. Whalen, who represents the owner, the estate of Albert Trages, explained that the approximately 1.5-acre property is one of only four in the town where multiple residences are permitted. The board has been supportive of the plan, but the public will have to wait a few more weeks, until the hearing can be properly noticed, to comment on it.

Suffolk’s 2014 living wage, which applies to all county contractors and subcontractors, as well as companies benefiting from tax subsidies, grants, and other county assistance, is $13.37 an hour. The hourly minimum wage for those who receive health benefits from their employer is $11.74.

This reflects a 1.9-percent increase in the Suffolk cost of living index, according to a statement from the County Department of Labor. Affected employers were required to notify their workers in writing and make appropriate adjustments as of yesterday. New York State’s minimum wage for 2014 is $8.

       The East Hampton Village Board approved a plan on Friday to bring in sharpshooters to reduce the deer herd, over the objections of many members of the audience and the announcement by a New York City attorney that he had filed suit against the village, the town, and the town trustees in an effort to prevent the plan from going forward.

       “Sometimes we have to seize the moment as a legislative body and do the right thing for the people we represent,” said Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. The board then voted unanimously to sign a contract with the Long Island Farm Bureau and spend up to $15,000 for a program that would bring in sharpshooters from the United States Department of Agriculture to bait and shoot deer within village limits.

       Mayor Rickenbach called the culling a “necessary first step” in what he said would be a multiyear plan to reduce the deer herd, whose size, he said, has created a public health crisis, a nuisance, and a quality-of-life and economic problem.

       He stressed that the village would be willing to consider a contraceptive program, as many in the audience requested, at some point in the future. “This is a multiyear scenario, and we’ll use whatever disciplines are available to us,” he said. “Please give us credit for that.”

       Richard Lawler, a board member, took a moment to explain why he was voting for the culling. He said the issue had been “thoroughly vetted” at a public forum in the fall, and that “I heard nothing today that would change my mind and make me vote otherwise. We are just taking one step in a process that is probably going to involve several steps along the way to accomplish our goals.”

       The board acted even as Edward Lebeaux of the law firm Devereaux, Baumgarten said he had filed two lawsuits the day before in State Supreme Court seeking to halt the plan and challenging its validity on behalf of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife, the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Center in Hampton Bays, and 15 individuals, including Bill Crain, Annie Noonan, and Carol Buda, all of whom implored the village board, just before it voted, to abandon the culling program.

       Mr. Crain said the cull would create a nightmare for the deer population, which would be “lured, baited into an area, and then — pow! — killed.” It would also be “devastating to children” who love animals, and “a betrayal of their faith in us as protectors of life,” he said.

       Larry Penny, former director of the East Hampton Town Natural Resources Department, also spoke against culling, calling it a “regressive, primitive” approach that flies in the face of the community’s reputation as progressive. Deer, he said, are often erroneously blamed for the increase in Lyme disease, which, said Mr. Penny, is in fact spread by white-footed mice.

       Mr. Penny, who writes a nature column for The Star, added that claims that deer are devastating the forest understory were unfounded. “I did an extensive survey of the undergrowth” in local woods, he said. “The undergrowth has never been more healthy than it is now.”

       Bill Doherty, an Amagansett resident with a background in statistics, said that perhaps the village was looking for bad news where none existed. He pointed to a recent aerial infrared-imaging study conducted by the town, which showed a population of about 877 deer, as compared to a study in 2006 that estimated the size of the herd at 3,300.

       He suggested that perhaps the number of deer had actually declined, and that the reported increase in car-deer collisions had more to do with the number of drivers on the roads, and the rise in Lyme disease cases more to do with an increase in the human population.

       “It’s fairly commonly known in scientific circles that reducing the size of the herd will not drastically reduce the incidence of Lyme disease,” said John Broderick, also of Amagansett. As to car-deer collisions, he suggested the problem was that “people don’t want to slow down.” He also cited the “bounceback” theory, which holds that when deer are hunted, it leaves more land and food for the survivors, who then have more offspring, negating the hunt.

       Wendy Chamberlin of Bridgehampton presented the board with a petition circulated by the Wildlife Preservation Coalition that she said contained 10,000 signatures, many collected via the Internet, opposing the hunt. She said at least 60 percent of the signatures came from Suffolk County residents, and some from as far away as Australia.

       “East Hampton Village has a big deer population. They are a nuisance to some people, who have loud voices,” she told the board. Of the hunt, “Forget about how revolting and unethical it is, it won’t work.” She said she recognized that some culling may be necessary at some point, but asked the board to try a contraception program first.

       Kathleen Kocher of Brookhaven branded the culling program “the largest mass killing of deer in New York State history” and said humans were to blame for the situation. “We are encroaching on their land. We have moved them farther and farther,” she said. “All they are looking for is something to eat and to be safe.”

       A public hearing by the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals on an application from the new owner of the East Deck Motel at Ditch Plain in Montauk to bring about 300 dump trucks of sand to the site was fast-tracked by unanimous consent on Tuesday night. It will be on Feb. 4.

       Brian Frank, the chief environmentalist of the Planning Department, told the board that the plan was to add 6,000 cubic yards of sand to the beach. Because no structural work is involved, he said the department would ordinarily recommend that the application be handled administratively. However, he said the scale of the project could be the subject of controversy, thus requiring a hearing.

       It was a point all board members agreed with, although no one disputed the need for beach restoration. The board was shown aerial photographs of the motel, which is on the eastern edge of what Mr. Frank called one of the town’s most popular beaches. He pointed out changes on the coastline since 2010.

       Don Cirillo told his fellow board members that to go the administrative route with something so ambitious might smack of “an end-run.” He was supported, among others, by Alex Walter, the board’s chairman, and Cate Rogers, the newest member, who was appointed by the East Hampton Town Board on Jan. 3.

       A Delaware limited liability corporation, ED40, is identified as having bought the East Deck’s 5.01 acres on lots 15 and 16 at 40 DeForest Road, from Montauk Agency and Jettie on Oct. 1 for $14.75 million. The corporation was represented at the hearing by Richard Hammer, a Montauk attorney.

       Mr. Hammer expressed concern that the hearing process could delay what he called essential work. “We don’t want to be going into June,” he said. Mr. Walter promised to add the hearing onto the public calendar as soon as a legal notice could be placed in The East Hampton Star.

       In other action Tuesday, the board held three public hearings on applications from two property owners. Two of the hearings were on two undeveloped parcels on the Three Mile Harbor shoreline, at 33 and 35 Springwood Way. Billy Hajek of Land Marks, a land planning firm, represented the owners, one of whom, Michael DeSario, was in the audience. The lots are each roughly an acre. Z.B.A. permits are needed because they contain wetlands, bluffs, and beachfront.

       The request had been on the administrative action list for the Planning Department to act without a public hearing, until a neighbor, Michael Federman, raised a concern about the scale of new houses, each about 5,300 square feet. But Mr. Hajek pointed out to the board that the plans were within town code guidelines. He said to deny the special permits needed would be “arbitrary.” The board has 62 days to make a decision.

       The most heated exchange of the evening came during the final hearing, for a proposed two-car garage on a small lot at Pine Way and Central Avenue in Amagansett. Seth and Sherry Leist want to put up the garage on their 13,000-square-foot lot. A similar application, for a 456-square-foot structure, was turned down by the board in June of 2012. The newly proposed garage is somewhat bigger, at 480 square feet, and it has been repositioned.

       The Leists were represented by Richard Whalen, also of Land Marks. He said the couple needed a garage to protect their cars from the salt air and potential accidents and vandalism if parked in the street.

       The garage would need an eight-foot variance to be within 92 feet of wetlands when 100 feet is required and another variance to be placed less than the required 30 feet from both Pine Way and Central Avenue. The problem, in the opinion of the Planning Department, again represented by Mr. Frank, is that there are already many structures on the small lot — a house, a shed, a pool house, and a pool patio, all of which are closer to the wetlands than the town code allows.

       But Mr. Whalen referred to neighboring houses, which were even closer to the wetlands. “The wildlife is not going to know our garage exists,” he said.

       Mr. Frank reminded the board of its reasoning in declining the requested garage last year. “The board originally found that the variances requested were substantial and self-created.”

       Mr. Frank and Mr. Whalen called the facts each had presented “irrelevant.” The board has 62 days to decide which facts matter.

       Mr. Walter also announced a reshuffling of responsibilities for board members, who are each designated to take the lead on applications for their assigned hamlet. Lee White, whose five-year term expired at the end of the year, had been responsible for Amagansett. David Lys will take on that territory and his former responsibility, Springs, now goes to Ms. Rogers. Mr. Cirillo will be responsible for East Hampton, Mr. Walter, Wainscott, and Bryan Gosman, Montauk.