Chris and Kristen Vila appeared before the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals on Friday with scaled-back plans for an addition to their house on Mill Hill Lane.

    Though far more amenable to the revised plans, board members expressed lingering skepticism and pressed the couple’s representatives for satisfactory answers.

    The Vilas, who have already begun work on their house, had sought variances to allow for significant changes as well as the construction of a 322-square-foot detached garage closer to the street than the house. Six neighbors submitted letters to the board objecting to their plans, and the board agreed that the modifications as proposed would not fit the character of the neighborhood.

    “The project has been revised significantly,” said Laurie Wiltshire of Land Planning Services, who represented the Vilas before the board on Friday. The proposed garage has been eliminated as have ground-floor additions to the side and rear of the house, and the second-story addition has been reduced. With the new plans calling for a gross floor area only 340 square feet larger than what is allowed, the Vilas would need a 14-percent variance from those regulations, as opposed to the 24 percent originally sought.

    “I want to remind the board that this project was given a building permit for renovations,” Ms. Wiltshire said. Regarding neighbors’ objections, she added, “we would like to respectfully note that only one of the six, Virginia Coleman, is an adjacent neighbor. In addition, two of the letters were submitted by individuals who had obtained variances to enlarge their own homes in a similar fashion to the Vilas’ revised application.”

    One of these neighbors, said Lysbeth Marigold of the board, lives on Borden Lane. “There are big lots and big houses on Borden Lane, so there’s no comparison,” she said.

    “That house was built before the comprehensive plan, as I recall. There was no [gross floor area] limitation when that house was built,” said Andrew Goldstein, the board’s chairman.

    “But they did come to the zoning board in 2002 and 2009 to expand beyond what the code allows, and then wrote a letter opposing our clients’ modest expansion,” Ms. Wiltshire responded.

    “The house we’re discussing this morning was already over the limits when it was purchased in January,” said Frank Newbold of the board.

    “That’s true,” Ms. Wiltshire conceded, “but they did pull that back significantly to the point where, when this project is finished, from the street the facade of this house will actually be smaller than what was there in the past.” Two neighbors to the rear of the house, Ms. Wiltshire said, have sent letters in support of the revised plans.

    “A zoning board does not substitute its own judgment for that of the neighbors,” Mr. Goldstein said. “We have granted variances in the face of neighborhood opposition, and we have denied variances in the face of neighborhood approval.”

    “Understood,” Ms. Wiltshire replied. “I think it’s significant that the immediate neighbors are not having a problem with this. Ms. Coleman wrote another letter, too. . . . She commended the Vilas on their reduction.”

    Bailey Heck, the architect overseeing the renovation, displayed a silhouette diagram depicting the house before and after its proposed changes. “It’s not very clear what the difference is,” he said, describing it as “so subtle.” The house had been arranged in a manner suitable to its former owner, he said. “The arrangement of spaces — in particular the clients’ desire to have two children down the road and have those children above the ground level — is the driver here. That’s how they feel safe and would like to live with their family.”

    Ms. Marigold remained skeptical. “We’ve had other applications for people who come into the village and wanted their dream house,” she said. “They want this, they want that, and everything. You want to say to them, ‘Buy somewhere else if you want all those things.’ ”

    But, said Mr. Goldstein, “we might be sympathetic” to an appeal for variances to accommodate a growing family, citing a house on McGuirk Street for which variances were granted.

    “We heard what everybody said, we scaled it back as much as we could,” Mr. Vila said.

    The board appreciated that effort, Mr. Newbold replied. “Our concern is really the massing from the street, and I think you’ve demonstrated the mass from the street is insignificant. Also, I think the house looks better now than it did in its previous incarnation.” He said that the board would likely have a determination at its next meeting.

    The board also heard from William J. Fleming, an attorney representing Andrew and Nancy Adelman of 14 Ruxton Road, who are seeking a variance to keep a second-floor office above a garage, with a bathroom, and variances related to a stone walkway, slate steps, a rock wall, and other improvements.

    The office and bathroom were above the garage at the time of the Adelsons’ 1999 purchase of the house, Mr. Fleming said, but “a portion of the two-bay garage downstairs was also converted to habitable space. This application is to regularize,” he said. “We would like to keep that [and] maintain heated storage space downstairs in a one-bay garage,” for storage of outdoor furniture.

    “It needs to be heated?” Mr. Goldstein asked.

    “Any accoutrements of habitability that were there are to be removed,” Mr. Fleming said. “It is just going to be a walled room. There’s not going to be TVs or anything in there. We ask that that be kept the way it is.”

    There are two problems, Mr. Goldstein said. “The first is this room on the first floor of the garage, and the second is the full bathroom on the second floor of the garage.” The shower would be decommissioned, Mr. Fleming said. 

    “That garage has two bays,” Mr. Goldstein said. “You want to essentially put a wall between the two bays.” The wall already exists, Mr. Fleming said, with the benefit being the ability to store anything, from the outdoor furniture to artwork from the house.

    “Why does that require a separate room?” Mr. Goldstein asked. “Why can’t it be in the second bay of the garage? You’re creating a very jury-rigged building.” The applicants, having purchased the property in its present state, had not acted improperly, he said, but a separate room in the garage, like a shower in the room above it, raises the question of whether it had been converted into a guesthouse.

    “The Adelsons have been caught, frankly, in buying a property that was illegally improved,” Mr. Goldstein said.

    “There was TV there, and a bed, and everything. It’s not as though it was just storage,” said Ms. Marigold.

    The applicants would gladly allow inspection by the building department, Mr. Fleming said. “The proposed use is for storage.”

    Mr. Goldstein was unmoved. “I hesitate to have the board create this jury-rigged building through a variance so you can store things in a separate room.”

    Mr. Fleming conferred with Ms. Adelson, who was present. He then asked the board if the entire wall had to be removed, or if an opening of some specification would be a satisfactory compromise while still allowing separation between the bay and the storage area. “It certainly wouldn’t be used as habitable living space,” he said.

    Mr. Newbold said that the board would likely permit the second-floor office with a half-bathroom, and if items to be stored were delicate, they should be stored in that room. “My sense would be to restore the garage back to the garage,” he said. He, along with Ms. Marigold, said that the wall between the garage bays should be removed.

    The board also granted special permanent area variances to allow Chabad House on Woods Lane to be used as an Orthodox synagogue with accessory structures including a ritual immersion bath, known as a mikvah, and a guesthouse. The variances were approved subject to the installation and maintenance of screening and fencing. At a hearing last month, two neighbors had objected to noise, strangers walking around the property, and congestion created by an overflow of cars parked on both sides of the street.

East Hampton Town

SEQRA for Cyril’s

    East Hampton Town Board members were split this week on whether to further entertain a request to change the zoning on the Napeague property that is home to Cyril’s bar and restaurant, and a vacant site next door.

After a 3 to 2 vote, the board will proceed with an assessment of the potential environmental impacts of the proposed change from a residential to a neighborhood business designation. Such an assessment is required under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc voted against taking that step, calling it unnecessary if the board was ready instead to decide that the zone change should not occur. The change would allow Cyril’s to resolve charges of violating the zoning code, which have wound up in court, based on an alleged expansion of the pre-existing, nonconforming restaurant use. The property’s owners, who lease the land to Cyril’s, have said that a zone change is the only solution, especially in light of County Health Department requirements. Others have said that it would allow the restaurant to expand, exacerbating parking and overcrowding problems. A hearing on the zone change drew numerous speakers, the majority of whom were against the change.

Enforcement Patrols Slated

    Town code enforcement officers will be walking a beat this summer in the downtown areas of East Hampton’s hamlets between 3 and 9 p.m. on weekends, according to a new program for seasonal, part-time staffing.  Patrick Gunn, a town attorney and director of the public safety division, said at a board work session on Tuesday that he hopes to hire six foot-patrol staffers who would be on the lookout for “simple violations” such as littering or taxicabs operating outside of established rules.  The part-timers would be similar to the traffic control officers, or T.C.O.s, hired by the Police Department each summer, and would serve as the “eyes and ears” for the senior ordinance officers and the police. With more limited training than full officers, they would not, however, address ordinance enforcement complaints generated by nightclubs, Mr. Gunn said. The town board is expected to authorize the hires with a vote at a meeting tonight.   

   A bid by the Viking Fleet to dock a day-fishing charter boat at the town commercial fishing docks at Gann Road in East Hampton appeared dead in the water at the end of an East Hampton Town Board discussion Tuesday.

    During several recent talks about the request to base the 60-foot boat at the dock during the months of April, May, and June, board members hashed over a number of issues, ranging from whether there is adequate parking and other facilities at the dock to whether it should or must be reserved for use by commercial fishermen only, and, for that matter, whether a charter boat in the business of making money through taking people to catch fish could be considered a “commercial fishing” enterprise.

    Last week, Brad Loewen, the president of the East Hampton Town Baymen’s Association, told the board that the dock was deeded to the town with a codicil that it be used only by commercial fishing boats. Town policy has been to offer the slips there at greatly reduced rates in order to help preserve the traditional fishing industry in the town.

    However, John Jilnicki, the town attorney, said Tuesday that he had reviewed the original 1931 deed and that no covenants or restrictions exist.

    There is, Councilman Sylvia Overby said, a 1985 town board resolution that sought to “clarify policies” regarding the dock and said that “boats which are engaged in commercial fishing on a year-round basis” have priority.

    The Viking, she said, could dock its boat at a private marina on Three Mile Harbor “under normal business circumstances.”

    “In terms of fairness, if the town board were to entertain this,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said, “. . . the rate schedule should be completely redone, and it should be opened up on a lottery basis, so everybody has a crack at it.”

    And, he said, with only nine parking spaces in the lot, designed to accommodate fishermen’s vehicles and trailers, parking would be insufficient for daytrip passengers.

    But the bottom line, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, is that with the slips already in use, there is 158 feet of dock space free, and 100 feet of that is supposed to be kept clear as an emergency slip — so the Viking boat is too big to add to the dock.

    “I’d like to try to figure out a way to make it work,” Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said. Along with the fishing that occurs from commercial fishing boats, she said, the town should also seek to ensure the vitality of recreational fishing here, “for people who don’t have boats.”

    “A, it fails the space test. B, it fails the parking test,” Supervisor Bill Wilkinson said. “So we’re not going anywhere with the Viking proposal?”

    “We’ve talked ourselves out of it,” Councilman Dominick Stanzione said.

            Before a crowd of friends, family, and old colleagues from across the local political spectrum, Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Village administrator, announced his candidacy for East Hampton Town supervisor Friday at the Highway Diner in East Hampton, saying he hopes to win support from the Democratic and Independence Parties.

            State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who once endorsed Republican Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, introduced Mr. Cantwell, offering a biting critique of where East Hampton Town finds itself today, and strong praise for the man who hopes to change that.

            “East Hampton Town used to have a leadership position on eastern Long Island. East Hampton was the first, and other towns would look to see what East Hampton was doing,” said Mr. Thiele, a member of the Independence Party who has known Mr. Cantwell since high school. “That’s not the case anymore.” The town, he said, needs to return to the kind of leadership it had under “Judith Hope, Cathy Lester, and Tony Bullock. . . . We need to go back to the future for the Town of East Hampton and to do that, we don’t need a DeLorean or a flux capacitor, we just need a leader.”

            “I look forward to a campaign on the serious issues we are now facing. To resolve these critical issues, we need a leader now more than ever who is a consensus builder,” Mr. Cantwell said, then offered a rough sketch of his platform.

            “We need to adopt a mitigation and recovery plan to protect against the threat of coastal erosion and sea-level rise,” he said. “We need a strong consensus to maintain a small safe airport and a clear strategy to reduce noise impacts on residential neighborhoods. We need to invest in technology to make town government more efficient in serving the public. We need a long-term capital plan to address the town’s rapidly deteriorating infrastructure. We need a town supervisor who believes in and supports planning and zoning. We must protect our residential neighborhoods for the peaceful enjoyment of all residents, preserving open space and protecting our drinking water and harbors from pollution. We must support local businesses. Believing in planning and zoning and supporting local business should not be mutually exclusive.”

            He spoke of a “negative cloud” hanging over town workers, of neighborhoods “under siege with noise and overflow parking from nightclubs and overcrowded houses,” and said, “I will not play party politics to reward special interests while disregarding the rights of all our residents and the best interests of the community as a whole.”

            Mr. Cantwell, who will retire as village administrator this summer after 31 years, served on the town board and as a town bay constable before being hired by the village. He also ran unsuccessfully for town supervisor. He has been the village’s chief financial officer, and, he said, “during this time the village maintained a budget surplus every year for three decades.”

            Among those also there to support Mr. Cantwell were Christopher Kelley, a powerful player in East Hampton’s Democratic Party, Barbara Borsack, an East Hampton Village Board member, Bruce Collins, a former Republican town supervisor, and Roger Walker, a former East Hampton Town justice who ran for supervisor on the Republican ticket. “It’s very refreshing to have him in the race,” Mr. Walker said. “I will support him 100 percent.”

            The East Hampton Town Democratic Committee has yet to make its nominations for supervisor, town board, or any other position, but Zachary Cohen, who was the party’s supervisor candidate in 2011 and lost by only 15 votes, is still in strong pursuit of the nomination this year. The party generally holds its nominating convention in May, when all 38 committee people can cast votes on the recommendations of the smaller screening committee.

    With a “yes” vote by three members of the East Hampton Town Board last Thursday, consultants were hired to create a comprehensive wastewater management plan for the town that will address water protection, septic systems, and the town’s aging scavenger waste treatment plant.

    Councilman Dominick Stanzione, who has been advocating for the plan and offered the resolution, lauded it after the meeting as an important step for the town’s environmental future.

    A group comprising Lombardo Associates, a Massachusetts company, the FPM Group of Ronkonkoma, the Woods Hole Group, and Christopher Gobler, a Stony Brook Southampton professor, was selected to undertake the data collection, analysis, and research for a maximum of $197,989.

    Councilwoman Theresa Quigley voted against the move, and Supervisor Bill Wilkinson was absent from the meeting.

    Before the selection came to a vote, it was criticized by Carole Campolo, who specified she was speaking to the board as an individual resident and not as a representative of any group. She raised questions about the selection of Mr. Lombardo as a consultant, concerns she said she had outlined in a March 21 e-mail to the board.

    “I don’t believe any other contractor had access to the board like Mr. Lombardo had,” she said, noting that he had given a presentation to the board last year about the denitrification systems he sells, called Nitrex.

    If Mr. Lombardo is to be asked to make recommendations as to how septic problems should be addressed, she said, he should be asked to sign an agreement that his company would not bid on providing any proposed solutions.

    Ms. Campolo, who said her background includes working on “multimillion-dollar contracts for the City of New York,” said she believes “a considerable conflict of interest exists with Mr. Lombardo.”

    “I think the public must be assured that their money is being properly spent — that there is no conflict of interest,” she said, suggesting an investigation be conducted by Pat Gunn, a town attorney and head of the Public Safety division. She asked the board to delay a vote on the matter.

    A committee evaluated all of the consultant’s proposals “at arm’s length” and graded them, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said. “I think the process is not flawed.”

    “I don’t know whether it’s flawed or not,” Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said. But, she added, “Carole was in business, and says it sends up red flags.”

    “Obviously you guys have the votes, but I do have a concern about it, and I do object that we rushed this through,” she said. “I have the exact same feeling, that this is a setup to get Mr. Lombardo business,” she said. “I’m not saying it was done to get Mr. Lombardo business . . . but it is suspect.”

    The recommendations that will emerge from the consultants’ study are undetermined, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, pointing out that Ms. Quigley, along with Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, had been against developing a comprehensive wastewater management plan from the start. Asserting that the town should not begin the study “is obstructionist, really,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “I think we should move the discussion forward. We have a lot of other work to do.”

    “We don’t need to do a study; we know what’s wrong with the scavenger plant,” Ms. Quigley said.

    The board also heard several comments at last Thursday’s meeting that stemmed from an April 2 work session at which the topic of protecting the Montauk beach and downtown was dropped after a failure to reach accord on placing rocks on the shore.

    Margaret Turner, the East Hampton Business Alliance executive director, said the group was “concerned about a lack of action” on recommendations by a committee formed to look at coastal erosion control options. “There needs to be more of a sense of urgency and understanding of the severity of the situation,” she said.

    “Quite frankly, we don’t have time,” she said, asking that the board address the various committee recommendations.

    Ira Barocas said that, with both Ms. Quigley and Mr. Wilkinson finishing their terms at the end of this year and not planning to run again for office, some are already looking ahead to the next configuration of the board. But, he said to Ms. Quigley last Thursday, “you have eight more months in office. We cannot afford, as a town, eight months of autopilot. We can’t afford to have inaction — on a lot of things.”

    Also last Thursday, the board had to rescind a resolution revising the town’s legislation regarding taxi regulations, which had been adopted at the previous work session. After a discussion of some revisions to the proposed law, which had been raised at a public hearing, Ms. Quigley moved for a vote before a final draft of the law had been written. Mr. Wilkinson seconded the motion. The law passed with three votes, although Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said that she was reluctant to vote on an unwritten resolution. Mr. Van Scoyoc abstained, because of the lack of a written draft. Councilman Dominick Stanzione also abstained, with no explanation.

    A law cannot be adopted without a complete final draft being first put down on paper, John Jilnicki, the town attorney, said last Thursday.

    Montauk’s Viking Fleet has its eye on Three Mile Harbor as a fishing site, and has asked for permission to dock a 60-foot boat at the East Hampton Town dock there, to take passengers out for daily fishing trips during the springtime months.

    The proposal was first submitted to the town board last fall and was renewed some weeks ago, with hopes that the boat could run out of the Gann Road dock in April, May, and June.

    At a town board meeting on April 2, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc outlined the issues for the board. Carl Forsberg Jr., a Viking captain, was on hand.

    The slips at the town dock have been set aside for the use of commercial fishermen, and the town charges a low, “extremely subsidized fee” for dockage at Gann Road, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, “as a way for the town to support our commercial fishermen in an industry that is highly regulated and that’s having a number of economic issues — to keep the traditional fishing business going in the Town of East Hampton.”

    One issue, he said, is whether there’s enough parking at the site to accommodate fishermen’s boats and trailers, equipment, and cars belonging to members of the public who like to fish from the dock, as well as the Viking boat’s passengers.

    Another question, said the councilman, should the board wish to open the dock as requested, is “whether or not this is advertised as being available for all the charter captains in the town, and how you would do that.”

    “If this takes off, then next year we should probably allow it to be bid out in some way,” said Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson.

    Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said Viking should be allowed to do business from the dock. “Because I do support business across the board; I don’t pick and choose,” she said.

    As far as allowing a “head boat”  — where passengers pay to go on board and fish — at the commercial dock, “commercial” fishing, Mr. Wilkinson suggested, could include “anyone who’s in the business of making money.”

    But at a town board meeting in Montauk on Tuesday, Brad Loewen, the president of the East Hampton Town Baymen’s Association, told board members the dock was given to the town in 1930 by a member of the Gardiner family with the stipulation that it be reserved for use by commercial fishermen such as those there at present: three trap fishermen, two lobstermen, four draggers, and one conch fisherman, “all earning their living off that dock.”

    In addition, he said, the Marine Patrol office is there, and the town barge, and equipment for the town shellfish hatchery. Other users include recreational fishermen and “romantics, if you will,” who visit to look out at the water or the sunset, Mr. Loewen said. All, he said, have “kind of reached an equilibrium. Nobody gets in anybody’s way. Our concern is, this is a change of use, and an increase of use, that will change that equilibrium.”

    Should the Viking boat also use the dock, he said, “somebody’s going to get evicted. There simply is not enough room for that kind of business.”

    A number of fishermen have contacted him, he said, to express concerns about the proposal. Mr. Loewen asked the board not to give space to the Viking boat at the commercial dock, but if the proposal is to be entertained, he asked that it be subject to a site plan review by the town planning board.

    Through that process, he said, a number of issues could be addressed: parking, including required handicapped-accessible  spots; adequate lighting, fire protection, traffic control, noise, and boat-fueling. In addition, he said, the board should ascertain that the Three Mile Harbor channel, which has been dredged but may have since shoaled, is adequate for the draft of the Viking vessel. “It may not be,” he said.

     Mr. Loewen also questioned the Viking Fleet’s assertion that the charter boat, while licensed for 75 passengers, would carry only 20 people on trips from Three Mile Harbor. “I believe that all of these questions may be answered by site plan review,” he said. “Again, I want to remind the board that it’s a commercial dock, and our concern is, those who would be evicted would be us.”

    “This isn’t right,” he said, his voice straining. “I shouldn’t be here talking about this. What’s wrong with you guys?”

    “Please reconsider any change down there that is going to affect the ability of the fishermen and other users.”

    The town’s fisheries advisory committee has not yet weighed in on the proposal.

    At a board meeting last Thursday, Ira Barocas, president of a community group of residents in the neighborhood of the dock and a former charter and party boat captain, urged the town board to get a fair price should it decide to lease space to Viking. “Gann Road dock is a town asset,” he said. “It doesn’t seem appropriate, as a taxpayer, to give a sweetheart deal to a business operating on town property. Commercial entities who use our town assets ought to pay a fair price.”

     “It’s not a bad thing at all,” he said of the proposal, “but if it turns out to be a viable thing, we ought to be compensated fairly, and by we, I mean the taxpayers.”

    Asked to research the history of the dock and any restrictions on its use, John Jilnicki, the town attorney, reported that he had found a 1943 deed from the Bank of New York to the town, which contains only a property description. A copy of a 1931 deed held by the town assessor is unreadable, he said, and a better copy must be obtained from the county clerk.

    An oceanfront house on Marine Boulevard in Amagansett was before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals on April 2 for variances that would allow what might be called a creative expansion.

    “I’m a composer,” Carter Burwell, the applicant, told the board. Mr. Burwell is, in fact, the composer for the Coen brothers, the Academy Award-winning film-making duo, having written the scores for all but one of their films.

    He was accompanied at the hearing by his wife, Christine Sciulli, a video installation artist, and their two sons. “Working at home, and our growing family, are our reasons for the expansion,” Mr. Burwell said.

    The property, at 39 Marine Boulevard, is about 27,663 square feet with a three-story, 3,149-square-foot house on it and a 1,430-square-foot deck. Mr. Burwell bought the property in 2010; it was previously owned by the fashion designer Elie Tahari.

    As designed by Katherine Chia of Desai/Chia Architecture, who was at the hearing and spoke at length, the plans call for a two-story addition to the living area and an increase in the size of Mr. Burwell’s recording studio.

    The expansion would total 1,191 square feet and be on the street side of the house, with a small, 218-square-foot deck. Several variances from the town code would be required, some of which are minor, such as a 5.4-foot variance from the required 100 feet from the dune crest. Two of the requested variances are somewhat rare: a 14-foot, 8-inch height variance from the pyramid law, which is intended to prevent buildings from looming over neighboring properties, and a total square footage variance of 353 feet.

    Calling the existing house “a little convoluted,” Ms. Chia said it was more or less a split-level. Laying out floor plans and a scale model of the house, she pointed out that the proposed extension would be at the top right, facing Marine Boulevard.

    Ms. Chia used a tool, apparently of her own design, to illustrate the impact of the pyramid variance being requested. Using a piece of Plexiglas cut to fit over the model, she dropped it in place, illustrating clearly what the height would look like from the street.

     “You should patent that for all our pyramid applications,” Alex Walter, the board’s chairman, said, only half in jest.

Mr. Walter asked what property would be most affected if the 14-foot variance from the pyramid law were granted. A beach access to the east was the response.

    Referring to the overall project, Ms. Chia said, “We’re trying to scale it down in proportion to the street.” She noted that the coverage variance requested was due to the requirements of the studio.

    Lisa D’Andrea of the Planning Department told the board that the only vegetation being taken out was manicured lawn, and she complimented the applicants on their presentation. She also noted that the extension was strictly landward. Mr. Burwell added that any natural vegetation removed during construction would be replaced.

    “I understand the rules of the code and take them seriously,” Mr. Burwell concluded.

    The board agreed to keep the hearing open for two weeks to allow the East Hampton Town Trustees, who own the beach in front of the property, to weigh in. It will then have 62 days to make a determination.

    “It’s important for the town to take action with deliberate speed. The Montauk commercial district is threatened,” Drew Bennett, who chaired the town’s erosion control committee, told East Hampton Town Board members at a work session on Tuesday.

    Mr. Bennett’s caution was echoed by Montauk residents and business owners also at the meeting.

    After the board’s contentious discussion on April 2 about 11 recommendations issued by his committee, Mr. Bennett said he was on hand to “reiterate the recommendations,” while other speakers urged the board to find unanimity on at least some of the issues and move forward. At the April 2 meeting, the conversation derailed when Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, pressing members to say whether they would accept a possible proposal from the Army Corps of Engineers to “drop rock” on Montauk’s shore, found no immediate accord.

    “The board has two matters,” Mr. Bennett said. “We would encourage you to endorse the engineered beach and we would encourage you to endorse some interim action. And we urge you to act on both.”

    The town has asked for federal funding, to the tune of $20 million, for beach repairs following the damage from Hurricane Sandy and other storms.

    But East Hampton’s chance to receive a piece of the pie could be threatened by a fractious town board, suggested Paul Monte, a Montauk business owner and member of the erosion committee. A lack of direction on erosion control efforts is surely being noticed by Representative Tim Bishop, the town’s point person on obtaining the federal funds, and other officials, he said.

    “If we can’t get our act together to give them a comfort level . . . after they jump through hoops and call in political favors . . . then the money will go elsewhere,” Mr. Monte said.

    “If the feds say, here’s money, and recommend hard structures, why wouldn’t you take the recommendations?” he said. “It’s ludicrous.”

    Board members appear to agree that an “engineered” beach — one reconstructed to specifications designed to withstand storms over a period of time — is called for in Montauk, in the area from Ditch Plain to downtown. Adding sand from offshore would widen the beach both above sea level and below the water line.

    If East Hampton is awarded funding, the beach would be created at no local cost by the Army Corps of Engineers, under plans developed in its Fire Island to Montauk Point reformulation study, and future repairs would also be eligible for federal funding.

    The plan could include a “reinforced dune core,” as Mr. Bennett described it, with rock or other structures placed beneath the sand dunes on the shoreward side of the beach.

    “You guys have fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of East Hampton,” Mr. Monte told the board, and should take “this once in a lifetime opportunity to have the government say, take this money and build a beach.”

    The funding status is still uncertain, Mr. Bishop’s spokesman, Oliver Longwell, said Tuesday. But, should the town be included in a federal erosion-control project, “the form the project will take — that’s going to be the result of a process the Army Corps goes through.” With the participation of Mr. Bishop’s office, he said, “the priorities of the local community” would be included. “There’s always collaboration,” he said.

    Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby have resisted giving a thumbs-up to any plan the Army Corps might come up with, before seeing the details. But Mr. Van Scoyoc offered to draft a resolution that the board could approve, perhaps unanimously, next week, that indicates its support of an engineered beach.

    “And at the same time we will work toward amending the emergency provision,” Mr. Wilkinson said, outlining a way to allow property owners to take temporary measures in the interim.

    The East Hampton Town Trustees’ plan to condense the 90 moorings set aside for large boats within a broad area in the center of Three Mile Harbor came under fire during the trustees’ monthly meeting Tuesday night.

    Sean McCaffery and Stephanie Forsberg, trustees, and the panel’s clerk, Diane McNally, explained to the dozen or so boaters in attendance that the board was trying to correct a disorderly pattern which boaters had come to accept as normal.

    Trustees said the loose mooring pattern took space away from kayakers, stand-up paddle boarders, and waterskiers, among others, and threatened to bring the State Department of Environmental Conservation down on the harbor’s shellfish beds. “It’s why you are given supplemental forms asking if you plan to stay on your boat overnight,” Ms. McNally told the boaters. She said the board’s plan followed the example of other East End towns and villages, Sag Harbor among them.

    Ms. McNally said the D.E.C. looks upon moored and anchored boats as they do marinas: as potential sources of coliform pollution from marine toilets. The bigger the area in which boats are moored, the bigger the potential for shellfish closures, is the trustees’ reasoning. “You might say, ‘But Three Mile Harbor is a no-discharge zone,’ but the D.E.C. will not take that into account,” she said. “They close areas because they don’t have enough people to test the water.”

    John Courtney, the trustees’ attorney, reminded the disgruntled boaters that the original arrangement for the large-boat mooring area was a tight pattern, in large part because of the shellfish closure issue.

    John Chadnick complained that the town code permits boaters to anchor within the mooring grid. Trustees admitted this should be changed, although a separate, formal anchoring area might draw unwanted attention in regard to shellfishing areas.

    John Sabastoanski, who has kept a boat in Three Mile Harbor for the past 15 years, said his “main concern is the boats are too close together,” an opinion shared by Glenn Bennett, a contractor who installs moorings.

    “On a strong southwest wind, sometimes it takes three passes to get to your mooring,” said Mr. Bennett. “Sag Harbor has accidents. At night, none of the boats are lit if nobody’s on them. People swim off their boats.”

    Most of the boaters who spoke said they found the tight quarters objectionable from a safety as well as a privacy standpoint. 

       Craig Humphrey said the condensed pattern would actually put his boat out of reach: “I row to my boat. I had a check ready for you and I paid for a dinghy slip on a sand spit on the north end of the harbor. It’s two-tenths of a nautical mile. I wouldn’t mind rowing a little farther, but not a mile.”

     Dustin Goodwin said the condensed pattern ruined the “poetry” of Three Mile Harbor. “The harbor is my summer home. I want my ashes spread there. Why do you think boaters come from Connecticut and Rhode Island? Three Mile Harbor is not a parking lot. The grid is too dense. You will lose the poetry.”

    As to the trustees’ contention that the tighter pattern would allow for more boaters in the future, Mark Mendelman, a contractor who sets moorings and who gathered the naysayers for Tuesday’s meeting, suggested that spreading the boats out within the grid also allowed for future growth. “You could fill in rather than expand out.”

    “It’s a bitter pill. Rules and regulations are hard,” Ms. McNally said. “I was at the high school when the trustees first said there should be a mooring field. The people said, ‘Mooring field? It’s our right to put them where we want.’ ” But ever-increasing use of the harbor made the regulations necessary, she said, adding that the trustees are willing to hear from boaters independently to see if their mooring location could be better fitted to their needs.

    All moorings, set on the bottom by independent contractors, must be approved by the trustees, who raised the cost of a resident’s permit this season from $7.50 to $10 per boat-length foot. Nonresidents now pay $20 per boat-length-foot. There is also a $50 inspection fee.

    Ms. Forsberg told the boaters the increased mooring fees were helping the board pay for a $25,000 program to test for coliform bacteria as well as algae blooms in the harbor.

    A plan to improve public safety by better controlling traffic and crowds at Indian Wells Beach was presented to the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee at its meeting Monday night. 

    Armed with the current draft proposal, Capt. Michael Sarlo of the East Hampton Town Police Department addressed committee members as to the concerted effort to limit idling cars and nonresidents’ vehicular access, as well as to police the hundreds-strong gatherings for which the beach has become infamous.

    As previously reported here, a committee including Captain Sarlo, East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, Chief Edward Ecker of the Town Police Department, Ed Michels, the town harbormaster, John Rooney, the superintendent of recreation, John Ryan Jr., the town’s chief lifeguard, and Robert Connelly, an assistant town attorney, has been working to address a situation residents say has deteriorated in recent years, affecting safety and quality of life.

    An earlier plan, to place an attended barrier at the intersection of Indian Wells Highway and Bluff Road, has been abandoned, Captain Sarlo told the committee. “That created too many issues of safety,” he said, including backed-up traffic and vehicles standing for long periods. “It had a good idea in general, but once you piece together how much foot traffic and bike traffic. . . . It’s creating a different safety hazard instead of solving the issue.”

    The new plan, while still a work in progress, would create a restricted access point near the entrance to the parking lot. On weekends and holidays, a Parks Department employee would man a booth at a turnaround opposite the Amagansett Beach Association parking lot. When the town lot is full, Captain Sarlo said, the attendant will check vehicles for a resident permit. “If they do have a permit and are looking to drop off, we can let them through, and back out. If they don’t, we’re looking to turn them around in the mini cul-de-sac and send them back out down the street.”

    A traffic control officer would be stationed in the parking lot during the peak hours of midday, along with a part-time marine patrol officer. If possible, Captain Sarlo said, the attendant and traffic control officer would work in concert to make sure motorists allowed into the lot after it’s full were dropping off or picking up beachgoers, not idling or searching for a parking spot.

    Town attorneys are looking into the feasibility of banning vehicles carrying more than eight people, primarily taxis, said Captain Sarlo. The goal, he said, is to make the lot safer for beachgoers as they walk to the ice cream truck or the comfort station, and to eliminate idling vehicles at the road end.

    The plan would result in the elimination of three parking spaces, but clearing dead and dying underbrush behind the comfort station could create five new spaces, which would be for the use of lifeguards. Long-term planning may also include creation of additional parking on the west side of Indian Wells Highway, north of the existing spaces.

    The task is not an easy one, Captain Sarlo said, involving as it does multiple “moving parts” — adjacent wetlands, a roadway that may not be wide enough to accommodate the proposed turnaround, and the possible relocation of vendors, to whom the town has contractual obligations. “There’s a lot of obstacles to making significant changes in this small an area,” he said.

    In addition to improved safety, the committee is trying to balance regulation of already-restricted parking with allowance of fair access to the beach. “The balancing act we end up with in trying to address this is tricky, but we are working diligently on it,” he said.

    With regard to the large crowds drinking alcohol on the beach, Captain Sarlo reported progress. “From an enforcement standpoint, we feel like we’ve made great strides in our presence there to handle the influx of the partyers,” he said, citing summonses written, leaflets distributed, and public relations outreach. “We’re doing what we feel is everything we can, and if we get out in front of it earlier in the season than last year, it really should help put a dent in it even further.”