Dozens of residents of the South Fork’s easternmost hamlet gathered last week for a slate of workshops as planning consultants sought to pin down a “consensus vision for the future of Montauk,” as Peter Flinker, a principal in the firm Dodson and Flinker, put it.

According to the consultants, who pulled data from various sources, Montauk has 3,326 full-time, year-round residents, including 898 families, 318 of them with children. Sixty-two percent of the hamlet’s 7,029 acres is preserved open space. There are 36.5 acres in a central business zone; another acre is zoned for neighborhood business.

In sessions from Wednesday through Saturday morning, Mr. Flinker and his associates, including Lisa Liquori, a former East Hampton Town planning director, worked to pinpoint Montauk’s “problems and opportunities,” as seen by the participants, and presented issues and possible scenarios, focusing on the downtown and harbor commercial areas, for the public’s consideration.

The town comprehensive plan, last updated in 2005, calls for detailed studies of the commercial areas of each hamlet, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc explained at one of the meetings. “We’re not rewriting the comprehensive plan; we’re putting a finer point on it,” he said.

Once the community outlines its hopes for future development, preservation, or a bit of both, officials can work to develop policy, laws, and other initiatives.

“Do we let things happen however, or is there a way to direct growth?” Mr. Flinker asked the group at one meeting, seeking “clear priorities of what you want and what is possible. Tell us tonight what you want to work on, what you want us to work on.”

A picture emerged over the course of several walking tours, participatory workshops, focus group discussions, mapping and planning events, and short presentations by members of the consulting team, including a traffic consultant and an economic specialist, Russ Archambault, who is putting together economic reports based on an analysis of each hamlet’s population, sectors of the economy, employment trends, retail business, and more.

In Montauk, as “a way to start to see what we’re dealing with here,” he is examining what it would mean if every type of housing — campsites, hotel rooms, second homes, full-time residences — were occupied. Besides tourist spending on lodging and other services, segments of the Montauk economy include commercial fishing, agriculture, construction, and real estate, he said, and the impact of rising home prices is a factor, as houses turn over and new owners seek a return on their investment. He will create an economic model, he said, illustrating possible changes in various industries and the impact on the overall economy.

A sizable group on a morning walking tour of the downtown area took a loop route from the gazebo on the green, with stops near Fort Pond, the 7-Eleven, and the ocean beach, among others. They discussed parking, a proposal to make parts of some downtown streets one way, pedestrian safety and crosswalks, transportation, sidewalks, affordable housing, new development of vacant lots and redevelopment, and coastal issues. To tame traffic, slowing it for safety in congested areas but also keeping it flowing and eliminating unsafe turns, Ray DeBiase, the transportation consultant, suggested ins talling roundabouts where the Old Montauk Highway, Montauk Highway, and Second House Road come together, and at the intersection of Flamingo Avenue and West Lake Drive near the docks.

In planning for a future in which sea level is expected to rise by 2050 by between 8 and 30 inches, according to the span of estimates, and for an area like downtown Montauk that is in a flood plain and exposed to continued erosion, high tides, and storm surges during bad weather or hurricanes, “none of the options are simple,” Nate Burgess, one of the consultants, told a group.

“The key word is uncertainty,” he said, “and being prepared for resilience — having different kinds of plans in place, depending on what happens.”

On maps showing where the Atlantic would reach under different projections and occurrences, and outlining a “breach zone” through the heart of Montauk’s downtown, where the ocean broke through to Fort Pond during the Hurricane of 1938, he asked people to place stickers and Post-It notes indicating what they thought should be done. Options included maintaining the status quo, perhaps adding sand to downtown beaches to stave off the sea; raising shoreline buildings up and also re-nourishing the beach, and relocating businesses in vulnerable zones to higher ground, perhaps up the hill on Essex Street, at Camp Hero, or in areas around the train station or firehouse — essentially beginning a satellite business area or an alternate downtown.

The changes would take place slowly, over time, and approaches could be combined, said Mr. Burgess.

A group touring the harbor area began at the shore along Block Island Sound, stopped at the commercial fishing dock, and continued around the harbor, where there is undeveloped commercial property — “relatively rare” in Montauk, said Harry Dodson, a consultant, and providing an opportunity to shape the future.

He said he had heard a “strong consensus” from participants that the harbor area should retain its “non-spiffy character” as a working waterfront, and the commercial fishing industry should be protected. There is interest also in “keeping the kind of down-to-earth tourism that relates to the working waterfront,” he said. But with both the Gosman’s Dock property and the Duryea fishing dock for sale, the question is how to achieve that “in a way that accommodates the kind of real estate price pressures that are coming to bear.”

A loss of the fishing industry in Montauk would mean not just a loss of jobs, said Andy Harris of Montauk, but the loss of a “cultural identity” as well. The economy would be widely affected, he said. “The loss would be huge if this just became all resort and no commercial fishing.”

The town’s local waterfront revitalization plan sets a goal of protecting the fishing industry, but its policies could be examined and strengthened, the consultants said.

One resident suggested that perhaps a development rights purchase program, similar to the one through which the town buys the rights to farmland, could be employed to protect working waterfront property — preserving it by precluding its development while it stays in private ownership.

Other suggestions included creating a continuous harborfront walk, guiding commercial development in the harbor area so parking can be centralized, and adding various types of housing to create a “fishing village” design.

During a session at the Montauk Playhouse, coastal resiliency, housing, and water quality took center stage. Ms. Liquori led the housing discussion, soliciting opinions about what kind is appropriate for seasonal or year-round residents, and where it should go. Should the town, through zoning or other initiatives, encourage apartment buildings, town houses, single-family cottages, portable pods, accessory apartments or cottages, apartments above businesses? Should new housing be scattered throughout existing neighborhoods, isolated in new areas, mixed into downtown, or added to a new “transit center,” perhaps near the Long Island Rail Road station?

Mr. Dodson provided examples of “how a community taking proactive action can really shape the outcome of what’s there,” over time by adopting town policies to “make sure new development takes place in the way that you want it to be.”

The needs and challenges of Montauk, some said, are radically different in the summertime and the off-season, a big consideration.

“This is the beginning of the process,” Mr. Van Scoyoc explained at a meeting last weekend.

Reports by subcommittees of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee focusing on various issues have been submitted to the consultants; comments may be sent to them by email to [email protected].

Now that tours and discussion sessions have taken place in each of East Hampton’s hamlets, the consultants will prepare and deliver a draft summary of options and recommendations for each, for review by town staff, the town board, and the public. Their analyses will incorporate data and recommendations in other town-sponsored studies, such as the plan for wastewater management prepared for the town by Pio Lombardo of Lombardo Associates. The plans will be discussed publicly at town board work sessions, and hearings will be held to solicit public opinion before the town board acts on any part of the plan.

With an overall vision in place, Mr. Flinker said, proposals for development projects such as site-plan applications, now being reviewed separately, will be looked at as part of a whole, with the entire town’s ultimate goals in mind.

A lawsuit challenging amendments to the East Hampton Village Zoning Code adopted in June of 2015 was dismissed on Sept. 2 by Acting State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Farneti, who called the amendments legal, constitutional, and valid.

The amendments, adopted over fierce opposition, set formulas for allowable floor area and lot coverage on residential parcels larger than one acre, basically reducing the maximum allowable. They also provide that cellars cannot extend beyond the exterior face of a building’s first-floor wall, and they added a definition of the word “story.”

Joseph Rose, a former chairman of the New York City Planning Commission and director of city planning in former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s administration, and Rajesh Alva were among a small army of property owners and attorneys who opposed the amendments at a May 2015 public hearing. Reached by phone yesterday, Mr. Rose said, ”We’re disappointed by the lower court’s decision and intend to appeal it. We remain confident we will ultimately prevail because this was a fundamentally flawed process that failed to comply with state environmental laws and resulted in an indefensible zoning change that cannot stand,” he said. He and Mr. Alva, who also owns multiple properties in the village, had asked the court to invalidate the amendments and declare them unenforceable.

The village “is extremely happy with Judge Farneti’s decision,” Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said in a statement yesterday. “The village always felt very strongly that the amendments were made legally and were in the best interest of maintaining the landscape of our beautiful area. We exercised our due diligence, presented it to the public, and made the changes we felt were necessary.”

Robert Hefner, the village’s director of historic services, had taken the lead on  changes to the code, which were recommended by the village’s planning and zoning committee. In April 2015, he warned that the character of the village would be irrevocably harmed unless new formulas for the maximum size of houses, accessory structures, and lot coverage were adopted. Mr. Hefner warned of massive houses and multiple accessory buildings, swimming pools, and tennis courts that could be constructed on large lots under the formulas then used.

He also detailed the results of a survey of 173 properties in eight neighborhoods distinguished by lots of greater than one acre, including Hither Lane, Further Lane, Lily Pond Lane, Lee Avenue, Ocean Avenue, and Georgica Road through Apaquogue Road, as well as those bordering Hook Pond and within the Main Street historic district as having history and established character, but that had seen considerable development since the village adopted its comprehensive plan in 2002. A statement in that plan — that “new development and redevelopment should be compatible in terms of size and scale with each existing residential neighborhood and should reinforce their integrity as they have developed over 350 years” — was central.

The village had established the planning committee in 1985. It is chaired by Elbert Edwards, a trustee, and comprises the chairmen of the planning, zoning, and design review boards, the village administrator, attorney, chief building inspector, and planning consultant.

Citing the potential for a 62-percent increase in building mass in the surveyed neighborhoods, Mr. Hefner called the finding a wakeup call for the committee, whose members agreed “our present formulas will not protect the character of the village.”

The committee recommended — and the village adopted — graduated formulas for maximum coverage on lots greater than 40,000 square feet, where a single formula had been applied to all residential properties. The amendments also added separate formulas to calculate allowable floor area and lot coverage for parcels between 40,000 and 80,000 square feet and those greater than 80,000 square feet. 

Mr. Rose and Mr. Alva were among residents who quickly complained of a rush to judgment and legislation based on what they said was flawed analysis, inadequate public notice and input, and no consideration of the laws’ impact.

In their legal complaint, they said the amendments “drastically limit the flexibility of owners of larger lots in building homes and accessory structures, based on little more than rank speculation” that new construction and reconstruction would result in structures, as well as tennis courts, patios, and swimming pools, that are out of proportion to their surroundings.

The board defended the amendments and won  support from other residents and officials. Lys Marigold, vice chairwoman of the zoning board, who had previously warned the board of the consequences of the proliferation of larger houses, was among a group of residents who personally thanked the mayor moments after the amendments were adopted.

A public comment period on the Army Corps of Engineers’ plans for shore protection projects from Fire Island to Montauk Point, called the FIMP plan for short, has been extended to Oct. 19.

The comment period was set to end on Sept. 29, just one day after a presentation by the corps and hearing for public comment at the Montauk Playhouse scheduled for Sept. 28.

Two projects in East Hampton Town are included in the wide-ranging plan: the addition of up to 120,000 cubic yards of sand every four years to bolster the beaches in downtown Montauk and at Potato Road in Wainscott.

Town officials had hoped that the long-awaited Army Corps plan would include more extensive rebuilding and protection of the Montauk beach, and are preparing to submit alternate suggestions to the corps.

Representative Lee Zeldin said this week that he would support the town’s request. He had pushed for the comment period extension, sending a letter to the Army Corps and announcing  the extended deadline last week.

Also last week, the State Department of Environmental Conservation confirmed that East Hampton Town will not be responsible for repairs to storm damages this week to the sandbag barrier that was installed by the Army Corps on the downtown Montauk beach.

Tropical Storm Hermine exposed buried sandbags, damaging some, and scoured away the shore in front of the bags. When the project is officially completed, the town and county will become responsible for its upkeep.

Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said yesterday in a press release that the damage “incurred by this modest storm should demonstrate to the Army Corps the inadequacy of the project and its new proposal under the Fire Island to Montauk Point plan. Unfortunately, the current FIMP plan for downtown Montauk calls for the placement of 120,000 cubic yards of sand . . . once every four years. What is needed to protect the beach and downtown Montauk is a major beach-fill project that would pump at least 1 million cubic yards of sand from an offshore source to provide the protection needed in the hamlet of Montauk.”

Hearings on the Army Corps’s Fire Island to Montauk Point plan will be held on Tuesday at the Patchogue Watch Hill Ferry terminal and at the Stony Brook Southampton campus on Sept. 27. Both will begin at 6 p.m. with an opportunity for the public to examine information about the proposed projects, followed by a presentation and question and answer session beginning at 7. Another hearing was held yesterday at the Islip Town Hall annex.

Comments may also be sent by mail to United States Army Corps of Engineers, New York District, Planning Division-Environmental Branch (Attn: Mr. Robert Smith), 26 Federal Plaza, New York 10278, or by email to the project biologist, [email protected], and the project manager, [email protected].

The resurfacing of Route 114 between Main Street and Stephen Hand's Path in East Hampton is set to begin in October and will be finished by the end of November, according to the New York State Department of Transportation.

Eileen Peters, a spokeswoman for the D.O.T., said by phone Thursday that Route 114 "is a priority location" among the five roadways that are part of an $11.6 million state repaving project on Long Island.

New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said in a release issued Tuesday that the work is to be done in stages on short sections and will take place weeknights between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., with some related tasks performed during the day between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Drivers should expect "intermittent brief closures of all lanes to accommodate positioning of construction equipment," the assemblyman's office said in the release, but the goal is to shift traffic to allow for two-way travel when possible.

Mr. Thiele has been advocating the resurfacing of the badly potholed section of roadway since the summer of 2014. The section was last resurfaced in 2002. He and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle "have a pending request in with the Department of Transportation and governor for a full resurfacing of the remaining portion of State Route 114," the release said.

Curious what that large earth-moving equipment was doing on the green north of East Hampton's Town Pond this week? Their work there marked the start of a project to improve water quality in Hook and Town Ponds through the construction of a bioswale, a drainage course designed to trap the pollutants and silt from surface runoff before it gets to the ponds.

Approximately a quarter of an acre is being excavated to a depth of 12 to 18 inches at the green, which will be replanted with turf grass in order to create micropools -- shallow pools that remove pollutants from stormwater runoff -- during wet and inclement weather.

After the village green work is completed, the project will move to the green at the Hook Mill and North Cemetery, where another bioswale will be created. The projects will take approximately three weeks to complete, Becky Molinaro, the village administrator, said on Thursday.

"We're excited, and we think all of you out there should be as well," Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said of the project at the village board's meeting on Friday. "We have that moral obligation and commitment -- to the universe, to the world, to the earth that we live in, and we definitely have to make it better for future generations."

The water quality of Hook Pond is poor, with dangerously low levels of dissolved oxygen, according to Pio Lombardo, principal of the firm that has conducted water-quality studies for the town and village. Accumulated sediment, stormwater and wastewater discharge, and other sources including fertilizer, waterfowl waste, atmospheric deposition, and agricultural practices are responsible for elevated phosphorus and nitrogen, Mr. Lombardo told village officials last year. These conditions promote harmful algal growth, which in turn depletes dissolved oxygen.

Extensive stormwater runoff accumulates at the village green, which overflows into Town Pond and from there to a feeder stream of Hook Pond via a culvert.

Earlier this year, the East Hampton Village board accepted a bid from Gatz Landscaping of Mattituck to create the bioswales. The $96,359 cost will be offset by a $46,000 grant from the Suffolk County Water Quality Protection and Restoration Program.  

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the release of New York State's offshore wind blueprint on Thursday, a framework that could lead to a proposed 90-megawatt, 15-turbine wind farm 30 miles east of Montauk.

The blueprint is an initial step toward harvesting the 39 gigawatts of wind energy potential off the state's Atlantic coast, enough to power approximately 15 million residences, according to the document. Offshore wind also has the potential to serve as a local source of affordable power for the New York City metropolitan area and Long Island, where energy demand and prices are high.

"New York is a national leader in combating climate change and now we are taking the next big step forward," Mr. Cuomo said in a statement issued on Thursday. "By developing a viable offshore wind energy source, we will continue to provide New Yorkers with clean, affordable power and lay the foundation for a thriving clean energy economy. This plan represents the future of New York and will cement our role as a leader in the renewable energy industry for generations to come."

The blueprint precedes the planned 2017 release of a master plan, a comprehensive strategy for developing offshore wind resources in the state that will include recommendations on the best solutions and practices for maximizing the development and utilization of offshore wind.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority is the lead entity coordinating the master plan, which will include site identification and leasing strategies; site assessment and characterization predevelopment activities; cost, benefit, and interconnection studies; analysis and recommended mechanisms for agreements to sell future energy production; local economic impacts and job creation; stakeholder and community engagement; educational efforts, and viewshed, fishing, and other mitigation efforts.

The agency is undertaking a digital aerial survey of offshore wildlife, the first round of which was completed last month. The survey of a 16,000-square-mile area off the Long Island coast is to provide baseline data on offshore wildlife. Surveys will be conducted four times per year over three years.

The blueprint's release comes shortly before the nation's first offshore wind farm, the 30-megawatt, five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm, is to begin operation, in November. Deepwater Wind, the Rhode Island company that built the Block Island farm, has proposed the larger wind farm 30 miles from Montauk. The Long Island Power Authority was set to formally support that installation when its board of directors met in July, but a vote was postponed at the 11th hour when NYSERDA asked for time to study the proposal in the broader context of the master plan.

The New York Offshore Wind Alliance, a consortium of developers, environmental groups, and others, was announced on Monday. The group intends to pressure state officials to maintain the commitment to offshore wind, specifically the development of 5,000 megawatts of offshore wind power by 2030. That effort, said Liz Gordon, the alliance's director, is essential to the state's Clean Energy Standard, a mandate requiring that half of New York's electricity come from renewable sources by 2030.  

The Suffolk County Health Department announced on Friday that a cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, bloom has been confirmed at Big Reed Pond in Montauk. Exposure to cyanobacteria at high levels can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, skin, eye or throat irritation, allergic reactions, or breathing difficulties.

Health officials have asked residents not to swim or wade in waters affected by blooms and to keep pets and children away from the area.

The news comes barely two weeks after the East Hampton Town Trustees reopened Georgica Pond in East Hampton, after it had been closed to the harvesting of crabs and other marine life for much of the summer due to a cyanobacteria bloom that formed in June. Big Reed Pond is not under jurisdiction of the trustees, who manage many of the town's waterways, bottomlands, and beaches on behalf of the public.

Hook Pond in East Hampton also experienced a cyanobacteria bloom last month.

Though naturally present in lakes and streams in low numbers, blue-green algae can become abundant, forming blooms that are typically in shades of green but also blue-green, yellow, brown, or red. They may produce floating scums on the surface of the water or may cause the water to take on a paint-like appearance.

Larry Brown, the Hall of Fame basketball coach, the only one ever to win N.B.A. and N.C.A.A. championships, met with Joe Vas, the East Hampton School District’s athletic director, on Tuesday and reportedly told him he wants to be “a resource” for the boys basketball program here.

Dan White, who has coached Pierson’s varsity in Sag Harbor for the past seven years, and who submitted his resume to Vas after Jesse Shapiro was hired in June, apparently will be Shapiro’s replacement as Bonac’s head coach.

Shapiro, an East Hampton grad who had overseen high-powered youth basketball programs in New York City, tendered his resignation on Sept. 14, saying that he could not find sustainable work here.

“If Larry Brown wants the head coaching job, it’s his — and Dan is all right with that,” Vas said during a conversation yesterday.

According to Vas, who met with Brown, along with White and his assistants, Howard Wood and Marcus Edwards (after this paper’s sports pages had gone to press), the legendary coach said he would like a couple of weeks to think about what his ultimate role would be.

Arguably the most-well-traveled coach there ever was, Brown, 76, who has lived in East Hampton part time for a number of years, is much in demand — for coaching jobs, speaking engagements, and clinics far afield. He oversaw Tuesday’s pickup games at the high school, along with White, Wood, and Edwards — a session from which the press was banned.

“It was like talking to Coach Petrie,” Wood, a former Spanish league pro and University of Tennessee and Bonac star, said the next day. “He has the same concern for the kids and has so much basketball knowledge to impart. . . . I’ve known him for a while now, through Hoops 4 Hope. He’s a wonderful guy — he has such great stories to tell.”

Vas said he felt funny having to tell a legend that if he signed on he would have to meet certain state mandates for coaches, which would include courses in first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, violence prevention, and child abuse prevention.

“He said he’d do what ever it took,” said Vas, who added, “Certainly I’m not going to tell him he has to ride on the bus.”

For his part, White, who coached Pierson to a county championship in 2012 and to two other appearances in county title games, said he was thrilled at the prospect of being associated with Brown. Nor would he mind stepping aside should Brown decide he wanted the head coaching job. “He’s got a far, far better basketball mind than I have,” said White, “so, were he to tell me, ‘Try this, try that,’ I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.”

It was, he said further, “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” which was what impelled him in the end to make the switch from Sag Harbor to East Hampton. Many of his players in the Harbor, White said, were happy for him.

“I’ve known Larry for 40 years — since 1975,” Mike Lupica, the sportswriter, commentator, and author, said, “and he’s always talked, even when he was a kid, of ending his career like this, of one day of becoming a high school history teacher who coaches three sports, the old-fashioned teacher-coach. But I’m not sure . . . he’s got to decide. Coaching high school basketball is a full-time commitment.”

“I think it is his intention,” said Vas, “to help in some way. He told me he never coached a high school team before, although he’s given plenty of clinics to high school-age kids.”

“If he wants to be the head coach, it’s, ‘After me!’ ”

They were preaching to the choir at Monday night’s meeting of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee. Judging by their response to one another’s comments, all but one of the 60 or so people gathered at the American Legion Hall were there for a single purpose, to urge that East Hampton Town purchase the 30-acre Bistrian property north and west of the hamlet’s municipal parking lot and preserve it as the farmland it has been for as long as anyone can remember.

However, as Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said at the start, “It’s a question of negotiating a fair and equitable price.” The Bistrians are asking $30 million for the land, according to Britton Bistrian, the family spokeswoman, while an appraisal commissioned by the town some years ago pegged its value at about $19 million.

When Kieran Brew, a member of the committee, asked whether the town would seek a new appraisal, Mr. Cantwell surprised the crowd by answering, “We have two appraisals, one completed in the past month.” He declined to elaborate, saying that he preferred to “leave the details” to the town’s director of land acquisition and management, Scott Wilson, “and keep the elected officials a little distant from it.”

Mr. Wilson was almost as reticent, saying by phone the next morning that “we don’t negotiate publicly. It’s between the town and the seller.” He added, however, that “I know there are third parties interested . . . there’s other parties out there, but I can’t reveal any information that will make it harder for us to accomplish what we all want.”

Whether the “other parties” are developers, environmental groups, or something in between, neither Mr. Wilson nor Mr. Cantwell would say, and Ms. Bistrian, who was at the meeting, said Tuesday that she’d been as surprised as anyone to hear about a new appraisal, much less of any “third parties” coming in. The town and the family have had “no active negotiations in months,” she said.

Ten contiguous parcels are on the table. The Bistrians purchased the easternmost, just under three acres abutting Amber Waves Farm, within the past year from the Suffolk County Water Authority. Altogether, the land, zoned for two-acre lots, could yield as many as 23 houses — the three largest lots are subdividable, Ms. Bistrian noted — which, according to an online petition from Windmill Lane neighbors called Save Our Farmland Amagansett, would “significantly increase traffic” there and on nearby roads and “increase the number of potential summer rentals and associated problems with megamansions right on top of the village.”

Negotiations are complicated, Mr. Cantwell told the crowd, because the parcel contains “different lots of different sizes that are in different ownerships.” The word he used to describe it was “checkerboarded,” meaning in real estate parlance that no two adjoining parcels are in the same name (lest the area be upzoned and they be merged). But all are owned by Bistrian family members, he said, and “the various family members are negotiating as one.”

After Mr. Cantwell assured him that the community preservation fund would cover the purchase if a deal is reached, Michael Cinque, the owner of Amagansett Wines and Liquors on Main Street, speaking of the forthcoming expansion of the parking lot following the town’s acquisition of two lots east of it, said, “I still think it leaves us 60 spots short of needed parking. Can the town buy a little more, maybe 150 feet width of the lot, for another 60 spaces?”

But Tina Piette, deploring the difficulty of making a left turn out of the lot now, said that if still more spaces were added it would be impossible to get out.

Speaking of the parking lot, Mr. Cantwell announced that work on the hamlet’s long-awaited bathrooms will resume “in a week or so” and should be finished in a month or less. The expansion of the lot will be completed before next summer, he said.

Scott Crowe, who started the Save Our Farmland petition, returned to the topic of the evening. “We want agriculture,” he said. “It seems the only issue here is price.” Citing a state law that “a public road that hasn’t been used for six years shall be deemed abandoned,” he asked that the Bistrians “abandon the threat of paving.”

Forty-six years ago, when the town bought the land for the parking lot from Peter Bistrian, it agreed to put in and pave an L-shaped access road from the lot to Windmill Lane, but never did. The Bistrians now say they will install the road themselves by Oct. 10 if no agreement is reached before then.

Bill DiScipio, a lone voice crying in the wilderness, said he would prefer to see the land developed. The homebuyers, he predicted, would be away most of the year and their taxes would keep other people’s down.

“Preserve it,” said Robert Kay of Windmill Lane. “Preserve, so Amagansett doesn’t become suburbanized as other communities have.”

“Our intention is to preserve it, for agriculture,” Mr. Cantwell agreed. “The town has a history of identifying the breadbaskets of our community.” He instanced Long Lane in East Hampton, “where we have a lot of contiguous farmland. Farming is thriving, despite economic predictions 40 years ago” that it would vanish.

“Every piece of farmland that has productive soil, we want to preserve,” the supervisor declared.

Sustained applause followed. Mr. Cantwell waited for it to die down, then added, “provided we can pay for it.

The former Child Development Center of the Hamptons school on Stephen Hand’s Path in East Hampton could become the town’s next senior citizens center.

A report commissioned by the East Hampton Town Board and released this week indicated that the 22,000-square-foot building was in excellent shape.

Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said on Tuesday that the cost to convert the former C.D.C.H. building into a community center would be significantly less than the estimated cost to construct a new senior citizens facility from the ground up to replace the inadequate one on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton.

While the town owns the land — part of a 44-acre complex that includes soccer fields — the building itself is apparently owned by Family Residences and Essential Enterprises of Old Bethpage, which managed the school. D.L. Bennett Consulting, which prepared the report for the town, said that the bill for repairs and converting the former school to a senior citizens center would be roughly $2.1 million. However, a purchase price has not been discussed and would be the wild card in ultimately deciding whether or not the plan to operate a senior citizens center there would be cost-effective, Drew Bennett said in his report.

The charter school closed at the end of the 2015-16 school year due to declining enrollment and financial losses. Students who had attended programs there have been largely accommodated by their home school districts.

The cost of a new senior citizens center has been estimated by the town at between $5.3 million and about $6.2 million. “Clearly, there is a substantial savings in that,” Mr. Cantwell said during a town board meeting at the Montauk Fire House on Tuesday.

Diane Patrizio, the director of the town Human Services Department, spoke favorably about the concept at Tuesday’s meeting. She said that in addition to the daily programs for older residents, the center houses a range of other services. These include a transportation program to get senior citizens out for grocery shopping and to medical appointments. A nutrition program is run there, as are individual case management services and youth programs.

In all, about 331 residents took part in nutrition programs at the senior citizens center in a 2015, according to the town, with more than 17,000 meals served.

Several 12-step groups use the senior citizens center during the off hours as well.

There are about 30 employees who work there in all, Ms. Patrizio said, many of whom are forced to park elsewhere, including at the nearby Calvary Baptist Church and others at Town Hall on Pantigo Road.

“We don’t have a lot of room there, and we have to use the same areas for different programs,” Ms. Patrizio said.

The C.D.C.H. site would allow the town to open a real community center with space for nonprofits and others to use the building.

Older residents who use the current senior citizens center like the location, Ms. Patrizio said, concluding, “We need more room.”

“People don’t like change, but once we made the move, the possibilities there outweigh any negatives,” she said.

“There are limitless options about how it could be laid out. It’s a really great building,” Eric Schantz, a member of the town planning staff, said at Tuesday’s meeting.

Mr. Cantwell said that there was a possibility that the East Hampton Food Pantry, which is facing the loss of its space in the Windmill II housing complex on Accabonac Road, might be able to move into the C.D.C.H. site, though he said that he was not sure yet if it would be an appropriate location for it.

“This is all attractive, but I am most concerned about traffic and getting there,” Councilman Fred Overton said at Tuesday’s meeting. He said he wondered about senior citizens making left turns from Stephen Hand’s Path onto Montauk Highway, particularly during the summer months. Mr. Cantwell responded that drivers could instead head east via Stephen Hand’s Path, crossing or entering Route 114 at the traffic light there.

The Child Development Center had been considered a potential solution to crowded classrooms at the Springs School. However, the Springs School Board concluded this summer that it would be legally unable to do so because the site is outside of school district boundaries. The Springs School announced in August that Family Residences and Essential Enterprises, the nonprofit organization that had managed the charter school, had agreed to give it a number of fixtures, including desks, chairs, and bookshelves.

Plans for a new senior citizens center on the Springs-Fireplace Road property have been under discussion for more than two years. A third of the East Hampton Town population is over 55, and officials say that the need for services for older residents will only increase.

Last year, the town’s transportation program run at the center accommodated 250 clients, making about 17,400 trips.

The current senior citizens center has been in use for more than 30 years in a former bar and restaurant estimated to be more than 100 years old. The town also operates a program for older residents at the Montauk Playhouse Community Center, where an extensive renovation project and fund-raising campaign has been ongoing for a second phase of improvements that would include an aquatic and cultural center.