By any standard it is a large number: East Hampton Town ordinance enforcement and other personnel have removed some 151 illegal signs from the public right-of-way in recent weeks.

That the number was so high is hardly a surprise. Previous town administrations had tolerated, if not encouraged, a certain studied lethargy in enforcement of many regulations. The chaos now is finally coming to an end under the leadership of Supervisor Larry Cantwell, who, having managed East Hampton Village in a by-the-book manner as its administrator, is now bringing order to Town Hall.

Though prohibited for decades, off-premises signs had been ignored by officials. The allowed commercial festoonery sent an unmistakable message to businesses that almost anything would be tolerated as long as it was in the interest of making money. Supposedly good for the economy, looking the other way undermined the town code and led to all kinds of bigger violations.

The message of the 151 signs should be taken seriously by everyone here. Successive generations of East Hampton Town Board members worked hard on a regulatory structure designed to protect residents’ interests first and foremost and to assure fair play and good neighborliness among businesses. The sign removal effort is an unmistakable promise that the law matters and will be enforced.

In and of itself, a massive members-only club proposed for the former East Deck Motel site at Ditch Plain does not represent the end of Montauk as we know and love it, but it comes close.

Here is what is understood so far: An anonymous new owner has come up with a plan to more than double the use of the property by building a two-story complex with an Olympic-size swimming pool, a restaurant, and below-grade parking. The club would be open to some 179 members, along with their families and guests, based apparently on the space available on the beach in front of the parcel.

Built to meet Federal Emergency Management Agency standards, with a ground floor about 15 feet above sea level, the proposed 12,000-square-foot main building would tower over the area, cutting off views from nearby houses, and greatly change the look and feel of the area — for the worse. It could be that a grandiose plan for the new club was presented as an initial ante to be bargained down to what the owner really wants. But even at half the size, it would represent an unwise doubling of the former motel. And remember, this comes in part from the legal team responsible for the Montauk Beach House, another intrusion on parking, public property, and the community.

Viewed another way, the project amounts to a proposal to privatize a longstanding, popular public beach. If the plan eventually is approved, the club’s members, by force of numbers alone, would take over the sand between the so-called East Deck parking area and the legendary Dirt Lot. Though passage would not technically be blocked, amenities, like daybeds and beach lounge chairs, might well make it clear that ordinary folks are not welcome. Surfers at Ditch, already often frustrated by the crowded lineup, might well have to swallow a new and more self-entitled breed less willing to share the waves because they’ve paid for the privilege. And East Hampton officials will also have to consider what additional burden the additional club crowd might put on the town lifeguards just to the west.

The plan was the talk of Saturday’s Montauk Playhouse fund-raiser, where Alice Houseknecht, a former East Deck owner, was among the honorees. It appears that Ms. Houseknecht was hornswoggled by the mystery owner or his or her representatives when she sold the property. She reported last fall that she had been assured there would be no second story on the new structure and that the integrity of the site would be maintained. Based on the paperwork submitted to town planners so far, this is not true, which suggests that the people behind the scheme cannot be taken at their word. Town officials must proceed with the greatest suspicion in reviewing their project.

Our doubts also have been raised by the faceless owner’s successfully getting the town to accept a questionable gift of an expensive dune restoration project that looked then, as it does even more now, like a pot-sweetener for requests that were to come. We wonder just how ethical, or even legal, it was for a municipality to accept a donation from a party with an active plan working its way through its regulatory offices or about to be. Whether or not the gift was intended to curry favor (which it almost certainy was), it was unwise of officials to accept it.

Unfortunately, the project makes it clear that the site’s zoning, and that of other attractive parcels, especially around Montauk, is too permissive. In the 2005 East Hampton Town Comprehensive Plan, no changes were recommended for the resort zoning at Ditch Plain, including the Montauk Shores Condominium trailer park. This means that well-funded investors could further try to maximize their returns in spite of a widely held view that Montauk is already at its saturation point in terms of resorts and visitors.

What happens at East Deck aside, as pressures continue for more, bigger, and fancier projects, officials need to take a hard look at whether existing rules are adequate to assure that the town’s shoreline remains one residents can be proud of. Concepts like the Ditch Plain club, which only add to congestion and environmental impacts and at the same time use public resources as if they were their own, have little place here.

As the summer high season rapidly draws to a close, East Hampton officials and leaders of the various environmental and business organizations here should take a look around and ask if a new, overarching plan is warranted to manage our town’s exploding popularity as a destination for short-term tourism and visitors.

Judging from the stunning number of rentals (mostly illegal) on online listing sites such as Airbnb and HomeAway and the fact that many houses were booked solid this summer, East Hampton’s guest-accommodation capacity has swelled almost overnight. Massive and continual traffic headaches support the casual observation that far more people were here between June and Labor Day than ever before. Restaurants were full every night of the week, grocery lines were a fact of life at all hours except the very early morning or late at night, and the beaches were crowded.

Downtown Montauk fairly boiled over with pedestrians this year when the sun did not shine, and the thunder from its clubs and gin mills could be heard for miles pretty much every night. Police struggled to meet the demand for increased patrols. Daytime beer parties and evening bonfires left the ocean beaches in appalling condition in Montauk and in other parts of town. All in all, summer 2014 appears to have been one in which the old, peaceful order hung on by just a thread.

The East Hampton Town Comprehensive Plan, last updated in 2005, is undoubtedly due for an overhaul anyway, but the escalating draw of people who do not own houses here or rent for a season, or even a summer month, suggests that the more urgent need is for effective controls that balance the desires and needs of tourists and visitors with those of residents.

We believe that East Hampton Town has reached a saturation point beyond which irreparable harm to the place we know and love will be inevitable. Community leaders, both from private groups and among elected officials, must make a priority of preparing for the seasons to come and the ever-greater demands the Hamptons’ notoriety has wrought.

Everybody eats; not everybody plays golf. And there, in a nutshell, you have why a private club’s offer to take over most of a large parcel of town-owned former farmland in Amagansett should be rejected out of hand.

Some weeks ago, after successfully negotiating a community preservation fund purchase of a multi-parcel site for which luxury housing for the over-50 crowd had been planned, the East Hampton Town Board called for proposals about how the property might be used. Among the responses was a thick document from the South Fork Country Club offering to set up a driving range and instruction tees and greens there. A fine horse barn there would be used for club equipment and about a third of the land would be returned to farming. While the new site would serve the club’s members, the proposal notes that the public would be able to use the facility, presumably for a fee. The club said it would pay the town $75,000 a year for the land’s use and return it in better shape than when it was purchased.

Even though the preservation fund law allows municipalities to buy land for recreation, and golf is indeed a form of recreation, the South Fork’s proposal should be rejected. Perhaps 1 in 10 people in the United States occasionally golf, but only a fraction of that number do so more than a few times a year. According to a recent report from the National Golf Foundation, the sport suffered a net loss of 400,000 players last year. Looking toward the future, golf’s biggest defections were seen among those under 35. This is hardly the kind of trend the East Hampton Town Board should consider hitching itself to — especially on such a visible and, at $10.1 million, expensive recent land buy.

As we understand it, there are several other proposals making the rounds, and apparently most of them involve better agricultural purposes. Several East Hampton Town Board members have expressed a preference for farming or related uses there, and we agree. Food production is preferable, as it would revitalize the site, preserving community access and providing educational opportunities for a much larger proportion of local residents than golf ever could. You can’t fault the South Fork Country Club, which has an 18-hole course and clubhouse nearby, for asking. Nevertheless, its option should be placed on the bottom of the pile.

The mechanics of a proposed East Hampton Town registry for property rentals will require detailed consideration, but at this point it seems a good idea and long overdue.

Officials are revising a draft of a law that would require landlords to register with the town, providing details about the number of rooms and so on. An identification number would be assigned to each property, which would have to be displayed in all advertising and online listings. A hearing on the law should come before the end of the month.

Pushing things to a head is the exploding short-term rental industry facilitated by online services such as Airbnb and HomeAway that put would-be visitors and hosts together at prices that range from a rock-bottom $80 to thousands per night for desirable neighborhoods and completely appointed places. In effect, these services have allowed East Hampton’s manageable, finite number of hotel rooms and bed-and-breakfast accommodations to metastasize beyond current means of control.

To consider just a few numbers: Airbnb listed more than 300 East Hampton rentals for Labor Day weekend. A similar site, HomeAway, had 367 places up for grabs in Montauk. To be sure, not all these rentals violate the town code, but judging from many reports from guests, a large proportion blatantly exceed limits. (Under the East Hampton Town Code, no more than two rentals of fewer than 15 days are allowed in any six-month period.)

The stunning growth of online rentals has led to increased complaints from neighbors about summertime noise, litter, and overflow parking. More subtly, these short-term renters add to the already crowded roads, restaurants, and beaches — a boon to those making money during the resort season but a nuisance to others, including the ordinary summer and weekend community which is the backbone of the local economy. In addition, people here for only a few days or a week tend to move around a lot, packing in as much activity as they can. The problem is government’s lack of capacity to absorb the excess, given limited roads, waste disposal options, overstretched power and cellphone grids, and a fragile environment.

Rental registration exists in some form or other in hundreds, if not thousands, of jurisdictions across the United States. Some programs, like that in the City of Boston, require that every private unit be listed and that landlords attest to knowing all applicable regulations and agree to abide by them. This point is interesting, considering that one notable Montauk share-house owner, a New York lawyer no less, claimed ignorance of the law while pleading guilty recently to assorted violations. One goal of the Boston effort has been to assure safe and adequate living conditions for tenants, though owner-occupied properties with fewer than six units are exempted. That would undermine the intent here.

A registry will incur costs but the expense is justified. East Hampton Town would almost certainly have to add personnel to manage the registry and to seek out and prosecute those who violate the rules. Property rentals are one of the area’s major sources of income. Responding with a governing agency up to the task of keeping them in check is not optional.

Tamping down on unregulated rentals appears to be one key aspect of protecting East Hampton’s future. Any inconvenience the proposed registry might represent will be more than justified if it gives enforcement personnel the tools they need to do the job.

On paper, East Hampton Village’s proposed code changes to allow some duneland projects to proceed with reduced official scrutiny may make sense; on the ground, however, one of the proposals — to allow property owners to place “beach-compatible” sand on the dunes without applying for a variance from the code — is regrettable. Hearings on these and several other changes are scheduled for tomorrow’s village board meeting.

Our objection to exempting oceanfront property owners from prohibitions that now cover work on the dunes comes down to the simple fact that there is not enough sand to be found of sufficiently high quality. One thing is clear: The junk that passes for beach-compatible sand is garbage, pure and simple.

Take Georgica Beach in East Hampton Village, for example. Stone-flecked yellow sand from who knows where was dumped there to protect the exposed foundation of a guest house. To the east, a lot of the material brought in to protect threatened Montauk resorts has left the beach altered. In several places on the bay beach as well, we picked up bits of asphalt roadway and even what appeared to be a chunk of a green-painted concrete tennis court. The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation later told us the detritus came from an A-okay project.

With the standard for what passes as beach sand these days so low, village officials should not ease the way for property owners to fast-track coastal work. In the worst-case scenario, you could expect high “privacy dunes” to arise in these extraordinarily fragile micro­environments. It doesn’t seem as if the village trustees actually thought this through.

Another duneland regulation the board has proposed is reasonable, however. Property owners would be able to seek permits for elevated walkways with reduced paperwork and a minimum of delay. We support this change. On the matter of dune-building, however, the board should take a long, hard look before acting. Exempting property owners from thorough review would be likely to damage natural habitats and diminish the quality of one of East Hampton Village’s most precious assets — its beaches. At a time when projects near the beach should be getting more scrutiny, not less, the proposal is moving village government in the wrong direction.

East Hampton Town is getting its land acquisition strategy right and developing an approach that other local governments along the country’s coasts could consider a model. The money comes from two sources, the community preservation fund transfer tax and a newer federal program aimed at neutralizing at-risk properties. Taken together, the initiatives could improve marine and estuarine habitats, reduce potential erosion-control costs, and limit calls for government bailouts after catastrophic storms.

In a joint bid with the Nature Conservancy, the town recently won nearly $10 million in federal watershed protection money to buy properties near Lazy Point, a low-slung area surrounded by water in eastern Amagansett. The intent is to remove houses and other structures, allowing the sites to be revegetated as natural flood plain. One side benefit would be reducing the workload of town planners and others whose jobs are increasingly taken up with requests for permission to protect problematic shorefront properties.

On a simultaneous track, the town has been using money from the preservation fund to target properties in the heavily impacted Lake Montauk watershed. In a mailing to property owners there, the town offered to buy undeveloped parcels at fair market value. Many accepted, and deals are being completed that will remove potential development of a number of sites.

The East Hampton Town Trustees, an autonomous board that owns the underlying land of a number of continually threatened houses on Lazy Point, should be paying close attention. As more and more homeowners there come before them for erosion-control structures that alter the environment and restrict public access to the beach except at low tide, an orderly reduction in the number of houses appears necessary. Any future programs of the sort being planned by the town and Nature Conservancy should be extended to the trustees as well.

The upside of these efforts are that they are likely, over time, to cost taxpayers less than doing nothing and then bailing coastal property owners out after a disaster. Consider that a substantial portion of the $50 billion Hurricane Sandy relief package could have been avoided if initiatives like this had been undertaken before the storm.

LILCO, LIPA, PSEG — the names may have changed over the years, but for more than 30 years electrical service on Long Island has been one frustration after another. At a meeting in East Hampton on Tuesday, residents and elected officials were expected to speak out about a host of issues; whether their pleas will receive a meaningful response is subject to doubt.

Back in the 1970s, the Long Island Lighting Company tried to bring the region the never-to-be-opened Shoreham nuclear power station. Its successor, the Long Island Power Authority, was responsible for continually soaring rates and wholly inadequate storm preparation. And now, as the region gets to know the Public Service Enterprise Group (as Orwell might have called it), we have been subject to a thuggish approach that brought unsightly and perhaps unsafe massive transmission lines to residential neighborhoods and treasured agricultural areas and an absence of long-term vision including a meaningful commitment to renewable sources and reducing greenhouse emissions.

PSEG is a for-profit company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It seems that the bean-counters within it and its external shareholders are the guiding forces. This is evident in the new “Utility 2.0” plan, which relies on old-fashioned oil-burning power plants to meet supplemental demand on the East End, and seems to be a behind-the-scenes effort worthy of pulp fiction at intimidation of its critics.

PSEG’s deal with the state has the familiar hallmarks of a typical insider arrangement. The law pushed through by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, which supposedly was intended to reform Long Island’s electric service, does not clearly require the company to use competitive bidding, leaving key aspects of its operation essentially unregulated. As with many other initiatives from the governor’s office, when it came to PSEG, he left local governments twisting in the wind, able to do little more than beg for solutions.

Critics, including the Sierra Club, have said the “Utility 2.0” plan fails to provide for adequate alternative generation, notably by offshore wind turbines. PSEG also has sought to delay a 280-megawatt renewable-power project for which bids already had been sought.

Other critics have sharply faulted a demand-reduction project that appears likely to be watered down amid PSEG’s debt-minimization schemes. Gordian Raacke, the director of Renewable Energy Long Island, decried the utility’s approach, saying that it “seems determined to drag us back into the fossil fuel past.”

One has to wonder what it will take to finally break the utility nightmare that has defined electric service in the region. Without Albany taking the lead, there can be little hope of reform or alternatives. Given how much businesses and residents pay for power, they deserve better. Governor Cuomo, who has been understood as having national political aspirations, should recognize an opportunity here to demand a progressive, forward-leaning power policy for Long Island. New York State could become a model for the rest of the country. Instead, “Utility 2.0,” which was supposed to signal a new start, appears doomed from the outset. In the absence of the governor’s leadership, there is little hope for an environmentally sound energy future.

Tuesday’s Democratic primary in which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo managed to defeat a progressive insurgency from Zephyr Teachout, a first-time candidate, was a stunner to which New York’s old-line power brokers should pay close attention.

Over all, votes for the challenger can be read as messages of dissatisfaction with the governor’s approach to leadership, agenda, and priorities. Ms. Teachout landed a solid blow when she counted among her qualifications, vis-a-vis the governor’s, that she at least was not the subject of a federal probe; Mr. Cuomo’s role in dismantling his much-heralded anticorruption commission is being looked at by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Ms. Teachout’s relative success also came from her bootstrap campaign’s mastery of social media and, by extension, much of the news cycle. If Twitter, the online message platform, were the polls, she would have won in a landslide. During the lead-up to Tuesday’s primary, tweets from her and her supporters dominated feeds; the governor’s were few and perfunctory.

Two negative aspects of Mr. Cuomo’s first term stand out: the 2-percent tax increase cap, which imposed austerity on school spending that harms students, and a lackluster effort on environmental protection. Both, it appears, come from overarching political ambition, which by Mr. Cuomo’s reckoning requires that he govern from the center if he wants to have a run at the White House at some point. The 2-percent cap actually shrinks government as well as school spending because it fails to keep up with inflation. Inevitably, as choices are made to cope with the cap, it often will be less-wealthy state residents and disadvantaged areas that suffer the consequences.

On the environment, this year’s state budget contained a paltry $157 million for the environmental protection fund, a sum that has been described as not enough even for basic programs. Part of the problem has been the state’s skimming money supposed to go to the environment for other purposes — drastically shortchanging the Department of Environmental Protection, for example. Under the governor’s watch, Albany also has failed to lead, either with money or from the bully pulpit, on climate change, alternative energy, and coastal resiliency.

Unfortunate, too, has been Mr. Cuomo’s increasingly ludicrous way of dismissing challenges. He ducked multiple calls to debate Ms. Teachout, calling some he has participated in the past a “disservice to democracy,” and apparently forgetting the single most bizarre example, a nine-person clown show, which was set up at his behest as a way to minimize opposition. Then there was the embarrassing spectacle of him and his running mate’s, Kathy Hochul’s, refusing to shake Ms. Teachout’s hand during a Labor Day parade. Only on Governor Cuomo’s Planet Albany does this kind of thing make sense.   

Progressives nationwide were watching Tuesday for indications in Ms. Teachout’s numbers that a new chapter could be dawning in New York. They also were paying close attention to how Tim Wu, Ms. Hochul’s opponent for lieutenant governor, fared. Only time will tell, but that there was wide interest in Ms. Teachout and her message is something that politicians across the spectrum might ignore at their own risk.

One of the people who have been thinking a lot about a proposed surf club on the old East Deck Motel site at Ditch Plain in Montauk stopped in at The Star office the other day to point something out. Mike Bottini, an outdoorsman and member of the Surfrider Foundation’s local chapter, laid out a set of papers on our front desk, showing that a string of public and largely protected lands extend from Montauk Point nearly to the hamlet’s commercial downtown. East Hampton Town officials are believed to be in talks with ED40, the new corporate owners of the East Deck, about using the community preservation fund to buy the site. As Mike said, adding the property to the string of public and largely untouched lands would help complete a wonderful picture.

With the rebirth of longboarding and the rise of Montauk’s surfing lifestyle, Ditch Plain with its dependable and mostly forgiving break became what you might say is the center of the universe for many visitors, part-timers, and year-round residents. If the waves are only occasionally world-class, no matter; you can surf there almost every day of the year with the right equipment, and, in summer, some of the sport’s greatest stylists, including Joel Tudor, Robert August, and Wingnut Weaver, have been known to put their toes over the nose there.

ED40 never threatened the wave itself, but that hardly mattered. Its plan for a two-story private club with restaurant, pool, and other amenities would have not only altered the look of Ditch Plain but, what is more important to devotees, the feel of the place. For those lucky enough to own houses or rent in the neighborhood, the personal and commercial traffic the club would generate would become a source of continual annoyance. East Hampton Town’s buying the former motel and either keeping it as is or restoring parts of the beachfront to a natural state would eliminate the threat. While this alone might be enough to argue in favor of a deal, there are additional considerations.

Over the last decade or so, town officials have puzzled over how to provide more bathing beach capacity. Using some of the East Deck site for parking could help ease pressure elsewhere and better accommodate the numbers of beachgoers’ vehicles that already try to shoe-horn into Ditch Plain’s three inadequate lots. The site could provide a staging area for town lifeguards and improved access for emergency vehicles. Also, the single public restroom at Ditch is in desperate need of an upgrade; a second, more modern facility with a more environmentally appropriate septic system is in order.

Taking an idea from the Village of East Hampton, which very lucratively rents out the Sea Spray summer cottages near Main Beach, we can envision a setup at Ditch Plain in which the town actually gains revenue by retaining or renovating some of the motel for guests or coming up with a new arrangement.

The downside as we see it is cost. ED40 paid $15 million for the property last year; the price cannot have fallen since then, and the owners will undoubtedly want to be repaid for the dune-building they did there and on adjacent town land. The town cannot pay more than its appraisers say the property is worth, and a large deal might knock out a good chunk of the community preservation fund’s cash on hand. However, the town has the ability to borrow against future transfer-tax receipts for the fund, so the money is available one way or the other.

Setting aside highly politicized recriminations about the Keyes Island purchase in Three Mile Harbor, hardly an ill word has ever been said about preservation fund acquisitions. And, going further back in time, land buys have always been viewed favorably. Purported damage to a municipal property at Sammy’s Beach in East Hampton may have cost one town supervisor a shot a re-election, and an attempt to sell off a town property in Montauk badly sullied the reputation of another.

It has been understood for a long time here that preservation is the best investment. The huge outcry over the ED40 plan is an indication of how deep and heartfelt affection for Ditch Plain has become. It is difficult to come up with a significant downside to public purchase. Officials should proceed with talks knowing that they are on the right track and will enjoy wide community support.