New York State

Push for Conservation Tax Break

Nonprofit groups buying land for environmental, conservation, or historic preservation purposes could save money if state legislation proposed by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. is approved.

The legislation before the State Assembly would exempt real estate deals for open space, parks, or historic preservation from state real estate transfer taxes. The state imposes a general transfer tax of $2 per each $500 of the purchase price, as well as a 1-percent additional tax on sales over $1 million. Those taxes, Mr. Thiele said in a press release, “operate as a penalty to conservation.” The state, he said, has a $300 million environmental protection fund for land preservation and to assist local land trusts, and “tax policy should be consistent with environmental policy.”

Nonprofits are already exempt from the 2-percent real estate transfer tax imposed in the five East End towns to raise money for the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund.

Water Quality Protection Grants

State grants are available to farmers for water quality protection projects, Mr. Thiele recently announced. A total of $11 million has been allocated to protect soil and water resources through the Agricultural Nonpoint Source Abatement and Control Program. Grants will be awarded to county soil and water conservation districts for environmental planning or to implement best management practices such as waste storage systems, riparian buffer systems, and conservation cover crops. The county districts must apply by April 1.

Paid Family Leave Enacted

The State Assembly has passed legislation that would provide paid family leave for workers in New York. While federal law provides for unpaid leave of up to 12 weeks for workers with newborns, or to care for family members, protecting the workers’ job status, it does not provide for payment during that leave. The New York legislation would require private employers to provide paid family leave, and workers would contribute up to 45 cents per week to a fund for that policy, to cover up to two-thirds of a worker’s salary.

“It’s time we put families first and make sure that all workers have access to paid family leave — it is the fair and right thing to do,” Mr. Thiele said in a release. “The increase in worker satisfaction and employee retention will also help businesses. In this era of extreme inequality, our efforts must be laser-focused on helping hard-working New Yorkers get ahead.”

While the weather may still be wintry, and we are only on the second page of the 2016 calendar, it is about this time that real estate agents begin the process of matching up landlords and tenants for summer rentals.

This year, local agencies have the additional task of informing their homeowning clients about East Hampton Town’s new rental registry law, which requires everyone offering a house for rent to obtain a registration number from the town, under penalty of stiff fines or even imprisonment.

To do so, an application must be submitted to the town’s Building Department, providing information about the proposed rental, such as the number of legal bedrooms. An affidavit attesting that the property meets certain building and safety codes must also be filed. A $100 fee is charged for a registry number good for two years.

The town board passed the new law in December and has given prospective landlords until May 1 to comply.

According to Ann Glennon, who, as the town’s chief building inspector, is in charge of the registry, 179 rental registration numbers had been issued as of Tuesday and about 50 applications were pending. The Building Department, she said, has generally been able to process applications and provide landlords with the required registration numbers within two or three days.

For-rent ads, including postings online, must include the rental registry number, or homeowners will be subject to a fine. Numbers must be obtained for all rental properties, even if they are already leased, and information on tenants and leases must be provided. Under the law, an update must be filed with the town if a tenant or lease term changes.

“I think the word is getting out there,” Ms. Glennon said on Tuesday. Many applications have been mailed in, she said, though some people have submitted them in person.

“It’s going pretty well,” she said. “People don’t really seem to be having a problem with it.”

So far, she said, her department has easily assimilated the additional workload, processing about 10 applications a day. “As of right now, it hasn’t been a killer for us,” she said — though what happens as spring nears and more homeowners think about renting for the summer remains to be seen.

To inform its clients, Saunders & Associates brokerage has created a short video, which has been posted on YouTube. After reviewing the tenets of the law, it poses the question, in infographic form, “Are there legal issues with the law?”

“While we see potential legal issues, landlords must consult with their own counsel on the ramifications and potential issues with the law,” is the answer.

Opponents of the rental registry, who spoke at several public hearings before the law was passed, had contended that the requirements of the registry overstepped the town’s authority, running afoul of civil rights and property rights.

Another real estate agency, Brown Harris Stevens of the Hamptons, has sent notices to all the landlords it represents in East Hampton, explaining the requirements of the law and informing them that after May 1 “non-complying landlords will be at risk for fines and criminal sanctions.” The company provided a link to the town’s website, where registration forms can be downloaded.

“We haven’t had really any negative response to it, although it may still be too early to tell,” Cia Comnas, a manager at the brokerage, said this week. Questions had come in from a few clients, she said.

Egan & Golden, a law firm with offices in East Hampton and in Patchogue, also wrote up a “frequently asked questions” guide to the new law for East Hampton landlords and posted it on its website, noting that its attorneys “are fully familiar with Building Department regulations” and are “available to draft and review all rental property documents” to ensure compliance with the town code.

The registry law has also attracted attention from the Real Estate Weekly website, which noted the attendance of local real estate brokers “en masse” at a town-sponsored information session. According to that website, East Hampton is the eighth town in Suffolk County to enact a rental registry law or permit requirement.

The Long Island Environmental Voters Forum has endorsed David Calone, a businessman and former chairman of the Suffolk County Planning Commission,  who is seeking the Democratic nomination for New York’s First Congressional District. The party’s nominee will oppose Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican incumbent, who will seek a second term. 

The environmental group cited Mr. Calone’s support for renewable energy, including solar and wind power, as well as his encouragement of efforts to reduce nitrogen in groundwater, which the organization called Long Island’s top environmental and economic challenge.

“We’re proud to endorse Dave Calone in recognition of his commitment to environmental protection, which seems under siege in the current Congress,” David Reisfield, the forum’s executive director, said in a statement announcing the group’s endorsement.

The East Hampton Town Trustees endorsed two projects aimed at restoring Georgica Pond to health on Tuesday, telling the representative of a property owners’ association that an application to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for the larger project could be made in the trustees’ name. 

The move, over the determined objection of the body’s former clerk, would break with recent practice, in which the town applied for D.E.C. permits on the trustees’ behalf. That allowed the trustees, which owns and manages many of the town’s waterways, bottomlands, and beaches on behalf of the public, to deny the D.E.C.’s authority while affirming its own. 

On behalf of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, the property owners’ group, Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University told the trustees that the dense and toxic blue-green algal blooms which, in the summers of 2014 and ’15, prompted the pond’s closure to crabbing and warnings against going in the water, were at least in part promoted by the macroalgae outbreaks that preceded them. There is a distinct pattern, Dr. Gobler said, in which the release of nitrogen and phosphorous from the decaying macroalgae, the dominant species of which he believes is Cladophora, was followed by blooms of blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria. Excessive algal growth degrades the water, reducing or eliminating dissolved oxygen and causing fish kills. Exposure to cyanobacteria can cause vomiting or diarrhea; skin, eye, or throat irritation; nausea, or allergic reactions or breathing difficulties. 

Dr. Gobler proposed weekly harvesting, from May through August, of the macroalgae from the pond’s surface waters by way of an aquatic weed harvester, a boat propelled by paddlewheels that cuts and collects vegetation. The macroalgae would be weighed and analyzed to quantify the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous being removed from the pond. “By doing that,” he said, “we’ll know how much of the nitrogen and phosphorous load we’re mitigating. It may be that we’re handling the whole thing, or it may be that it’s just a drop in the bucket. But until we perform this exercise, we really won’t know.” The Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation would finance the project, said its executive director, Sara Davison. 

“Along with harvesting it, we’re also going to quantify anything else that gets removed,” Dr. Gobler said, including invertebrates that would be returned unharmed to the pond. “This could be the panacea, and this could be a drop in the bucket, but either way the evidence suggests there will be benefits.” 

He described the project as an interim measure while land-based efforts to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous-loading, including improving or replacing septic systems and cesspools and reducing fertilizer use, are implemented. “In many cases, particularly with Georgica Pond, the watershed is very extensive,” he said. “It extends very, very far north. Groundwater takes a long time to reach it. This is an in-the-water approach that may be needed in the interim.” A letter of endorsement from the trustees, he said, will further the permitting process with the D.E.C. 

Diane McNally, formerly the trustees’ longtime clerk, proposed giving the property owners’ group permission to seek a D.E.C. permit in its name. Most of her colleagues disagreed. “I don’t know how we can step back from this and ignore our ownership of the pond and tell them they’ve got to get the permit,” said Jim Grimes. “The first thing the D.E.C. is going to say is, ‘Who owns the property?’ ” 

“I don’t care what the D.E.C. has to say,” Ms. McNally said. The pond, she said, “is being affected by every decision being made by upland homeowners who got septic systems, building permits, roads, drainage.” She warned her colleagues that “You’re going to lose so much . . . You’re allowing the D.E.C. to regulate what we can do with that pond.”

“I would wonder why you all became trustees,” she said, gesturing to the five trustees elected in November, four of them Democrats, “if you’re going to give everything away.” 

Richard Whalen, who was named the trustees’ attorney by its new Democratic majority last month, said an assertion that the trustees are not subject to D.E.C. regulations would have to be settled in court. “My own view is you’re probably going to find out you are subject to the D.E.C.,” he said. “There are plenty of entities that predate the D.E.C., including the Town of East Hampton, that have to apply for and get D.E.C. permits for much of what they do. . . . The only way to answer that question would be to litigate it.” Regardless, he said, “The notion that the D.E.C. can do away with the trustees, they can’t. You still own the property.” 

“This is an issue that was pretty much settled by the last election,” said Bill Taylor, moving to approve Dr. Gobler’s proposal with the trustees named on the permit application. Tim Bock joined Ms. McNally in opposing the motion, which passed by a 6-2 vote. Brian Byrnes was not at the meeting.

Bruce Horwith, a conservation biologist who is overseeing several phragmites-removal projects around the pond, also asked the trustees, on behalf of the property owners’ group, to endorse a plan to seek modification of an existing D.E.C. permit held by East Hampton Village that would allow excavation of a .2-acre area in the northeast section of Georgica Cove. The project, he said, would more than triple the width and double the depth of a narrow channel, achieving a significant increase in water circulation. “It would be easier, cheaper, and quicker to modify the existing permit than to start from scratch with a new application,” he said. 

The excavation equipment would traverse village and trustee-owned land to access the pond. The trustees voted unanimously to provide a letter endorsing the plan.  

The East Hampton Town Planning Board got its first look at a site plan for a new car wash business last week and found it fairly sparkling. The business would be located off Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton, next to the recycling center.

The site, about an acre in size and currently vacant, sits between the recycling center’s entrance and exit roads, in a spot zoned for commercial-industrial use. “It’s at the dump,” Britton Bistrian of Land Use Solutions told the board, pointing out that the business would make use of one of the town’s least desirable locations.

Ms. Bistrian, representing the owner, whom she identified only as a local resident, described the car wash as environmentally friendly. When people wash their cars themselves, she said, they use an average of 50 gallons of water, all of which then runs off into the soil. The carwash would use only 35 gallons of water, and that water is recycled; no wastewater would be discharged. Instead, it would be trucked out, and treated elsewhere.

Cars would enter by turning left off Maryland Avenue (which is the street name for the entrance to the recycling center), well before the guard kiosk. The 5,455-square-foot building would stand 15 feet from its rear property line, meaning the applicant would need a variance from the zoning board of appeals. The town code requires a building setback of at least 25 feet.

Cars would leave via Ohio Avenue,  the exit from the recycling center.

Job Potter, a board member, asked if the building could be placed elsewhere on the site to avoid the need for a variance. Ms. Bistrian explained that it was placed so as to avoid customers lining up at the entrance to the recycling center and blocking access to it. “We do have the legal right to come off Springs-Fireplace Road,” she said, but “this is a formula that works.”

“This location makes a lot of sense,” Reed Jones, the board’s chairman, said.

The plan calls for 17 parking spaces, which would be used for employee parking and for car-detailing. Using the car wash opposite the Omni on County Road 39 in Southampton as a model, Ms. Bistrian told the board there would be about 10 employees at a time working on site. The Southampton car wash does not have on-site parking, which leads to congestion there, she said.

Mr. Jones asked what the hours would be. Ms. Bistrian was not sure, but said it would be normal daytime hours. “It doesn’t turn into a nightclub,” she promised.

According to a memorandum submitted to the board by Eric Schantz, a town planner, the proposal appears to comply with Suffolk County Department of Health requirements. The owners may need a permit from the State Department of Environmental Conservation, Mr. Schantz said, and certain technical details need to be worked out as well. Eventually, there will be a public hearing on the proposal.

Mr. Jones said that in his seven years on the board, he has seen several car wash proposals, most recently one in Wainscott at the old Star Room location. “They come, they make their presentations, and they walk away,” he said.

Ms. Bistrian said that this applicant would continue to move forward, meeting with the various agencies involved, and would obtain the needed permits to make the car wash a reality.

East Hampton Town officials are moving to make permanent an existing ban on drinking at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett.

The ban would be in force during lifeguard hours on weekends and holidays, from the Saturday before Memorial Day to the end of September. A hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Feb. 25 at Town Hall.

A no-drinking rule at Indian Wells, in areas of the beach within 1,000 feet of the road end, was initially enacted in the summer of 2014 in response to residents’ complaints about large groups of rowdy young beachgoers drinking to excess and creating a disagreeable atmosphere at a beach popular with families.

A limited alcohol ban was imposed, with a sunset date at the end of the summer, and was renewed for 2015. Changes were also made to the parking area and beach access road, to reduce congestion and make the area safer.

Members of the East Hampton Town Trustees, who have jurisdiction over local waters and shores, opposed the ban when it was first suggested. It was then revised to target only weekends in season. Now, the trustee majority, with new members elected last fall, has indicated support for the ban. The hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m.

Air quality problems in the pool area at the East Hampton Y.M.C.A. RECenter are to be addressed soon with a two-pronged approach, thanks to fund-raising by the Hampton Lifeguard Association and the center’s board of managers.

While East Hampton Town, which owns the recreation center building and leases it to the Y, recently issued a $750,000 bond to replace heating, water, and dehumidification systems, a secondary, ultraviolet disinfection system will also be installed, said Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez at a town board meeting on Tuesday.

The secondary system will eliminate a buildup of chlorine, Dick Monahan, a member of the Y board of managers, told the board. Chlorine is considered to be at least in part responsible for the respiratory symptoms that swimmers, and their parents, have complained of.

The lifeguard association will purchase and donate the equipment to the town, and the town, said Ms. Burke-Gonzalez, will spend some $8,500 for engineering on the system, and will seek bidders on its installation.

According to its contract with the Y, the town contributes $590,000 annually toward the center’s operating expenses; capital improvements to the building are paid for separately.

The agreement calls for earnings above and beyond the Y’s annual budget to be returned to the town, and Glenn Vickers, the center’s executive director, recently announced that a $29,000 overage will be returned. The town’s costs for the ultraviolet system will be taken from that amount, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said.

Complaints about the indoor air quality at the RECenter pool have been widespread for the last several years. Last spring, the town had D.B. Bennett, a consulting engineering firm, assess the building’s condition and develop a prioritized list of maintenance tasks and capital improvement projects, along with cost estimates. 

Swimmers have reported symptoms that have been ascribed to heavy use of the center’s two pools and a lack of adequate ventilation, especially in winter. In 2013, county health officials who tested the pool water, but not the air, found no public health hazard, but the complaints continued.

According to John Ryan Sr., a member of the Y’s board, an anonymous donor has agreed to underwrite the $3 million to $4 million cost of building a new pool. That project has not been publicly discussed.

South Fork veterans will get a bigger break on their property taxes soon and, depending on where they live, could see decreases in their school taxes as well.

On Tuesday, the Southampton Town Board okayed an increase in the New York State veterans tax exemption, which allows districts and municipalities to lower the assessed value of property belonging to veterans, in turn lowering their taxes. The East Hampton Town Board will hold a hearing on the matter on Feb. 25, and is expected to adopt the higher exemptions as well.

The state categorizes the tax breaks according to whether veterans have served in combat or have a service-related disability. Gold Star parents, those who have lost a child in the line of duty, are also eligible.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said he expects the board to approve the increase. “Your choice is, you don’t make this available because you’re concerned with the amount of taxes you might lose, but the board is not going to deny a way of offering some assistance to anyone who has been a veteran or participated in overseas action or any of the areas that qualify,” he said. “Our town board is going to extend the maximum benefit we can to those who qualify.”

The basic exemption for a veteran is 15 percent of assessed property value, not to exceed $75,000. The previous maximum was $54,000. Combat zone veterans may receive an additional exemption of 10 percent of the assessed value, not to exceed an additional $50,000. Veterans with service-related disabilities may be eligible for more relief, up to a maximum of $250,000, an increase of $70,000.

There are 2,400 veterans in Southampton who will be eligible for the increase in benefits, Lisa Goree, the town’s tax assessor, told the town board on Tuesday. When assessments are lowered for some properties, the rest of the town’s taxable properties must make up the difference in the total assessment.

School districts, whose taxes make up 70 percent of most tax bills, have to opt into the exemption program separately from the towns. Sagaponack is the only school district to date to approve the increased veterans’ exemption. Eileen Touhy, Sagaponack School’s business administrator, said during a public hearing on the issue last month that the tax break essentially means “recognizing the veterans for their service and saying you appreciate them.”

The Bridgehampton School District and the Sag Harbor School District approved a veterans’ tax break, at the former maximum, in February 2014. The East Hampton School District has not discussed it.

Members of a new committee that will serve as a liaison to East Hampton Town’s Latino community are to be appointed tonight by the East Hampton Town Board. The move is an “effort to communicate and educate, but also to have a dialogue,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said.

The town is “trying to find a way to reach out and better communicate with” its Spanish-speaking residents, he said, and wants to “provide educational material and information from the town to an important part of our community.”

While the town once had a similar committee, in recent years East Hampton’s school districts have done a better job of outreach than the town has, the supervisor said. The committee came about at the suggestion of Diana Walker, an Amagansett resident, and members have already been selected.

They will help the town reach people who “might otherwise not come to a meeting,” people who are “often left out — not by design.”

For instance, he said, 350 people attended two recent workshops on the town’s new rental registry law. But the town would like to present the same information, on how landlords must comply with new regulations before renting properties, in a bilingual session.

Other workshops might cover the functions of the town clerk’s office, town justice court, and Police Department, Mr. Cantwell said.

Some bridge-building efforts are already under way.

East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo had a “tremendous meeting” recently with the Latino clericus, Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said. The town’s anti-bias task force has issued a widely distributed informational brochure in Spanish as well as English and is looking to organize an open house at police headquarters “to try to bridge some gaps,” said Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the liaison to that group. She suggested that the task force and the new committee join forces.

East Hampton Town

East Deck Land Is Rezoned

A zoning change approved by the East Hampton Town Board last Thursday paves the way for the subdivision and redevelopment of oceanfront property in Montauk that is the site of the East Deck Motel.

The board voted to change the zoning district from resort to half-acre residential, which will allow a plan to create four house lots on the property, at 40 DeForest Road near Ditch Plain beach, to proceed.

The town planning board can now review the plan, which replaces an original proposal for a luxury membership club at the site, scrapped in the face of community opposition. It specifies that public access to the beach will be maintained and that easements will be placed over the house lots to protect dune areas and to assure that the lots will not be further subdivided.

Houses to be built on the site will be subject to current setbacks from the bluff, moving construction further from the beach than where the East Deck stands.

A bid by concerned residents to have the town purchase and preserve the property was pursued but was dropped because the asking price was too high. Subsequently, the property owners met with town officials and civic group representatives to tailor an acceptable proposal. Final approval will be needed from the planning board.

Amber Waves Lease Is Extended

Amber Waves Farm can use town-owned agricultural land on Buckskill Road in East Hampton for another three years, the town board resolved last week. The farmers have been using the property since July 2010; this is their second extension. Amber Waves pays the town $1,363.80 per year for use of the land.

Harbor Boulevard Buy for Open Space

After a hearing in December, the East Hampton Town Board voted unanimously last Thursday to purchase a .15-acre lot at 2 Harbor Boulevard in Springs from Alison and Gaetano Lupo, with $735,000 from the community preservation fund.

The property contains two multifamily dwellings and other structures, which will be removed at the sellers’ expense before the purchase is finalized. The land will be returned to its natural state and will be maintained as open space.

Amagansett Bathrooms Coming Soon

A comfort station in Amagansett, long discussed, may be nearing fruition with the town board’s issuance of a bond to pay for its construction, and the selection of a bidder on the work.

With a vote last Thursday night, the board agreed to pay Carter-Melence Inc. $329,675 to get the project underway and approved the issuance of a $300,000 bond. The estimated maximum cost of the project is $545,000; the new bond amount will be added to $245,000 that was previously bonded. J.P.

Southampton Town

Southampton’s Credit Rating: All A’s

Southampton Town has again received the highest credit rating from Standard & Poor’s Rating Service. In a report issued Feb. 3, the service recognized the town as having “very strong management and strong financial policies and practices.”

The town first received an AAA rating in June 2014, after a five-year recovery period.

Standard & Poor’s predicts that the town’s economic factors are likely to be maintained and that the rating will not change over the next two years. Leonard Marchese is the town comptroller.

Supervisor Jay Schneiderman led a presentation in front of S&P rating analysts. Anna Throne-Holst, who is looking for the Democratic endorsement for Congress, was Southampton’s supervisor from 2010 to 2015, taking over as the town struggled to rebound following multimillion-dollar deficits in 2009.

First-Time Homebuyers Get Help

More first-time Southampton Town homebuyers could be eligible for a tax exemption that the town board moved to increase this week. Since 2001, buyers paying up to $250,000 for a house could apply for the first-time homebuyer’s exemption. That figure no longer reflects the fair market value of typical homes in the township, and the board increased the amount, through the state’s low-interest mortgage program, to just under $597,000. To qualify for the exemption buyers would also have to meet combined income limits, which have also increased, from $73,000 to $130,800.

Qualified homebuyers receive a five-year decreasing real property tax exemption, starting with 50 percent of the purchase price in the first year and decreasing by 10 percent each year until the owner is paying the full amount.

Only four new homeowners qualified for the exemption under the 2015 town property tax bill, for a total savings of $220. The four would increase to nine under the increase, with a total of $1,500 in savings to the homeowners. School taxes are not exempt unless the school district opts in, and Riverhead Town is the only one that does so in the Town of Southampton.

Other criteria that qualify buyers include not owning property for three years, and buying a newly constructed house or one that will be renovated within 90 days of the purchase. T.K.V.

New York State

Seek More L.I.R.R. Service to Montauk

New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. has called on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to amend his 2016 state budget to include money for the construction of a second Long Island Rail Road track from Sayville to Montauk. The track would permit additional seasonal service, and, according to a press release from Assemblyman Thiele, “would facilitate the goal of increased year-round service through a shuttle to the South Fork.”

The assemblyman spearheaded the addition of $37.5 million to the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s capital plan some years ago for such a shuttle service, but the L.I.R.R. did not implement it.

Mr. Thiele notes that the governor’s 2016 budget proposal already calls for a major capital improvement along the L.I.R.R. line in Nassau County. But, he said, “The L.I.R.R. has to expand its mission beyond just being a commuter railroad between [Long Island] and [New York City]. The L.I.R.R. is missing an important opportunity to increase public transit to the South Fork, not only during the busy summer season, but year-round.” Better public transit, he said, would benefit the economy as well as improve traffic conditions on the South Fork.

An East End train-shuttle service was among the transportation options examined and recommended in a transportation study commissioned by the five East End towns some years ago. J.P.