Over objections from members of its nature preserve committee, the East Hampton Town Board last Thursday adopted an altered management plan for the South Flora preserve on Napeague, omitting parking along the preserve.

Parking had been a topic of contention and discussion at numerous town meetings. Residents of Dolphin Drive and nearby streets vehemently opposed it, citing safety concerns. Others, demanding public access to the preserve and its adjacent beach, accused them of trying to privatize the area.

The altered management plan designates a road-end beach parking area at Atlantic Drive, several blocks away from the preserve, as its parking lot. “It’s 800 feet away; that’s almost three football fields,” said Reg Cornelia, a member of the nature preserve committee, at a town board meeting last Thursday. “That’s like saying parking for the Atlantic Avenue beach should be at Indian Wells.” He asked the board not to vote on the management plan until it could be further discussed. “My name is on this thing,” he said. “If you vote on it tonight I want you to take my name off it.” 

Diane McNally, the clerk of the East Hampton Town Trustees, agreed. Ms. McNally, who represented the trustees on the preserve committee, said the committee’s draft plan, after being circulated to the town’s Natural Resources, Planning, and Land Acquisition Departments, had been revised in a number of ways.

“There’s no significant access to this nature preserve,” she said. 

Among the changes, said Mr. Cornelia, a reference to the land as an access to a “public bathing beach” had been omitted, as had mention of a bond that would have paid for the creation of parking.

The town bought the property in 2000 for preservation of open space and possible public recreational use as an ocean bathing beach. Since then, residents of the nearby area, particularly of Dolphin Drive, which abuts the western side of the preserve, have lobbied hard, and sued the town, to prevent parking along the adjacent streets. In May, the town board agreed to ban parking on both sides of Dolphin Drive.

The board approved the new plan last Thursday by a 3-to-1 vote. Councilman Fred Overton voted against it, suggesting that the nature preserve committee be allowed to weigh in on the final version. Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez was absent. Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said that adopting it did not preclude adding a parking area in the future.

Conditions at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter pool were the subject of comments by another group of speakers that evening. Parents whose children swim there told the board that students and swim team members have experienced negative health effects after spending time in the pool. “It is probably just as much about the water quality as about air quality,” Alex de Havenon said.

“We share your concerns,” Supervisor Larry Cantwell answered. Engineers have already been selected and inspections begun to determine what repairs and maintenance are needed, he said, noting that a bond resolution to raise $750,000 for the needed work was on the board’s agenda later that night. The resolution was approved.

Michael Forst urged the board not only to proceed with the repairs but to consider installing another pool at the facility. 

A pool pump motor and strainer were repaired in 2012 after complaints about sanitation and safety; additional work on pool filters was done in September. L.K. McLean Associates, an engineering firm, was hired earlier this month to oversee replacement of the building’s dehumidification, heating, and water systems. The 17-year-old building is owned by the town but leased to the Y.M.C.A.

With another vote last Thursday, the town board approved a “selective hunting” pilot program suggested by its deer management advisory committee. Under the program, town-approved bow hunters will be allowed to hunt on town properties not open to general hunting. The sites include land north of the Montauk recycling center, the old Bull Path brush dump in East Hampton, and the Brooks-Park and Hach properties in Springs. 

The prospect of increased hunting has been strongly opposed by members of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife and others who have questioned the need for herd reduction and urged the town to accrue more data on the impact of deer before proceeding.

“Preserve our town land as respites for our wildlife families,” said Betsy Petroskey at last week’s meeting. 

Finally, the board voted to use the community preservation fund to add new lands to the public holdings. A .15-acre lot owned by Gaetano and Allison Lupo at 2 Harbor Boulevard in Springs, near Maidstone Park, will be purchased for $735,000. Several cottages on the property will be torn down at the owners’ expense. The site is close to tidal wetlands, in a harbor protection district, and in state scenic and fish and wildlife habitat areas, said Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition.

The board also voted to purchase a half acre at 185 Old Montauk Highway in Amagansett from William and Kathleen Denice for $500,000, for open space. 

East Hampton voters will have an opportunity to weigh in next fall on whether to authorize the use of up to 20 percent of the town’s community preservation fund for projects that would improve water quality.

On Dec. 11, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law a bill authorizing a vote on whether to extend the preservation fund program, now scheduled to expire in 2030, to 2050, and to allow the participating towns to use up to 20 percent of the money in the fund for certain pre-approved water quality improvement projects. 

“When the C.P.F. was initiated, land preservation was the single greatest issue when it came to protecting community character,” State Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. said this week. The assumption, he said, was that by preserving land, groundwater and surface water bodies would be protected as well, but “that hasn’t panned out, unfortunately. We’re still seeing a decline in water quality. Water quality is the most dominant environmental issue that Long Island, in particular the East End, is dealing with right now.”

Should voters in the five East End towns approve, the towns would be able to use a portion of the preservation fund to pay for five categories of water-quality improvement: wastewater treatment, anti-pollution efforts, aquatic habitat restoration, general pollution prevention, and for the operation of the Peconic Bay National Estuary Program.

Mr. Thiele said this week that to narrow the focus of the eligible projects, provide additional oversight, and prevent misuse of the fund, the law has been modified since proposed, and now requires approval of individual projects by the Department of Environmental Conservation. The state agency would determine if the projects are consistent with regional water quality plans such as the South Shore or Peconic Estuary plans, or a new, Long Island-wide nitrogen reduction plan.

The expansion into water quality projects “is consistent with the original legislation” authorizing the community preservation  program, said Mr. Thiele, who co-sponsored the revision with State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle. The C.P.F., which receives the proceeds from a 2-percent real estate transfer tax, was established in the five East End towns in 1999 to pay for the preservation of land, including open space, farmland, and historic sites.

Based on past figures, it is projected that extending the program through 2050 will raise another $2.7 billion overall, with $540 million of it available for water quality projects, should voters approve. Each town would determine its own spending priorities, said Mr. Thiele.

It was Montauk time again at a meeting of the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals Tuesday night as Rick Gibbs, the owner of Rick’s Crabby Cowboy Cafe, received approval to dredge the 22 slips at his Lake Montauk marina and word was received that an appeal of a Building Department certificate of occupancy for a motel at Ditch Plain had been withdrawn.

 The Planning Department had expressed concern over Mr. Gibbs’s original application, which asked for permission to dredge 1,000 square feet of sediment to a depth of 6 feet below mean low water at the slips between Jan. 15 and May 15 for the next 10 years. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation had previously granted him a multiyear permit for maintenance dredging.

Brian Frank, the Planning Department’s chief environmental analyst, told the board last January that Mr. Gibbs had received similar approval in 2006 and had over-dredged in 2010, going as deep as 10 feet. He was fined about $150,000 by the state at the time; Mr. Frank also had argued at a public hearing in October that Mr. Gibbs had ignored mitigating conditions that the board had required previously, including a 25-foot-wide vegetated shoreline buffer.

Since the hearing, Mr. Gibbs and his agent, Drew Bennett, an engineer, had been negotiating with the Planning Department and come up with an agreement to move the vegetated buffer away from the shoreline to the south border of the property.

However, because of past history, the Planning Department had asked the zoning board to give its approval in one-year increments rather than the 10 years requested. Instead, the board found a middle ground, agreeing to allow the dredging over five years, with one caveat.

The board embraced a proposal made by Lee White, who is from Montauk, to require a new underwater survey before and after every dredging. “I like your suggestion,” John Whelan, the chairman, said, though he added that it was important to require the survey at the end of each dredging cycle.

Don Cirillo, whose five-year term on the board effectively ended Tuesday during the board’s last session of the year, agreed to five-year approval, but suggested making the first year conditional. If all conditions are met, the remaining four years would kick in. “We are keeping him on a very short leash,” Mr. Cirillo said. “The only reason we are doing that is his past history.”

The other Montauk business on the agenda Tuesday was an announcement by Mr. Whelan that the appeal of a certificate of occupancy for an eight-unit motel at 11 Ditch Plain Road issued by the Building Department to Sean MacPherson, a hotelier who has made a major investment in recent years in the Ditch Plain area, had been withdrawn. Laura Michaels, head of the Ditch Plains Association, did not return a call yesterday seeking to learn the reasons why.

The Ditch Plains Association and neighbors had brought the appeal, arguing that the use had been abandoned many years ago.

The appeal also involved the issue of timeliness, which has been heard in several instances in recent weeks. While the neighbors could not be reasonably expected to know when the original building permit was issued, they should have noticed when construction began, according to Anthony C. Pasca of Esseks, Hefter & Angel, at which point they had 60 days to challenge the permit. If no one has appealed within that 60-day period, the owner, who is acting on legally issued permits, should not have to operate under financial duress, he said.

A request for an update on what one Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee member called “the big dig” — the Army Corps of Engineers’ downtown Montauk beach project — prompted a heated hourlong discussion that had tempers flaring at a committee meeting on Monday night.

East Hampton Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc reported that various roadblocks have delayed completion of the project until the end of March. (A separate story on the delays appears elsewhere on this page.)

Some members pushed for town officials to hire an independent coastal engineer to oversee the work, someone similar to a clerk of the works, said Bill Akin, the former president of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk. But others took issue with that, saying the Army Corps did not need someone constantly looking over its shoulders. The councilman said that the town’s Natural Resources Department is monitoring the project, which includes the placement of massive sandbags along a 3,100-foot stretch of shoreline.

Jay Fruin, a committee member who is one of the plaintiffs, along with the organization Defend H20, in a lawsuit seeking to stop the project, described the weight of the bags as similar to heavy carpeting, and said that would make it even harder to remove them if there is reason to do so in the future. He said he had walked the site the day before with Robert S. Young, a licensed geologist in North and South Carolina and Florida, and members of the Surfrider Foundation. He said Mr. Young, a professor of coastal geology at Western Carolina University and director of a program for the study of developed shorelines, had little faith in the project and believes it will make the beach more susceptible to erosion. According to Mr. Fruin, he predicted that a few good northeasters would easily uncover the sandbags.

Mr. Van Scoyoc reminded people at the meeting that the project is an interim one meant to protect the beach and downtown area until recommendations of the Army Corps of Engineers’ as-yet-unfinished Fire Island to Montauk study can be implemented. When the town approved the project, he said, it felt it had no other recourse, especially since sea level is rising faster than once expected. “Long term I don’t think that downtown Montauk could survive sea level rise,” he said. “We need a post-storm recovery plan put in place immediately prior to a catastrophe.”

Some in the room were frustrated by the discussion, saying the project had been talked about for the past two years already. Steve Kalimnios, the owner of the hardest hit oceanfront motel, the Royal Atlantic, said that he has spent thousands of dollars of his own money placing sand on the downtown beach. “I saved that beach; I saved downtown Montauk,” he said, and asked people to at least see the current project through to completion. If the community came together, without all the arguments, he said, it would be a better way to hold the Army Corps’s “feet to the fire” should something not work out.

Others agreed. “The money’s here now. Congress has approved this project, but it’s a temporary solution so let’s do it, and let’s get it done,” said Richard Valcich, a committee member. The town could hire 50 different coastal engineers and end up with 50 different opinions, he said.

Unity among the townspeople is key, said Mr. Van Scoyoc, who urged the audience of some 50 people to lobby the federal government for completion of the Fire Island to Montauk study. “If a politician sees a community united behind one goal they will act faster. If a politician sees a community divided it would be a detriment to the project,” he said.

Also on Monday, the committee set a new 6 p.m. start time for future meetings, which are held on the first Monday of the month. It also agreed that members must attend at least half of the year’s meetings or will be asked to step down.

At their final meeting of 2015 on Tuesday, the East Hampton Town Trustees exchanged good wishes and praise for outgoing members who were defeated or did not seek re-election in November before discussing a proposed program to grow oysters in Three Mile Harbor and revisiting the controversy about alcoholic beverages at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett. The nine-person board will include five new members when it reconvenes next month.

The Shellfish Enhancement Education Directive, or SEED, program to grow oysters was proposed to the board in August by Barley Dunne, director of the town’s shellfish hatchery, and Scarlett Magda, a veterinarian who practices at the South Fork Animal Hospital in Wainscott. They envision that 10 to 15 participants would tour the hatchery, in Montauk, on or around April 23 to see the first stages of shellfish life. In July, they would receive seed oysters — 1,000 per participant — and begin the grow-out period in a shallow, approximately 1,500 or 2,000-square-foot area of Three Mile Harbor.

The trustees manage most of the town’s waterways, bottomlands, and beaches on behalf of the public. In suggesting that they approve the “oyster garden,” Stephanie Forsberg, the trustees’ assistant clerk, who opted not to seek re-election, said, “What they need from us as of now is approval to have these floating rafts that in my opinion don’t impede public access because it’s not an area of boating, not a high traffic-flow area.” Nor is it a swimming or mooring area, she added.

Details as to fees and eligibility, it was decided, would be left to the new board, but a consensus quickly formed that the program be open only to town residents.

“At some point it’s going to need a public notice to close the area to other user groups,” said Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, who will remain on the board next year. John Courtney, the trustees’ attorney, would be asked to map the precise location.

The controversial ban on alcoholic beverages at Indian Wells Beach during lifeguard-protected hours on summer weekends was briefly revisited. In the last two summers, the trustees reluctantly agreed to the restriction, enacted by the town board after numerous complaints from residents.

 The ban expired at season’s end, butMs. McNally told her colleagues that the town board has tentatively scheduled a public hearing for Jan. 15 on a permanent ban. She suggested that the trustees accept the ban, but only through September, as in the previous years.

Bill Taylor, who was re-elected to a second term last month, asked if that decision should be made by the incoming board. No, was Ms. McNally’s reply. Mr. Taylor was alone among the eight trustees present to vote against her motion.

A committee established to review East Hampton Town wastewater management has recommended accepting a plan developed by Pio Lombardo of Lombardo Associates and using it as “a basis for moving forward” on water quality protection initiatives.  Dan Gulizio, secretary of the advisory committee, presented the committee’s report at a work session of the town board on Tuesday. It suggests that the town pursue public-private partnerships to help reach its goal of improved water quality and consider appointing a town water resource manager to spearhead efforts.

“The mounting evidence of nutrients, bacteria, and toxins impacting local water resources is alarming,” the report says. “Closed bathing beaches, state-designated impaired water-bodies, and the decline in once-abundant finfish and shellfish populations demand action.”

The report notes that “additions and refinements” will be needed before projects “are designed and undertaken.” Among the elements that should be assessed, the report states, are threats to public health and environmental quality, vulnerability to climate change and sea level rise, economic impacts of the degradation of water quality, such as decreased shellfish harvests and the effect of beach closures on tourism and real estate values, and aesthetic impacts.

Mr. Gulizio said the group had developed criteria by which to evaluate and prioritize potential projects. To help do so, the report suggests developing a scoring matrix.

Using the criteria, the committee recommends 11 town undertakings. They include long-term, townwide surface water and drinking water testing and monitoring. The report says the town should encourage residents to have individual wells tested by the Suffolk County Health Department and to share the results with the town. The town also should focus on supplying public water to areas where contamination has been detected. Sources of ongoing groundwater contamination, such as inferior septic systems, should be addressed.

Recommendations are also made regarding large-capacity wastewater systems — those that serve 20 or more people and process more than 1,000 gallons of wastewater per day. The town should consider the use of community wastewater systems as an alternative to individual on-site systems. The committee also notes “the potential need to establish stricter treatment standards” than are currently imposed by the Suffolk County Health Department.

Individual residential septic systems should be upgraded and replaced when a property is sold, when substantial renovations occur, or after a specified period of time to be determined by the town board, the committee recommends. The group also recommends that the town board review and refine a town code provision that sets standards for sanitary systems and requires periodic inspections. Establishing water quality improvement districts may also be a useful tool, the report says.

 In addition to a focus on septic systems, the town’s action plan should include developing detailed plans for various watersheds like the areas around Accabonac Harbor, Hook Pond, Northwest Harbor, Lake Montauk, and Three Mile Harbor, among others. 

Another critical element of implementing a town wastewater plan, according to the committee report, is outreach and education to engage the public in identifying problems and implementing solutions. A variety of issues, from new wastewater treatment technologies to water contaminants such as pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, and pesticides, should be addressed, as well.

The report recommends that a committee be established of water quality and environment experts, professional consultants, legal and financial experts, academics, and residents to continue to develop a “more comprehensive community-based and scientifically supported water resource management plan.”

According to the report, “the town’s quality of life will be determined by its ability to protect and restore . . . resources which have declined in recent years.”

East Hampton Town

Pay Taxes Online

Town of East Hampton property owners can pay their property tax bills online for the first time this year. The option, which allows access to current bills and prints receipts, will be available starting Dec. 14. Payments will be accepted by credit card or by electronic check, for a fee.

Property owners can access the new online system by visiting ehamptonny.gov and clicking Pay Your Property Tax Bill, after setting up an account. American Express, Visa, MasterCard, or Discover can be used for a processing fee of 2.39 percent. Electronic checks cost a flat $1. Traditional payments by paper check are still accepted, as well, at Town Hall or by mail.

Anyone with questions can contact Rebecca Rahn, the tax receiver, at 324-2770 or by email at [email protected]. The first half of annual tax bills is due on Jan. 10.

Award for Financial Report

East Hampton Town’s Finance Department has been awarded a certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada.

 The highest form of recognition in governmental accounting and financial reporting, the award acknowledges that the town’s annual report demonstrates a “spirit of full disclosure” in order to “clearly communicate its financial story” and encourage members of the public to read and review it.

Army Corps contractors who had been expected to complete the construction of a 3,100-foot sandbag seawall on the downtown Montauk beach by the end of January have reported that the project is unlikely to be completed before “sometime in March,” East Hampton Town officials reported this week.

“The beach is not very wide,” said Alex Walter, an assistant to Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell, and the workers are “having a little trouble” setting up a system through which water will be pumped into stockpiled sand to create a slurry used to fill the 14,500 geotextile bags that will make up the wall. They are to be covered with a three-foot veneer of beach sand.

Required approvals from the Army Corps and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for items such as the timber pilings that have been driven into the beach to support wooden pedestrian overpasses, and the design of a vehicular beach access, have lagged, also contributing to the delay, representatives of H&L Contracting of Bay Shore have told the town.

Weather could cause additional delays. “It’s taken a while for them to get their rhythm; let’s put it that way,” Mr. Walter said on Tuesday.

A series of early morning protests on the beach last month by opponents of the project over a period of several weeks had contributed to the delay, but only slightly, Mr. Walter said. Sixteen people who engaged in acts of civil disobedience were arrested in the protests.

Last week, a judge rejected a request for an injunction to stop the work by Defend H2O, an environmental organization, and nine individual plaintiffs that have an ongoing lawsuit over the project.

Judge Arthur D. Spatt of the United States District Court in Islip said in a written opinion that “construction on the project has gone far enough that for economic reasons, it would be impractical and wasteful to delay it any further.”

Construction had been set to begin after the Columbus Day weekend. The start date was initially pushed back so that the Army Corps could re-examine beach conditions after a storm caused accelerated erosion. Work ultimately began the first week of November.

After some 15 years of what East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell called “fits and starts,” a public restroom in the municipal parking lot of Amagansett’s commercial district may finally be constructed in the early spring. If, that is, separate but related issues can be resolved.

Joseph Catropa, the architect who designed the proposed restroom, told the town board at its work session on Tuesday that while the Suffolk County Health Department’s refusal to approve the project has further postponed action, “sometimes it’s good to take a step back.”

In March, Mr. Cantwell had told the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee that construction of the restroom, along with a resurfacing and re-striping of the lot, would once again have to wait. The latest obstacle resulted from a 2009 easement the board granted for the installation of a septic system on town-owned property — the parking lot — for the restaurant at 231 Main Street, then Mezzaluna AMG. The easement was granted after the Suffolk County Department of Health’s authorized installation of the septic system.

However, the survey accompanying the restaurant’s application to the Health Department did not disclose the existence of a well on the adjacent property at 247 Main Street owned by Tina Piette, an attorney whose office is located there. The restaurant’s septic system falls within the required setback from the well and therefore is in violation, precluding the Health Department from issuing a certificate of occupancy for a restroom on any part of the town-owned parking lot. The Health Department, Mr. Cantwell said in March, would not act until Ms. Piette’s property is connected to the public water system. County officials asserted that that was the town’s responsibility, he said, but the town would not pay to connect private property to public water.

During the stalemate, Mr. Catropa told the board, discussions with groups including the citizens advisory committee yielded a revised location for the restroom, at the rear of the lot instead of closer to its center, behind the Amagansett Library. The parking configuration was also revisited, resulting in improved traffic flow and creation of additional spaces, he said. Under the new plan, the lot would include 152 spaces with 10 more designated for the handicapped.

In light of complaints about scant enforcement of time limits, 51 spaces in the re-striped lot would be designated for 24-hour parking and 96 would be limited to two hours. The remainder, Mr. Cantwell said on Tuesday, would be situated nearest the stores on Main Street and limited to 30-minute parking.

“Recently, we’ve reapplied to the board of health for approval,” Mr. Catropa said, and “we anticipate getting a permit.” The contractor that submitted the winning bid is being contacted, he said, with the intention to complete the entire project before the summer. “We’re anticipating recapturing the momentum on the project and getting started in the early spring.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Cantwell said, the application before the Health Department “is probably not going to overcome” the issue of the septic system that both the town and county had approved, “although I’m hopeful they’ll give us a permit to at least construct” the restroom. “Our understanding is that . . . this other issue regarding the septic being to close to the private well is going to get resolved in the meantime.” Neither Ms. Piette nor a representative for Randy Lerner, who owns the 231 Main Street property, had responded to a request for comment as of yesterday.

The board would assume “a little risk” in constructing the restroom before knowing that the county would issue a certificate of occupancy, “but let’s see how that plays out with the Health Department,” he said. “The problem here, in part, is that the different steps we’re trying to accomplish are all dependent on one another.” He asked Mr. Catropa to continue seeking county approval and determine if the contractor would complete the project at the price quoted for its initially proposed location. 

Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said that, while he was happy that there was finally agreement as to the restroom’s location, he was disappointed that it would be situated at the rear of the lot with no clear path from its entrance except by walking around the entire perimeter. It isn’t the best location, he said, “but I know it’s been over 15 years’ discussion. If there is consensus, hallelujah.”

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals voted 4 to 1 this week to revoke a building permit for the construction of a 150-foot-tall communications tower behind the Springs Firehouse, on Fort Pond Boulevard.

Objections to the tower were widespread when it went up in April, leading to an appeal of a building permit issued by the Building Department. The original hearing on the appeal was held on Oct. 6.

The four Z.B.A. members who voted after midnight Tuesday to revoke the building permit made it clear that they were not opposed to the pole per se, but wanted it reviewed through the proper channels, most likely by the town planning board. They criticized the cellphone-services company that leased the land for the tower, Elite Towers, saying that it had mislead the Springs Fire District’s commissioners in suggesting the district was exempt from local zoning review. The district is to receive a monthly payment from the firm.

Exactly what will happen next is unclear. Although the tower exists, having been put up in April, the communications equipment intended to go on it has not yet been installed.

“We need to make sure our communications work,” Pat Glennon, the chairman of the board of fire commissioners, said by phone yesterday. He also said the commissioners had inquired with the town Planning Department, as well as its legal team, and had been given a verbal okay to put up the tower based on a 2004 determination involving the Amagansett Fire Department.

He pointed out that in addition to the tower’s use for cellphone communications, it was essential that new equipment be installed for the fire department because there are now numerous dead spots where volunteers’ pagers do not work. When asked if the department might take the Z.B.A. to court, he said, “It is an absolute possibility.”

In its deliberations Tuesday, the Z.B.A. had to consider two questions: first, whether the appeal was timely, and second, whether the Springs Fire District’s board of commissioners had taken the proper steps in approving the tower, which was built in April. The answer was yes to the first question, but no to the second. Don Cirillo was the lone dissenter in both cases.

Mr. Cirillo argued, as the department and their representatives had during the Oct. 6 hearing, that neighbors should have known a tower was to be built because it had been mentioned at 19 commissioners meetings, stretching back to early 2013.

However, Cate Rogers, a Z.B.A. member, argued that the Springs commissioners had not followed the open meetings law. Informal discussions should not be held when a quorum of a public board is present, she said, which appeared to be the case here.

She said the public could not have reasonably known the tower was being considered because minutes of commissioners’ meetings are not published, and the topic was rarely posted on its agendas.

She singled out three 2013 meetings, including one on Dec. 9. “None of this is on the agenda, and we are already moving onto the lease.” She added, “There is nothing transparent in this process.”

Mr. Cirillo, in a protracted back-and-forth, argued that anyone who moves next to a municipal building like a firehouse should assume expansion is possible. “It is incumbent upon you to check if something is going on,” he said. “I think there is enough on the transcript for an appeal,” Mr. Cirillo warned after the vote was taken.

On whether the commissioners had followed the proper process in applying for a building permit, the board found that state case law cites fire districts and fire companies as, generally speaking, being under the purview of local zoning laws. “I think they were led awry,” a Z.B.A. member, David Lys, said.

Ms. Rogers also criticized the commissioners’ handling of the State Environmental Quality Review Act. She read from the SEQRA handbook, noting that the commissioners couldn’t be both “the applicant, and the lead agency.” Further, she argued, the commissioners erred when they found, under SEQRA, that the tower had no adverse impact on the area. “Any structure exceeding 100 feet above ground level without zoning regulations pertaining to height is a type-one action,” Ms. Rogers said. In other words, the tower required much more detailed review.

“I want to reiterate the respect we have for the Springs Fire Department, all fire departments” John Whelan, the panel’s chairman, said after the board voted to rescind the building permit. “You just have to follow the process,” Lee White, a member of the board, said. Mr. Lys agreed. “You don’t want to slow down the fire department, but the proper process must be followed,” he said.