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Town Bears Down on the Housing Crisis

Thu, 01/06/2022 - 11:22

In his State of the Town address on Tuesday, East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc spoke about the acute shortage of affordable housing here, renewable energy and sustainability, planning, the town’s finances, and building projects.

On housing, which he said is “threatening to unravel the fabric of our community,” he announced an “All Hands on Housing” initiative that will assign a specific aspect of the issue to each board member. He listed these as development of the Community Housing Fund Plan, zoning changes, land acquisition, and project development. “This will be the town’s most significant housing effort to date, and crucial to ensuring that we have people to police our streets, educate our youth, respond to emergencies, and provide services and continuity to the community,” he said.

The town will move ahead with plans to build affordable single-family houses on town-owned property at 395 Pantigo Road in East Hampton, he said, and will begin planning for a rental apartment project at the former Triune Baptist Church site on Route 114 in Wainscott.

With Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signing last month of legislation intended to clear a path for community choice aggregation programs in the Long Island Power Authority’s service territory, “we will now be able to choose the source or blend of sources of the electricity we consume,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “By choosing renewable energy, we expand the demand and encourage growth of renewable energy production, helping us transition away from the pollution and climate impacts of fossil fuels.”

 Onshore construction of the South Fork Wind farm is to commence this month, he said, following the completion of environmental review and issuance of permits. “We will monitor the onshore cable portion of the project to ensure consistency with the Environmental Management and Construction Plan and the conditions the town has imposed in our agreements” with the developers, Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

Additional electric vehicle-charging infrastructure is to be constructed on the Town Hall campus, he said, to support the town’s transition from a fossil fuel-powered fleet to electric and electric/hybrid vehicles. The existing and future charging stations there are also available to residents, he said. The town also plans further upgrades to LED streetlighting in 2022, in partnership with the New York Power Authority.

Other building projects slated to commence this year include the Stony Brook Southampton Hospital Satellite Emergency Department, which is to break ground on Pantigo Place, adjacent to the East Hampton Healthcare Center, in the first quarter, and two new baseball fields on Stephen Hand’s Path, which the satellite emergency building will displace from their existing site.

The town has hired R2 Architecture “to conduct a public engagement process to assess the needs of senior citizens and the community to better inform the design” of a new senior citizens center, to be constructed on seven acres off Abraham’s Path in Amagansett. The board voted in September to acquire the land for $1.63 million. The property is part of a 14.3-acre, residentially zoned parcel adjacent to an undeveloped portion of the town-owned Terry King ball field complex.

Jeremy Samuelson began his tenure as director of the Planning Department this week. “Jeremy’s in-depth knowledge of the town and of the issues we face will bring renewed focus and energy to one of our most important departments,” the supervisor said. Addressing sea-level rise and coastal erosion through the Coastal Assessment and Resiliency Plan, and the town’s hamlet studies and community wastewater treatment in downtown Montauk are among long-term planning priorities for 2022.

The town’s three-year capital plan will be reviewed and updated starting this month, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, which will prioritize bonding for the purchase of vehicles, machinery, and construction projects such as the Little League playing fields, the new senior citizens center, housing, and infrastructure improvements.

The growth in year-round residence in the last few years means a commensurate increase in demand for services, Mr. Van Scoyoc noted, and more money will be needed to maintain infrastructure, services, and quality of life. “We will be looking into ways of increasing non-tax revenue to help balance necessary future increases in property taxes,” he said.

 

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