That crowd of people standing outside the Amagansett School at 6:30 p.m. Monday, saluting the American flag that flies on the school lawn, might have looked to passing motorists like a naturalization ceremony gone astray, but was in fact the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee, discharging the first duty of their monthly meeting while waiting for someone to unlock the school doors.
The rest of the evening went more or less according to plan, starting with a brief address from Lt. Chelsea Tierney of the East Hampton Town police on the subject of e-bikes, which may replace gas-powered leaf blowers as the summer’s number-one irritants. There are rules for e-bikes, though many riders (and their parents) seem not to know them.
Riders, she said, must be 15 or over; the youngest (15 to 17) must wear helmets. E-bikes are capable of reaching speeds up to 25 miles per hour, which they may do in New York City but not here, where 20 m.p.h. is the limit. They should travel single file in bike lanes or on road shoulders, but are not allowed on sidewalks — although police, who have their hands full right now with more serious infractions, will almost certainly not stop them, or conduct a roadside sobriety test, unless they’re in an accident.
E-bikes, it would seem, are a moving target, one still in its infancy. The evening’s next speaker, Eric Schantz, director of the Housing and Community Development Department, addressed a goal further along the road: the town’s new Cantwell Court complex off Pantigo Road in East Hampton, a 12-acre development that will eventually house 16 first-time homebuyers from a closed list of 160 aspirants, who will design and build their houses themselves.
They will own the houses, though not the underlying land, which the town will lease to them for 99 years. A plan to subsidize a small part of their mortgages, the amount to be determined, is under study as well. The town is now making final agreements regarding water and utilities services with the Suffolk County Water Authority and PSEG, Mr. Schantz said, and the first lease may be signed before year’s end.
There were questions about the future occupants: who they are (town residents or employees, mostly); how they will be chosen (they must prove they can get a mortgage and afford to build a house), and whether title to the house can be passed on to a relative (yes, to a spouse or children).
Federal law requires that such municipally-backed projects be open to all, as much as town agencies and residents might prefer to restrict them to local people, Mr. Schantz reminded the group in response to a question. Citing Gansett Meadows, an East Hampton Housing Authority affordable rental complex east of the Amagansett I.G.A., he said that not all its residents lived or worked here when it first opened, but that several moved out after seeing “how expensive it was to live here, and now they are pretty much all local, year-round.”
A short discussion of the hamlet’s hoped-for new street lighting followed, in particular whether the municipal parking lot behind Main Street could be added to the current study, as several businesses, and the library, have urged. Councilman Tom Flight, the town board’s liaison to the committee, reported that the town has opted to do a separate study of the parking lot instead.
