The large municipal parking lot behind Amagansett may have a new neighbor soon.
East Hampton Town hopes the two-acre plot — a dairy farm until 1959, home to cows that produced for a milk delivery business — will instead become a public-use park and community meeting space, open 365 days a year.
Conveniently, access to the site will be through the adjacent well-used parking lot. Even though it was last enlarged in just 2021, a new 35-spot lot is proposed. (“Who knows when it will be built? I don’t,” Michael Jordan of Amagansett, co-chairman of the town’s nature preserve committee, told the town board Tuesday during a presentation on the parcel’s management plan.)
The town bought the tract last April, using the community preservation fund, from Herb Field, for $1.875 million. Thirty percent of that came from the East Hampton Town general fund, which is why a portion of the land can be paved over.
The parcel is shaped like a blocky “P.” Parking will be close to the existing parking area.
Herb Field’s son Tom, a member of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, was offered a chance to name the new park — Field’s Field? — but declined, Mr. Jordan said. The name will be up to the town board.
Board members discussed a general management plan for the parcel at Tuesday’s meeting, but did not go into specifics. Mr. Jordan described the lot as “disturbed” and “previously cleared,” though the town’s Department of Land Management found 45 species of plants and trees still on site. “It’s rather overgrown with vegetation,” he said.
It will be further cleared and regraded (save for a few mature trees that border the farmland to its west) so that a multi-use trail, playground, and concrete chess table can be installed.
The trail will be A.D.A. accessible, connected to the parking lot, at least five feet wide, and made of a “firm and stable surface.” Less a nature trail and more, perhaps, a place to wander while the kids are playing on a possible playground in the park’s northwest corner.
“Is there need for a playground?” asked Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez. Mr. Jordan thought not, mentioning Amber Waves down the road, full of shade trees and a play area, and the Amagansett School playground across the street. Councilman David Lys said the town should leave open the option to build one should the need arise.
The open areas of the property will be mowed, and invasive species will be removed to help open the farm field views. Benches, a split-rail fence, a 400-square-foot shade shelter under which two picnic tables are proposed, and a low, mounded sitting area, are all envisioned.
Dogs, leashed or no, will not be welcome. “Talk about why that decision was made,” asked Councilman Tom Flight.
“It’s a small property,” said Mr. Jordan. “Kids may be wandering around, and I don’t think we want excrement from dogs on the property. It will present a nuisance to those who are using it.”
“The [nature] committee doesn’t feel a pickup policy would be sufficient?” asked Mr. Flight.
“Better to not even go there,” Mr. Jordan replied. “You see it at any of the town properties. People pick it up, put it in a plastic bag, and leave it. Those plastic bags will be there when I’m long gone.”
Town and village lifeguards have recently made similar complaints about dog owners either not controlling their pets properly or not cleaning up after them.
“It will be interesting to hear back what the community and ACAC wants there,” said the supervisor. The park will be top of the agenda at Monday’s Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee meeting.
