A nearly 10-year effort to upgrade a play area at Maidstone Park in Springs came closer to completion at the Nov. 6 East Hampton Town Board meeting, after the board voted to exempt itself from local land use and zoning regulations in order to begin renovations. As they had done with the much larger senior center project in Amagansett, board members used the Monroe “balancing of interests” test and decided the exemption was justified based on the benefit to the public.
The Maidstone Park renovation has a $190,000 budget. In October, Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte told the town board the equipment used would skew to a younger demographic. “One of the main goals was to provide equipment for toddlers, where there’s not a lot of options for playgrounds around town,” he said.
Another goal was to make the park as “inclusive,” or Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant, as possible, an idea strongly supported by Councilman Tom Flight, the town board liaison to the disabilities advisory board.
“I would love for this to be the town’s ‘autistic-friendly’ playground,” Mr. Flight said. “The one thing I would love to see here would be fencing this area off.”
There was no board support for fencing, but there was support for inclusive equipment, like a Flexx Swing, Omni Spinner, and Cozy Dome.
“Everybody says that kids love these things,” Mr. Calder-Piedmonte said. “One of the biggest things that people wanted was a swing set.” In addition to the Flexx Swing, two other swings were pictured with his presentation.
A large playground structure with a slide, lookout tower, steps and climbing tree, and a log crawl tunnel were also part of the park’s proposed layout. Benches would be included along the perimeter.
Designing a park is not as simple as picking equipment and placing it, the councilman said. The idea, he explained, is to keep the renovated park in the footprint of the existing park (it will expand slightly), but there are legally required separations between pieces of equipment. The materials that the equipment is made from must also be certified.
“Me growing up spending a lot of time outside, I get it. Climbing trees and playing with stuff that’s there is wonderful, but as a municipality, we’re required to use equipment that is certified and seen as safe for play, so that limits our options a little bit,” Mr. Calder-Piedmonte said. Still, he said, natural colors will be used where possible. “We didn’t want a very plastic feeling.”
The playground’s surface would be made of engineered wood-fiber chips.
“This is a project that has a lot of emotion attached to it,” Councilwoman Cate Rogers had remarked at the board’s Oct. 7 meeting. “I think Maidstone Park is a gift, because it is multigenerational. I really appreciate you opening up a seating area. I would put more benches in for folks. It’s nice to be able to socialize while you have your eyes on your children.”
“I feel like this is, like, you paint your kitchen and then realize, well, your kitchen’s attached to your living room and now you’ve got to paint the living room,” Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said. “We do need to address the drainage and create more parking. This is going to be really welcomed by young families in Springs.”
“There was additional equipment that’s been removed because it was old and unsafe,” Mr. Calder-Piedmonte said. “We’re taking up the land that was previously occupied by a jungle gym and slightly expanding it with four or five pieces of equipment.”
Board members offered no additional comments and unanimously supported the resolution, which allows town staff to proceed with the continued design and construction of the park. No start date has been set. The installation bid should be awarded in December; Councilman Calder-Piedmonte said he hopes work can begin “in early 2026.”
