“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
That proverb seemed especially apt as the East Hampton Town Planning Board and Planning Department looked last week at two separate site plan applications from Marley Dominguez, managing partner of Enduring Real Estate and co-owner of Offshore Montauk — one for condominiums at 79 South Emerson Street and the other for an Este restaurant at 666 Montauk Highway.
At an Aug. 19 planning board meeting, the exasperation was apparent.
“This is the second application we’re discussing this evening from the same applicant where plans submitted to the Planning Department showed one thing and then the Building Department plans showed something else,” said Tina Vavilis LaGarenne, the town’s planning director. “Maybe it was a mistake on both of them, but I do think that’s a concerning fact pattern that we need to consider.”
Earlier in the meeting, the board questioned why Mr. Dominguez’s team had submitted plans to both the architectural review board and Planning Department requesting that seven motel units at 79 South Emerson be converted to condominiums when the plans he submitted to the Building Department included an eighth unit.
The effort to get Mr. Dominguez to admit that his team had indeed placed an eighth unit onto the building plans, where only a “lounge” had existed in previous iterations, lasted roughly five minutes.
“We’ve never asked for an eighth unit, not once,” said Mr. Dominguez at first. “You won’t find a single piece of paperwork internally, externally, that says that. It’s never been requested. The eighth unit came from the Building Department when they issued a C.O.”
“It came from the building permit,” said Ms. Vavilis LaGarenne. “The drawings say ‘unit.’ Those would be submitted by you and your developer, whoever did your plan. Your C.O.s say seven, and then, oddly, the plans that were submitted to the A.R.B., who would have checked for this also, had seven units shown. That wasn’t irregular. Then the plan set that went to the Building Department had the eighth,” she said.
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve always asked for seven units in everything we’ve submitted,” Mr. Dominguez reiterated. “So, I mean, you can follow the paper trail.”
“The paper trail says eight,” Ms. Vavilis LaGarenne repeated. “Those are your plans.”
“In our application it will say seven,” said Mr. Dominguez.
“And the plans say eight,” snapped back Ms. Vavilis LaGarenne.
Lou Cortese, a board member, joined the debate.
“Does the Building Department draw up their own plans?” he asked.
They do not, came the answer.
“Okay. So that means that the applicant submits plans to the Building Department in order to get a permit,” he continued. “So those plans that came from the Building Department were submitted by the applicant. The applicant on those plans said that there’s eight units. You just said that you’ve never submitted any plans that had eight units on it, but that shows that you did.”
“Yeah, that’s an error. You’re right,” allowed Mr. Dominguez, finally.
Apart from the extra unit, the board said parking, sanitary flow, landscaping, and drainage were all important issues that needed to be addressed at 79 South Emerson before the application was complete.
Mr. Cortese pointed out that if accepted, the sanitary system would have a flow rate 10 times over what’s allowed on the property “in an area that’s already suffering a great deal from that kind of excess sanitary conditions.”
Back to Este, Mr. Dominguez has begun to build something different than he was originally given approval for, and the board debated the modifications. As telegraphed by a Planning Department memo published the day before the Aug. 19 meeting, the board was unforgiving.
In 2025, Mr. Dominguez described Este as a 39-seat restaurant. However, the plans submitted to the Building Department contained extra bars and toilets. Further, an investor packet sent anonymously to The Star referenced special events and a large D.J. venue on the rooftop. Fears grew among the community that Este was morphing into a high-volume drinking and nightclub establishment, without the parking or septic flow to sustain it.
“What we’re really talking about now is how to make sure that none of the modifications proposed change the site from a restaurant to something else,” Ms. Vavilis LaGarenne told the board.
The discrepancy between the approved number of seats — 39 — and the maximum occupancy of the space — 273 — created a unique situation. “It is not typical for the seating in a location to be so significantly less than the occupancy,” she said.
While originally there were eight couches on the plans, new plans showed 18. Thomas Crouch, a lawyer speaking for Este, said, “They don’t count toward dining seats. They’re not for food service. They’re simply for people that are waiting.”
“If you’ve got an entire floor of an establishment that is not serving food, but does have seating, I don’t know what that is. I don’t know how that’s a restaurant,” said Ms. Vavilis LaGarenne.
The board asked for a noise analysis for special events and the planning director hinted that the results might point to a “significant adverse impact” per the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act, and lead to a more stringent environmental review.
Ava Warren, a board member, reiterated the Planning Department questions and wondered anew how such a large establishment would operate with only seven employees.
“One staff member per floor for a three-story venue carrying an assembly occupancy of 273 people is completely unfeasible for normal restaurant operations,” agreed Mr. Cortese.
Building occupancy called for 98 parking spaces, while only 20 were present; approved sanitary flow was for 304 gallons a day, but at occupancy, the flow would be “almost 10 times that, 2,730 gallons,” he said.
The board agreed that a traffic and pedestrian safety analysis should be required.
“Patrons will generate severe traffic congestion, illegal drop-offs, pickups, ride shares blocking Route 27, and pedestrian hazards,” said Mr. Cortese, a Montauk resident.
“Lastly, I want to talk about the special events,” he continued, speaking to a point that is larger than just Este. “Allowing temporary special permits to substitute for proper site plan restrictions creates an enforcement nightmare for the town. It’s a shift of burden. If permanent physical infrastructure exists for outdoor drinking and entertainment, code enforcement must constantly monitor the property to catch unpermitted activities. The planning board’s role is to prevent incompatible uses at the structural plan stage, not defer mitigation to post facto police enforcement.”
Reed Jones, a board member, summed the application up as a “Trojan horse.”
To give context to the tone of the meeting, Mr. Cortese asked Brittany Toledano, the deputy town attorney, if there was a way the board could easily “shut the place down” if it operated outside its approvals.
Mr. Crouch took exception. “The building hasn’t been built yet. You can’t find a violation until there’s a violation. This is under construction. It doesn’t even exist yet.”
Apparently, Mr. Dominguez didn’t like all the tough talk.
Richard Whalen, an attorney who works with Mr. Crouch, confirmed in a text message after the meeting that Mr. Dominguez’s group would likely pull the modified plans. When asked if reverting to the earlier, previously-approved plans meant the restrictions discussed by the board were off the table, he answered that they were.
During the meeting, Ms. Vavilis LaGarenne said town code could allow occupancy, not seating, to determine how much parking was needed at Este.
“It’s never done, because the discrepancy that exists here doesn’t exist elsewhere to this order of magnitude,” she said. “But if we can’t get changes that make this comport with a restaurant, I really do think we might have to consider that.”
Unusual for a planning board meeting, the room was full of Montauk residents who had come to oppose Este; they broke out in applause at the close of the planning director’s remarks.
By Monday, she said she had not received notice about an application withdrawal, but that her department would “determine how to proceed” once Este disclosed its plans.
