Over 30 residents spoke at last Thursday’s East Hampton Town Board meeting, and none were particularly happy.
Despite having only one public hearing scheduled, on which not one member of the public commented, the town board listened to nearly two hours of public comment.
“When you’re passionate enough to show up here after work instead of going home and getting your sweatpants on and starting your evening, then I think a person feels something is horribly wrong, no matter what their issue,” said a woman who was identified only by her first name, Joy.
For those keeping track, the evening’s dominant topic (16 comments) was a nascent plan for essential worker housing on land owned by Calvary Baptist Church. As yet, the plan has not been submitted to the planning board. To get that far, the town board would need to change the zoning of the land in question.
Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, who rarely responds to public comments, offered an unscripted remark about the project. “Just for the record, and I can only speak for myself, I have not been outreached by the Calvary Baptist Church directly,” she said, (leaving open the possibility that another board member had). “We have not received a zone change application. There has been nothing that has been submitted for us even to review. So, and it would take a majority of the board to have it reviewed by the Planning Department.”
Resident after resident said traffic along Spinner Lane, Morris Park Lane, and Floyd Street is bad enough as it is, thank you very much, and they didn’t welcome more. They support affordable housing, sure, but just not here, they said. Some questioned the project’s developer, Kirby Marcantonio, and wondered aloud about his relationship with Calvary Baptist Church.
“I’m part of Calvary Baptist Church,” said Allen Gregg, who described a presentation there by Mr. Marcantonio. “No one went along with it,” he said. “So it’s not that Calvary Baptist made some sort of agreement with him, which no one cut any type of agreement with the guy. He’s speaking more for himself than for us. If the church wanted something done, they would actually come to a meeting and present themselves and say possibly what they want to do.”
“For the community to have this sacred ground destroyed by this type of carpetbagger development is not acceptable,” said Kevin Scott, echoing Mr. Gregg’s sentiments.
Mr. Marcantonio stood up to defend himself. “I’m Kirby Marcantonio, and I actually came to speak about the East Hampton Food Pantry,” he said. “So I was not going to necessarily speak about Calvary Baptist, but let me just give a few seconds to that.”
“First of all, this ‘carpetbagger’ has lived here since 1960. Went to East Hampton High School, graduated in 1970, the old middle school, which was my high school,” he continued. “I suggest they talk to Reverend Ferguson and Reverend Jones. I’ve been working with them for the past year, year and a half, to come up with a plan, which we still have not come up with yet.”
“We still have some things to iron out,” he acknowledged. “This is not some middle-of-the-night snatching-away of someone’s heritage. This is putting heritage to work in a way that benefits everybody, and we plan to have that plan soon.”
Bleeding over from a contentious and crowded Springs Citizens Advisory Committee meeting three nights earlier, eight more residents showed up to denounce plans to cut down trees in order to squeeze in more parking spots at the Springs Library.
Rona Klopman of Amagansett, who heads that hamlet’s advisory committee, cited passages from the town comprehensive plan to support her argument that paving paradise for cars would continue to erode the community’s rural character.
“The plan encourages investing in alternate transportation options such as sidewalks, bikeways, rails, buses, shuttles, and shared cars,” she said. Instead, she proposed using the Parsons Dodge property across from Ashawagh Hall. The management plan for that property even mentions its use for overflow parking, she said, and suggested making a mowed area to provide parking for certain events.
“We just don’t need a parking lot there,” said Kathleen Colihan. “What we do need are some sidewalks, so it’s easier for people to walk along Springs-Fireplace Road.”
“I’ve earned merit badges in Pussy’s Pond,” said Braden Crozier. “I was a Boy Scout. So, it just seems really silly to put a parking lot there, and just doesn’t really seem like it’s truly needed when there’s other options.”
“Can Springs become its own town?” asked Peter Goodman. “Because decisions are being made that impact the Springs, yet we don’t really have a voice. To build a parking lot — for what? Fifteen or 17 cars is ridiculous. And again, once you do it, the parking lot’s going to get larger and larger and larger.”
“What we need is a website for the farmers market so people can buy online,” he suggested, and get deliveries.
Paula Wetzel, an English teacher at Southampton High School, said “I’m here to teach a new word: ecocide. That’s the destruction and killing of our ecosystems. Our birds are coming through. They need to stop here. Some of them need to breed right there. That’s their land. We have no right to even think about building a parking lot.”
Residents of the White Sands neighborhood on Napeague, six of them, showed up last Thursday to appeal to the board to prohibit truck driving on their beach.
“Owners there have calculated at least 2,000 trucks driving onto the beach from Dolphin Drive,” said Rachel Bergman.
“You had a Truck Beach issue,” said Elise Platt, who has been a consistent speaker on beach driving at recent town board meetings. “You didn’t solve it. You moved it.”
“Someone last week said, ‘You only want it because you’re summer people,’ “ she continued. “The truth is, we’re not summer people. We’re second homeowners. We’re actually 63 percent of the population of East Hampton. We represent 72.3 percent of the tax revenue of this town. We deserve recognition, and we deserve for the town to service us like taxpaying citizens. Some of us are moving out here and voting out here now because we’re getting taxation without representation.”
“I think there was a war about that.”
