Government

East Hampton Town

Eye Federal Dollars for Lazy Point

Federal grant money made available through the Department of Agriculture and the Natural Resources Conservation Service after Hurricane Sandy could be used to purchase property in the floodplain area of Lazy Point on Napeague, Randy Parsons of the Nature Conservancy told the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday. The goals of the program, to protect wetlands and habitats and reduce development in flood-prone areas, are compatible with the town’s land-acquisition goals, Mr. Parsons said.

A beach restoration project undertaken by the new owners of the East Deck Motel in Montauk could be extended east and west of the former motel in Ditch Plain, with 1,000 cubic yards of sand added to public property there at private expense, Kim Shaw, East Hampton Town’s director of natural resources, said at a town board meeting on Tuesday.

The owners of a more than five-acre parcel in the Georgica Association on the Wainscott side of Georgica Pond went before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals on March 4, seeking variances that would allow them to subdivide it into two buildable lots. Whether the board will approve the  requests may hinge on two things: The property has been almost entirely cleared of natural vegetation and, in an unusual arrangement, the applicants, Florence and Ken Joseph, own the land but do not control three of the four residences on it.

       A new Federal Aviation Administration rule going into effect in early May will be a “significant consideration” in East Hampton Town’s decision-making regarding the town airport and whether to continue taking F.A.A. money, Town Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, the airport liaison, said in a press release this week.

       The Springs Citizens Advisory Committee has recommended against the purchase of a 16-acre woodland tract on Neck Path, which was the subject of a town board hearing last month.

       The proposed $2.7 million purchase would be made using the community preservation fund, and the site designated for recreation and the preservation of open space.

East Hampton Town

Board Suspends Testing

       Walkers will have an opportunity tomorrow to explore a 57-acre woodland site in East Hampton during a guided hike at 10 a.m. being offered by the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society. Those interested have been asked to meet along Springy Banks Road in front of the former Duke property, where a sign marks the public land, located at the intersection of Hands Creek and Springy Banks Roads.

       For the second time in about a year, the owners of a house on Gardiner’s Bay in Amagansett have asked the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals to allow them to demolish it and build a larger one. And, for the second time, the Planning Department has taken a vociferous stance against their proposal. At issue are distances from the wetlands on the property and from the dune crest.

        A campaign to stop PSEG Long Island from completing its installation of 45 to 65-foot-tall poles and high-voltage electrical transmission lines along a six-mile route in East Hampton Town, from a substation at Cove Hollow Road in East Hampton to another at Old Stone Highway in Amagansett, is continuing even though the work is almost done.

       The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced Friday that it will revise its proposed management plan for mute swans and then release it for additional public comment.

The supervisors of East Hampton and Southampton Towns will be the guests of the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons in an informal public forum at 7 p.m. Monday at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and his counterpart, Anna Throne-Holst of Southampton, will talk about their plans and priorities. Among the topics will be the possibility of shared municipal services and how that might result in state aid tied to a property-tax freeze. Residents of both towns have been invited to attend and ask questions.

        A public presentation of the East Hampton Town Trustees’ 2013 water quality test results will be delivered on March 19 at 6 p.m. at Town Hall. Dr. Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University, who assisted in the testing, will present the report. The presentation is open to the public.

       Stephanie Forsberg, a trustee, announced the upcoming presentation to her colleagues at the trustees’ Feb. 25 meeting. Ms. Forsberg earned a doctoral degree in marine biology from Stony Brook in 2012.

An abandoned house at 29 Abraham's Path will soon be gone, Supervisor Larry Cantwell announced on Friday.

       State and local officials expressed cautious optimism this week about the chances of PSEG Long Island’s changing its mind about its installation of super-size utility poles and high-tension wires in East Hampton Village and Town. Homeowners have objected strongly to the tall poles and wires being put in aboveground, close to their houses.

      Inclement weather has forced two postponements of Shoreline Sweep 2014, but the beach cleanup has been rescheduled for Saturday at 9 a.m. Volunteers will meet at five locations between East Hampton and Montauk Point. Bags and gloves will be provided.

      Those interested in participating can sign up at the website of its principal organizer, Dell Cullum, at imaginationnature.com.

       A three-year capital project plan being considered by the East Hampton Town Board includes close to 100 projects for which the town would issue $12 million in bonds.

       It would allow the town to take care of overdue repairs and improvements while keeping annual debt service payments level, at the $15 million range, Len Bernard, the town budget officer, said at a town board meeting on Tuesday.

       East Hampton Town’s 30-year-old scavenger waste plant, offline since 2012, is of little value to the town, according to a report by Lombardo Associates, consulting engineers who have completed an in-depth evaluation of the facility and its operations.

       If the East Hampton Town Trustees have their way, advertisements for this summer’s Great Bonac Fireworks Show over Three Mile Harbor will include an explanation as to why the harbor will be closed to shellfishing in the days following the event.

       The East Hampton Town Planning Board held a public hearing on Feb. 5 on the proposed expansion of a retail building on Montauk Highway even though the discussion and the legal notice for the hearing were based on an apparent misunderstanding of what was involved.

       Hearings will be held by the East Hampton Town Board next Thursday on four land preservation purchases to be made using the community preservation fund. They will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall.

       On Neck Path in Springs, 16.5 acres of woodland are proposed to be purchased for $2.7 million for open space or recreation. The land is owned by Catherine Lederer and Rodney Plaskett.

       A second purchase to be discussed is that of almost four acres at 143 Middle Highway in East Hampton, owned by Christopher Barnett and Christine Marra. The cost is $750,000.

Eye Energy Generation

       After almost a year’s buildup, the East Hampton Town Board has rejected a developer’s request to rezone 24 acres on Montauk Highway in Amagansett, known as 555, for 79 units of luxury housing for older residents.

       Advisory Committee left the group’s Monday-night meeting feeling like they were chasing trains that have left the station.

       Jack and Helene Forst, residents of East Hampton Village, had been invited to the meeting to tell Amagansett residents of their effort to halt PSEG Long Island’s ongoing upgrade to the electrical grid. That discussion is covered elsewhere in this issue.

    East Hampton’s deer population can breathe easy, for this year anyway. Both Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said on Friday that the planned thinning of the herd, which had been proposed by the Long Island Farm Bureau in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture, would not take place this winter.

    Tom Baker, an East Hampton Town fire marshal, served a notice of violation on the East Hampton Town Justice Court Friday after finding a dead battery on an emergency exit light during his routine annual check of the building. The staff of the court should not feel singled out; Mr. Baker has written his own office up for a violation during an inspection. He said that he felt obligated, when he found the dead light in the office, to write it up.

    On Tuesday, the East Hampton Town Board rescinded an earlier vote of the board in November that had paved the way for the town’s participation in a United States Department of Agriculture deer culling program.

    The program, which had proposed to eliminate 3,000 deer across the East End, caused a public outcry before even getting under way, and several towns and villages have withdrawn from it.

    Tenants and administrators of Windmill Village II, an affordable housing complex for senior citizens off Accabonac Road in East Hampton, brought long-standing complaints about mold in the basements of the buildings there, and its potential effects on health, to a meeting of the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday.

East Hampton Town

Balasses House Rezoning Hearing

       The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing next Thursday on a request by the owners of the former Balasses House antiques shop, a building on Main Street in Amagansett, to rezone the half-acre site from residential, with a limited-business overlay, to a central business zone.

       The change would allow the building, now housing an art gallery, to be put to a wider variety of possible commercial uses. The hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall.

Tax Receiver on Medical Leave

       The East Hampton Town Trustees determined on Tuesday night to write an official letter to the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals concerning the Maidstone Club’s application to expand and modernize its irrigation system. At issue is the proposed project’s potential impact on Hook Pond.

       Today was the final day for public comment. The consensus among the trustees was that the application would be approved, a determination that is expected at the zoning board’s Feb. 14 meeting.

       The East Hampton Town Trustees commenced their first meeting of 2014 on Tuesday night with a swearing-in ceremony and the introduction of the board’s two new members.

       Carole Brennan, the town clerk, presided over the swearing in of the board, which now includes Brian Byrnes and Bill Taylor. John Courtney, the trustees’ attorney, then led a call for nominations for clerk and assistant clerk. The board nominated and unanimously voted for Diane McNally and Stephanie Forsberg to remain in their respective roles.