Government

East Hampton Town’s new community housing fund, voted into law in November 2022 and financed by a half-percent tax on real estate sales paid by the buyer, has brought in $4.2 million in its first year, Eric Schantz, director of the Housing and Community Development Department, reported to the town board on Tuesday. The money is intended chiefly for affordable housing and to help first-time homebuyers.

The Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, which in recent months has been debating the pros and cons of the proposed new East Hampton Town Senior Citizens Center, did so again this week, with many thorny questions still on the minds of members.

In his bid for the Democratic nomination for New York’s First Congressional District, John Avlon of Sag Harbor this week picked up the endorsement of the New York State Democratic Committee chairman, Jay Jacobs, and of all five members of the East Hampton Town Board.

“Our goal is to not allow what happened previously, and to keep it on the up and up,” said Tara Burke of Lighthouse Land Planning, speaking for Rhett Beckmann, the owner of the Beckmann Commercial building at 94 South Euclid Avenue in Montauk.

Recognizing that there is a need for more senior citizen housing in East Hampton Town, Eric Schantz, the town’s director of housing and community development, recommended this week that the board craft legislation to allow increased density for senior housing complexes, suggesting 12 housing units per acre for senior housing versus the eight that is now allowed.

A rocky revetment, rocky relationships, and even conspiracy theories were on display at the East Hampton Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on April 2, during a public hearing involving a proposed 108-foot-long, 10-foot-high revetment at the end of Bay View Avenue on Napeague. The structure, meant to deflect waves, was instead creating them.

Mary Mott, chief of the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, along with Mary Ellen McGuire, the first assistant chief, Laura Van Binsbergen, the treasurer, and Suzanne Dayton, the secretary, have filed an Article 78 petition in Suffolk County Supreme Court, to dissolve the ambulance association and transfer its funds to a new nonprofit corporation that was set up in October 2023 called the East Hampton Village Ambulance Members, Inc.

When the Springs General Store eventually reopens — and it won’t be this summer — it will still serve egg sandwiches and coffee starting at 7 a.m., but it won’t be selling alcohol for on-site consumption, as originally planned.

"Buses providing scheduled commuter services open to the public would be exempted" from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's central Manhattan congestion-tolling program, according to a breakdown of the plan approved by the M.T.A. board on March 27. That includes the Hampton Jitney bus company.

“For me personally, socialization is very important,” said Vicki Lundin. “The amazing staff at the senior center are caring and highly effective.” But, she said, East Hampton Town's current senior citizens center is too crowded.

It is not illegal to own roosters in the Town of East Hampton, but not everyone enjoys their enthusiastic way of meeting the morning. But, in the three years Kevin Cooper has served as the director of code enforcement for the town, he has issued only a single ticket for a noise nuisance violation, to a Springs man whose rooster's early-morning calls have sparked a slew of complaints from a neighbor.

The East Hampton Town Board is discussing legislation that would help it control mooring in town waters, specifically Lake Montauk, and create separate categories for moorings based on their usage.

“Think of the 2004 cellphone — our code was designed for that cellphone,” Jeremy Samuelson, director of the East Hampton Town Planning Department, told the town board in urging it to adopt a brand-new wireless master plan. “The pandemic alone taught us the extent to which we’re reliant upon these technologies, but our infrastructure wasn’t matching it. We had to take a cultural leap and get to a place where we were saying, ‘This actually is critical infrastructure.’ ”

The East Hampton Town Board voted last Thursday to authorize a law firm to file a petition with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner to settle its lead agency dispute with the planning board with regard to the proposed new senior citizens center in Amagansett.

The Devon Yacht Club, which hopes to proceed with a large-scale redevelopment of its 120-year-old facility, is proposing to demolish all the buildings on its 13.82-acre site and to rebuild elsewhere, farther from Gardiner’s Bay.

A ruling by a four-judge panel of the New York State Supreme Court's Appellate Division affirmed on Wednesday that the court had properly determined that East Hampton Town failed to comply with procedural requirements of the federal Airport Noise and Capacity Act when it briefly closed and reopened the airport in 2022. But the division sided with the town in agreeing that a $250,000 penalty for civil contempt and fine of $1,000 per day for each day that the town did not comply with a 2022 temporary restraining order were improper.

The New York State presidential primary election is on Tuesday. Early voting continues through Saturday, March 30.

Fearing an underwater land rush, the Sag Harbor Village Board voted unanimously to limit the number of moorings allowed in the outermost area of its jurisdiction.

The Shelter Island Democratic Committee has endorsed John Avlon’s campaign to represent New York’s First Congressional District. The endorsement is Mr. Avlon’s third from a town Democratic committee, following those from East Hampton and Southampton.

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing on draft legislation regarding the All-Electric Building Act that was recommended by the town’s energy and sustainability advisory committee last year, but it indicated that it would not support all of the committee’s recommendations in the proposed legislation.

While most waters in East Hampton Town were often of a high quality in 2023, what happens on the land affects what happens to surface waters, and more people and more land use mean more nitrogen loading, leading to more harmful algal blooms, according to an annual report on the waterways from Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.

Have you ever considered working for town government? If so, East Hampton and Southampton Towns would like to hear from you.

The East Hampton Town attorney signed a stipulation of settlement with the owners of Rowdy Hall in Amagansett on Friday that will allow the much-disputed exterior of the restaurant to remain black. 

Three weeks after announcing his candidacy to represent New York’s First Congressional District, the author, columnist, and former CNN anchor John Avlon formally launched his campaign at the World War II memorial in Sag Harbor’s Marine Park on Saturday, promising supporters that the race to unseat Representative Nick LaLota is winnable. 

Antennae of the personal wireless carriers AT&T and T-Mobile are now active on the 185-foot monopole at Camp Blue Bay in Springs, bringing a long-awaited upgrade to cellular service in the hamlet. 

Some residents of Montauk fear their hamlet will see an explosion in air traffic if aircraft operations are restricted at East Hampton Town Airport in Wainscott, while some residents of Wainscott say the town should simply close East Hampton Town Airport, which is destroying their quality of life. 

Emily’s List, which works to elect Democratic pro-choice women, has endorsed the candidacy of Nancy Goroff in New York’s First Congressional District. 

“Right now, there is no sense of entrance,” the landscape architect Michael Derrig told the East Hampton Village Board as he presented a conceptual design for the Newtown Lane-facing portion of Herrick Park. Central to the design is an allée of trees leading to a lawn formed into an oval by the contours of the walkway.

“We’re going to be putting speed bumps everywhere,” Sarah Amaden, an East Hampton Village trustee, said at Friday’s village board meeting, as the board considered three new speed humps on La Forest Lane. “We’re going to open a can of worms.” 

Consultants to the East Hampton Town Board issued a draft report on a Springs-Fireplace Road Corridor study, an ongoing initiative to evaluate traffic, land use, and environmental issues and offer recommendations to improve the functionality and character of the area surrounding the county road while reducing potential environmental threats.