Government

The Sag Harbor Village Board met Saturday afternoon to hold a public workshop on the village’s accessory dwelling unit laws, discussing ways the village can make it easier for people to build them on their properties, particularly on those that already have a pre-existing structure. 

In January, when the Shinnecock Indian Nation received confirmation from the U.S. Department of the Interior that its sovereignty extends to the territory known as Westwoods, Lisa Goree and her colleagues on the tribal council should have been able to breathe a bit easier. Instead, they find themselves in fight mode all over again.

Aidan Corish of the Sag Harbor Village Board has announced his intention to seek his fifth two-year term.

Despite division, the East Hampton Town Board was set to approve a plan to reduce the maximum gross-floor-area formula, a part of the town’s zoning code that ties the maximum square footage of a house to the size of its lot. With two holdouts on the board, there was still enough support for a cap of 7 percent of a lot plus 1,500 square feet.

Sag Harbor Village and the Suffolk County Department of Transportation do not know who owns the four-way intersection of the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, Brick Kiln Road, Jermain Avenue, and Main Street. This became apparent during the March 11 meeting of the village board.

Tom Preiato’s friendly, matter-of-fact style has served him well in the 25 years he has been a building inspector on the South Fork, working for East Hampton Town, Sag Harbor Village, and East Hampton Village. Though he has at times been a “building inspector to the stars,” the soon-to-be retired Mr. Preiato said, “I’m just a regular guy. I don’t get caught up with who they are.”

Rick Martel, on the Republican and Conservative lines, defeated John Leonard, a Democrat who also ran on the Working Families line, in Tuesday's special election for the Southampton Town Board seat vacated by Tommy John Schiavoni.

The surprising news in an update on wildfire readiness in East Hampton Town at Tuesday’s town board meeting was that trees felled by the southern pine beetle are not top of mind for fire experts who are assessing the town’s fire risk. 

The United States Army Corps of Engineers has successfully completed an emergency dredging project at the Lake Montauk Inlet. 

“Press 3 if you want to get in the queue to ask a question, and press 6 to subscribe to my newsletter,” Representative Nicholas LaLota said, repeatedly, throughout his March 5 tele-town hall, when he answered questions about the Department of Government Efficiency, Ukraine, tariffs, and the border, among other topics. 

The East Hampton Town Board offered unanimous support to use $1.5 million in Community Housing Funds to purchase a four-unit multiple residence building, at 109 Hampton Street in Sag Harbor Village, in concert with the Sag Harbor Community Housing Trust, which would pitch in an additional $1.2 million. 

A public hearing on an East Hampton Town proposal to alter the calculation that governs the maximum size of a house — going from a gross floor area of 10 percent of a lot size plus 1,600 square feet down to 7 percent of the lot size plus 1,500 square feet — was replete with buzzwords: community, resources, traffic, McMansion, greed, and sliding scales. Building professionals and concerned citizens stuffed Town Hall past capacity to offer mostly educated comments. 

A unanimous East Hampton Town Board passed a resolution Tuesday to create the John Osborn Homestead Historic Landmark at 66 Main Street in Wainscott. The town purchased the property from Ronald Lauder, using community preservation fund money, for $56 million late last year.

In the early days of Donald Trump’s second term as president, local Republican leaders and those who are serving in elected positions now or did in the past reflected on the administration’s first months, calling for patience amid the upheaval.

At a 2025 Environmental Roundtable hosted by State Senator Anthony Palumbo in Riverhead last Thursday, where elected officials from across the East End met with environmental interest groups, East Hampton Town Councilwoman Cate Rogers used her time to speak about one of the town’s biggest environmental issues, coastal resilience, and the fear that some projects may no longer get the federal funding that small municipalities rely on.

The East Hampton Town Board is considering allowing multi-unit residences on housing lots as small as half an acre, which would include an increase of parcels in the town’s affordable housing overlay district and a revision of the town code. Right now, multi-unit dwellings are only allowed in those districts on lots that are over three acres.

The nature of the discourse Saturday, when the executive director of the East Hampton Housing Authority discussed a forthcoming housing development on Route 114 in Wainscott with the hamlet's citizens advisory committee, was markedly different from discussions on affordable housing in the Wainscott School District that took place a decade ago.

Not in the Amagansett Historic District. That was the clear message sent by the East Hampton Town Planning Board to the owner and lessee of the Amagansett Mobil station, who are looking to add a Bolla convenience store and Tim Horton's coffee and takeout shop to the site. 

Proposed legislation to change the maximum gross floor area calculation for residences in East Hampton Town divided the town's seven-member planning board last week, and no consensus was reached as the town board prepares for a Thursday evening hearing on the change. 

In a draft capital plan presented to the East Hampton Town Board last week, there are mobile tower lights and new gun holsters for police; a new vehicle for Marine Patrol and an electronic upgrade for one of its boats; a new dump truck, tree trimmer, plows, and drainage systems for the Highway Department. For the Parks Department, soccer goals, basketball courts, and, of course — because it’s 2025 — new pickleball courts.

“I think it’s safe to say that in the last year, the hours we’re spending on special events, the cost is not being met by the revenues that are coming in,” East Hampton Town Councilman Tom Flight said as the town board discussed increasing those fees, most of which have not been updated since 2018.

Perhaps lost in the discussion over the 22,000-square-foot Center for Modern Aging and Human Services planned for Abraham’s Path in Amagansett has been the human services element of the project. The department would occupy nearly a third of the fidget-spinner-shaped building. A recent visit to its current home, across the parking lot from the senior citizens center on Springs-Fireplace Road, makes clear that an upgrade is not an outlandish request.

East Hampton Village has tried to settle a lawsuit with David Ganz, a village resident who had his parking pass for Lot 1 revoked after the village said he drove recklessly and damaged property at the beach. Mr. Ganz is standing firm and in February filed new papers including videos taken from cameras affixed to the Main Beach pavilion.

Five progressive Long Island groups and town Democrats rally to be heard by Representative Nick LaLota at town hall-style meetings that are open to the public and not controlled or managed. His answer? There’s a tele-town hall coming on March 5.

The League of Women Voters will host an online debate Monday night at 7 for candidates who are seeking to fill the seat on the Southampton Town Board left open when Tommy John Schiavoni was elected to the New York State Assembly.

Farmers in Wainscott spoke up at a recent East Hampton Town Board meeting to mostly reject a proposal for traffic-calming tools put forth by the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee, saying it would create difficulties and unsafe driving conditions for their farm vehicles and other cars and trucks on those very roadways.

Those who have driven through the intersection of Route 114 and Stephen Hand’s Path in East Hampton may have noticed about 15 traffic lights dangling above. They are part of the ongoing construction at the site, which was scheduled to be finished this month but is now expected to continue into the summer.

The East Hampton Village Board this week discussed a proposed public hearing on a new law that would shift the onus of notifying neighbors who live within 200 feet of an applicant’s property to the applicants, rather than the village. The proposal sparked a letter of objection from Leonard Ackerman, a lawyer and longtime village resident. 

The work being done to respond to damage from the southern pine beetle on Napeague and in Hither Hills State Parks will continue over the course of “several winters,” according to Lynn Bogan, assistant deputy director for stewardship at the New York State Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation.

East Hampton Town is looking to settle with the plaintiffs who sued to block its attempt to close the town airport in 2022 and reopen it with restrictions meant to address town residents’ years of complaints, Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez announced at a town board work session Tuesday.