Government

A proposed .5-percent real estate transfer tax to fund community housing will be on the ballot in East Hampton in November and the town board and pro-housing community groups are getting the word out about the proposal and its anticipated benefits.

East Hampton Town’s 2023 budget, still in its tentative form, continued to take shape this week, with minor adjustments to funding for community organizations and for the Marine Patrol, Highway, and Land Acquisition and Management Departments among the tweaks being considered.

Advertising of the construction contract for long-planned improvements to the navigational channel in Montauk Harbor is expected to happen early in the summer of 2023 and the deepening is expected to be completed by the end of that year.

The campaigns of Gov. Kathy Hochul and her challenger, Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District, touted dueling polls last week. Both put the incumbent in the lead, but by widely differing margins. 

Informational forums on the Nov. 8 ballot proposition that will ask voters to approve a .5-percent real estate transfer tax that would go toward a community housing opportunity fund will be held in East Hampton Town Friday and on Oct. 15.

At the Long Island Power Authority’s quarterly board of trustees meeting last week, Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt handed the board a petition with over 3,000 signatures in opposition to a plan to drill through the greenbelt to lay a transmission line between Sag Harbor and East Hampton. “In the process, they’d destroy something you can’t put a price on," said Dai Dayton, the group's president.

The new owners of the Springs General Store are eager to get to work converting a storage shed on the property into a tiny wine store, but questions about accessibility for the disabled and exactly what type of drinking would be allowed at the site have slowed the progress of their application before the East Hampton Town Planning Board.

The East Hampton Town Board finds it necessary “to raise wages significantly in order to try and stay competitive within the market," Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said of the town's 2023 budget, which would grow by 5.6 percent over the current budget, to $90.36 million if adopted.

The 14 East Hampton Town residents who were issued summonses for trespassing on the Napeague ocean beach popularly known as Truck Beach during a protest last October have a hearing date in Southampton Town Justice Court.

As part of an effort to create more affordable housing, the director of East Hampton Town’s Planning Department issued a slew of recommendations to the town board on Tuesday aimed at expanding incentives for residents to offer affordable accessory apartments for rent.

East End lawmakers and the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons are urging Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign a bill to end the so-called “puppy-mill pipeline” that has sent untold numbers of unhealthy and abused cats, dogs, and rabbits to New York State retail pet shops.

Gov. Kathy Hochul agreed on Sept. 21 to participate in a single debate with her challenger, Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District, but Mr. Zeldin responded by calling the proposed Oct. 25 debate “a nonstarter,” and as of Wednesday the candidates had not mutually agreed to debate.  

The Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association has endorsed County Legislator Bridget Fleming in her campaign to represent New York’s First Congressional District.

The ongoing malware crisis that has afflicted Suffolk County computer systems for three weeks should not impact elections here, according to Betty Manzella, the Republican commissioner with the Suffolk County Board of Elections in Yaphank. Nevertheless, the cyber intrusion presents challenges for the board of elections.

An East Hampton Town Planning Board hearing for a proposed 185-foot cell tower that would be installed by American Tower at Camp Blue Bay in Springs has been scheduled for Oct. 19.

The Cookery, a grocery store, bakery, and prepared-food shop that is operating where Simply Sublime stood for 10 years at 85 Springs-Fireplace Road, has worked out some of the issues with its site plan application and is now ready for a public hearing. An application for National Grid's East Hampton generating station still needs work before a hearing can be scheduled.

“My focus has been on really addressing wages within the town to invest in our human resources, our staff, to bring them up to a more competitive level," East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said of the 2023 budget, which the town board will focus on during work sessions on Oct. 4 and 11. The town, he said, “has fallen a bit behind other municipalities” in employee salaries.

Breezin’ Up, a store at 37 Newtown Lane, is “looking to possibly make some changes of use in the building," according to the East Hampton Village building inspector, and an upgrade to its septic system would allow that. “They’ll be able to have retail wet uses, but not restaurants,” said Mayor Jerry Larsen, noting that similar easements were granted to Starbucks and a building housing multiple businesses at 55 Main Street.

With 47 days to the Nov. 8 midterm elections, Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming and Nick LaLota, the chief of staff to the Republican majority in the Legislature, are presenting contrasting views as they vie to succeed Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican congressman who has held the seat in New York’s First Congressional District for four consecutive terms.

In an attempt to secure the health of its waterways for future generations, Sag Harbor Village has hired an engineering firm to develop a master sewer plan that will connect more parcels to its wastewater treatment plant. The project’s estimated price tag? A whopping $78 million.

The East Hampton Village Board has created a new aesthetics committee made up of designers, architects, and “tastemakers,” who will advise it on projects and initiatives. On Friday, it got its first task: deciding whether the village could accept an offer from a homeowner whose house overlooks a preserved property adjacent to a Main Beach parking lot.

The East Hampton Town Water Quality Technical Advisory Committee made grant recommendations for high-impact improvement projects in Sag Harbor and Amagansett to the town board. By far the larger of the committee’s recommendations, and the largest to date in the committee’s request-for-applications program, is a grant of just over $1 million to Sag Harbor Village for an expansion of its existing sewage treatment plant.

After last week’s meeting of the East Hampton Town Planning Board, a public hearing on a proposal to raise a 185-foot cellphone tower at the 172-acre Camp Blue Bay in Springs seemed likely by October. Other than lingering questions about a diesel-fueled generator, the board appeared satisfied that the application was ready to hear the public’s comments, for better or worse.

Citing the time and expertise required to process applications, the East Hampton Town Planning Department has proposed updated application and permit fees. Some application processes “are quite involved,” the planning director said, requiring, for example, attention of the attorney’s office, the town board, the planning board, the Building Department, and the fire marshal. If applicants aren’t asked to “shoulder the majority of the burden for the service that they are asking us to perform,” the town’s other taxpayers “are picking up that tab.”

The Peconic Estuary Partnership has received a significant allotment of federal infrastructure money — $909,800 each year for the next five years — and some of that money could go to coastal resilience and climate adaptation projects in Accabonac and Napeague Harbors.

Some 3,200 pitch pines on Napeague were being felled this week, victims of the southern pine beetle infestation that has killed thousands of trees in East Hampton Town since 2017.

Suffolk County has been dealing with a weeklong malware mess that compelled it to hit the kill switch on its computer systems last week.

The Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee vented at length about the lack of restrictions on air traffic at the East Hampton Airport, which the town had planned to implement in May but had to put on hold after a temporary restraining order was issued. “The worst airport situation ever,” said one member. "It’s time to show our outrage,” said another. “This year was a horror,” was a third.

For years, restaurants have operated at the Springs location in apparent harmony with their surroundings. Rita Cantina has been different. Ann Glennon, the town’s principal building inspector, and nearby residents say its use of the property has risen to unacceptable levels.

At an East Hampton Village Design Review Board meeting last week, village code was found to be in direct opposition to a state law that sets standards for lighting around automatic teller machines, or A.T.M.s, and the Bank of America branch at 14 Newtown Lane was uncomfortably caught in between.