Government

“That was a journey down a rabbit hole,” Ed Johann, a member of the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals, said after an exhaustive discussion regarding the redevelopment of the Devon Yacht Club split the board last week.

As emergency dredging of the Lake Montauk Inlet to a depth of 12 feet officially got underway this week, Representative Nick LaLota on Tuesday confirmed that plans are still on to dredge the inlet to a full depth of 17 feet later this year. "Local projects like this are exactly what we need to get the return on investment of our federal tax dollars," Mr. LaLota said.

The East Hampton Town Democrats are organizing a demonstration to demand that Representative Nick LaLota hold in-person town hall meetings. The demonstration is planned for Tuesday morning in Montauk, during a press conference about the emergency dredging of the Montauk Inlet, which began over the weekend. 

The Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee voted unanimously to write a letter to the East Hampton Town Board calling for the historic preservation of the entire 30-acre property at 66 Main Street, which the town purchased for $56 million last year with community preservation money.

The Peconic Estuary Partnership, which was to receive $2.7 million in federal funding toward projects that include a $200,000 stormwater mitigation effort in Sag Harbor and $100,000 of wetlands work in Southampton, is now unsure if that funding will be available following an executive order by the Trump administration that froze billions in federal grants.

The East Hampton Town Board, after debating the merits of a handful of formulas to rein in house size, settled on a compromise to take to the public in a hearing on March 6: capping houses’ gross floor area to 7 percent of their lot area plus 1,500 square feet.

East Hampton Town Board members discussed how they could further regulate parking in Montauk to create more turnover in the commercial district, allow for better enforcement, and discourage abandoned cars.

Thomas Gardella has announced his intention to seek a second two-year term as Sag Harbor Village mayor, citing in particular his contributions to environmental work.

After news last week from the East Hampton Town Board that the Lake Montauk Inlet could undergo emergency dredging by the end of the month, Representative Nick LaLota confirmed Friday that "he has secured a commitment" from the Army Corps of Engineers to begin the work "as early as February 14." 

To mitigate coastal erosion, Southampton Town has contracted the largest dredging company in the United States to place 1.2 million cubic yards of sand along a stretch of coastline between Bridgehampton and Sagaponack, following a referendum within the beach erosion control districts.

A new application for a house in the dunes on Beach Lane in Wainscott seeks to stand the test of time, and will be built to “velocity flood standards,” with a raised first floor over “breakaway walls” that will allow water to flow underneath it “if we ever hit that 100-year storm.” That aspect pleased town planners but upset neighbors.

At the top of the ticket, Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez got the uncontested nod, along with both Councilwoman Cate Rogers, first elected in 2021, and Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte, fresh off his first year on the job. And Michael Hansen was nominated to run for town clerk, following Carole Brennan's announcement that she will retire after more than a decade in the post.

Gerard Drive, regarded as one of the more environmentally sensitive areas in East Hampton Town, jutting out as it does into Gardiner’s Bay and protecting Accabonac Harbor, has only one pool along its 1.4-mile length. Soon there will be another.

At its Jan. 14 meeting, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals approved a pool, additions that would add a second story and more than double the size of an existing house, and a natural resources special permit for the property at 101 Gerard Drive.

An emotional East Hampton Town Board meeting Tuesday began with a two-hour public outpouring of support for the Latino community, mixed with confusion and countless questions about what ordinary people can do in the face of deportation threats from the Trump administration. Later, East Hampton and Sag Harbor Village officials and the East Hampton School District superintendent held a press conference emphasizing that all people should feel safe going to school or calling police and emergency personnel.

The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation will hold a public meeting next Thursday at 6 p.m. at Montauk Downs State Park to discuss emergency work being completed at Napeague and Hither Hills State Parks in response to the southern pine beetle infestation.

The East Hampton Town Board has agreed unanimously to a proposal from Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, to clear invasive plants, chiefly the autumn olive, from only an acre of the 40-acre Springs Park.

The East Hampton Town Board is looking to change the parking rules for several municipal lots in Montauk, adding a time limit at some that currently have no limit and making it easier for police to enforce restrictions where they do exist.

After years of effort, accelerated recently because of dangerous conditions, the inlet at Lake Montauk will undergo emergency dredging, perhaps by the end of the month. At the East Hampton Town Board meeting on Tuesday, Councilman David Lys announced the development during his liaison reports, saying he was "very pleasantly surprised."

Concerned that there could be "chaos in our community" because of deportation threats by President Trump, East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen announced a press conference on Tuesday evening at 6 in the Emergency Services Building to ease fears. The public is invited.

With plans to remodel her father’s 35-year-old Hampton Auto Collision shop on Springs-Fireplace Road next door to Springs Pizza, Lindsay Reichart and her partner, Gunnar Burke, quickly won over the East Hampton Town Planning Board with their idea for “a year-round location for people to socialize.”

The Cranberry Hole Road bridge in Amagansett, closed since July 2023, will remain closed for the foreseeable future, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority confirmed earlier this month.

The first people in line to get one of the 1,600 coveted nonresident East Hampton Village beach passes made available to town residents at an in-person sale Tuesday arrived at 5:45 a.m. “It’s like an event, and we look forward to it every year,” one woman said.

“I know there are some folks out there that are concerned about the price, and I’m concerned about the cost too,” Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said, but compared the project, slated to cost around $30 million, to the $23 million expansion of the Springs School, completed in 2021, or the $56 million renovation and expansion of East Hampton High School, completed in 2010. “We support our kids. We need to be able to support our seniors.”

Oyster survivorship in Georgica Pond over the last five years is 40 to 50 percent, which Stony Brook’s Gobler Lab deems “really quite amazing.”

The Federal Office of Management and Budget’s temporary pause Tuesday on grants, loans, and federal financial assistance programs that are targeted by President Trump’s executive orders was rescinded only 24 hours later, but not before sending local organizations into a panic.

They say the wheels of justice turn slowly, but if so, no one told County Supreme Court Justice Paul Hensley. Just days after 84 Wainscott Hollow Road L.L.C. submitted a lawsuit against the East Hampton Town Architectural Review Board seeking an annulment of the board’s Dec. 12 denial of its application, the judge granted the petition “in all respects.”

In a sort of reintroduction to a largely new planning board, the East Hampton Town Planning Department gave a short recap of what has happened since a 2023 hearing on the Wainscott Commercial Center, the largest development proposal in the town, at a 70.4-acre former sand mine.

After a difficult debate that ended in compromise, the East Hampton Town Board agreed at its work session Tuesday to bring an updated formula that links house size and lot size to a public hearing in early March. The board settled on a maximum house size of 7 percent of lot area plus 1,500 square feet. Right now, the formula is set at 10 percent of lot area plus 1,600 square feet.

President Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency comes in for praise and skepticism in a Senate confirmation hearing.

At its first meeting of the year, the East Hampton Town Planning Board, under the new chairmanship of Ed Krug, chose not to pursue an Article 78 lawsuit against the town board for passing a resolution to exempt the new senior citizens center from town planning and zoning regulations.