Government

An application to subdivide the privately held Montauk Airport on East Lake Drive into four residential lots is making its way through the East Hampton Planning Department and could get an initial airing before the planning board in early July. 

A United States Department of Homeland Security webpage published Friday to "expose sanctuary jurisdictions" included East Hampton among more than 500 other municipalities, Suffolk County among them. It caught local officials off guard and prompted swift response from immigrant advocates. It was removed by Monday morning.

Despite holdouts, there are comfortable majorities on both the East Hampton Town Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals that favor allowing the 108-year-old Devon Yacht Club, at 300 Abram’s Landing Road in Amagansett, to proceed with its plans to renovate and reconstruct its buildings and amenities.

It’s been a bad news/good news month for at least two pairs of ospreys that had nests under construction removed, one likely by a homeowner, the other by PSEG Long Island.

An application to raise an oceanfront house in the Beach Hampton section of Amagansett nearly 10 feet, ostensibly to meet FEMA regulations, was met with circumspection at the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals last week.

Opponents of Adam Potter’s proposed mixed-use building at 7 and 11 Bridge Streets in Sag Harbor lined up to denounce the project during a village planning board hearing Tuesday, repeating complaints voiced last month about flooding, parking, traffic, and contamination from incomplete environmental remediation at the site.

A resolution to schedule a June 18 public hearing on a $30.7 million village budget was passed Friday at a meeting that saw sniping about tax rates levied on village residents by the town.

The East Hampton Town Litter Action Committee offered several recommendations for how littering could be reduced: an anti-litter campaign, a code amendment that would strengthen rental registry trash-hauling requirements, engaging with the State Department of Transportation about improving litter removal along Route 27, and adding temporary signage, in English and Spanish, near recently cleaned areas and at the town transfer stations.

At an otherwise quiet East Hampton Town Board meeting, a decision about a special permit for surfing lessons in Montauk drew the most attention.

Nearly 200 “small cell” towers, each 42 feet tall, will be deployed across East Hampton Town, with over 150 slotted for Northwest Woods and Springs alone. The large majority, 129, could be operational by the end of the year.

The whiplash resulting from policies announced and quickly reversed by the Trump administration continued this week with the surprise announcement that construction of the Empire Wind 1 offshore wind farm, which was halted last month by a stop-work order issued by the secretary of the Department of the Interior, could resume.

The United States House of Representatives passed President Trump's spending bill early Thursday, sending it along to the Senate. In it is a quadrupling of the cap on the State and Local Tax deduction, known colloquially as the SALT deduction, which Representative Nick LaLota said in a press release early Thursday is "a significant win for Long Island taxpayers."

“This is a town project that’s on time and under budget,” said Maureen Cahill, a board member of the Montauk Community Playhouse Foundation, where a new aquatic and cultural center is on track to open before summer’s end. “It’s a really good model of town, state, and private funding that put this together. Without those three it doesn’t work.”

Trevor Darrell has been appointed East Hampton Town’s prosecutor, and Brittany Toledano has been hired as deputy town attorney, both effective as of Monday, according to a statement issued from Town Hall this week.

Word that the United States Coast Guard has proposed to remove hundreds of navigational markers along the Northeast coast, including buoys, day beacons, and lights, is drawing a mostly negative reaction among mariners in East Hampton Town, with commercial fishermen and others warning that their removal would worsen already dangerous conditions.

A long-discussed roundabout at the intersection of Stephen Hand’s Path, Long Lane, and Two Holes of Water Road in East Hampton has begun operating, despite the continuation of work on the inside part of the circle.

Some ocean beaches, including Indian Wells and Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett and South Edison and Ditch Plain in Montauk, will be staffed by lifeguards beginning on Saturday, May 24, during the Memorial Day weekend, as will Big Albert’s on the bay in Amagansett. They will remain open on weekends until mid-June, when all beaches will be staffed full time.

With a $338,000 grant from the East Hampton Town Community Housing Fund to help cover “soft costs,” the Windmill I senior citizen housing development is honing plans to add 20 new units to its property on Accabonac Road.

The East Hampton Town Trustees heard and approved a request by South Fork Sea Farmers, a nonprofit educational arm of the town’s shellfish hatchery and its community oyster garden program, to implement a program aiming to establish eelgrass meadows in Accabonac Harbor. 

OpenGov, software powering payments, permitting, and licensing on the Town of East Hampton’s website, is now open for business.

The East Hampton Town Board has decided it’s time to restore the historic Peach House, which lies about a peach’s throw from the board’s own meeting room. The renovation could begin this fall and be completed by May 2026, at which time it will house three town offices and a reception area.

Removing an eastbound lane on Main Street, reconfiguring the Reutershan parking lot, and redevelopment of the Gingerbread Lane/Railroad Avenue district were among the ideas voiced during a virtual workshop on an update to East Hampton Village’s comprehensive plan.

As the summer season draws closer, East Hampton Town’s new director of the Ordinance Enforcement Department is urging residents to remember the words “assurance” and “patience” when registering complaints about code violations.

The East Hampton Town Board seems inclined to extend a Covid-era outdoor dining pilot program, which expired at the end of December, for another three-plus years and possibly to make it permanent.

A hearing held by the East Hampton Town Board about a community preservation fund acquisition at 351 Old Stone Highway in Springs highlighted the need for a subsequent discussion about changes to the town code regarding nature preserves. Legislation governing nature preserves was written in 1991, before creation of the community preservation fund or even the town’s Land Acquisition and Management Department.

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals agreed last week to send a nonbinding letter of potential approval to the town planning board regarding 20 variances required for a major rebuild of the Devon Yacht Club that has been making its way through the town’s review boards for the better part of three years.

At present, elected officials and employees of East Hampton Town are not allowed to accept a ticket to an event that is priced at over $75. The East Hampton Town Board is considering amending its code of ethics to allow its officers and employees to accept such tickets no matter what the value, and further allow them to accept one complimentary ticket for a guest.

Horseshoe crabs and clams were the primary topics of discussion at an East Hampton Town Trustees meeting, as the trustees looked ahead to an annual horseshoe crab monitoring program in a few weeks and set a date for their annual Largest Clam Contest in the fall.

Two Springs ports of call, Rita Cantina and the Springs General Store (which hopes to be open by next summer), have been recommended by East Hampton Town’s new water quality technical advisory committee for sizable grants to upgrade their septic systems.

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine called it an “aha moment” — an awakening after the Westhampton Pines fire on March 14. He’d had enough of the devastation caused by the southern pine beetle across the county he leads, and he wanted to do something about it.