Government

Despite concerns from one board member about setting an unwelcome precedent, the East Hampton Town Board voted three to one — with one recusal — to exempt the planned senior citizens center in Amagansett from local zoning and land-use regulations.

Upward of 50 people attended East Hampton Village’s first workshop as it prepares to update its comprehensive plan, filling nearly every chair in the Emergency Services Building. Familiar themes peppered the conversation: traffic congestion and speeding, lack of affordable housing, the departure of mom-and-pop shops, and the constant clatter of the landscaping and construction industries.

The East Hampton Town Board discussed on Tuesday the procedure for when members of the architectural review board or the zoning board of appeals must be absent from meetings and an alternate must be formally accepted into the process.

Mashashimuet Park could be getting a new entrance, Sag Harbor Village’s deputy mayor, Ed Haye, announced at Tuesday night’s village board meeting. It would be moved south of its current location, he said, onto the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, and could be folded into Suffolk County’s planned renovation to that road.

A Sag Harbor Village plan to connect two sewersheds to the wastewater treatment plant is moving ahead. The village accepted construction bids on the projects at a meeting on Nov. 19, and Aidan Corish of the village board expects the work to begin in early 2025.

The Springs General Store has been shuttered since the end of the 2022 summer season, and while the new owners are getting closer to winning approvals for changes they plan, one of them, Daniel Bennett, confirmed via text last week that the store will remain closed for the summer of 2025.

The East Hampton Town Board has proposed designating two structures at 66 Main Street in Wainscott, on a 30-acre property recently purchased from Ronald Lauder, as historic landmarks to be known as the John Osborn Homestead Historic Landmark. Some advocates say the whole property should be landmarked.

Several residents of the Lazy Point neighborhood on Napeague have voiced concerns at recent meetings of the East Hampton Town Trustees about a Suffolk County dredging project in the channel between Lazy Point and Hicks Island, arguing that widening the channel as proposed would allow water to rise and encroach even more on their houses.

A management plan for a new pocket park in Amagansett, featuring recreation and meeting spaces, had a public hearing before the East Hampton Town Board on Nov. 21, with just one speaker offering thoughts on the proposal.

The East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday heard the first round of pitches for affordable housing projects angling for money generated by the half-percent community housing fund real estate transfer tax, which has produced more than $10 million since it went into effect in April 2023.

After the town board agreed to slash the maximum allowable house size from 20,000 to 10,000 square feet townwide, the board focused Tuesday on recommendations from the Planning Department to change a formula that would also reduce the maximum gross floor area of houses by tying that to the size of their lots.

The real estate developer Jeremy Morton discussed his plans for the commercial buildings at 2 Main Street and 22 Long Island Avenue in Sag Harbor at a village planning board hearing on Nov. 26. 

The town planning board, which would need to give site plan approval, has reviewed the Devon Yacht Club's project for over two years before deciding that it could not move forward until knowing whether the Z.B.A. would approve the many variances required, 20 in all: nine for wetland setbacks, eight for dune crest setbacks, and three for front yard setbacks along Abram’s Landing Road.

The town board awarded about $120,000 in community development block grants to four organizations last week, Maureen’s Haven and OLA among them.

The owner of the Huntting Inn, spurned by an October decision of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals that a pool and other improvements it had planned for its historic property could not be considered, filed papers last week to sue the board and the village.

With the Republican Party winning the White House and both houses of Congress, local immigration attorneys and the nonprofit OLA of Eastern Long Island are preparing for major changes to immigration policy.

The town board tackled a quirky piece of legislation at last week’s work session, involving the temporary storage of prefabricated homes. The problem arises when trucks arrive with their oversize loads. They often sit idling, sometimes for hours, while they wait for a local builder to arrive to pick up the goods.

Construction work at a long-controversial nightclub on Three Mile Harbor Road was set to begin three months ago, at which point it became strikingly apparent that the building had no basement at all, as had been assumed during the planning process. Rather than being retained, it would have to be built. This created an issue: Is excavating a new basement an expansion of a nonconforming building?

A bill that would designate Plum Island as a national monument has been passed by the House Natural Resources Committee, paving the way for a congressional vote.

The westernmost grass field at the Stephen Hand’s Path Recreational Facility will be converted to a multiuse artificial turf field in January, with work to be completed possibly by Memorial Day, depending on weather. Councilman David Lys and Matt Jedlicka, an engineer at L.K. McLean Associates, gave a presentation on the project to the town board at a meeting on Tuesday.

Design work has yet to begin on a new lighting plan for downtown Amagansett, where large trees line Main Street and sometimes block light, but the East Hampton Town Board appeared happy Tuesday with a preliminary study by L.K. McLean Associates, the project engineers.

The East Hampton Town Board formally decided Tuesday that a proposed senior citizens center on a seven-acre parcel at 403 Abraham’s Path in Amagansett would have little environmental impact and did not need a lengthy environmental review.

With a large inflatable rat in tow, a group from the Laborers Local 66 union has been stationed this week outside the Montauk Playhouse Community Center, where new aquatic and cultural centers are under construction, with signs calling out the architects and general contractors on the project.

The restaurant Page at 63 Main Street on Tuesday presented the latest iteration of its expansion plan before the Sag Harbor Zoning Board of Appeals meeting. The restaurant’s management hopes to expand up to the second floor of the building, netting an extra 41 seats, bringing the total number of seats to 165 — a proposal that would see the second-floor zoning classification changed from residential use to commercial use.

Debate over the addition of an area for small dogs at the Springs Park continued this week as the park committee met to discuss recommended changes that also include removal of invasive species.

The East Hampton Town Board dropped a surprise into another lengthy discussion of proposed zoning code amendments in the wake of a well-attended public hearing on Nov. 7. The board agreed on most amendments as written; however, in a straw poll, four members voted against a measure that would include a portion of basements in the gross floor calculation of residences.

Piggybacking on a law passed in the spring, the East Hampton Village Board passed another on Friday prohibiting nightclubs, “or similar entertainment establishments,” in the historic preservation district. In so doing, the board updated the village’s zoning code to place nightclubs alongside “garbage disposal plants and junkyards” as the only specific business enterprises outlawed anywhere in the village.

East Hampton Town is urging Montauk residents facing difficulties obtaining medicines in the wake of the closing of White's Drug and Department Store to take advantage of its Senior Shopping Assistance Program. Through the town program, people 60 and up can have town employees from the Human Services Department pick up prescriptions from pharmacies and deliver them to their houses.

Part of a Further Lane house that an anonymous donor gifted to Project Most to be used in a hub for its children's programs on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton has been demolished and discarded, having been exposed to weather conditions that allowed it to deteriorate. 

East Hampton has over 300 miles of roads, and his officers write about 5,000 traffic summonses a year, Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo told the town board this week as he once again urged its members to ask permission from New York State to lower speed limits in several places. “The enforcement is there, to the extent it can be without having officers sit on your road all day,” he said.