Government

“I was shocked when I learned I was in a water recharge overlay, I had no information about this,” the owner of a property on Wainscott Northwest Road said at an East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals meeting where he was seeking to overturn a ruling by Joseph Palermo, the town’s chief building inspector, that the parcel had been overcleared.

In the hours and days following President Biden’s announcements on Sunday afternoon that he was ending his bid for re-election and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats here on Long Island and across the country have begun to largely coalesce behind Vice President Harris as they react to this political earthquake.

The East Hampton Town Board has set Aug. 15 as the date for three important public hearings. One deals with adjustments to the town’s lighting code, another with the alienation of parkland at the intersection of Three Mile Harbor and Springs-Fireplace Roads in East Hampton, and the third with increasing the maximum density allowed per acre for senior citizen-only affordable housing developments. 

Southampton Town has announced that it is accepting applications from people living or working in town who are interested in buying a house or building an accessory apartment onto their existing home, “part of a broader strategy to address housing affordability,” the town said in a release.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation closes Three Mile Harbor to shellfishing before, during, and after the Clamshell Foundation’s annual fireworks show there, but have the East Hampton Town Trustees ever tested the water before and after the event to gauge the impact of the increased boat traffic?

Playing out in the background of the rather apocalyptic and very visible destruction of the East End’s native pitch pines has been an equally devastating disease killing beech trees. With that in mind, East Hampton Town is working on ways to help residents remove dangerous trees, without running afoul of clearing restrictions.

The Eastville Community Historical Society has received an emergency $25,000 grant from the East Hampton Town Board to help pay for a new cedar shake roof at its headquarters on Hampton Road in Sag Harbor.

Expect delays on Route 114 between East Hampton and Sag Harbor from Monday through Friday, July 26, as New York State creates new turning lanes at Goodfriend Drive. 

In a little over a year, East Hampton Town's Zoning Code Amendment Working Group has walked a tightrope between business interests, builders, real estate people, and others who fear over-restrictive zoning, and those who want the code strengthened to preserve what they say is a town that is quickly losing, or has already lost, its character. In the process of deciding what to change, compromise has begun to emerge.

A new zoning concept introduced at Tuesday's East Hampton Town Board work session would allow local businesses to house their workers in a multiunit development, with the employers owning the units and renting them to the employees.

John Avlon and Representative Nick LaLota, who are opponents in New York's First Congressional District race, called for unity and de-escalation of political hostilities in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump.

In a press release Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the beginning of construction on the Sunrise Wind project, the largest offshore wind project in New York State, to be located 30 miles east of Montauk.

Sartiano's, the ultra-upscale Italian restaurant owned by Scott Sartiano, owner of the private membership club Zero Bond in New York, is now taking reservations at the Hedges Inn for its new 80-seat summer pop-up. East Hampton Village officials are keeping a watchful eye on it, even appealing to the State Liquor Authority to question the establishment's liquor license.

Former President Donald J. Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pa., early Saturday evening. Shortly after the shooting, Representative Nick LaLota, a Republican who in January endorsed President Trump, and his opponent in the First Congressional District race, John Avlon, a Democrat, released statements.

The East Hampton Town Architectural Review Board granted a rare height variance to Bobby Flay, the celebrity chef and cookbook author, for a 7,405-square-foot barn he plans to reconstruct on his Stony Hill Road property in Amagansett.

Lt. Chelsea Tierney of the East Hampton Town police talked with the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee on the subject of e-bikes, which may replace gas-powered leaf blowers as the summer’s number-one irritants. There are rules for e-bikes, though many riders (and their parents) seem not to know them.

Faced with the daunting task of implementing the Wainscott hamlet plan adopted by the East Hampton Town Board in 2019, a trio of consultants advised the board to focus on the relatively easy stuff — things like burying the lines, installing sidewalks, and planting street trees — along Montauk Highway from West Gate Road to Hedges Lane.

Owners of four properties on Soundview Drive in Montauk found little support for their request to have the East Hampton Town Board grant a code change that would have made it easier for them to armor their properties with coastal erosion structures.

“For existing rooms in existing houses” was the common refrain at the Sag Harbor Village Board meeting Tuesday night, when a resolution allowing short-term room rentals in owner-occupied residences was unanimously approved.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has authorized East Hampton Town to remove, or "alienate," two acres of nature preserve from its parkland holdings with the hope that Suffolk County will further explore placing a roundabout at the East Hampton intersection where North Main Street meets Three Mile Harbor and Springs-Fireplace Roads. 

On Saturday, two days after President Biden and former President Trump met in Atlanta for the first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle, the president and Jill Biden were in East Hampton for a fund-raiser at the home of Barry and Lizanne Rosenstein, co-hosted by several high-powered business executives and celebrities, all the while hearing calls from prominent members of the Democratic Party to step aside and let someone else lead the ticket.

Members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee grappled at their meeting Monday night with the fact that the long-planned dredging of the Montauk Inlet will in all likelihood be delayed still longer.

Former Representative Tim Bishop has endorsed Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni in his bid to represent the First District in the New York State Assembly — Fred Thiele’s seat.

Fireworks came early Monday to a packed Sag Harbor work session on the seemingly mundane topic of local development corporations. The meeting featured yelling among members of the village board and yelling from the audience at the board. A resolution to disband a committee failed on a split vote before Mayor Thomas Gardella resigned from the same committee, allowing another trustee to take his place, and there was seemingly unending public comment — all questioning the need for a Sag Harbor Improvement Corporation.

Legislation passed by East Hampton Village last month prohibits operations between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. at “late-night restaurant clubs,” which are defined as “a membership or subscription-based social, dining, and beverage venue, establishment, or association” on a membership, subscription, or dues-based system.

Searching for a fix to prevent speeding vehicles from flying into the Hedges Inn at the 90-degree turn where Woods Lane meets East Hampton’s Main Street, the village board contemplated a large metal net at its meeting on Friday.

With his Tuesday primary victory in New York’s First Congressional District, John Avlon of Sag Harbor will now face first-term Republican Representative Nick LaLota in the November election.

“There was a concerted effort to cut out all comment on this,” Aidan Corish, a Sag Harbor Village trustee, said of a barely averted vote to create a local development corporation at the June village board meeting. “It’s disturbing. We were one vote away from basically giving over financial borrowing authority to an unelected board in perpetuity.”

What was originally estimated to be a $2.4-million wastewater treatment project at the Montauk Shores Condominiums has swelled to $5.4 million, leading the community’s management to borrow money to make up the difference.

President Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, are coming to town. An “afternoon reception” with the Bidens is to take place on Saturday in East Hampton, though its exact time and location is being kept under wraps for guests only.