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 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.