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 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.