The wheels of appropriate street lighting in a historic district grind slowly, The Star reported in November 2025. Eight months later, a plan to replace fixtures in Amagansett’s historic district was again presented to the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee, this time with the promise that “we are looking to get this going in 2027” — albeit subject to approval by East Hampton Town’s Architectural Review Board and feedback from the committee, the Amagansett Village Improvement Society, the Amagansett Historical Association, the hamlet’s library, and the fire district.
The subject area spans Main Street from Indian Wells Highway on the western end to the junction at Abram’s Landing Road to the east. Residents have raised concerns about uneven lighting coverage and its impact on safety for vehicles and pedestrians. The town engaged the L.K. McLean Associates consultancy to develop photometric engineering design plans to provide Dark Sky-compliant lighting aligned with New York State Department of Transportation regulations, using fixtures less than 12 feet high and minimizing impacts to trees.
Lighting is to be installed intermittently on both sides of Main Street from Indian Wells Highway to Meeting House Lane, and, on the north side only, from Meeting House Lane to Abram’s Landing Road. Sixty-four fixtures, uniform in appearance, are to be of the 2,200-lumen LED luminaire variety. The existing “cobra head” lights affixed to metal poles will be removed.
Design plans are to be submitted to the A.R.B. for review, subject to feedback from the town board and the tax district.
The cost, Councilman Tom Flight, ACAC’s liaison to the town board, told the committee on Monday night, is estimated at $1.7 million. The financial impact would be distributed across the approximately 1,500 properties within the lighting tax district. A property with a market value of $1.25 million would see an annual tax increase of $20.28, Mr. Flight said, or $608.40 for the 30-year life span of the funding, while a property with a market value of $3.125 million would be subject to an annual tax increase of $50.70, or a 30-year project cost of $1,521. “Not insignificant numbers,” he said, “but not huge numbers.”
The fixtures under consideration are Dark Sky-compliant, the councilman noted. The town board is fully supportive of the plan, he said, though he was to take the committee’s feedback to it along with that of AVIS, the historical association, the library, and the fire district “to hear any concerns they might have with the fixtures.”
Based on that response, he said, “We will finalize the plan.”
While there is still ample opportunity for the public to weigh in, “We are looking to get this going in 2027 as a project,” subject to approval from residents and the A.R.B.
The goal, Mr. Flight said, “is to have uniform lighting from one end of the study area to the other” for the safety of pedestrians and vehicular traffic. It is evident, he said, that “there’s inconsistent lighting on Main Street, and that presents safety issues. Best planning practice is to have uniform lighting in that area to minimize that.”
Dan Mongan of the Amagansett Historical Association, who had posed several technical questions about the proposal, disagreed. “Uniform lighting is not equal to safety,” he said. “Safety is a much more complex equation, and it deserves some thought.”
“Visibility is connected directly to safety,” Mr. Flight replied.
“More to come,” Mr. Mongan promised.
