East Hampton Town

A Place to Meditate in Eddie Ecker Park

A 50-foot-wide stone path in the shape of a labyrinth will be constructed in a section of the Eddie Ecker Park, on Fort Pond Bay in Montauk.

With a vote last Thursday night, the East Hampton Town Board agreed to accept a donation from Twelve Women, a local group, to fund the installation and maintenance of the labyrinth, a cobblestone path leading in concentric circles. Walking a labyrinth is a traditional spiritual and meditative practice.

The Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee “overwhelmingly approved the idea,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, the liaison to the group, said in an email this week. However, he said, the concept will be referred to the town’s division of land management for input before the labyrinth is installed.

Town Seeks to Buy Parcels in Springs

Springs will be the next focus of an East Hampton Town community preservation fund campaign to acquire land around water bodies and in watersheds, as well as parcels that can provide trail links and add to already preserved areas.

Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, told the town board on Tuesday that about 130 tracts have been targeted; their owners will receive letters from the town asking whether they are interested in selling. The targeted areas cover about 350 acres, Mr. Wilson said.

A small number of the sites contain houses or other structures, which would be removed by the town, as would lawns. Development on environmentally sensitive lands has a direct impact on nearby waters such as Accabonac Harbor, Mr. Wilson said.

A similar outreach effort already undertaken, to preserve areas around Lake Montauk, has resulted so far in the purchase of 25 parcels, with more, potentially, to come. This is the first large-scale outreach to Springs property owners, Mr. Wilson said, and likely not the last.

The East Hampton Town Republican Committee will hold screenings on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the American Legion in Amagansett for the positions of town supervisor and town councilperson. Two town board seats, those of Sylvia Overby and Peter Van Scoyoc, Democrats, are up for re-election this year.

In addition, the G.O.P. has invited those wishing to screen for a seat with the town trustees to be interviewed on Tuesday.

Those wishing to screen or attend have been asked to contact Tom Knobel, the G.O.P. chairman, at 875-8652.

The East Hampton Democrats will screen candidates on May 6 and 7. Details are to be announced.

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals, by a vote of 4 to 1, rejected a request from four homeowners to build a revetment on Gardiner’s Bay toward the end of Louse Point Road. The application had stirred considerable interest and been the subject of two public hearings.

The applicants, who own adjacent lots on the bluffs, wanted to construct a 560-foot-long revetment, using two and four-ton stones, to protect their properties from erosion. The plan called for a triangular stack of stones to be connected to an old revetment in front of two properties immediately to the north. It was designed to start at three feet below sea level and stretch to the top of the bluffs, some 13 feet above sea level.

The town code bans erosion-control structures in that area, but the applicants’ representatives had told the board over the course of the hearings and almost eight hours of testimony that the proposed revetment was the only solution that could effectively protect their clients’ properties.

At their work session on April 14, board members enunciated the multiple problems they found with the application. First and foremost, members insisted that the applicants had never really tried an alternative, at least not one that was documented for the board.

“The code requires that the applicant must prove that coastal restoration projects won’t work,” Cate Rogers, the board’s vice chairwoman, said. She went on to point out that the town trustees, who own the beaches in that area, opposed the project, as did Kevin McAllister, the former Peconic baykeeper.

In the first of several skirmishes that night between board members and Don Cirillo, the member of the panel who voted for the revetment, Mr. Cirillo cited a presentation by Charles Voorhis of Nelson, Pope and Voorhis, a coastal planning company. “They are telling us that soft solutions won’t work,” he said. The other board members sided with Ms. Rogers.

David Lys said the only previous effort that had been made as an alternative to a revetment did not come close to qualifying as a true restoration project. It was not done by engineers, he said. Rather, “sand was placed on the beach by a mining company.”

Board members said the applicants had not proven their contention that the erosion they were fighting  was chronic. Ms. Rogers said that before each of the public hearings on the matter, first in August of 2014, then in March of this year, she had photographed the site and concluded that there appeared to be no visible change. She quoted a statement by one of the applicants with regard to Hurricanes Irene and Sandy. “If it wasn’t for those two storms, I probably wouldn’t be here,” he had said.

Mr. Lys pointed out that the waters of the bay in the area are shallow. “There is a lot of sand out there,” he said. “You can go out 150 yards at low tide, and the water is only waist high.”

John Whelan, chairman, cited the availability of 12,500 cubic yards of sand that potentially could be dredged from Accabonac Harbor and used for coastal restoration there. “They have not addressed the issue of scouring,” he said, adding that the revetment was likely to eliminate public access to the beach at high tide.

Mr. Cirillo, on the other hand, said denying the application could result in the high water mark being at the applicants’ back doors. He challenged other board members several times, saying they weren’t properly balancing the negative and positive sides of the proposal.

“I don’t think you’re a proxy for the applicant,” Ms. Rogers said to Mr. Cirillo, during one sharp exchange.

Another 4-to-1 vote turning down an application took place that night. TJX Corporation, the owner of HomeGoods, the home furnishings company moving into the 15,000-square-foot store recently constructed on Montauk Highway in Wainscott, had applied to put up a sign on the back as well as the front of the building, exceeding the total square footage allowed. With the exception of Mr. Cirillo, members did not see the need for a sign in back, since the massive store is the only business being served by the parking lot.

“It would just open the door for every business,” Lee White warned. “It can change the character of a neighborhood,” Ms. Rogers said, before the vote was taken.

Residents of a Napeague neighborhood along the Atlantic beach are facing down Memorial Day without the no-parking signs that stood for years along the west side of Dolphin Drive, and are predicting traffic and problems caused by people seeking a spot to park so they can go to the ocean beach.

On the east side of Dolphin Drive is the town-owned South Flora nature preserve, a site for which future plans are still up in the air. While the ecologically fragile land will be protected, a draft management plan developed by members of the town’s nature preserve committee that calls for an area where visitors can park also has the neighborhood residents up in arms.

Jonathan Wallace, an attorney who lives on Dolphin Drive, has filed suit against East Hampton Town. Allowing parking on that street, he contends, threatens his health and well-being if ambulance and fire trucks are unable to pass, “threatens to create intolerable congestion on the street,” the suit says, and could threaten his house because “any erosion of the South Flora nature preserve dune system” would “amplify flooding.”

Neighborhood residents who spoke to the town board last Thursday and on Tuesday painted a picture of cars speeding through their streets seeking places to park and beachgoers who will leave litter on the sand.

Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday that a survey authorized last week by the board would determine the width of the road and its right of way along Dolphin Drive and the border of the nature preserve — information that the board will consider in determining what to do about parking along the street.

The draft management plan for the preserve has not been formally submitted to the board for consideration, but when it is it will be publicly discussed, he said, with a hearing held to solicit public comment before a management plan is adopted.

Mr. Cantwell said Tuesday that “it would be a mistake to leave that street without any parking restrictions whatsoever” during the coming season. “I think the board has to address the issue for this summer,” he said.

Residents had protested some time ago when no-parking signs along the west side of Dolphin Drive were removed. Although the signs had been up for years, a search of the town code found no law on the books prohibiting parking. The no-parking signs had been changed to signs allowing resident-only parking for a time.

Having cars parked along the road would inhibit emergency vehicle access, Mr. Wallace told the town board last week.

On Tuesday, his wife, Mary Wallace, told the board the neighborhood is facing an “urgent, urgent, dire situation.” Without a parking ban, she said, “We’re inviting cars and strangers into the neighborhood who are going to be speeding through. Believe you me,” she said, “somebody’s going to get hurt.”

“We are going to go up to every level of government,” she vowed. She urged the board to “kill that management plan,” calling it “a danger to our community,” and to reinstall the no-parking signs.

“We believe our street will be taken over by the party crowd and look like Cyril’s did before the town took action,” Mr. Wallace said in an email on Tuesday. “We are afraid of drunken drivers but also of congestion so great ambulances and fire trucks will not be able to reach us.”

“The town’s liability for an injury or death here, or failure of an emergency vehicle to get through, will potentially be immense,” he said.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Wallace demands a judgment from the court that the change in the parking signs, from no parking to resident-only parking, and finally the removal of the signs altogether, was illegal. He seeks to have the no-parking signs restored, and asks that the court permanently block parking there.

Seeking Independence Party Candidates

The East Hampton Independence Party will screen candidates for the Nov. 3 election on Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 pm. at the community hall of the senior citizens housing complex at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett.

The party will screen candidates for the positions of town supervisor, the town board, superintendent of highways, assessor, trustees, and justice. Candidates, who may screen on either night, have been asked to provide a résumé.

Those seeking more information can call Elaine Jones, the Independence Party’s chairwoman, at 267-8820, or Pat Mansir, the vice chairwoman, at 324-4131.

G.O.P. Honors Trustees

The East Hampton Town Republican Committee, which held a candidate screening on Tuesday, will host a celebration of the town trustees next Thursday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Michael’s Restaurant in Springs. All have been welcomed to join in honoring the trustees.

The $50 suggested donation, which includes heavy hors d’oeuvres, can be paid either by check, made out to the committee and mailed to P.O. Box 616, East Hampton 11937, or online at ehnygop.com.

Those planning to attend have been asked to RSVP by calling 875-8652.

When the East Hampton Town Planning Board met on April 22, all the stars seemed — at first, anyway — to be aligned for the approval of a proposed 40-acre subdivision of mostly open Wainscott farmland into seven buildable lots and a large agricultural reserve. The plan for the property, at 55 Wainscott Hollow Road, has had both neighbors and board members sharply divided.

Bob Schaeffer, a member of the board who has championed the plan but has missed a few meetings lately while undergoing radiation and chemotherapy treatment, was present that night. Each time Mr. Schaeffer missed a meeting, the proposal was tabled at the applicants’ request. His presence was vital to them because of the dissension on the board; four of its seven members had to approve the plan.

Mr. Schaeffer has now finished his treatments, and told board members he was feeling much better. So for the applicants, headed by Jeffrey Colle and Michael Dell, it seemed the right moment to have the board vote, as Diana Weir, who has repeatedly called the proposed map “bad planning,” was absent.

Ms. Weir objects to the placement of five buildable lots along a hedge line northwest of the property, across what is now open vista. She also opposes the long driveway off Wainscott Hollow Road that is proposed as access to all seven lots, even though two of them would be just off Sayre’s Path, on the other side of the land once owned by Ronald Lauder. Mary Jane Asato, the applicants’ representative, had explained in 2012, when the subdivision process began, that an address on Wainscott Hollow Road was worth more on the market than one on Sayre’s Path.

When the vote was taken, Ms. Asato was left visibly perturbed. Reed Jones, the chairman, Job Potter, and Kathleen Cunningham, all voted no, while Mr. Schaeffer was joined by the other two members present, Nancy Keeshan and Ian Calder-Piedmonte. That left the board deadlocked.

Ms. Asato rose. “This is a denial,” she said. “My remedy is to basically challenge it through the courts.” She then turned and walked out.

It will now be up to the town attorney’s office to defend the vote. Ms. Asato has already beaten the town and its planning board once in a lawsuit over the property. In 2011, a State Supreme Court justice ordered the board to reverse its denial of a site plan she had put forward in 2009.

Alexander Peters of Amagansett, who owns 3.5 acres of vacant land atop the Stony Hill aquifer there and wants to sell the parcel to the Town of East Hampton but has been stymied by a 20-year-old deed giving others a right of first refusal, said this week that a recent development may support his cause.

In 1992 and 1997, Richard J. Smolian sold Mr. Peters two vacant lots on LaForet Lane, which, together with a third lot at 82 Stony Hill Road, make up the land he wants to sell. The deeds of sale, however, included a provision that should an offer be made for those two lots then Mr. Smolian, along with Randy Smolian, his former wife; Darielle Smolian, his daughter, and Jonathan Smolian, his son, could buy them back for the same price if they so chose, provided the family retained its ownership of an adjacent lot.

Mr. Peters, president of the advocacy group Amagansett Springs Aquifer Protection, sued in State Supreme Court in December for summary judgment, asserting among other things that Randy, Jonathan, and Darielle Smolian are “strangers,” or not parties, to the deeds. If a judge agrees, that would nullify their claim to right of first refusal.

Richard Smolian waived his own claim some time ago, but stated that his family members had refused. Jonathan Smolian has now enlisted partners with whom he would develop the property.

Mr. Peters offered Jonathan a settlement of $100,000, which was declined. “The loss to me and my partners would be far too substantial to decline the purchase,” Jonathan Smolian wrote in an email to an intermediary.

Last June, the East Hampton Town Board appropriated $3.6 million, a figure that is below the land’s market value, to buy the land, using money from the community preservation fund. The lots in question are part of a Long Island Special Groundwater Protection Area and of the town’s own Water Recharge Overlay District.

On April 6, Mr. Smolian, who like Mr. Peters wants to see the land preserved, signed an affidavit formally waiving his right of first refusal. “He went out of his way to reaffirm that,” said Anthony Pasca, Mr. Peters’s attorney. “To the extent he’s taking sides, it’s a significant statement.”

The affidavit has been submitted to the court.

“Dick is basically asserting the understanding that he and I have had for a quarter-century,” Mr. Peters said on Monday. “He has just come out confirming everything that we have alleged. All I want to do here is the right thing: sell to the town, as everyone in these watershed areas should. That’s what we need to do as citizens of the Town of East Hampton. No more house lots here if you want to drink clean water.”

According to Mr. Peters’s lawsuit, the town’s purchase would stipulate that public use and enjoyment be allowed on the land and wildlife habitat maintained. Even if the Smolians can legally exercise their right of first refusal, the suit contends, they would be compelled to match those conditions and limitations.

Jonathan Smolian did not reply to a telephone call and email seeking comment.

A group largely consisting of young Latino adults who are determined to both live on the South Fork and participate in the political process have organized a monthly meeting at which they can discuss the issues important to them and their peers.

The first such meeting of the group, dubbed the New Leaders of East Hampton, will be on Monday from 6 to 8 p.m. at D’Canela restaurant in Amagansett. The restaurant, which serves Latin and Mexican cuisine, is a popular gathering place for Latino residents of the South Fork, said George Salazar, a member of the group who is also a manager there.

The East Hampton Democrats, with which some members of the group are aligned, “want to get as many people involved with the community — especially immigrants, not necessarily people that were born here — and give them a chance at new opportunities,” Mr. Salazar said.

The South Fork’s Latino community is underrepresented in government, said Mr. Salazar, who was born in Columbia and came to the United States in 1998. “Someone in politics that will speak our language and understand our issues and where we are coming from” would be beneficial to that demographic, he said.

The Latino population on the South Fork is “huge, and I don’t think we’re well represented,” agreed Isabel Saavedra, a 2006 graduate of East Hampton High School who is now an immigration attorney. “I joined because I live here full time now, and would want that to change. Anyone can be on the committee,” she said, “but it’s mostly minorities. We want to get more involved in the community.”

Integration and a greater sense of inclusion would benefit all of the town’s residents, said Franaldo Hanna, who works at CW Arborists in East Hampton. “When I grew up there was more of a community feeling,” he said, “as opposed to it being all about money.” More year-round activities for youth, he said, would also serve the community by discouraging the negative consequences, such as drug use, of “too much downtime.”

Mr. Salazar, Ms. Saavedra, and Mr. Hanna all cited the scarcity of affordable housing on the South Fork, which has forced many young adults to leave their hometown, as the most urgent issue of the day. “Every day, housing is becoming harder and harder to find,” Mr. Salazar said, and is “especially difficult once you have a family.”

“Do we really have to move out of here because it’s not affordable?” Ms. Saavedra asked. “We want to change that concept by having people to represent the people that live here year round.”

All have been invited to attend the meetings, Ms. Saavedra said. “The more people that get involved, the better.”

The twice-monthly meetings of the East Hampton Town Trustees may soon be recorded and broadcast on LTV, East Hampton’s public access television station.

With seven of the nine members of the governing body present at a meeting on Tuesday, the group addressed recent calls by some of the residents who regularly attend trustee meetings, agreeing to contact LTV to inquire about the installation of audiovisual equipment and broadcast of the meetings, which would also be archived on the station’s website.

At the same time, the trustees’ clerk, Diane McNally, acknowledged that the public has a right to record the proceedings on smartphones or other devices, provided they are not disruptive.

At the trustees’ previous meeting, on April 14, several in attendance, including Chini Alarco and Elaine Jones, both of whom live in Amagansett, asked about their right to record the meetings. On Tuesday, Ms. Jones and Diana Walker, who also lives in Amagansett and frequently attends the meetings, again urged the trustees to pursue installation of audiovisual equipment. Ms. Alarco had submitted a letter asking the same, Ms. McNally said.

Ms. McNally read from the state’s Open Meetings Law, which states that “Any meeting of a public body that is open to the public shall be open to being photographed, broadcast, webcast, or otherwise recorded and/or transmitted by audio or video means.” She also read an excerpt of the law stating that a public body may adopt rules to ensure that its proceedings remain orderly. Those rules will be posted and made available to those in attendance, she said.

Consideration of the question to record and broadcast, Ms. McNally said, has been sporadic due to the possibility, as proposed in a space-needs study conducted by the town, that the trustees would relocate to the Town Hall campus. “But as of this date, I have not been asked by anyone what our space needs might be,” she said. Given her belief that the trustees would remain at the Donald Lamb Building in Amagansett for the foreseeable future, and that the town has budgeted money for recording their meetings, “perhaps we should reach out to LTV again,” she said, despite concerns that conditions in the trustees’ cramped meeting room would produce poor-quality recordings.

“It’s not going to be like Town Hall,” she said, referring to the televised meetings of the town board and other town government groups, “but at this point it may behoove us to make that inquiry and see what we can do.” She emphasized, however, that the audio recordings made by Lori Miller-Carr, the group’s secretary, would remain the trustees’ official record.

On Clam Digging

In other news from the meeting, the trustees voted unanimously to allow the hand digging of soft-shell clams throughout 2015. The town code currently prohibits the harvesting of soft clams between May 1 and Aug. 31.

In asking that the trustees use their authority to manage the taking of shellfish in town waters, Nat Miller, a trustee and bayman, said that some of his colleagues on the water had requested a lifting of the prohibition. “You can make a day’s pay,” he said of the soft clams, likening the proposed action to the trustees’ vote last month to extend the scallop season through April.

While the town’s shellfish hatchery does not seed area waters with soft-shell clams, John Dunne, its director, was not opposed to lifting the summer prohibition, Mr. Miller said.

The trustees will determine the effect of lifting the prohibition this year before deciding whether to make the change permanent. Commercial and recreational fishermen must hold a permit to harvest shellfish.

A Native American burial site, which was discovered in 1917 off Springs Close Highway in East Hampton, has split the town planning board down the middle in connection with a subdivision application for property across the street.

The applicant is Patrick Bistrian III, principal of an L.L.C. called E.E.B. Farms. Richard Whalen of LandMarks, Mr. Bistrian’s representative, told the planners on April 22 that Mr. Bistrian plans to create a family compound and build a pond on the site, which has been in his family for many years.

Although the property is shown on tax maps as three different parcels, it is actually divided into two, a 22-acre site, which is vacant, and a smaller lot with a house on it. Mr. Bistrian has applied for subdivision approval under the town’s open space provisions, allowing the larger lot to be divided into four buildable parcels, ranging from about 90,000 to 100,000 square feet, although the land is zoned for three-acre minimum lots. The remaining land would be divided into two preserves, one of 7.7 acres for agriculture, the other a standard reserve slightly larger than 3 acres.

Because the burial sites are only 300 feet away,  JoAnne Pahwul, assistant director  of the Planning Department, told the board that the department believes a new archeological study should be made to make certain there is nothing of Native American significance on the Bistrian site. She reported that 58 burials had been unearthed at a depth of  four to five feet in 1917, according to a 1991 report by James Treux, who  had inspected the site. He also found six fireplaces, lined with 40 stones each, as well as coins and other artifacts, which dated the burials to the late 1600s to the early 1700s. 

A second survey of the Bistrian property was done in 1992,  finding evidence of plowing but nothing of Native American significance, but Ms. Pahwul said new standards for how such surveys are to be conducted had been adopted by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation in 1994.  This change led to request for a new survey in 1996, but this was not done.

The cost of such work was clearly a concern to the applicant, Mr. Whalen said. He argued that the mere proximity of burials did not mean that a new survey would produce any different results.

The board split on whether to require a new study, splitting 3-to-3. However, because Diana Weir was not at the meeting, she is expected to be the deciding vote, Reed Jones, chairman of the board, said.

Another review before the planners that night involved the Iacono Farm on Long Lane, a popular destination for fresh eggs and local chickens. The AT&T corporation has something difhe planned antenna placement  appears quite noticeable. Board members asked if the additional equipment could be made flush with the tower, an idea Eric Schantz, a senior planner for the town, had suggested in a memo. Board members also wondered if, by approving the proposal, the board would be opening the door to more wind towers across the town suddenly becoming cellphone towers.

Mr. Schantz pointed out that the town code has directives that are not mandatory on the placement of such towers, with farms excluded as possible sites.

John Huber of Nielson, Huber & Coughlin, an attorney who has appeared before the board numerous times representing phone companies’ tower requests, cautioned the board that under federal law the town would not be able to prohibit the antennas. He said he would work with the Planning Department to find an aesthetically more pleasing solution.

At the Montauk Light

In other matters at the busy meeting, Johnson Nordlinger, representing the lighthouse committee of the Montauk Historical Society, spoke about its plan to construct a 500-square-foot barn on the over three-and-a-half acre site, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

 The new barn would be used for storage and allow another building currently used for that purpose to be restored as a lighthouse keeper’s dwelling, for which it was built in 1838. The society has been awarded a matching state grant for the project.

Board members, led by Nancy Keeshan, who has a business in Montauk, were supportive of the plan. Ms. Keeshan pointed out that a Pod currently behind the 1838 building would be removed, and the new storage barn placed next to it, on the west side of the driveway that leads to it.

The only caveat from the town’s Planning Department, in the form of a memo from Ms. Pahwul, was that earlier test excavations indicate there might be items of historical significance beneath the surface. Ms. Nordlinger told the board that any excavation would be carefully monitored. She pointed to the society’s longstanding commitment to preserving historical sites. The board noted that as correct, and the plan moved a step closer to fruition.

Finally, the Three Mile Harbor Marina had a site plan before the board for a building to be used for mechanical equipment and to provide toilet facilities for persons whose boats dock at the marina. Mark Mendelman explained that those docked at the marina now have to use a portable toilet.

However, Mr. Mendelman also told the board that the Building Department could not issue a certificate of occupancy for the building because of certain conditions that pre-existed the Mendelman ownership group’s purchase of the marina, just months before Hurricane Sandy struck. He said bulkheads also needed repair.

The board was pleased with the thoroughness of the presentation, and encouraged Mr. Mendelman to continue to work with the Planning Department.