Describing the results of a survey of 173 properties as “a wakeup call,” East Hampton Village’s director of historic services advised the village board on Friday that the character of the village would be irrevocably harmed unless new formulas for construction on lots of 40,000 square feet or more were adopted.

Robert Hefner, representing the planning and zoning committee chaired by Elbert Edwards, a member of the village board, and comprising the chairmen of the planning, zoning, and design review boards and the village’s administrator, attorney, chief building inspector, and planning consultant, detailed the formula changes the committee has therefore recommended.

He noted that the village’s 2002 comprehensive plan states that “new development and redevelopment should be compatible in terms of size and scale with each existing residential neighborhood and should reinforce their integrity as they have developed over 350 years.”

The village’s “existing regulations were created with smaller lots in mind” and structure size and lot coverage “were extended across the board without studying their impacts on neighborhoods with larger lots,” he said.

At the conclusion of his presentation the board unanimously agreed that a public hearing on the recommended changes should take place at its May 15 meeting.

Properties in eight neighborhoods distinguished by lots larger than 40,000 square feet, or one acre, were surveyed. Hither Lane, Further Lane, Lily Pond Lane, Lee Avenue, Ocean Avenue, and Georgica Road to Apaquogue Road, as well as those bordering Hook Pond and within the Main Street historic district, he said, are in neighborhoods with history and established character and are “desirable locations that have seen considerable development” since the comprehensive plan’s adoption.

Citing the potential for a 62-percent increase in gross floor area of structures in the surveyed neighborhoods, Mr. Hefner said committee members were “surprised that, even with all the recent development in these neighborhoods, there was still this kind of potential for increase of mass.” The finding that, under the present formula, the aggregate mass on 21 properties on Hook Pond could double was the “clear realization that our present formulas will not protect the character of the village.”

Graduated formulas are in place in the villages of Sagaponack and North Haven, Mr. Hefner said. While the formula for gross floor area used by Sagaponack is the same as that in East Hampton for lots up to 40,000 square feet, it is reduced for lots from 40,000 to 80,000 square feet, and reduced further for still larger lots. Mr. Hefner recommended the same approach in East Hampton.

 The present formula for principal structures — 10 percent of lot area plus 1,000 square feet — would remain in place for lots of 40,000 square feet or less, under the committee’s recommendations. On lots of 40,000 to 80,000 square feet, a principal structure could be no larger than 7 percent of the lot area plus 2,200 square feet. For lots greater than 80,000 square feet, the proposed formula is 3 percent of its area plus 5,400 square feet.

The present maximum size of accessory buildings, 2 percent of the lot area plus 200 square feet, “was developed to allow a garage and pool house on lots of 20,000 to 40,000 square feet,” Mr. ­Hefner said. When applied to larger lots, however, it yields an “unrealistically large” allowable mass. The committee recommended a formula of 1 percent of lot area plus 600 square feet for lots of 40,000 to 80,000 square feet, and one-half percent of lot area plus 1,000 square feet for those larger than 80,000 square feet.

“These formulas would allow the mass of accessory buildings to double,” he said, “while the existing formula would allow the mass to triple.”

As for maximum coverage, the committee recommended a graduated formula for lots greater than 40,000 square feet. For lots between 40,000 and 80,000 square feet, coverage permitted would be 15 percent of lot area plus 2,500 square feet, while 10 percent of area plus 6,500 square feet would be allowed for still larger lots. The formula for smaller lots, 20 percent of lot area plus 500 square feet, would remain in place.

Mr. Hefner said the new formulas would provide for “a degree of increase in mass that can fit well into, and be compatible in terms of size and scale with, existing residential neighborhoods having large lots.”

The Army Corps of Engineers plan to build a sandbag-reinforced artificial dune along the downtown Montauk ocean beach hit conflicting milestones last week when Defend H2O, an environmental advocacy organization, and four individual petitioners filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court challenging it and, the next day, the construction contract for the dune was formally awarded to H&L Contracting of Bay Shore. Federal money is to pay for the $8.4 million project.

The lawsuit, which seeks to overturn approvals already granted, is against the East Hampton Town Board, Suffolk County, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as well as the Corps. An initial court conference is scheduled for April 28. Should the work be scheduled to start before then, Carl Irace, an East Hampton attorney representing the plaintiffs, said yesterday, “we’re prepared to seek injunctive relief,” or a court-ordered halt.

Kevin McAllister, the founder of Defend H20, charged in a press release announcing the suit that officials “made a conscious decision to sacrifice a public beach in favor of private property interests.” The release called the Corps’s assertion that the sandbag installation is not shoreline hardening, will have no adverse impacts to the beach, and can be seen as temporary, “ill-conceived” and “scientifically indefensible.”

On Monday, East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell, noting that the town had not received formal notice of the litigation, said it would defend itself vigorously.

“The Corps of Engineers remains committed to continuing to work with our local and state partners to reduce coastal storm risks in the downtown Montauk area,” Chris Gardner, a public affairs specialist with the Army Corps’s New York District, wrote yesterday in a statement. It had not yet been served with notice of litigation, he said, “so we do not wish to speculate regarding impacts to future construction activities.”

The plan calls for a 3,100-foot-long and 50-foot-wide revetment along the beach from the Atlantic Terrace motel on the west to Emery Street on the east to be made of 14,560 geotextile sandbags. They are to be covered with three feet of sand, some of which will be stockpiled from beach excavations and the rest trucked in from an off-site sand mine.

The project is to be removed when the Army Corps undertakes a more extensive project as part of its Fire Island to Montauk Point reformulation study. That study has been under way for decades, and observers have questioned when and whether it might occur.

According to the Defend H2O press release, the structure “will span the narrow beach creating an unnatural ‘bump-out,’ ” and will result in “the inevitable loss of a coveted recreational beach” by inducing scouring and erosion. Risks of flooding will be increased, the release says, because of the destruction of natural erosion-protective features.

The project, the court filing claims, will also “create a physical obstruction to public beach access, insufficiently contain and dispose of stormwater runoff,” and destroy recreational opportunities and the commerce related to them.

The plan, formally called the Downtown Montauk Stabilization Project, conflicts with numerous shoreline policies in the town’s state-approved Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, the lawsuit says, including a ban on hard structures on the ocean beach.

“Sand-filled geotextile bags and tubes are hard structures,” the press release states. By authorizing permits and providing the federal funding, the county, Army Corps, and state D.E.C. are complicit in “not adhering to town coastal policy,” the release says.

Mr. Irace said yesterday that the federal Coastal Zone Management Act, state coastal management program, and local coastal regulations approved pursuant to them require shorefront actions to be consistent with the stated policies.

Outlined in the policies, Mr. Irace said, is a preference for maintaining natural shoreline contours and processes, a concern for lost recreational and economic opportunities should natural beaches be lost, and a need for a clear public benefit when taxpayer money is spent — all issues raised in the lawsuit.

The laws “recognize that there are so many competing interests” regarding shoreline protection and development, Mr. Irace said, “and we can’t favor one over another. So you have to be consistent with all the goals.”

The additional plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Rav Friedel, Jay Levine, and Thomas Muse, all of Montauk, and Michael Bottini, a Springs naturalist. Mr. Bottini, Mr. Muse, and Mr. Levine are affiliated with the Eastern Long Island Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, which has spoken out vigorously against the project.

“If implemented, this project sets a terrible precedent for the Town of East Hampton, whose economy is largely driven by its natural beaches,” Mr. Bottini said.

“Let it be known that nobody, not the Town of East Hampton, the Army Corps, Suffolk County, or the D.E.C. are going to ruin the Montauk beaches! Not without a knock-down, drag-out fight” Mr. Freidel said.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Samuelson, the director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, warned yesterday that a legal battle against the Army Corps may have an undesirable outcome. Although he and other members of the environmental organization have raised doubts about the seawall approach and its design, Mr. Samuelson said the group “is very concerned about unintended consequences” of the lawsuit. If it is successful, he said, “we see a real danger that the oceanfront property owners will file applications for private seawalls, which will eventually be awarded by a judge. The history of these applications in Suffolk County tells us that these would be awarded, and never come out.”

C.C.O.M., Mr. Samuelson said, supports long-range coastal planning, including retreat from naturally eroding shores. Referring to the structures to be protected by the artificial dune, he said, “The odds are, in 20 years, those hotels won’t be on the beach, either through planning or Mother Nature.”

The organization, the director said, “feels that the eventual goal of retreat is best accomplished by having a publicly owned erosion-control structure that could be removed when the community is ready, and we’ve designed a funding mechanism that would allow for the relocation of the hotels.”

Good news for seafood lovers and harvesters alike: Scallop season has been extended in state waters, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced on Friday. 

Bay scallop harvesting was extended by a month and will end in state waters on April 30. 

"The extension of the bay scallop season from March 31 until April 30 is critical to maximizing the income potential by commercial harvesters and to mitigate financial hardship caused by extensive ice in February,"  Joe Martens, the D.E.C. commissioner, said in a statement. His department said fishermen "lost a significant portion of their income potential during the winter." 

With New York's bay scallops primarily located in Peconic and Gardiner's Bays on the East End, the extension may help East Hampton fishermen.

"I guess it's good," Danny Lester of Amagansett said of the news, but he said most baymen, like himself, are getting their pound traps ready at this point. By the end of March, he said, "It is more lucrative now to get ready for fishing season, at least for me anyway."

While it's true he and others lost income this winter, Mr. Lester said fishing "is where our gravy is, and the scallops are a bonus, being that we went without them for so long." From 1985 to 1994, the bay scallop populations on the East End were depleted by a repeated brown tide algae bloom. Bay scallop restoration efforts and changes to the opening date to allow for spawning helped restore the populations. 

"Also, you have to remember," Mr. Lester said, "that the scallops are dying now and the meats may not be as big. A scallop only lives about 18 months." 

The D.E.C. said legal-sized adult scallops will not make it to the normal November season opener and will die before the summer spawning period. Juvenile scallops, too small to take, will not be affected by the extension, meaning the spawn for next year's harvest will have a chance to thrive. 

The total bay scallop harvest has increased in recent years, though it has not reached the heights it had — about 300,000 pounds harvested per year— before 1985. Last season, over 100,000 pounds of bay scallops were harvested with a value of $1.5 million, the D.E.C. said. Just a year earlier, only 32,000 pounds were havested. The 2014-15 season was expected to be another banner year, according to state officials. 

The final version of the 2015-16 New York State budget includes $175,000 for the South Fork Behavioral Health Initiative, according to an announcement Tuesday by State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr.

The money will help schools, hospitals, the Family Service League, and other local mental health care providers continue addressing what Senator LaValle and Assemblyman Thiele called "the growing mental health and suicide crisis facing school-aged children in our area."

The new funding will allow expansion of the crisis services and clinical staff resources that the South Fork Behavioral Health Initiative established in 2014 with an initial $150,000 from the state and $120,000 raised from other sources.

Senator LaValle and Assemblyman Thiele also said the newly designated funds will allow the creation of a Community Behavioral Healthcare Collaborative. This would put a formal "cross-collaboration" measure in place under a program coordinator and support staff.

"The amount of progress our community has made in addressing this crisis over the last year is incredibly inspirational," Mr. Thiele said in a statement.

Adam Fine, principal of East Hampton High School principal, and Ralph Naglieri, the school district's psychologist, reported in February that the South Fork Behavioral Health Initiative was indeed effective.

Mr. Fine said in the statement Tuesday that "given the wealth of other matters and issues affecting our state, it is unbelievable that our little corner of the state can receive funding, two years in a row. When government works like this, we can save lives."

Four regulations that would limit access to East Hampton Airport, primarily by helicopters, which have prompted waves of complaint from residents across the East End, will be discussed at an East Hampton Town Board work session on Tuesday, as the members review comments made at a March 12 public hearing.

If adopted, the new laws would establish a nighttime curfew on flights, with extended curfew hours for the noisiest craft, would ban helicopter flights from noon on Thursday to noon on Monday from May 1 to Sept. 30, and would subject aircraft defined as “noisy” to a once-a-week round-trip limit during the season.

The matter of airport regulation is complicated, with Federal Aviation Administration rules and guidelines to follow and a limited amount of local authority. Just what the town is facing, and its chances of success, came to light this week in an interview with Peter Kirsch, an attorney who has guided the town’s effort to define and address aircraft noise. In Mr. Kirsch’s opinion, East Hampton is in a better position than most airport owners to enact local regulations.

Mr. Kirsch of Kaplan, Kirsch and Rockwell of Denver, Washington, D.C., and New York is a nationally recognized attorney who specializes in aviation law and has represented several other airports in efforts to implement airport use restrictions to reduce problematic noise.

“There are very, very few airports that could do what East Hampton is doing,” Mr. Kirsch said this week, noting that several circumstances have cleared the way for town board action. The vast majority of airports in the country, probably 99 percent, have accepted money from the F.A.A. and are therefore subject to the 1990 Airport Noise and Capacity Act, called ANCA.

The act was passed by Congress “with the purpose of making it enormously difficult to impose new restrictions,” Mr. Kirsch said. Before then, it was relatively routine for airports to impose restrictions to reduce noise.

  The Federal Aviation Administration decided the law would apply to all airports that accept its grants, which tie airport owners to contractual agreements with the F.A.A., called grant assurances, regarding airport operation. A number of grant assurances are in effect in East Hampton, but, to settle a lawsuit filed by the Committee to Stop Airport Expansion, an East Hampton organization, the agency agreed not to enforce several of them after 2014. The town has subsequently eschewed new F.A.A. grants, and the remaining agreements will expire in 2021. “There are only a handful of airports in the country that are eligible to receive grants, but have chosen not to,” Mr. Kirsch said this week.

In a 2012 letter to former Representative Tim Bishop, the F.A.A. said that as of this year the town would not be required to comply with the requirements of the Airport Noise and Capacity Act. That freed the town from following required F.A.A. procedure before enacting airport regulations, although any rules enacted must comply with general F.A.A. guidelines or could be subject to legal challenge by the agency. In its letter the F.A.A. also said that it would not “initiate or commence an administrative grant enforcement proceeding in response to a complaint from aircraft operators. . . .”

Since the adoption of the federal act, only three airport proprietors subject to it have attempted to enact restrictions on airport use, such as curfews or outright bans of certain aircraft, Mr. Kirsch said. The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority spent almost a decade and approximately $8 million on proposed restrictions, and failed to gain F.A.A. approval, he said. The F.A.A. also denied a bid to enact restrictions at Los Angeles International Airport, or LAX.

However, a court has upheld the right of Naples, Fla., to ban the noisiest type of aircraft, Stage I and Stage II, which includes helicopters, after a four-year fight against five lawsuits filed not only by the F.A.A. but by airport users and tenants. The effort cost approximately $4.5 million.

Mr. Kirsch said that although there may be others, he is aware of only one court case involving an airport not covered by the ANCA restrictions that was challenged after enacting operating rules designed to reduce aircraft noise. New York City prevailed in a case brought against it by the National Helicopter Corporation of America, and was able to maintain curfews and flight restrictions.

Other factors are likely to hold sway in the town’s bid to restrict airport access, the aviation attorney said. Because most of the noisy air traffic that could be restricted under East Hampton’s proposed rules comes from helicopters going to and from New York City, “the impacts of restriction on the national air system becomes much, much less,” he said. This is in contrast to restrictions on traffic at airports where the flights might be originating from or going to destinations much farther afield. “That’s an important distinction.” Mr. Kirsch also said the fact that East Hampton’s proposed laws will have more of an impact on helicopters than on other aircraft is significant.

Helicopter traffic is of concern nationally, he said. “The entire system is trying to deal with the recent increase of helicopter traffic,” which, he said, has a different impact on communities than that of fixed wing aircraft. “We are at the forefront of trying to find a meaningful solution,” he said. Two or three other airports — in California and in Florida — are also actively grappling with the helicopter issue, Mr. Kirsch said.

East Hampton also has an “unusual” level of support at the federal governmental level, the attorney said. Representative Lee Zeldin recently wrote to the F.A.A. asking the agency to address aircraft noise issues on the East End and to stand by the assurances in its 2012 letter to Mr. Bishop.

“I will support any reasonable restrictions that the Town of East Hampton pursues to improve the community,” he said in an email to the The Star this week.

“On these issues, Zeldin is far more powerful than Bishop,” Mr. Kirsch said. While Mr. Bishop sat on the House committee on transportation and infrastructure and its aviation subcommittee, Mr. Zeldin is its vice chair. And, as a Republican, he is a member of the majority party in the Senate.

In addition, the issue of aircraft noise over eastern Long Island, and development of solutions to it, has drawn the attention and support of Senator Charles Schumer, who may become the next Senate minority leader.

East Hampton Town is “trailblazing,” Mr. Kirsch said, in its compilation of data. The problem was analyzed and defined using a combination of records regarding “complaints, and noise data, and operations data,” he said, calling the method more pointed and refined than standard noise measurement metrics in decibels or other measures.

“The impacts of noise are not particularly well understood,” Mr. Kirsch said. “Helicopters are different from fixed wing,” and East Hampton, as a community with a particular baseline of quiet as well as of noise, is unique, he said.

A recent court ruling in a case brought by Helicopter Association International, regarding an F.A.A.-mandated helicopter route along Long Island’s north shore, upheld the use of noise complaints as a measure of community impacts. It was the first time the F.A.A. had acknowledged that evaluating the number of noise complaints was “appropriate and useful,” Mr. Kirsch said, calling it a “watershed moment” that could prove important for East Hampton.

The future and dangers of former electrical generators and abandoned fuel tanks on Fort Pond on Industrial Road in Montauk were taken up by the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals Tuesday night.

“This is a potential brownfield site,” Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, warned the board.

The property owner has yet to supply reports on contamination levels, Eric Schantz, a senior planner for the town, told the members.

The site, slightly under one acre, is on the northern shore of the pond. It is owned by National Grid, with an active electrical substation used by PSEG.

National Grid is asking to be allowed to remove everything on the site with the exception of the substation. There are three abandoned diesel generators, two aboveground fuel tanks, three belowground tanks, a concrete slab formerly used for fuel truck unloading, various foundation pads, cradles, and asphalt, along with three buildings. After this work is done, National Grid wants to regrade the entire site with clean dirt covered with ground quartz. A cellphone tower on the site would not be disturbed.

Because of the site’s location on the pond, as well as a wetland area immediately across Industrial Road, a special permit is needed for the work, along with distance variances from the wetlands for a planned fence around the perimeter.

“National Grid wants to move on this immediately. It’s a win-win,” Laurie Wiltshire of Land Planning Services, representing National Grid, told the board.

The Planning Department over all supports the project, though it wants the area to be revegetated rather than covered with ground quartz.

Despite the department’s support, however, Mr. Schantz raised a red flag, telling the board that the town had never received a report from the applicants  regarding the level of toxins found in core samples of soil taken in July.

To Mr. Samuelson, however, who told the board he represents 1,200 families, the entire proposal raised a forest of red flags.

“You don’t have the information to make a decision,” Mr. Samuelson told the board, which declared itself lead agency on the project Tuesday night. He said there may be many toxins in the ground beneath the site, like PCBs and asbestos. He complained of the lack of a set protocol.

He compared the project to the removal of the Hortonsphere in Sag Harbor back in 2009. In that case, he said, a great deal of time and care was taken to get an accurate assessment of the dangers involved before National Grid received permission to proceed with dismantling the big blue gas ball.

The application includes the stipulation that, if there were any toxic spills during the removal process, the State Department of Environmental Conservation would have to be contacted within two hours.

This did not sit well with another opponent to the project, Richard Janis of East Hampton. “There should be a D.E.C. man on the site. The chances this ground is heavily contaminated is a no-brainer,” he said.

Mr. Samuelson said that the applicant should make clear what the plans are for the working substation on the western portion of the site.

According to Ms. Wiltshire, there are no formal plans, although it is understood that PSEG would eventually move it to the eastern part of the property, which is at a higher elevation.

The uncertainty of this eventual move is what led to the proposed laying of gravel instead of revegetation, which disturbed several zoning board members, including David Lys. “Without a time frame,” he said, “we could have crushed gravel for 100 years, instead of vegetation.”

Mr. Samuelson complained that what the applicant was doing was segmentation, getting approval for a large project in smaller bites. “They already know that they want to move the [substation] from one side to the other,” he said. “They don’t have a fully realized plan.”

This was disputed by Ms. Wiltshire, who reminded the board that her client was National Grid, not PSEG, adding that she could not speak for PSEG.

“This application is for removal, not to place anything there,” John Whelan, the board’s chairman, told Mr. Samuelson. “That is not what this application is.”

At the end of the public hearing, the board agreed to keep the record open for an undetermined amount of time to allow additional response from the public, as more information, such as the report on any toxic chemicals found in the core samples, becomes available. Ms. Wiltshire promised to get that report to the board within the next few days.

It appeared, in the end, that the application would be heading for a second round of public hearings at the Z.B.A.

Management goals, maintenance plans, and operating and capital budgets for the many historic properties and buildings owned by East Hampton Town — with focus on Fort Pond House in Montauk and the mess hall at Boys Harbor, a former summer camp in Northwest — are being developed, the East Hampton Town Board was told on March 17, when Andrew Harris, the chairman of the town’s property management committee, described what he called a “consistent and common approach” to needed restoration and plans for public use.

Fort Pond House, which is on four waterfront acres that have been named Carol Morrison Park after a late steward of Montauk’s environment, had fallen into disrepair. Repairs already are underway there using town funds, Mr. Harris said. The structure has been stabilized and the roof repaired, and invasive species are being removed with the help of local volunteers.

 Eight groups have expressed interest in using the property, Mr. Harris said, and others who may wish to use the site will be contacted. It is hoped, he said, that all the needed work will be completed this spring so that the property can be opened to the public this summer.

The former Boys Harbor camp, on 26 acres off Springy Banks Road, contains restrooms and a drinking water source at the former mess hall, amenities that are not available at a number of other town properties, Mr. Harris said, so it warrants preservation. The committee has recommended converting the mess hall, which is in need of repair, to an open-air pavilion until it can be fully restored. It could be used for get-togethers and passive recreation, he said, in a way similar to the pavilion at Maidstone Park, a popular town-owned site on Gardiner’s Bay. Other structures at Boys Harbor were removed, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said, and the mess hall left with an eye toward restoration though its demolition had been considered.

The town board-appointed East Hampton Arts Council floated ideas last year for the use of the building, suggesting it could contain an exhibit/workshop/rehearsal space, classroom, dressing rooms, and a video and film viewing area. The group said if it received a long-term lease it would begin a capital campaign to raise approximately $1.7 million toward restoration and maintenance. But, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, the council “is not at a point where construction and repairs can take place.”

Mr. Harris told the board that the committee did an in-depth analysis of all the properties, looking at natural conditions, buildings, zoning designations, legal issues, and how the properties were acquired and for what purpose.

The Brooks-Park property in Springs and Second House in Montauk are also on the committee’s agenda, and restoration of two other historic properties will continue this year using money from the community preservation fund, according to Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management. The latter are Duck Creek Farm in Springs, where the house was stabilized some years ago and the barn restored, but additional work, including the creation of a handicapped-accessible parking area, is to continue this year. A garage will be outfitted with bathrooms and a storage and mechanical equipment area and some landscaping done at an estimated cost of $500,000.

“The setting is really amazing,” Councilman Van Scoyoc said. “You look around and you think you could be in the early 1700s.” He said that two successful art events took place at the farm last summer.

The barn at the former Selah Lester farm on North Main and Cedar Streets in East Hampton, where a farm museum has been created in the main house, is to be restored to a historically accurate state, with two additions removed, a loft eliminated, and sliding barn doors installed, Mr. Wilson said. The cost is estimated at $250,000.

“Wonderful progress has been made here,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said at the end of the March 17 presentation. The property management committee, he said, “clearly has brought expertise, and a certain professionalism.”

Meanwhile, the future of another building the town owns is under discussion. The Podell House, a four-bedroom residence on Accabonac Road in East Hampton that had been donated to the town some time ago, had been used for the last several years by the Family Service League, a counseling agency. However,  the agency has moved to new quarters at the Accabonac Apartment affordable housing complex, where a county health clinic used to be.

Board members met recently with members of the East Hampton Clericus, who have suggested using the house as a shelter for the homeless. Also suggested have been using the property for transitional or temporary housing for residents in need, or offering it to a qualified resident or family through the town’s affordable housing program.

Four Springs neighbors who believe their houses may be about to fall into Gardiner’s Bay faced off on March 24 against a phalanx of East Hampton Town planners, trustees, environmentalists, and neighbors in a hearing before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals that lasted almost four hours.

The applicants, who live on adjacent waterfront properties on Louse Point Road, want to stack one-to-two-ton stones in a 560-foot-long revetment at the base of the bluffs between their houses and the beach. The revetment would rise to 13 feet above sea level and be covered by sand and beach vegetation.

The new revetment would connect to existing ones that are a combined 375 feet long and have no sand on them, creating a 935-foot-long continuous revetment.

One of the applicants, Robin Wilder of 86 Louse Point Road, is also the owner of 88 Louse Point Road, one of the two properties protected by existing revetments. Her revetment was built in 2009; the other one was built in 2001 by Dieter Hach. Both were built amid controversy.

In Mr. Hach’s case, he sued the town after the zoning board denied his application to build his revetment the way he saw fit. He eventually won the suit at decision at the New York State Supreme Court Appellate level.

In Ms. Wilder’s case, she applied for a revetment for both of her properties in 2009. Her application was the subject of the first-ever joint public hearing before the East Hampton Town Trustees and the zoning board of appeals. After much compromise, she was allowed to build a revetment for only her northernmost property, which abuts the Hach property. Even that approval came via a split decision by the trustees.

The current applicants, Tom Lynch, John Mullen, Lou Clemente, and Ms. Wilder, each need a variance from the town code to build a coastal structure where one is prohibited, as well as a special permit.

The East Hampton Town Planning Department, the town trustees, who own the beach past the mean high-water mark, and the Nature Conservancy, which owns a parcel south of the applicants, are all opposed to the plan. Several residents spoke out against it as well, as did Kevin McAllister, head of Defend H2O, a new environmental group.

All agreed that the bluffs have eroded. How fast and why was a matter for debate.

“The town says the proposed project is reactive to Sandy,” said Chick Voorhis of Nelson, Pope and Voorhis. “We don’t believe that is true.” His land-use planning firm designed the proposed revetment. “We believe we have demonstrated there is a long-term erosion condition, not just a one-time event.”

Brian Frank, the chief environmentalist for the Planning Department, disagreed. The bluffs, he told the board, are “generally sheltered from strong wave action by a well-developed sandybeach, a shallow depth near shore, and the Cartwright Shoals of Gardiner’s Island.” He added in his memo on the proposal that the properties were in a “bay coastal zone predominantly free of erosion control structures.”

The applications received a public hearing on Aug. 26. That meeting turned out to be a prologue, with both sides requesting time to enter additional documents into the record. Each file is now over eight inches thick.

The applicants maintain that their proposed pile of rocks, stacked on an angle, starting three feet below sea level and rising to a height of 13 feet above is a “softer solution” than an ordinary revetment or bulkhead.

Mr. Frank told the board that the applicants were poor candidates for the variances, as they had never attempted a coastal restoration project. He said that such an effort should be made before considering the normally banned step of a waterfront revetment. If built, he said, the structure would have a radical effect on the beachfront and properties to the south, as it would interrupt the normal drift of sand from beaches to the north.

Mr. Voorhis said that the applicants had already attempted “soft” solutions in the past few years, placing 1,000 cubic yards of sand in front of the bluffs in 2005, which then washed away. Cate Rogers, the vice chairwoman of the Z.B.A., countered that that equaled only 250 cubic yards per property, hardly the recipe for success, and was nothing like a true coastal restoration, a point Mr. Frank doubled down on. “This was harmless beach fill,” Mr. Frank said. “I don’t think it did any harm but it never had any staying power.”

Mr. Frank also told the board that some of the erosion currently visible was caused by the way the owners had cleared their land of natural vegetation, relying, instead, on lawns to stabilize the bluffs. Grass and weeds found in lawns, he said, lack the kind of deep, wide root structure found in plants like beach grass and beach plums, which ward off collapse. In addition, he said, water on the properties from rain was draining down toward the bay, into the bluffs, particularly from the Clemente property, exacerbating the erosion. Another damaging element under the control of the landowners, he said, was the apparent installation of irrigation systems on at least one or two properties, which would stress the bluffs even further. Also, he said, drainage from the Clemente property is damaging the bluff in front of the Mullen property.

In addition to Mr. Frank, Diane McNally, presiding officer of the trustees, and Deborah Klughers, another trustee, told the Z.B.A. that if the revetment is built, public access to the beaches would likely disappear. This point was buttressed by Mr. Frank, who pointed out that the properties with revetments had the narrowest beaches on the strip.

One issue that troubled members was Ms. Wilder’s apparent failure to follow the required mitigation measures outlined in the 2009 approval of her revetment to the north. She was supposed to have followed a similar protocol to what is currently being proposed, placing hundreds of cubic feet of sand over the exposed stone revetment, with vegetation. The sand was supposed to be refurbished annually, as needed. She has done none of this, all sides agreed, though Mr. Voorhis explained that she had personal issues that prevented her from doing the work.

Mr. Frank told the board that Mr. Lynch’s property was the most endangered of the four, but still fell far short of being a legitimate candidate for a hard revetment. It is immediately south of Ms. Wilder’s property.

David Lys, a board member, pressed Mr. Voorhis on the scouring to the Lynch property caused by the existing revetments. Because sand was not placed on the Hach and Wilder revetments, the Lynch property was being deprived of drifting sands, which would have strengthened the barrier between the water and the bluffs, John Whelan, the zoning board’s chairman, said. 

If the applicants could take any solace from the meeting, it might have been from Don Cirillo pointing out, several times, that the entire project was landward of the mean high water mark, meaning it was on private property. However, the code is written exactly for such circumstances.

Anthony C. Pasca of Esseks, Hefter, & Angel, Mr. Clemente’s attorney, did some legal saber rattling. He pointed out another Gardiner’s Bay revetment the board did approve, on Mulford Lane in Amagansett, but admitted when questioned that the two were not comparable. He also told the board that the immediacy of peril to the properties did not have to mean, legally, “tomorrow,” but rather “somewhere down the road.”

Mr. Voorhis asked, at the end of almost three and a half hours, to keep the record open after the hearing was closed. He said he wanted to respond to additional information that had been presented. This clearly irritated most of the board, as well as Mr. Frank. “If these files get any fatter,” Mr. Frank said, “that is what you’ll be putting on the beach.”

“It’s the same set of facts, over and over again. I don’t see the point,” Ms. Rogers said.

“My favorite burger joint is closed,” Mr. Lys said. “I would rather listen right now.”

Eventually, the hearing was closed. The board will review the Planning Department’s environmental assessment of the proposal at its work session on April 13. If it agrees that the project could have “moderate to major impact” in any of several categories, it could require that the applicants prepare an in-depth environmental impact study on the project.

Roland Walker, one of Montauk’s most well-known patrolmen, is one of the few parks police officers to have worked at every single post on Long Island during his career.

“He’s probably the best-known New York State parks police officer on Long Island,” said Lt. Tom Grenci of the East Hampton Town police, who went to the police academy with Officer Walker and worked closely with him over the years.

Before Officer Walker hung up his Stetson yesterday after 31 years on the job, his colleagues looked back at his long career in patrol, describing him as a good cop who was unflappable and possessed the skill to diffuse difficult situations with his calming voice and compassion.

“The thing that stands out with Roland, in my mind, is that he knows how to deal with people and the public. It doesn’t matter if he’s working at a concert at Jones Beach or handling a domestic at Montauk Point, the guy is unbelievable,” Lieutenant Grenci said.

For Officer Walker, a Bridgehampton native who lives in Riverhead, Montauk was his home away from home — he worked there every summer until 2009, when he left for Wildwood State Park in Wading River and ended up staying. Whether it was patrolling the campgrounds at Hither Hills, answering a dispute between surfers and fishermen at Montauk Point, or investigating a death, he was the consummate professional, according to his former partner Manny Vilar, a Springs resident and senior sergeant in the state parks police.

“The thing that makes a good cop a really great cop is not the amount of tickets they can write or the amount of arrests they can make, it’s the way in which they interact with the public they serve, both when times are good and when you’re dealing with the public and there’s an unfortunate situation,” he said. “As a police supervisor, you would want to have 100 of him.”

Roland Walker, fourth from left, met now Lt. Tom Grenci in the 1983 academy class.                                               Grenci Family 

Officer Walker got his start in law enforcement in an unconventional way. He got his first parking ticket after a party following his 1981 graduation from Bridgehampton High School. He went off to Virginia State University, forgot to pay up, and when he returned home, he got hit with fines. He adopted an “If you can’t beat them, join them” mentality and began the process to become a police officer. It’s a story he laughs about now.

The Southampton Village Police Department sponsored the then-20-year-old through the seasonal police academy in January 1983. But when he graduated he found he wasn’t yet old enough to work as a police officer and instead spent the summer doing security at Cedar Point Park in East Hampton. That led him to find an opening with the state parks police, which gave him a seasonal position in April 1984. He was rehired in May of 1985, becoming a full-time officer the following year, and never left.

Officer Roland Walker, left, and East Hampton Town Police Officer Tom Grenci in 1990.                              Grenci Family

State parks police officers usually work alone, and state parks are spread far apart on Long Island, but East Hampton Town police considered him — Stetson, different uniform, and all — one of them.

Officer Walker said he learned a lot about police work from his friends, many of whom are now retired, like Ed Ecker, Kevin Sarlo, Tommy Miller, John Anderson, Steve Grabowski, Steve Doane, and Tina Giles. They would meet up for a cup of coffee at Salivar’s (the only place to get one during the midnight shift), and then they’d gather at the old Viking Grill on the docks for breakfast. Officer Walker still calls those end-of-shift breakfasts the best he has ever tasted.

The camaraderie grew, with good reason, as they relied on him for backup, and he on them. He also made friends with the local dispatchers, who back then were his lifeline to his headquarters in Babylon, since the radio communications wouldn’t reach that far.

His personality made working together as if they were one team easy, Chief Michael Sarlo of the town police said, calling him an ambassador for law enforcement. “His easygoing nature, fast smile, and positive attitude made him a popular figure,” he said.

They got to know each other well in those early days, when the future chief was field training in Montauk. The two would share laughs and debate the local high school hoops scene — Officer Walker being a Bridgie and Chief Sarlo a Bonacker.

Mr. Ecker, a former town police chief who knew Officer Walker best from his days as a detective, said there was a mutual trust. “He was always sharp, always an asset. I’ve heard the same things about him up and down the Island,” he said. “I knew when I got to a scene that if Roland was there everything was going to have been done the way it needed to be done.”

As a rookie, he made fast friends with Thomas Grenci Sr., the parks maintenance supervisor at Montauk Downs at the time. It was through him that he got an introduction, and later a set of keys, to the Montauk Firehouse so he would have a place to go for a break, especially during cold, quiet winter nights.

“The Montauk Fire Department always made me feel like I was a person who grew up there,” Officer Walker said. During the annual Montauk Friends of Erin St. Patrick’s Day parade — of which he worked 27 in the course of his career — firefighters would look for him along the parade route. “They would always joke with me: ‘You’re going to be the first black grand marshal in the parade.’ ”

He recalled being invited for many meals at the Grenci household in those days, where the late Mona Grenci would serve up her signature Italian cooking and he and Tommy Grenci, then a rookie, would watch “The Young and the Restless” over lunch. “I gained like 20 pounds one winter because I was eating over there so much. She was like a mother to me.”

Thanksgiving dinners at the Eckers, who always invited those working during the holiday to share their meal, probably didn’t help his waistline either, but they are fond memories just the same. “They really made me feel like a part of the family,” Officer Walker said.

He didn’t keep that extra weight on for long, however. He discovered a love of fitness, first as an aerobics instructor and later in the spin studio, where he uses his zest for life to motivate. He has a strong following on the East End, which is sure to keep him busy in retirement.

Officer Walker set “an inspiring example” for all police officers, Chief Sarlo said. “He remade himself early in his career, and from then on he always knew the importance of staying physically fit to handle the rigors of police work.”

Beyond the police work, it is a “big, bright smile” from “a gentle giant” that people like Bucky Silipo, the parks supervisor at the Montauk State Parks complex, will miss. “He’s one of those old-school state employees who was dedicated to the job.”

School boards in Springs and Amagansett on Tuesday approved a new five-year tuition contract with the East Hampton School District, while the Montauk School District chose not to publicly discuss the matter during its own meeting.

As it did previously, East Hampton is offering a 5-percent discount to school districts that agree to exclusively send their students there after they graduate from their home districts. The base tuition rate will see a decrease of about $310, to $25,945.

As the Springs School District faces potentially severe cuts to make a budget increase fit within the constraints of the tax levy cap, its bottom line will at least get a bit of relief when it comes to high school tuition costs thanks to the discount.

Thomas Primiano, the Springs district treasurer, explained that the 5-percent discount means tuition will be $24,648 per student in the regular education program next year and $68,868 per special education student.

The school district expects to send 297 students to East Hampton next year, 9 of whom require special education services. Based on that number, under the new agreement, Springs expects to pay just over $7.7 million in tuition next year. Without the exclusivity agreement, the cost would have been $409,800 more.

Still, total tuition payments will increase over this year’s projected payments. The 2014-15 budget anticipated sending 258 regular education students and 7 special education students to East Hampton, for a total of nearly $6.87 million in tuition.

In the Amagansett School District, tuition to East Hampton is approximately 25 percent of the school budget, which currently stands at just over $10 million.

“We are very pleased that we are able to come to this agreement with East Hampton,” the Amagansett superintendent, Eleanor Tritt, said yesterday. “Over the five-year period, it gives stability and predictability in our tuition rates.”

She said approximately 90 current students from Amagansett are slated to attend school in East Hampton next year, though she expects that number to fluctuate.

Following their school boards’ approval of the tuition rate on Tuesday, voters in Springs and Amagansett will have the chance to vote on it in May; the tuition contracts will appear as separate propositions on each district’s ballots.

Asked for further details on the contract, a school representative in East Hampton declined to provide any, saying “this is an attorney-client privileged matter at this time.”

According to its meeting agenda, the Montauk School Board was set to publicly discuss the tuition rate on Tuesday, but instead went into executive session. In an email on Tuesday night, Montauk’s superintendent, Jack Perna, said, “It is a contract and we are negotiatingterms. . . . Agreement still pending at this time.”

The Wainscott School District has not yet voted to accept the contract. Its superintendent, Stuart Rachlin, said yesterday the school is hoping to be able to approve a one-year agreement with East Hampton, rather than a five-year one.

“For us, the issue is the uncertainty of the construction of affordable housing and the potential impact of the additional tuition on our taxpayers,” Mr. Rachlin said in an email, referring to a controversial proposal to build 48 rental units in the district. “We have embarked on a multiyear plan of closely examining our budgets, tax levies, and fund balance. We feel that the one-year contract is faithful to our plan and to the Wainscott community.”

The tuition agreement was not on Sagaponack’s School Board agenda at its March 9 meeting, and the school district was not able to provide any information by press time.

Tuition for East Hampton’s sending districts is based on what is known as the Seneca Falls formula, which sets separate rates for kindergarten through 6th grade and for 7th through 12th grades, and for special education students in kindergarten through 6th and 7th through 12th.

With Reporting by Janis Hewitt

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Correction: In its original print and online version, this article stated that the base tuition that East Hampton charges to its sending districts will increase from this year to next. In fact, the base tuition will decrease by $310.