Residents of Lazy Point in Amagansett, whose houses are on land leased from the East Hampton Town Trustees, attended the panel’s meeting on Tuesday, criticizing a proposed substantial increase in their lease fees, which are now $1,500 per lot per year.

One resident after another charged that the trustees were seeking to turn Lazy Point into a “cash cow” or use it to finance legal expenses. They asserted that the fourfold increase, which had been proposed at the trustees’ Jan. 13 meeting, would force them out and ruin the neighborhood’s character.

The meeting was a replay of one a year ago, when the trustees first proposed a substantial increase in the fee but ultimately left it alone after lessees complained. Now, however, the trustees are intent on at least a closer alignment of the fee with what they consider the lots’ market valuess.

With residents crowding the meeting room and spilling into the hall of the Donald Lamb Building on Bluff Road in Amagansett, Tom Knobel, a former trustee who also is a former town councilman and former Lazy Point resident, noted that because many of the houses at Lazy Point occupy two lots a fourfold increase would likely force residents to sell their houses, “and the character of Lazy Point that you have tried to maintain . . . will be even more changed to exactly what you claim you don’t want.”

Rick Drew spoke for the residents, describing his love and respect for the Lazy Point community and saying it is a diverse mix of “local, respectful families seeking to plan a stable and fair future at Lazy Point.” He called for gradual, incremental increases instead, combined with a “substantial, immediate transfer fee increase” on the sale of houses. That, he said, would both provide the highest possible revenue for the trustees and be fair to longtime residents, many of who are on fixed incomes. He said he could send the trustees the tenants “compromise” proposal by Feb. 2.

  Greg Mansley, who owns property near the land owned by the trustees, said the “shock effect” of a sharp increase in the fee “without knowing how that came about” suggested it was intended for “legal fees that maybe shouldn’t be spread among ‘Lazy Pointers,’ but the whole town.”

Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, apologized for “a January meeting where you feel shock,” but said January was the traditional month in which annual resolutions, including fee schedules, are passed. She spoke emotionally about the trustees’ efforts to manage the town’s resources, mentioning docks, moorings, beaches, and shellfish.

 “It’s the fees attached to uses of these public resources that are so precious to this community, and are getting so finite,” she said. Fees for Lazy Point, she said, “are attached to what we can do to protect the area” and a means to “ensure that everyone remembers the value of that area and its benefit to this community.”

Citing projects such as water-quality monitoring and eelgrass restoration, Stephanie Forsberg, the assistant clerk, implored the residents to acknowledge that a $1,500 annual lease “is so low and not consistent with what it should be. We’re not looking to change the character,” she said, “but we do have to be able to fund all the projects, all the goals, everything I believe in and the reason I am a trustee. . . . I don’t think it’s fair to say you shouldn’t have any increase at all.”

Bill Taylor, a trustee, said he had spoken with the town’s three assessors earlier in the day, who said they would devote time to determining the lots’ value later in the week. The property’s value must be determined, he said, while emphasizing the importance of maintaining Lazy Point’s character. “I mean, look at Ditch Plain,” he said of the popular oceanfront neighborhood in Montauk. “This town doesn’t need any more fedoras.”

Ms. McNally said the trustees would continue the discussion among the whole panel, with a subcommittee to consider Lazy Point matters, and with “our other town constituents.” Any changes, she said, have to be adopted before March.

Lisa DeVeglio and Maureen Rutkowski, the president and project manager of the Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation, met with members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday to go over revised plans for work at the community center, the scope of which has some committee members worried.

Ray Cortell, a committee member, said Monday that the playhouse foundation’s vision of hosting car and boat shows would bring still more people to a hamlet already overburdened by triathlons and other such events in the busy summer months.

A revised proposal for the playhouse, unveiled last summer, calls for moving a long-planned aquatic center from the center’s lower level, as originally intended, to the upper, and creating a multipurpose space on the lower level that could be used for craft fairs, art shows, a farmers market, car and boat shows, theatrical productions, and concerts, and might also be sectioned off for things such as yoga and tai chi classes, meeting rooms, and wedding receptions.

The changes to the original plan are the result of a survey sent out to members of the community in the fall of 2013. Foundation members said support for a pool was overwhelming.

“Why does Montauk need the largest event space?” Mr. Cortell asked Monday. He said that it was obvious from prior events such as the Paul Simon concerts held on Indian Field at the Deep Hollow Ranch years ago that too many people attending large events push out the locals. “My concern is that the community center will become a convention center.”

But the two women put those fears to rest and said that the events will be limited by space, parking, and occupancy laws. “We’re not here to become a nightclub,” said Ms. Rutkowski. In response to a question from the audience, she said that the building has been granted historical status and that expansion outside of its original footprint is prohibited.

The group has worked long and hard to define and provide what the community wants, she said. A concert along the lines of a recent one at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor by Nancy Atlas and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, both of whom live in Montauk, is something that could be accommodated in the community center, she said. “They’re out here, why couldn’t they do that here?” she asked.

“I don’t want to be mobbed out here either,” added Ms. DeVeglio, who elaborated on the plan for the aquatic center. She said that the 3,000-square-foot pool could be put on the upper level since its size does not require water storage tanks underneath it. The pool will have two sections, with its deepest point at five feet. The other section will be a sloped warm-water pool for wellness exercises. “The two sides will work in harmony,” she said.

The goal of the revised plan is also to provide a source of revenue that will help the playhouse sustain itself financially. Even in the winter months it would require only 40 percent occupancy to remain financially viable, they said. “Bigger benefactors want to see a viable plan before they write a check,” said Ms. Rutkowski. The renovation is expected to cost $7.5 million; the foundation still needs to raise $5 million.

A fire that started in a garbage can outside an attached garage quickly ripped through a Northwest Woods house on New Year’s Day, destroying it.

Over 100 firefighters from seven South Fork departments responded. Some spent six hours at 56 Hedges Banks Road, battling flames for the first few hours and then looking for pockets of fire under debris after parts of the two-story, 3,500-square-foot waterfront house collapsed.

The house is owned by Merle Hoffman, an activist who founded one of the first ambulatory abortion centers, now known as Choices Women’s Medical Center, in Jamaica, Queens. Neighbors include Donna Karan, who owns four properties next door, and Sean (Diddy) Combs down the block.

East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo said the town fire marshal’s office, which is investigating the cause of the fire, notified his department that the F.B.I. had “contacted them in regards to the circumstances surrounding the fire, given the stature of the homeowner. However, as far as we know the F.B.I. has not been out to investigate, nor is there any indication from the fire marshal’s office that the fire was suspicious in nature.”

Chief Fire Marshal David Browne said Tuesday that evidence points to the garbage can as the place where the fire began, but what caused the blaze is still unknown. People at the house called 911 when they found flames in the garbage can, which was under an overhang outside the three-car garage. The garage doors were open.

Dispatchers received the first call at about 12:45 p.m. East Hampton Fire Chief Richard Osterberg said he was just pulling into the Springs Firehouse for a ceremony marking the Springs Fire Department’s 50th anniversary when the call went out. He made the 7.8-mile drive in about nine minutes, and said he could see smoke from the head of the harbor. When he arrived, the house was engulfed in flames. “The people were outside. A good 75 percent of it was involved,” said the chief. The first fire truck arrived at the house at 12:58 p.m.

Firefighters were trying to fight the flames from inside when the ceiling began to come down. “They made a good stop, but we had to back out because of the collapse,” Chief Osterberg said. “It’s unfortunate that the house was a loss, but we didn’t have the chance to do anything better.”

Two cars, a Lexus and a Mercedes, were parked in the garage, which was also packed with teak furniture, and the fuel in their tanks helped fuel the flames, Mr. Browne said. Both the cars were totaled. Other factors caused the blaze to spread rapidly, including windy conditions, especially near the water, and dry shingles on the cedar-sided house.

Embers spread to neighboring properties, and the fire chief reported some minor damage to a shed and vegetation at 54 Hedges Banks Drive, which is owned by Ms. Karan. Firefighters soaked the house next door with water to prevent it from catching fire, he said.

Tankers from Amagansett, Montauk, Sag Harbor, Springs, Bridgehampton, and Southampton Fire Departments were called in to provide additional water; members of the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association stood by. No injuries were reported.

Within the fire’s first half hour, dispatchers fielded two more fire calls elsewhere in East Hampton’s jurisdiction. With East Hampton’s entire fleet in Northwest, neighboring departments helped. Springs firefighters responded to a small brush fire on North Main Street, and Bridgehampton picked up the third call, initially a reported basement fire on Boatheader’s Lane that turned out to be an outdoor fire. The Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps also answered several calls while East Hampton’s ambulances were tied up.

The East Hampton Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary brought refreshments to the scene of the blaze.

“I really can’t say enough how great everybody, from the mutual aid to my own department, was,” Chief Osterberg said.

Ms. Hoffman, the homeowner, could not be reached for comment.

James Dunlop was about halfway through his regular three-mile morning walk on New Year’s Day in East Hampton when he was attacked by two roaming pit bulls. Police had to use a Taser on one of them.

From his hospital bed Tuesday, Mr. Dunlop said the dogs didn’t make a sound until they were about three feet away. “They were growling and trying to get me,” he said. Well acquainted with animals, he knew he shouldn’t try to outrun them, but as he tried to disengage them, he fell to the cold ground and the 70-to-80-pound dogs began biting his hands.

“I was screaming, ‘Help! Help! Help!’ ” while he fought the dogs off. Luckily, he said, there was someone home at a house on Todd Drive to hear his cries and dial 911 at about 7:55 a.m.

East Hampton Town Police Officer Luke McNamara arrived within about two minutes to find Mr. Dunlop being attacked by the two pit bulls on the side of the road. Mr. Dunlop “had a grip on the blue-nose pit bull’s collar at the neck,” the officer wrote in his report, referring to the female dog, named Marley. “The red-nose pit bull, a male dog named Max, was aggressively biting and pulling at Dunlop’s foot and leg.”

“There was a moment when I thought I wouldn’t get home,” Mr. Dunlop said, adding that an elderly person or a child likely would have been killed.

Officer McNamara distracted the dogs away from Mr. Dunlop with his lights and siren. When he tried to get out of the car, one pit bull ran toward him. He deployed his Taser, stunning the dog. Both dogs appeared to be submissive at that point. As backup arrived, Officer McNamara opened a back door of his squad car, to where those under arrest usually sit, and both dogs jumped in voluntarily, he said in his report.

He was then able to turn his attention to Mr. Dunlop, who had severe lacerations, mainly to his hands. Four of the punctures went straight through Mr. Dunlop’s hand. The East Hampton Village Ambulance Association transported him to Southampton Hospital. He has since had two surgeries on his hands and will have at least one more before he leaves the hospital, he said.

Mr. Dunlop, a retired town fire marshal, estimated that the time from the beginning of the attack to when the officer began treating him totaled about 15 minutes. He credits the police officer and the man who called 911, whose name he does not know, with saving his life. “I’m not sure how much longer I could have lasted,” he said.

Meanwhile, East Hampton Animal Control seized and impounded the dogs, owned by Christian Ortega of Deer Lane in East Hampton. He could not be reached for comment. Animal control is filing dangerous-dog complaints with East Hampton Town Justice Court. “However, the dog owner has expressed a willingness to have the dogs euthanized voluntarily,” Betsy Bambrick, the head of the town’s Code Enforcement Department, said on Tuesday.

The Suffolk County Department of Health Services requires a 10-day holding period after a bite when a dog’s vaccination cannot be verified, in order to ensure there is no rabies infection. “In this case, the license and vaccination for one dog is expired,” Ms. Bambrick said. The dogs are being kept at the Veterinary Clinic of East Hampton.

Ms. Bambrick said the dogs have no history of biting, but the department has a file on them. Marley was impounded for running loose on Dec. 17, and two tickets were issued to the owner for failure to confine a female in heat and failure to identify the dog with a license tag, though the license is current until Jan. 31.

On Nov. 18, 2013, animal control received a complaint about Max running loose and that he had “displayed aggression by ‘biting tape measure out of complainant’s hand.’ In that case, the complainant declined to pursue charges,” Ms. Bambrick said.

Animal control had not received complaints that the dogs were loose when they attacked Mr. Dunlop.

A Suffolk County legislator, Al Krupski, whose district includes the North Fork, is voicing his renewed opposition to the Army Corps of Engineers project in Montauk, where a reinforced sand dune is to be built along the downtown beach.

The project has been authorized as an emergency measure until the Army Corps undertakes a more comprehensive beach reconstruction effort from Fire Island to Montauk Point, and would be paid for by the federal agency.

As local sponsors, however, East Hampton Town and the county have agreed to shoulder maintenance costs, which have been estimated at an average of $150,000 a year. If storms wash away the sand to be placed atop a row of geotextile sandbags the county and town would be responsible for having it replaced.

Critics, who include the Eastern Long Island Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, have questioned the maintenance cost estimate and the reinforced sand dune approach.

The structure, they say, will lose its topping of sand and then, when hit by waves, will have the effect of any hard structure on the beach, exacerbating erosion. The use of hard structures on the ocean beach has been decried by leading coastal experts, and is prohibited under East Hampton Town’s coastal policy.

In a Dec. 29 letter to the Suffolk County Department of Public Works, Legislator Krupski reiterated that concern and said that the county “should not endorse a project that hardens the shoreline.” The project, he said, “is sure to fail and cause accelerated erosion to adjacent properties,” and “put the maintenance on the shoulders of the taxpayers of the entire county.” He called on the department to “request specifics” from the Army Corps regarding the project.

Mr. Krupski pointed out that the Montauk shoreline had been damaged in a December storm. Had the dune been in place, it would have resulted in damages that “would have cost the town and county millions of dollars to repair,” he said.

The storm caused the Army Corps to take a second look at its plans for the reinforced dune, and to revise them to almost double the amount of sand that would be needed to build the dune to its original specifications, which will add to the original estimated project cost of $8.9 million.

The December storm was “just anortheaster” and not a major storm, Mr. Krupski said by phone this week. “That sort of storm is predictable,” he said. “You’re dealing with Mother Nature,” he said. “When you deal with Mother Nature, you don’t have any certainties. This could last five years; this could last five weeks.”

“In light of the impact,” he said, he “thought it best that the county should take another look at it.” He said he would wait for a report from the Department of Public Works before possibly taking further action.

“Shoreline hardening is the wrong solution,” Mr. Krupski said in his letter.

Instead, elevating shoreline buildings, or retreating from the shore altogether, is a viable option that should be discussed, he said this week.

Mr. Krupski had argued against the county entering an inter-municipal agreement to share maintenance costs for the reinforced dune with the town. He was outvoted by the Legislature, which was lobbied for its support by County Legislator Jay Schneiderman, who represents East Hampton and the rest of the Second Legislative District on the East End.

“I don’t think he understands the severity of the situation, and the interim nature of the project,” said Mr. Schneiderman, who early this week was reinstated as the Legislature’s deputy presiding officer.

“Missing from this conversation,” he said, is that “these sandbags are emergency structures.”

The long-range, comprehensive shoreline plan, which the Army Corps has said is to begin in about three years, calls for an extension of the beach in downtown Montauk to a width that would be expected to sustain years of erosion and storms.

When that happens, Mr. Schneiderman said, the reinforced dune should be removed. “Without a significant beach in front of it,” he said of the reinforced dune, “there are going to be problems.”

“I am concerned,” he said. “I don’t want to see this structure taking the impact of the waves.”

While some have cast doubt on whether the Army Corps will indeed complete the larger beach restoration project within a reasonable period of time — the Fire Island to Montauk Point project has been under discussion for five decades — Mr. Schneiderman said he is confident in the federal agency’s projections that more permanent work in Montauk will take place relatively soon.

If not, he said, “we need another plan.” Without the beach reconstruction, the long-term costs of keeping the sandbags covered with sand “will be too much,” he said. “I do think that after three years, if the larger beach isn’t placed in front of it, we’re going to have to rethink the whole thing.”

“This isn’t the final thing; it’s just buying us time,” Mr. Schneiderman said. He believes the $150,000 average annual maintenance cost that has been estimated is a realistic projection, “as long as the project is designed right.”

The son of a New York hedge fund leader with a house in Wainscott was charged with murder Monday in the shooting death of his father at the elder man’s apartment in Manhattan the day before.

Thomas Gilbert Jr., 30, of Wainscott and Manhattan was arraigned Monday night and is being held without the possibility of bail for the alleged murder of his father, Thomas Gilbert Sr., 70. He is expected to be indicted by a grand jury by tomorrow.

According to the complaint filed by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the elder Mr. Gilbert was killed by a single shot to the head in a bedroom in his apartment on Beekman Place Sunday afternoon. His wife, Shelly Gilbert, had left him alone in the apartment with their son while she ran an errand. When she returned 15 minutes later, her son was gone and her husband was dead on the floor next to the bed, with a .40-caliber Glock handgun lying on his chest. Police said Monday that the younger Mr. Gilbert had attempted to make his father’s death look like a suicide.

Detectives of the 17th Precinct immediately sought out the son in connection with the death. According to Officer George Tsourovakas of the New York Police Department’s public information bureau, when officers arrived at the younger Mr. Gilbert’s 18th Street apartment late Sunday night, he quickly surrendered. He was taken into custody by police as a person of interest, and was questioned by detectives at the 17th Precinct, which covers the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The official arrest was made early Monday afternoon, Officer Tsourovakas said.

Mr. Gilbert faces life imprisonment without the possibility of parole if convicted as charged.

Along with the murder charge, he is facing 24 additional felony charges. Two are for possession of a loaded weapon, with the balance being for possession of instruments for forgery, stemming from a skimmer device and 21 blank credit cards found in Mr. Gilbert’s Chelsea apartment.

The younger Mr. Gilbert has had several brushes with the law the past few months in both Southampton and East Hampton Towns. He also has an outstanding criminal contempt charge in Southampton for violating a court order of protection for Peter Smith Jr. on Labor Day. The order required him to stay away from Mr. Smith, but despite that, according to records, he approached him and attempted to talk with him on Sagg Main Beach that evening.

According to a friend of the Gilberts, the Smiths and the Gilberts had been close. “The Smiths were friends of the Gilberts and the son  had even lived with them for a while,” the friend said in an email, asking not to be identified. She did not know what caused the falling out that led to the order of protection.

The Smiths’ historic house on Sagg Main Street was destroyed by a fire two weeks later. Detectives suspected arson; police are still investigating the cause of the blaze.

Mr. Gilbert was arrested by Southampton Town Police on the criminal contempt just days after that fire. Several publications have reported that he was a suspect in the arson investigation, but the Southampton Town Police would not comment Tuesday on that case.

When he was arrested in East Hampton recently on the unlicensed driving charge, the younger Mr. Gilbert gave police his father’s Georgica Association Road address as his home address. He has several other charges pending in East Hampton Town Justice Court.

East Hampton Town police were called to the Gilberts’ house in Wainscott last March after the elder Mr. Gilbert arrived from the city to discover that someone had been staying in the house. Nothing was reported stolen, and no arrests were made.

Thomas Gilbert Sr. was the founder of Wainscott Capital Partners, which he described on his Linkedin page as “a long-short hedge fund that I have formed based on a 25-year track record of investing in public equities as well private equity transactions.” The fund’s value varies widely, depending on the source, from a high value of $200 million to a low of $5 million. He was in the news locally in 2012 when he fought a losing legal battle over the positioning of a barn on a neighboring property in Wainscott owned by William Babinski.

Update, 12:05 p.m.: The outage in Amagansett has been restored, according to PSEG Long Island.

Kristina Pappas, a media coordinator, said the outage occurred when a tree limb came into contact with a wire on Main Street. It was reported at 10:23 a.m. "A total of 1,700 customers were affected, with 1,000 of them restored with 25 minutes, and the remained restored by 11:24 a.m.," she said.

Originally, 11:11 a.m.: Over 1,000 PSEG Long Island customers in Amagansett lost power on Monday morning. 

Police received word of a possible transformer fire on Main Street just before 10:30 a.m., but a fire chief sent to the area couldn't locate any smoke or fire. Around the same time, the traffic light at the intersection of Montauk Highway, Abraham's Path, and Cross Highway also went out. Dispatchers said "a widespread outage" was reported from Cross Highway to Amagansett's Main Street. 

The PSEG outage map online showed over 1,000 customers without power in that area. 

About 15 minutes later, the light at Brent's began working again. As of 10:55 a.m., the outage map showed 559 customers still without power. PSEG trucks are in the area. 

No word on what caused the problem.

A fire that broke out in a Springs house on Tuesday morning could have been much worse had an automatic fire alarm not sounded, fire officials said. 

A Springs Fire Department chief responded to a house on Briarcroft Drive in Springs after the alarm went off around 7:15 a.m. When firefighters got there, the door was locked, but they could hear the alarm, according to Tom Baker, an East Hampton Town fire marshal. Peering through the window, they saw smoke and a person asleep on the couch. The chief called for engines to respond. 

No one was injured. 

Once inside, firefighters found that a plastic garbage can underneath a kitchen counter and behind a cabinet had caught fire from a cigarette.

"There was minimal damage to one of the kitchen cabinets," Mr. Baker said, adding that it was lucky the fire alarm went off.

The Springs Fire Department went back to the firehouse at about 7:40 a.m., but the fire marshal's office, which investigated, remained at the scene for about an hour. 

Neighbors of a new house on Mill Hill Lane showed up at 2015’s first meeting of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals Friday to air some criticism of it.

Andy and Jane Graiser of 42 Mill Hill Lane seek relief from the code to allow a proposed garage to be 10 feet from their side and rear property lines, where a 22-foot setback is mandated. They also seek a variance to allow the installation of an eyebrow window in their roof, which was part of the original plan but later omitted from the design.

William J. Fleming, an attorney representing the applicants, told the board that 25 of some 42 parcels on the tree-lined street have a garage within a side or rear-yard setback. And, he added, the house that was on the lot before it was demolished was just 12 feet from the side property line.

But that house was just one story high, replied Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman, in contrast to the new, taller residence. The original building permit for the new structures, he added, showed the garage in a conforming location.

Mary Bush, a Mill Hill Lane resident, noted that most of the garages to which Mr. Fleming referred are pre-existing, nonconforming structures. “That’s a mighty big house,” she added of the new residence. “It just seems like things could have been planned so that the construction that was done on the lot was more conforming to the code.” A letter submitted by immediate neighbors complained about both the size of the new house and its proximity to their property line, “impinging on their privacy,” Mr. Newbold said.

When the applicants applied for a building permit, “they were happy to site that garage in a conforming location,” Mr. Newbold said. “Our job as a board is to enforce the existing code. To me, there is no reason to give a variance.” His colleagues agreed, and also asked that the applicants submit a landscaping plan.

“You buy a house, you tear it down, you know the code, you can build to the code, but you’d like something extra,” Mr. Newbold summed up the application. “That’s the precedent I’m very wary of setting.”

The village’s Building Department had denied inclusion of the eyebrow window because the design of the roof, which has two cross gables, did not conform to a section of code aimed at controlling the mass of the upper third of a house. An eyebrow window is considered a dormer, which contributes to mass far more than a roof slope. According to code, the roof of the house in question must leave 25 percent of the length of each eave as a continuous, uninterrupted slope from eave to ridge.

John Laffey, the architect, said the code had the unintended consequence of prohibiting an aesthetically pleasing feature simply because such a window falls under the definition of a dormer. “I never considered an eyebrow a dormer, I consider it more of a roof detail,” he told the board. “It has no side walls and the roof flows over contiguously.”

Mr. Newbold again referred to the board’s duty. “What may be a pleasing aesthetic detail to you requires a variance from our code,” he said, “and it does not affect the way the house is lived in. It’s a new build, you had every opportunity to design around the restrictions.”

His colleagues, however, indicated flexibility with regard to the window.

Mr. Graiser said he loved the neighborhood, respected the code, and welcomed the opportunity to return with a detailed landscaping plan that would shield the garage from neighbors. Board members, however, insisted that the garage be situated in a conforming location.

The hearing was left open and will be revisited at the board’s Jan. 23 meeting.

The board also announced four determinations. Giacomo Lucente of 21 Cedar Street was denied a modification on a 2002 variance requiring an apartment above a garage to be used only by domestic employees or family members of the occupant of the single-family residence located on the same lot. His request for a variance to allow the installation of a roofed patio at the rear of the apartment was also denied. The application had drawn complaints from neighbors at a previous meeting. 

 Raj Alva was granted variances to permit the construction of new basements for the residence and garage at 40 Cooper Lane, as well as the reconstruction of the house’s front porch and garage, both of which fall within required setbacks. Susan Halpern of 48 Georgica Close Road was granted a freshwater wetlands permit modifying a previously granted permit for the construction of a new residence, an attached deck, drainage structures, and other improvements. And Lee Fixel of 8 Hither Lane was granted a variance allowing conversion of a screened-in porch to habitable space, thereby increasing the residence’s gross floor area to 9,526 square feet, 399 square feet greater than permitted by code.

The Springs Fire Department kicked off its 50th anniversary year with a ceremony on New Year’s Day.

Chief David King, who was sworn in as the leader of the department that day, taking over from Ben Miller, said each of the 89 members received commemorative anniversary badges — though 10 of them ran out in their Class A uniforms to fight fires in East Hampton.

Steven Scholl moved up to first assistant chief, and Peter Grimes was made second assistant chief.

The four charter members still serving were honored with proclamations from the town, county, and state. Joe Fitzgerald, Bruce Baldwin, Mike Collins, and East Hampton Town Councilman Fred Overton helped form the department in 1965 with 54 members. Mr. Fitzgerald, the department’s oldest member at 87 and a former fire chief, remains active in the fire police, Chief King said.

The charter members decided they wanted their own department for an area that was once covered by the East Hampton Fire Department as a fire protection district.

An anniversary parade is being planned for Sept. 19. The department is also in the process of putting a commemorative rock with a plaque at the site of its first firehouse, an old dairy barn on Hog Creek Road that belonged to George Sid Miller. It is still standing. Without a meeting space at first, firefighters would gather at Ashawagh Hall. They didn’t move to the current firehouse until 1967, the same year of the department’s first working structure fire at the Quackenbush house on Woodbine Drive.

Chief King, himself a 41-year member, said it felt special to be the chief during this milestone year. “I have a unique perspective because I can remember the night of the first fire,” he said, recalling his late father, Clarence (Kelly) King Jr., who joined a month after the department was founded and served for 34 years, and his brother, Kelly King, now going on his 49th year, running out the door. “It means a lot.”