Amagansett School Cites ‘Project’s Impacts’

With a proposed work force housing development at 531 Montauk Highway in Amagansett raising questions about an influx of school-aged children and an increased tax burden, the Amagansett School Board will host an information session in the school gymnasium on March 19 at 11 a.m.

The board sent a letter to residents of the district last week urging them to attend, “to learn more about the likely impacts of this project on our school, available space and resources, and projected financial impact.”

The proposed development would include 76 bedrooms in 40 apartments, including 12 each of one, two, and three-bedroom units. Four studio apartments would be attached to commercial suites.

The letter says that according to an analysis prepared by the school board, the project “may result in a large increase in the number of new students at the Amagansett School, and in older grades, for whom we must pay tuition to the East Hampton School District or other schools.” Such an influx, it says, “is likely to result in significantly higher taxes for Amagansett School District residents and/or cuts to Amagansett School programs.”

The board will solicit comments at the conclusion of the meeting. The letter also includes a tear-off sheet on which those unable to attend can express their opinion of the proposed project by mail.

At the board’s Feb. 23 meeting, Eleanor Tritt, the district superintendent, said that projecting the number of students that could come to the school as a result of the proposed development was difficult, given the hamlet’s small size. “Projections based on very small numbers are very problematic,” she said. “The majority of our students in our school” — 77 percent, she said at a subsequent board meeting, on Tuesday — “were not born in Amagansett. To use current births in Amagansett is fallacious.”

Among the issues the district will face, Ms. Tritt said, are that “until children actually come, we will not know how those children would fit into the existing classrooms, depending on the grade level they’ll come in at. We have no vacant classrooms.” The number of students attending East Hampton Middle and High Schools, she said, would also be of concern, “because we are obligated to pay the tuition to those schools.”

The school’s preliminary 2016-17 budget, which indicated the likelihood that the district would seek to pierce the tax levy cap, was also unveiled at the Feb. 23 meeting, heightening concerns on the board about the obligations an influx of students would represent.

In a presentation to the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee in December, Catherine Casey, executive director of the East Hampton Housing Authority, estimated that the development would add 37 more students to the district. While enrollment fluctuates, 110 children were attending the school as of yesterday, with a total of 191 students living in the district at present.

Monthly rents in the proposed development, which may be completed by 2019, will be at fair market rates based on a federal Office of Housing and Urban Development schedule, though no tenant will pay more than approximately 30 percent of their income in rent. Some tenants would receive a subsidy, Ms. Casey said. At the advisory committee meeting in December, she said that current standards would put monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment between $1,039 and $1,425. A two-bedroom apartment would cost between $1,124 and $1,682 per month, and a three-bedroom between $1,236 and $2,232.