East Hampton Supervisor Outlines Agenda

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell laid out a comprehensive agenda for 2016 at the town board’s annual organizational meeting Tuesday, which included capital projects, environmental protection, hamlet planning, affordable housing, and fiscal prudence.

In a wide-ranging statement, Mr. Cantwell noted that discussions were underway with Southampton Hospital, which “has expressed serious interest in building a new year-round, 24/7 emergency care facility in East Hampton. He also said the expansion of the town-owned industrial park at East Hampton Airport would be started, with the goal of attracting new commercial tenants.

The meeting began with the supervisor being sworn in, along with the town board members Peter Van Scoyoc and Sylvia Overby as well as a host of board and committee appointees. The appointments are covered separately.

Planning for the future of the town’s hamlets will be “at the forefront in the year ahead,” Mr. Cantwell said, with studies on Amagansett, Montauk, Wainscott, and Springs underway. 

Regarding Montauk, “notwithstanding the controversy” over the Army Corps of Engineers’ downtown Montauk beach stabilization project — construction of a 3,100-foot sandbag seawall that prompted protests and ongoing controversy — the town must focus on the Army Corps’s plans for Montauk under its Fire Island to Montauk Point plan that is scheduled to be announced this winter. “We will press the Army Corps for a sand-only . . . improvement and work to reach a consensus with the community,” Mr. Cantwell said. 

To plan for how the town might act in the face of sea-level rise and climate change, a study will begin this year of coastal erosion rates and potential storm threats, so that a coastal assessment and resiliency plan (called CARP) can be developed. 

Also in 2016, “tangible results” are needed on affordable housing, Mr. Cantwell said. While town officials declined, after objections by the Wainscott School Board, to provide land for an affordable complex there, he said “as a community we need to move beyond the word ‘no’ when we should be discussing ‘how.’ ” The town needs to see a manor-house-style development built, which is planned for Accabonac Road, he said, and to support the East Hampton Housing Authority’s plan for affordable housing in Amagansett.

Water quality will also be a focus in the coming year. Following state approval, the town hopes to develop a comprehensive plan for water quality protection that could be paid for with a portion of the town’s community preservation fund — a strategy that would require voter approval in a ballot proposition in the fall. Mr. Cantwell said he would also like to partner with the town trustees to expand their water quality testing and monitoring programs.   Construction coming up includes replacing the vacant old town hall building on the Town Hall campus so that all town offices can be consolidated there, and making plans to replace the town’s East Hampton center for senior citizens. 

The cost of the Town Hall and senior citizens center buildings can be offset, Mr. Cantwell said, by the sale of 11,000 square feet of office space at 300 Pantigo Place, where some offices now are located, and of the former scavenger waste property on Springs-Fireplace Road.

With regard to the industrial park, Mr. Cantwell said the town already is in preliminary discussions with three prospective tenants for existing lots, who would bring the “potential to maintain and create jobs and generate significant lease revenue for the airport fund.”

The town board, Mr. Cantwell said, will continue implementing “a methodical capital and maintenance plan” for the airport. An analysis of last summer’s noise data and patterns is expected to be completed and ready for public discussion in March, he said. 

Using the preservation fund money, “preserving environmentally sensitive land while reducing development density—as we have done with the Lake Montauk and Springs outreach—will continue to be a top priority in the year ahead,” Mr. Cantwell said. The purchase of 50 acres is pending, he said, noting that more than 200 acres have been preserved over the last two years.

In discussing the enforcement of town codes in order to protect residents’ quality of life, Mr. Cantwell laid down a hard line regarding the upcoming imposition of a rental registry law. “. . . If you have been participating in a group house, high-turnover rental, or multiple family occupancy in a single-family residence, it is time to stop,” he said. “If we find illegal housing, we will bring the full force of the law to bear.” 

While a “firm financial foundation” underpins “everything we do,” he said the town must remain diligent. “Over the past two years. . . year-end finances have balanced and surpluses created,” budgets have remained below the state tax cap, and total town indebtedness has been reduced, he said.

Before articulating the 2016 agenda, Mr. Cantwell thanked his fellow board members. “I am fortunate to serve on a town board that wrestles with difficult problems,” he said, mentioning “helicopter noise, enforcement challenges in Montauk, overcrowded housing in single-family residences, and downtown Montauk beach stabilization.”. . . I know how hard making some of these decisions can be,” the supervisor said. 

He also thanked those serving on the town’s appointed boards and advisory committees, and town employees, a number of whom, as Civil Service Employees Association union members, are involved in contentious negotiations with the town over a new contract. 

“To the extent that we have been successful,” he said of the town board’s endeavors, “to a large extent, it is a result of the employees and the staff and the volunteers that have given their time to the town.”