Grappling With the Challenges of Springs

Springs residents turned out last Thursday for an East Hampton Town Board hearing on the future of their hamlet, however their comments were dominated by worries about the future of a commercial area just beyond the official Springs line.

The Springs-Fireplace Road corridor that reaches from North Main Street to Abraham’s Path was by far the area of greatest concern of the roughly 60 people at Town Hall to talk about the last stage of a new Springs hamlet study that will be incorporated into East Hampton’s comprehensive plan. They shared a sense that the town has not adequately addressed the problems along that stretch of county road and that the new ideas in the hamlet study would make things worse.

A proposed redevelopment described in the study includes new retail shops on the roadside and continued industrial uses and a new truck parking and contractors’ services area toward the middle of the site. There might be “live-work” housing, parks and trails, a food production zone, farmland, and new replanted view “buffers.” The commercial vehicle parking idea would require a new zoning classification. Reworking the properties would take a committed dialogue between town officials and the landowner, the authors wrote.

“The studies do not go far enough to protect the gateway to Springs,” said Carl Irace, an East Hampton lawyer representing Citizens to Preserve the East End. “Springs wants the town to protect the Springs gateway the way it did at the gateway to Wainscott,” referring to a purchase of open space recommended in a separate study that called for aesthetic improvements along Montauk Highway, among other efforts at traffic reducing and environmental protection. He said the group opposed any new development around the recycling center entrance.

“Traffic congestion we should strive to eliminate rather than accept as the inevitable result of development,” Frank Riina, a Springs resident, said. 

“Uncharted commercial development is an existential threat to the surrounding community,” he said. Intensifying the use of the sand mine would create an additional 1,000 or more additional vehicle trips per day, he said. 

For Jim Cafaro, who said he and his wife spend more than half of the year at their Clearwater Beach house, traffic on Springs-Fireplace Road reminded him of southern Westchester, where at certain times of day it was nearly impossible to get anywhere.

Several speakers expressed opposition to the range of service businesses there and to “truck farms,” typically fenced areas where landscape companies and others can store vehicles when they are not being used.

Robert Pine, a 29-year resident with a house on Springs-Fireplace Road was one of many speakers who urged the town board to buy remaining undeveloped parcels of land around the recycling center, particularly one for which a carwash is in the planning stage.

Springs is a paradox, as the authors of the study, Peter Flinker of Dodson and Flinker, a Massachusetts consulting firm, and Lisa Liquori of Fine Arts and Sciences, a former town planning director, remarked. In places it retains the character of a 19th-century farming and fishing community; in others it carries the burdens of growth, including water pollution, residential crowding, and quality of life hurdles.

Following a series of meetings in May with Springs residents and others, the consultants prepared interlocking plans for better bicycle routes, a walking “district” at the Head of Three Mile Harbor, and for the existing business area where Fort Pond Boulevard meets Springs-Fireplace Road.

A strong preservation message had come out of the meetings between residents and the consultants. Priorities that emerged from those sessions included maintaining what is left of the hamlet’s rural character and historical locations. On the environment, there was support for improving water quality in Three Mile Harbor and Accabonac Creek. Doing something about the near-total lack of sidewalks and making roads safer for bicyclists were top issues, as was limiting commercial work truck parking and large equipment storage in residential neighborhoods. 

Several speakers last Thursday called for a master plan for the area bounded to the east by Accabonac Road and on the west by Three Mile Harbor Road. Tina Plessett was among those and said that a new committee be convened to take it on.

Martin Drew lamented that the Springs Park, a 40-acre town parcel accessed via a long driveway off Three Mile Harbor Road, had become a dog run while the board ignores the need for active recreation spots in the hamlet.

According to the Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey, Springs has the highest population density of all of the town’s hamlets. About 5,800 people were said to live in Springs in 2014, up by a third since 2000. It had the youngest population, with a median age of 38.5, was about a third Spanish-speaking or Latino, and had a median household income in 2014 of $80,303.

Environmentally, Springs faces a number of challenges, the study’s authors wrote. These included habitat loss, water and light pollution, and the impacts of climate change. “As sea level rises, coastal erosion will likely change the shape of beaches and coastal wetlands. Storm surges from coastal storms and hurricanes, on top of these higher tide elevations, will create flood impacts that extend further inland than the same sized storms today,” they wrote.

The authors called strongly for more preservation fund purchases to help address critical environmental and quality of life issues. Bike and foot traffic might be accommodated with new multipurpose trails parallel with some of the main roads and marking bike lanes elsewhere.

Businesses at either end of Fort Pond Boulevard would eventually meet improved design standards and be reconfigured so customers’ vehicles did not have to back out into traffic, perhaps made possible by a new shared parking ordinance. The eastern end, nearest to the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, could be rethought to allow outdoor seating, benches, and walking access between properties so that it became part of a “public realm,” encouraging social interaction or even a place to sit for a while and watch the world go by — property owners would be nudged in this direction through a new business overlay district with its own rules and standards.

The report also called for more frequent service on the Suffolk Transit 10B bus loop, which now spaces service at untenable 90-minute intervals.

During the May forums and smaller meetings, participants agreed on the need for better pedestrian and bike safety, but were divided about how to go about this, the study authors said.

Ms. Liquori, the co-consultant for all the hamlet studies, took copious notes throughout the hearing. At some point, the work will be declared complete and its recommendations incorporated into the town’s 2005 comprehensive plan, with possible code changes to come.

The final hamlet study hearing will be the one for Montauk on Dec. 6 at Town Hall.