Hamlet Studies May Not Suffice

For all the attention being paid to the hamlet studies being conducted about commercial centers in East Hampton Town, there is reason for worry that larger issues could be overlooked.

Led by Dodson and Flinker, a consulting firm brought in by the town board, officials and residents have been looking at business sections in Amagansett, East Hampton, and Wainscott, and were to have started gathering information in Montauk this week. The work was commissioned to fill out the town’s comprehensive plan, a kind of a master policy and vision document last updated in 2005. And therein lies the problem.

Though the comprehensive plan was intended to be useful for 20 years or more, enough has changed in the last 11 years to make the existing plan seem obsolete. To cite but a few examples of how different things are today: In 2005 online vacation rental websites were barely functional; today they are the basis of a booming sub-economy. In 2005, Montauk had yet to become “hip” or subject to very deep-pocketed corporate development pressure. Additionally, concern about waterways and the airport had nowhere near today’s fever pitch. We can’t help reminding our readers (even though they know) that traffic was only a fraction as bad as it is now, and there were still a few affordable places for year-round residents to rent if they looked hard enough.

The hamlet studies so far seem to be most concerned about traffic and aesthetics and how far one has to walk to shop. This could change, of course, as the consultants begin to study what they have learned in their weeks here and report back. However, it’s hard to escape the feeling that, given all the new realities, these individual efforts will, in the end, produce little of lasting value without a new look at the overall town comprehensive plan.