Hamlet Studies Roll On

Groundwork for a study of the core commercial areas of each hamlet in East Hampton Town continued on March 16 with a Town Hall session focused on Springs and East Hampton. Earlier in the week, a team of planning consultants hired by the town had held sessions centered on Wainscott and Amagansett, and on the downtown and dock areas of Montauk, with residents and representatives of those hamlets.

In Springs, which has only scattered small business areas rather than an obvious commercial center, the consultants are working to define the area of study, which may include the residential neighborhoods. “What happens in the hamlet centers affects everyone,” Peter Flinker of Dodson and Flinker said.

The west side of Springs, along Three Mile Harbor, might be considered and examined as its own hamlet, Lynn Mendelman suggested.

Other Springs residents maintained that a planning study must include a look at the impact of school taxes on their hamlet, where Springs School taxes constitute a major portion of property tax bills. “Without a comprehensive review of how that school affects our life . . . without that, Springs taxpayers’ money going to this study is a waste, frankly,” Carole Campolo said.

Others expressed dismay that East Hampton Village will not be a part of the study. As a separate municipal entity, the village sets its own comprehensive plan and laws. However, the consultants said, because the village has the largest commercial center, its makeup and impacts will be among the considerations to be examined.

Job Potter, a member of the town planning board who is on a town-appointed committee that developed criteria for the business study, underscored another key element: home-based businesses. There has been no outlet for those business owners to express their needs, nor any ability to regulate them, Jeremy Samuelson said, adding that he thinks the consultants will find “a huge percentage” of businesses being run from residential sites. 

Mr. Potter also asked, “How do we think about sustaining year-round business?” He suggested the consultants look for ways in which the town, through zoning or other regulations, could ensure that commercial rents remain affordable for ocal businesses, not just for the high-end chain stores that now predominate in the village.

The village streets, said Bess Rattray, “are void of life, they’re soulless. They don’t serve the needs of the people who live in this town. They don’t serve the needs of visitors.”

“The question is, are there any legal mechanisms to address that, or not,” Mr. Potter said.

Other issues raised by speakers on March 16 included creating walkable hamlet centers and pedestrian-based ways to access them; encouraging affordable apartments and addressing the Suffolk County Health Department’s wastewater treatment approval system that creates obstacles to them; focusing on the needs of year-rounders as well as part-time residents; traffic patterns at the junction of Three Mile Harbor and Springs-Fireplace Roads as they lead to Springs, and the appearance of the commercial-industrial stretch of Springs-Fireplace Road, and established standards for consistent design in each hamlet.

The impact in Springs of sea level rise, where flooding is already an issue, in light of the town’s local waterfront revitalization plan, and other ongoing town studies looking at coastal issues, should be a consideration, said Rameshwar Das, as should the “tax differential” in school districts, especially as the Springs School talks about expansion, he said.

Another feature of Springs, he told consultants, is its artists’ community, which provides “significant economic input.”

Krae Van Sickle raised the issue of establishing mass transit through a mix of vehicles with connecting routes, and also spoke of commercial development. While the town has very few “blank templates” as far as land open for development, said Mr. Van Sickle, a real estate broker, sandpits in East Hampton and Wainscott could offer opportunities to do “something bold,” he said, in planning for commerce and residences.

Harry Dodson of Dodson and Flinker, Lisa Liquori, a former town planning director with her own firm, Fine Arts and Sciences; Russ Archambault of RKG Associates, and Ray DeBiase of L.K. McLean Associates gave an overview of the process before collecting the concerns of the audience.

“We’re going to be focusing our research on the things you think are important,” Mr. Flinker said. The study of the individual hamlets will include a survey of the economic climate and businesses in the town overall, and the consultants are hearing community members’ ideas about their business areas, shaped by the town’s comprehensive plan.

The goals of the plan, last updated in 2005, discuss preservation, future development, the economy, and more, and call for further detailed study and planning efforts, such as the one now underway.

After residents’ ideas and concerns have been pinned down, the consultants and community members will map out ways to achieve those goals — for example, how to “infill” downtown sites with new development in order to create walkable downtowns rather than extending developed areas; designing new streetscapes, or recommending town board consideration of zoning or policy changes.

“We’re going to try to come up with a vision,” Mr. Flinker said last week, “and test the implications of that vision for all the elements of the town, and try to come to a consensus again.”

“It may not be a matter of endless growth,” he said. “It may be a mater of fixing what’s there.”

Once a prototype is outlined, the question will be, “is there a way to get to that vision the way we’re going now,” or must changes be made, to the town code, to the physical environment, and so forth.

“Our environment, our natural setting, is our economy. You can’t really separate them,” Mr. Archambault said, citing the comprehensive plan’s goal of maintaining a successful balance between economic growth and environmental protection. He is leading the economic study component.

The planning process will be used “to determine what level of growth do you want to support in the future?” he said. Later in the spring, and in September, there will be two-day “charettes,” defined, the consultant said, as “an intense, multi-day workshop focused on producing an actual result,” to continue honing in on each hamlet.