Hearing on Damark’s Deli

A public hearing on the proposed expansion of Damark’s Deli at the intersection of Three Mile Harbor and Soak Hides Roads in East Hampton is scheduled for Wednesday at 7 p.m. during the East Hampton Town Planning Board meeting at Town Hall. 

Bruce Damark had received site plan approval in March of 2012 to increase the size of the popular and cramped deli to 4,571 square feet on the first floor and create a basement of 3,907 square feet and a 1,770-square-foot second-floor apartment. Now, in what has been deemed by the board as a modification of the 2012 plan, the second-floor apartment is gone, the basement has ballooned to 6,000 square feet, and the first floor to 5,400 square feet. 

According to the town’s head building inspector, Ann Glennon, most of the basement will be used for storage rather than a catering business as originally planned, and therefore does not have to be counted in the total floor area.  

 A few planning board members have found the expansion of the basement  problematic. As reported on Aug. 30, Kathleen Cunningham is concerned about the relationship of the basement to groundwater. “I have several serious concerns regarding the cellar, as it will be built only three inches above groundwater, which, as a practical matter, is in groundwater,” she said in a memo to fellow board members. Job Potter also questioned the distance from the basement floor to groundwater. The site is in a harbor recharge district and is prone to flooding