On Housing Authority Apartments in Amagansett
The creation of 37 apartments in six buildings on what is now a 4.6-acre field on Montauk Highway in Amagansett has been scheduled for a public hearing at 7 p.m. on May 2 before the East Hampton Town Planning Board. The plans can be inspected at the planning board office at 300 Pantigo Place.
The development, which has been referred to as affordable housing, is more accurately described as work force housing, according to Catherine Casey, executive director of the East Hampton Housing Authority, which is working with David M. Gallo of Georgica Green Ventures on construction and will manage the property. One-quarter of the apartments are to be subsidized as low-income housing.
The plan calls for 12 one-bedroom, 12 two-bedroom, and 12 three-bedroom apartments, as well as a single four-bedroom unit. All except the latter will be in the six two-story buildings, while the four-bedroom apartment will be on the second floor of a common building, which is planned as a community center. There also will be a sewage treatment plant on the site, along with a 493-square-foot building to house equipment. There will be an open meadow at the center of the development, with the buildings clustered around it.
Originally, the plan called for 11 residential buildings, as well as a commercial building. The planning board had objected to the density and the current plan evolved through several site plan reviews. Also changed from the initial proposal is the setback from Montauk Highway, which was doubled from 50 to 100 feet. There are 77 parking spaces planned with a circular roadway around the development accessed from the highway on the western corner.
When the planning board scheduled the May 2 public hearing, there was some discussion about the lighting. Ms. Casey assured the board that it would be “dark-sky” compliant.
The property is just west of a Shell gasoline station and runs back to the Long Island Rail Road right of way. An eastern red cedar tree on the west border will be retained, as will two clusters of trees to the east. A fence facing the highway is to be removed, while another, on the northern border facing the railroad tracks, is to remain, as is a fence on the western border. A four-foot-high stockade fence is to be built on the eastern border.