Housing Plan Fuels Fears of School ‘Disaster’

In response to an invitation from the Amagansett School Board, a crowd of about 100 gathered at the school on Saturday morning for a discussion of the East Hampton Housing Authority’s plan to build a 40-unit affordable housing complex in the hamlet. Residents had received flyers in their mailboxes last week from the board, “strongly urging” them to attend the meeting “and learn more about the likely impacts of this housing project.”

Joseph C. Dragone, a former superintendent of schools in Roslyn and an educational consultant, began his analysis of data prepared for the district by the SES Study Team, demographers based in Syracuse, by stressing that his presentation was not about whether the town does or does not need rental or mixed-income housing, but about “the impact that this proposal will have on the district’s taxpayers” and “the ability of the Amagansett School to continue to provide a high-quality education to all of its residents,” he said.

The Housing Authority projects an increase of 37 new students in the district when the complex, at 531 Montauk Highway east of the I.G.A., is ready for occupancy in 2018. As proposed, it would contain 40 bedrooms for adult householders; the remaining 36 “secondary” bedrooms would be for children, although, Mr. Dragone said, should there be two children in each of the 36, the figure would be 72. A rustle went through the audience at that, and he quickly tempered the remark, allowing that there might just as well be no school-age children in the 12 two-bedroom apartments, “maybe a couple of senior citizens with no kids, or two adults.”

But even were the number just 37, he said, “many of them would be of high school age.” The question of just how many became central to the discussion, because the Amagansett School, like other so-called sending districts with no high school of their own, pays tuition to the East Hampton School District to educate its older students. The current rate is $24,539 per student. For special needs students, the figure is $68,125; the charter school tuition rate is $59,000.

If all 37 new students were in grades 7 through 12, Mr. Dragone said, “That’s, God forbid, an absolute disaster, the worst case. But we can’t reasonably project that.”

This year, Amagansett has 91 children in kindergarten through 6th grade and 81 in 7th through 12th grades. (The school also has full-day prekindergarten programs for 3 and 4-year-olds.) According to the consultants’ projections, those figures would not change much by 2018 “without the impact of the housing project.” With it, the demographers projected between 14 and 28 new children in kindergarten through sixth grade and 16 to 31 in the upper grades.

“So in 2018-19, there will be from 207 to 236 kids here instead of 177,” Mr. Dragone said. “It would be even a worse disaster if one of these 37 kids attends a charter school. That costs taxpayers $60,000 a year.”

Speaking of how an influx of new students might affect the physical plant, Mr. Dragone told the crowd that “the goal of the board of education here is 16 students in a class. If a significant number of kids enter, there’d be the need for more classrooms. Where? Maybe on the playground? The school doesn’t have that much space.”

The housing project could add 45 times the tax levy allowed, increasing the tax bill “from $647,421 to $1,473,487,” he said. “The only way to save that much money is to decrease programs in K through six,” he concluded.

Several of the questions that followed his presentation had to do with the projected tax increase, which he estimated at from 7.4 percent to 16.8 percent.

“I think your numbers are way too low, and the next thing we’ll need is another school,” one woman said. “I think it’s insulting to us to use the ‘best-case scenario’ when it’s going to be the worst-case scenarios.”

“I think the board has put a lot of effort into saying the community is threatened by this,” a man said. “But why are we paying tuition at all to East Hampton High School?” The question led to a discussion of consolidation, with Mr. Dragone explaining that in combined districts the tax bill usually increases for one district and decreases for another. “Consolidation wouldn’t reduce the costs,” said Eleanor Tritt, superintendent of the Amagansett School. “The costs would be redistributed. Amagansett residents would pay 50 percent or more, more.”

A few people had harsh words for Mr. Dragone. Someone criticized his repeated reference to a “project,” saying it should be called “work force housing.”

“You’ve used the words ‘disaster’ and ‘God forbid,’ ” Lyle Greenfield told him. “You sound as if 32 kids are coming here with the Zika virus. Our civic responsibility is to provide housing for the need in the community. You cannot separate the need from this discussion.”

“There’s no pejorative intended when I say ‘project,’ that’s been in the newspaper,” Mr. Dragone replied. He lives in Northport, he said, where “I support affordable housing. But there, we can afford it. Here, the impact is much greater.”

“Will there be a question on the school budget vote about how we feel?”  someone wondered. Ms. Tritt answered: “I’m not sure that would be appropriate. Write to the town board.”

Katie Casey, executive director of the housing authority, who was at the meeting, said on Tuesday that “affordable housing is not the purview of the school district, which is to educate students.”

“We don’t need the school’s permission as long as the town is behind the project,” she said. “And they are.”

The 4.7-acre property is zoned for affordable housing and limited business use. The housing authority closed on its $3.4 million purchase of the property on March 1.

The proposed complex will be “an asset, not an eyesore,” Ms. Casey said. “In fact, the county and the state said ‘put in more units, you’re not maximizing the lot.’ We said no, 40 is plenty.”

The authority has hired an architect and is in discussion with the Planning Department — “We’ve moved parking back behind the building,” for one thing, she said — before submitting a site plan to the planning board, which will hold a public hearing on the application. Ms. Casey has estimated that it could take 18 months for the project to receive required approvals and funding.

On its flier to district residents, the Amagansett School Board included a tear-off sheet asking people how they felt about the housing complex. As of Tuesday, said Mrs. Tritt, 42 responses had been received. Thirty-four were opposed, seven were in favor, and one was undecided.