Montauk Moratorium Would Make Sense
The East Hampton Town Board is expected to listen this evening to what the public has to say about a planned one-year moratorium on changes on most commercially used properties along Montauk Highway in Wainscott. As members consider the proposal, they should think about whether a similar building pause should be imposed in Montauk, where, if anything, the stakes and pressures are far higher.
We strongly support the board’s effort to prevent additional inappropriate land use in the Wainscott hamlet gateway. Already, most of the north side of the highway is marred by hodgepodge construction and visual blight. Under current zoning, there are few effective limits on how intensely the area eventually could be developed. Notably, the so-called pit, several parcels where sand was excavated, will someday soon be ripe for development. How that occurs could affect the entire western end of East Hampton Town for decades to come.
As in Wainscott, a study of Montauk’s business districts is being conducted under the guidance of an outside consultant. A large part of both the Montauk downtown and dock area is undeveloped or under-developed, and with deals in the works for a couple of key properties, such as Gosman’s, the look and feel of the entire waterfront could change almost overnight given the town code. Much of the area near the docks, as well as some of its periphery along West Lake and Flamingo Roads, is given over to parking, boat storage, and rundown rental accommodations. Smart rethinking might seek to put some essential services — food stores, medical centers, and decent work force housing — there. But this would be unlikely if new site-plan applications arrive in Town Hall for less vital uses.
Sea level rise and the threat that a storm might topple oceanfront structures in the Montauk downtown and flood the streets add extra urgency. In a 2011 state report on climate change and its impacts, municipalities were urged not to invest in infrastructure projects in high-risk locations, calling them “perverse subsidies” and describing them as economically inefficient policies that are environmentally damaging and benefit the few (often the wealthy and politically well connected) at the expense of the majority of taxpayers. Allowing any new low-lying construction in downtown Montauk, when we know the water is coming sooner or later, would be irresponsible.
If a moratorium is appropriate for Wainscott, it is more than doubly so for Montauk. That one could be considered and the other not, at least so far, has not been adequately explained.