Pave Paradise to Put Up a Parking Lot?

Multiple references were made to Joni Mitchell’s 1970 song “Big Yellow Taxi” at Tuesday’s meeting of the East Hampton Town Board, as residents applied its popular refrain — “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” — to a plan to pave “Dirt Lot,” the easternmost of three parking lots serving the popular Ditch Plain Beach in Montauk, and reconfigure the others. 

Plans that were developed to address a scarcity of parking, dangerous conditions created by overcrowding, emergency vehicle access, and drainage issues clashed on Tuesday with residents’ collective frustration that Montauk’s rural character is already endangered by a flood of arrivistes, manifested at Ditch Plain in the form of the luxury sports cars occupying the aforementioned scant parking. Paving Dirt Lot, many residents told the board, will not only harm that character, but an impervious surface would force stormwater to the ocean, harming land and sea alike. 

Several iterations of reconfigured parking schemes in the three lots were displayed on a video monitor, with Councilman David Lys walking those in attendance through the proposed changes. Before the illustrations were displayed, however, several residents spoke out against any changes to Dirt Lot. 

“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” said Randall Rosenthal, who said he has been surfing at Ditch Plain for more than 50 years. While the westernmost lot can be very difficult to circumnavigate, that is not the case in the eastermost lot, he said. “I have waited a few seconds, but have never seen it where you couldn’t drive around Dirt Lot. People have been pretty ingenious about parking patterns. . . . Any paved, marked lot is going to diminish that greatly.” 

Lou Cortese, representing the Ditch Plains Association, noted the irony of adhering to the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan’s call for greater access to public property by clearing vegetation and covering the earth with asphalt to achieve it. “We want to maintain the rural quality that Montauk has,” he said. “That’s what attracts people to Montauk. We don’t want to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.” 

Thomas Muse, environmental coordinator of the Surfrider Foundation’s eastern Long Island chapter, said that the need for additional spaces has neither been fully established nor communicated to the public, while prioritizing parking at the expense of vegetation that naturally mitigates storm surge is unwise. “Many questions remain about the conveyance of stormwater on the site, which will change radically with paving,” he said. Two inches of rain, he said, would generate 55,000 gallons of stormwater to be managed. “Can the public see an engineering overlay to better understand the current thinking, and a site plan with existing and proposed elevation?” he asked. 

The cost of paving Dirt Lot to the area’s rural character, Mr. Muse said, would be difficult to quantify. 

“I can understand the board’s desire to tame the chaos . . . at Dirt Lot,” said Stephen Mahoney, also of the Surfrider Foundation, “but this plan seems hastily prepared” and lacking “real thought given to the environmental qualities of such a large-scale oceanfront project.” He asked that the board rethink its proposals and “come up with a better plan.”

Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the town board’s liaison to the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee, compared plans to improve the parking lots serving Ditch Plain to changes made to the lot at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett while she served as liaison to that hamlet’s citizens advisory committee. There, “a real chaos” caused by buses, taxis, and nonresident vehicles has been calmed by an attended booth that turns those vehicles back before they reach the residents-only lot, rendering it safer for pedestrians and restoring a family-friendly atmosphere to the beach. The lot was also enlarged to accommodate more parking spaces. 

Given the Montauk citizens committee’s suggestion that the westernmost lot be designated for residents only, it was natural to consider improvements to the other two lots, Ms. Overby said. 

And, said Chief Michael Sarlo of the town’s Police Department, the westernmost lot and middle lot, at the end of Otis Road, “really need to be improved to make them have better flow.” If the westernmost lot is designated resident-only, “we have to look at improving other areas, because the overflow will go there,” he said. What has worked at Indian Wells Beach can work at Ditch Plain, he said, “but it’s going to push people to the other lots.” 

Later in the meeting, the board authorized a bond issue of up to $250,000 to finance parking lot improvements at Ditch Plain, with Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc pointing out that the move does not represent a commitment to pay for or carry out the project. Councilman Jeffrey Bragman, who appeared the most skeptical of the project and proposed that the board rescind a declaration that it posed no detrimental environmental impact, abstained from the vote.

The discussion, the supervisor said, “has really just begun about potential paving of Dirt Lot. This is obviously a topic which has a great deal of interest in the community.” He and his colleagues will “go back to the drawing board,” he said, and publicize any plans before adoption.

“Nothing is set in stone,” said Mr. Lys. “Or asphalt.” Multiple references were made to Joni Mitchell’s 1970 song “Big Yellow Taxi” at Tuesday’s meeting of the East Hampton Town Board, as residents applied its popular refrain — “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” — to a plan to pave “Dirt Lot,” the easternmost of three parking lots serving the popular Ditch Plain Beach in Montauk, and reconfigure the others. 

Plans that were developed to address a scarcity of parking, dangerous conditions created by overcrowding, emergency vehicle access, and drainage issues clashed on Tuesday with residents’ collective frustration that Montauk’s rural character is already endangered by a flood of arrivistes, manifested at Ditch Plain in the form of the luxury sports cars occupying the aforementioned scant parking. Paving Dirt Lot, many residents told the board, will not only harm that character, but an impervious surface would force stormwater to the ocean, harming land and sea alike. 

Several iterations of reconfigured parking schemes in the three lots were displayed on a video monitor, with Councilman David Lys walking those in attendance through the proposed changes. Before the illustrations were displayed, however, several residents spoke out against any changes to Dirt Lot. 

“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” said Randall Rosenthal, who said he has been surfing at Ditch Plain for more than 50 years. While the westernmost lot can be very difficult to circumnavigate, that is not the case in the eastermost lot, he said. “I have waited a few seconds, but have never seen it where you couldn’t drive around Dirt Lot. People have been pretty ingenious about parking patterns. . . . Any paved, marked lot is going to diminish that greatly.” 

Lou Cortese, representing the Ditch Plains Association, noted the irony of adhering to the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan’s call for greater access to public property by clearing vegetation and covering the earth with asphalt to achieve it. “We want to maintain the rural quality that Montauk has,” he said. “That’s what attracts people to Montauk. We don’t want to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.” 

Thomas Muse, environmental coordinator of the Surfrider Foundation’s eastern Long Island chapter, said that the need for additional spaces has neither been fully established nor communicated to the public, while prioritizing parking at the expense of vegetation that naturally mitigates storm surge is unwise. “Many questions remain about the conveyance of stormwater on the site, which will change radically with paving,” he said. Two inches of rain, he said, would generate 55,000 gallons of stormwater to be managed. “Can the public see an engineering overlay to better understand the current thinking, and a site plan with existing and proposed elevation?” he asked. 

The cost of paving Dirt Lot to the area’s rural character, Mr. Muse said, would be difficult to quantify. 

“I can understand the board’s desire to tame the chaos . . . at Dirt Lot,” said Stephen Mahoney, also of the Surfrider Foundation, “but this plan seems hastily prepared” and lacking “real thought given to the environmental qualities of such a large-scale oceanfront project.” He asked that the board rethink its proposals and “come up with a better plan.”

Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the town board’s liaison to the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee, compared plans to improve the parking lots serving Ditch Plain to changes made to the lot at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett while she served as liaison to that hamlet’s citizens advisory committee. There, “a real chaos” caused by buses, taxis, and nonresident vehicles has been calmed by an attended booth that turns those vehicles back before they reach the residents-only lot, rendering it safer for pedestrians and restoring a family-friendly atmosphere to the beach. The lot was also enlarged to accommodate more parking spaces. 

Given the Montauk citizens committee’s suggestion that the westernmost lot be designated for residents only, it was natural to consider improvements to the other two lots, Ms. Overby said. 

And, said Chief Michael Sarlo of the town’s Police Department, the westernmost lot and middle lot, at the end of Otis Road, “really need to be improved to make them have better flow.” If the westernmost lot is designated resident-only, “we have to look at improving other areas, because the overflow will go there,” he said. What has worked at Indian Wells Beach can work at Ditch Plain, he said, “but it’s going to push people to the other lots.” 

Later in the meeting, the board authorized a bond issue of up to $250,000 to finance parking lot improvements at Ditch Plain, with Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc pointing out that the move does not represent a commitment to pay for or carry out the project. Councilman Jeffrey Bragman, who appeared the most skeptical of the project and proposed that the board rescind a declaration that it posed no detrimental environmental impact, abstained from the vote.

The discussion, the supervisor said, “has really just begun about potential paving of Dirt Lot. This is obviously a topic which has a great deal of interest in the community.” He and his colleagues will “go back to the drawing board,” he said, and publicize any plans before adoption.

“Nothing is set in stone,” said Mr. Lys. “Or asphalt.”