Playhouse Expansion Nears

A rendering of the proposed 150-seat theater at the Montauk Playhouse Community Center, above, as envisioned by the project’s architect, Scott DiBerardino of Island Structures Engineering. The theater is intended for performances, lectures, and conferences. Below, the proposed aquatics center, which is to include a 25-yard fitness pool.

Montauk Playhouse Foundation

Jun. 28, 2018

Alex Lemonides

The Montauk Playhouse Community Center foundation, which is hoping to renovate the west side of the playhouse, applied on Tuesday to the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals for the variances necessary to begin construction.

The project would include an aquatics center, meeting and gallery spaces, lockers, bathrooms and offices, an expanded parking lot, a handicapped-accessible entryway, landscaping, lighting, retaining walls, and a new sanitary system.

The renovation and expanded parking lot would cover 45 percent of the lot; 40 percent is the maximum permissible under the town code. But, according to the Town Planning Department, “the remaining naturally occurring vegetation on this lot is on the eastern side, behind a large retaining wall and adjacent to a freshwater wetland,” so the extra clearance would do only minimal harm to the existing ecosystem.

Planners suggested that vegetated islands be built into the parking lot, as well as additional screening or plantings around the edges to soften its appearance from the street.

The lot, with 63 new spaces and a proposed Dumpster, would be closer by 12.7 feet than code permits to the adjacent lots (only 2.3 feet away). But the Planning Board memo noted that the most affected neighboring property is currently vacant, and the topography of the area makes it unlikely that the whole parking lot could be seen from that property.

Zoning board members seemed most concerned that the larger parking lot might be unsightly from the road or other properties. Another concern was that the septic system on the east side of the building, the side not being renovated, would remain a high-nitrogen system rather than the new low-nitrogen systems now being phased in. The board will come to a decision in a few months.