Plea Made for Affordable Housing

A contingent hoping to see increased opportunities for affordable housing in East Hampton Town rallied at Town Hall on Tuesday to express support for a proposed project in Wainscott that has been decried by the Wainscott School Board.

Speakers questioned why the town board had failed to throw its support behind the 48 affordable apartments for low-income residents that have been planned by the Windmill Village Housing Development Fund Corporation, which developed Windmill affordable housing complexes in East Hampton and the St. Michael’s senior citizens housing in Amagansett.

 The proposal is to site the housing on town acreage off Stephen Hand’s Path. Town officials, in the face of vociferous opposition by the Wainscott School Board, have not acted on a request to dedicate the land to the project.

“The whole town has a crisis in housing throughout,” Keith Kevan of Amagansett said at the town board’s Tuesday work session. “One of the basic human needs is not being addressed. A very bad precedent has been set in Wainscott, and I am very disappointed in the town board.”

 Mr. Kevan said he had polled 213 Wainscott business owners and citizens and found 74 percent in favor of the housing — “three to one for affordable housing and this particular project,” he said. “Wainscott needs to do its fair share. Everyone knows someone who needs housing in this town.”

Mr. Kevan noted that a town election is coming up, and said, “I have seen no evidence that this board cares about affordable housing one iota.”

Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell differed. “The board is making progress building real affordable housing,” he said. A cooperative development dubbed a manor house is under way in East Hampton, he said, and zoning changes were made to ease the way for apartments in business districts. He also pointed to a vote last week to back a bond issue for the East Hampton Housing Authority, which just revealed plans for an affordable housing complex in Amagansett. That project is reported on separately in today’s Star.

A community housing opportunity fund committee was reconstituted recently, Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby pointed out, which has updated a housing plan last revised in 2005. Work on initiatives, such as fostering more accessory apartments in single-family residences, is ongoing, she added.

“A healthy community is one where everybody has an opportunity to live decently,” Kathy Engel, a Sagaponack resident, told the board. “I can’t imagine how we would not welcome an opportunity to make that possible for more people.”

“I’m bewildered; I’m wondering what the reasons are, what the problems are,” Tinka Topping, who was celebrating her 91st birthday that day, said about the lack of support for the Windmill proposal. “Why isn’t it possible to have low-income housing in Wainscott?” she asked. “We have to have it.”

Ms. Topping, a founder of the Hampton Day School who was also involved in the creation of the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, addressed the basis of objections to the affordable Wainscott housing, which centered on the ability of the Wainscott School to absorb new students.

“The issue of having the few kids that probably would go, if the housing was built; the issue of the school is a false issue,” she said. The real issue, she suggested, “is the resistance of people” to new residents of the community and a potential change in its demographics. “I would like to say . . . the more diversity there is in our community now — with all of the expansion of very wealthy people — the better,” Ms. Topping said. The audience applauded.

Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc acknowledged “a broad need” for affordable housing. “The most we can possibly do is what we should do,” he said. Of the Wainscott site, he said, “We haven’t ruled out that possibility at all.” But, he said, “It may not be moving forward as proposed by this particular group.”

Valencia George, another speaker, shared her own story with the board.  A native of Grenada, she has lived and worked in East Hampton for 20 years. An in-home caregiver, she has been unable to find an affordable apartment of her own and therefore has had to take only jobs that offer housing. A volunteer at the town senior citizens center, she said she hopes to find housing of her own “so that I can retire here and still contribute to East Hampton.”