Restroom to Move, Parking to Be Mapped

The tangled issues of a public restroom, the scarcity of parking, a hamlet study, a proposed rental registry, and the creation of a transportation hub occupied the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee at its meeting on Monday.

Committee members complained that the Long Island Rail Road’s small parking lot has no restrictions, resulting in congestion and hazardous conditions during weekend arrivals and departures. As for the municipal lot behind Main Street, while more than 100 people work in that commercial district in the summer, the lot holds fewer than 160 cars, and, members said, parking restrictions are rarely if ever enforced. The Highway Department is supposed to clean the lot between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. on the first Monday of every month, but vehicles parked during those hours impede that effort.

Tina Piette, who owns property adjacent to the municipal lot, asked for statistics regarding use of the railroad and of the Hampton Jitney — both of which add to parking needs — and for a map depicting town-owned land in the hamlet.

“Tina brought up a good point,” said Supervisor Larry Cantwell, the town board’s liaison to the committee. “We’ll get whoever we need from town staff to work with the group. It’s a perfect task for the C.A.C., to bring out the maps and come up with a regulatory scheme. Everyone knows the long-term solution is to acquire more land. But even with that, you’ll still have regulatory issues — time frames, what to do with the train station.”

“If we don’t start now,” Mr. Cantwell said, “we’ll be talking about it next June or July instead of trying something out next season.” The alternative, he said, was to wait for the results of a hamlet study, which he called a “couple-year process.”

The committee voted unanimously to create a subcommittee charged with recommending to the town board how to maximize public parking within the present infrastructure. Jeanne Frankl, who proposed the vote, said the group would make its recommendations within three months.

“How does this tie in with the transportation hub we’ve been talking about for 20 years?” asked Herbert Field. Such a hub, which might reposition the railroad station and the jitney’s embarking and disembarking points to a common area closer to the commercial district, has been an occasional topic of discussion. “If you’re going to do anything with parking, let’s consider the transportation hub also,” Mr. Field said.

Deliberations on the long-stalled public restroom in the municipal lot evoked similar frustration. Construction awaits approval by the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, which will not issue a certificate of occupancy anywhere on the lot until the matter of a septic system that falls within the required setback of a private well is resolved.

The committee did vote, with some reluctance, to approve the restroom’s latest proposed location, on the lot’s northern perimeter. Ten members voted in favor, three were opposed, and two abstained. The board of directors of the Amagansett Library, along with Ms. Piette and other adjacent property owners, has objected to putting it behind the library.

Although she voted for the new location, Joan Tulp felt that its original placement was better. “But people don’t want it there, or the library didn’t,” she said. “It’s just, I want it done. . . . This is 20 years.”

The town board may discuss creation of a rental registry, intended to curtail overcrowding and the frequent turnover of tenants, at its work session next week, Mr. Cantwell told the committee. Seven of the county’s 10 towns, he said, do have a rental registry law. The town board previously considered, but did not act on, such a law.

“There are more pros than cons,” Ms. Frankl said. A requirement to register one’s rental property, she said, does not represent “a tremendous inhibition on people’s freedoms. You have to weigh it against the probability that, even though the motives may be very good, the results may be imperfect.”

Ms. Piette disagreed, saying that such a law raised constitutional issues. “Adding this is adding another layer of things that could not be enforced,” she said. “There is a way to do this: a search warrant. I’m not in favor of a neighbor complaining and complaining without knowing the facts.”

Jim MacMillan offered another point of view. “As a real estate broker, I hear from people who are non-renters, and they feel their constitutional right of the peaceful enjoyment of their own property is being infringed,” he said. “With a rental registry, at least there’s contact information, and the landlord is responsible. Non-renters have rights, too.”

“If we’re talking about it, there’s a problem,” said John Broderick. A two-bedroom house on his street, he said, was home to 25 people at one time. “You would be hard pressed to find someone to say there’s not a problem with rentals.”

“I’m completely in favor of a rental registry,” Mr. Broderick added. “I’m sure when zoning was introduced in East Hampton Town, there was a firefight. But no one bitches about zoning now.”