Town Lukewarm on Wainscott Housing

Affordable housing advocates who have been working on the creation of a 48-unit apartment complex for low-income residents that they had hoped could be built on town land in Wainscott have so far not seen support from the East Hampton Town Board, which has been asked to provide land for the project, as has been done for other affordable housing efforts.

Representatives of the Windmill Village Housing Development Fund Corporation had hoped to be included on the town board’s Tuesday work session agenda, but were not on the list as of yesterday, according to Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell. The housing group was involved in the creation of three affordable housing complexes for senior citizens, Windmill Village I and II in East Hampton and the St. Michael’s apartments in Amagansett.

At a recent candidates’ debate and again yesterday morning, Mr. Cantwell expressed concerns about the potential impact of the project on the Wainscott School District, which has 22 students at present in its two-room schoolhouse.

“There has to be a consideration as to overwhelming any particular school district . . . so that’s a concern,” said Mr. Cantwell yesterday.

The Wainscott School Board itself weighed in early on about the housing project, expressing opposition and urging the town board not to act until the potential impact could be further examined. The project would have a “profound impact” on the school, David Eagan, the school board president, told the town board.

But estimates of the number of additional students the project might add to the district in analyses prepared by the district and by the town Planning Department vary widely.

The Planning Department found that the apartment housing could add six to nine new students to the kindergarten through third-grade classes housed at the Wainscott School, and a total of 28 new students to the district, including the youngest children. The district sends its older students to the East Hampton School District.

Over the next 10 years, a total of 38 additional students could be expected in the Wainscott district if the apartments are built, according to the Planning Deparment analysis.

The Wainscott School District had predicted between 43 and 55 new students over the next 10 years if the affordable housing were built.

In response to the school district’s concerns, the Windmill organization revised its proposal, reducing the number of apartments sizable enough for families in the mix of one, two, and three-bedroom units.

David Weinstein, a member of the Windmill housing organization’s board of directors, said last week that he feels the new affordable housing proposal has “a lot of support in the community.”

In a presentation to the town board some time ago, Michael DeSario, who was also a member of the board and now serves the group as a consultant, said that federal, state, and county grants and tax credits could cover the entirety of the estimated $15 million construction costs.

“Our studies have shown that the residents of the housing would be 90 to 100-percent from the East Hampton community. The children are going to school here anyway,” said Mr. Weinstein last week.

And, he added, should the location of affordable housing in Wainscott result in a hike in school taxes for the education of more students, the district taxpayers could well shoulder it.

“Our thinking is, if you look at the taxes, the current tax in the Wainscott School District is approximately 20 percent or less than the taxes in the Springs School District.” The Wainscott taxes, he said, would “still be nowhere comparable” to those in surrounding areas. “It would still be the lowest school taxes by far among the five school districts.”

“At the end of the day it’s a question of fairness,” he said. “I have an ethos that we all have an obligation to educate our young.”

“Where is the burden to be taken on?” he asked. “The community at large,” he said, should be “fairly sharing the burden,” he said, “and they have the ability.”

Mr. Cantwell said yesterday that there are various ways to address the range of housing needs in East Hampton. “We have multiple housing needs throughout the town,” he said, “and if in a particular school district a 40-unit proposal requires either a major expansion of the school or [of] their students attending the school, there are options. There are ways to resolve these issues.”

The East Hampton School District has also recently expressed its concerns about the addition of new students from new affordable housing within its boundaries, and the cost of educating them, in light of an East Hampton Town plan to build 12 townhouse units on Accabonac Road.

In a letter and appearance before the town board last moth, Rich Burns, the East Hampton schools superintendent, said that while the East Hampton School Board “supports affordable housing” the board “does not believe that this fiscal responsibility should fall entirely to E.H.U.F.S.D. taxpayers — as is currently the case.”

Property taxes or payments in lieu of taxes provided for affordable housing complexes do not cover the per-pupil education costs, the letter said.

“There must be a more equitable geographic distribution of affordable family housing among the hamlets,” the school board wrote. “There must also be a concerted effort to develop a formula for equally distributing the educational costs associated with such housing among all of the taxpayers of East Hampton Town. The responsibility for affordable family housing — which benefits our entire town and our entire community — is one we must all share equally. That is not the case today.”