An aptly described monster is rising over Ditch Plain. No, it’s not some kind of Godzilla offspring, but rather a massive new residence where the East Deck Motel used to be. The house is the first of several expected there, but what makes it stand out is its height. Federal storm rules updated after Hurricane Sandy require first-floor elevations as much as 14 feet above sea level in some places. Visitors to Ditch have been stunned by the construction, and homeowners nearby devastated by the loss of views toward the ocean. It did not have to be this way, and it should be a harsh lesson to elected officials who fail to think long term.
After decades in private ownership, the East Deck Motel went on the market in about 2010. This was the first missed opportunity; a town board majority ill-disposed toward preservation land buys never really pursued the issue. A buyer eventually paid Alice Houseknecht about $15 million for the five-acre property, then within a year flipped it to an investor group for $25 million, which then offered to work with the Town of East Hampton on a public purchase. However, by then the price had grown beyond the town’s ability to use money from its community preservation fund, and its fate was sealed. Looking back, it seems like an appalling failure that the town was not able to get its act together to protect and even improve Ditch Plain Beach, one of the most-loved ocean spaces on the East Coast.
Officials have become somewhat complacent since the community preservation fund came into existence in 1998. For years before that, local governments found the money for important public purchases without the 2-percent property transfer tax the preservation fund imposed. For example, Shadmoor State Park was once about to become a luxury development, but, after public pressure was turned on high, the town and state were able to finance a deal; today, it is a much-used natural asset whose trails are enjoyed by thousands of people every year. The same could have been accomplished at the East Deck site, had officials had the vision.
So now what? Now that construction has begun there, the town should begin to look for ways to go beyond the preservation fund limits as long as there is a clear public purpose. Two recent bad choices by the town board in deals with contributions from affected neighbors but that do not provide access to ordinary people should not be the model, however; the town’s shares in a controversial less-than-two-acre, low-priority $6.8 million woodland purchase on Green Hollow Road in East Hampton and a similar one for $4.2 million on Jones Creek in East Hampton Village have been called wasteful and a betrayal of the public trust.
In both these examples, influential interested parties chipped in, but the deals still may have taken money away from other, more environmentally important purchases. Similarly of marginal value, a $1 million mud removal at Town Pond in East Hampton Village burned public cash for no good reason and left a mess in its wake. Responsible long-term oversight of the preservation fund needs to be increased for the program to continue to have the impact that was intended when voters approved it in the first place.
While the current East Hampton Town Board was not responsible for the East Deck disaster, spending money does not seem an impediment when they want to do something big, like a new senior center or $3 million for ballfields. They must work harder the next time and the next to make sure that nothing like the East Deck disaster happens again.