After reviewing an initial environmental analysis of the proposed Wainscott Commercial Center, the East Hampton Town Planning Department has found it insufficient and recommended further analysis to address lingering concerns.
The draft environmental impact statement on the commercial center, a proposed 50-lot subdivision at a 70-acre former sand mine, “requires substantial revision and supplemental analyses that must be completed before a final E.I.S. can be prepared,” according to an April 28 memo from the Planning Department.
“There are a lot of open questions about this application that need to be resolved,” said Jeremy Samuelson, the town planning director.
The draft impact statement, which was the subject of a planning board hearing in February, suggested that placing 50 commercial industrial lots in a grid on a land a few hundred feet from the mouth of Georgica Pond and along one of the busiest stretches of Montauk Highway, would have no big impact.
“Failure to acknowledge the significant adverse impacts does not provide an appropriate basis for the development of adequate mitigation or meet the standards of” State Environmental Quality Review, according to the Planning Department memo.
“Issues observed include but are not limited to: deficiencies and flaws with the quality and accuracy of the data; flaws with the detailed manner in which methodology for study was applied; analysis assumptions which are not supported with sufficient supporting logic or data or not conservative for impact assessment purposes, and a lack of sufficient detail to support conclusions.”
The health of nearby Georgica Pond seemed paramount among the Planning Department’s concerns. A supplemental environmental impact statement will need to include a “substantive analysis of a sewage treatment plant” to serve the entire subdivision, the Planning Department wrote. Wainscott Commercial had proposed 50 lots, each with a separate septic system.
In addition, the Planning Department is requesting “revised water quality and ecology analysis that assesses potential impacts of additional nitrogen loading to Georgica Pond using updated analytical methods.”
“We are pleased that the Planning Department has recognized that the applicant’s analysis of the impacts to Georgica Pond are woefully inadequate and outdated,” said Sara Davison, executive director of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation. “The continued restoration of Georgica Pond’s water quality requires less nitrogen loading not more.”
In a May 5 letter to Samuel Kramer, the planning board chairman, David Eagan, the attorney for Wainscott Commercial, pushed back on the idea that a supplemental environmental impact statement was necessary. “There really is no substantive purpose to be served by an S.E.I.S., since the planning board can make sure all issues are addressed to their satisfaction before the F.E.I.S. is adopted,” he wrote.
“The only obvious purpose of an S.E.I.S. in this case is to delay the process, as an S.E.I.S. must be subject to the full procedures of SEQR, including a new hearing. The D.E.I.S. went through several rounds of review before the planning board determined that the document was adequate with respect to scope and content for the purpose of public review. The Planning Department’s comments appear to be an attempt to reverse that determination and restart the completeness review essentially because many comments have been received.”
The large development would also have significant impacts on the surrounding community that the Planning Department felt were not explored in depth nor mitigated. The department suggested that the supplemental environmental analysis present more alternatives to the current grid plan of 50 commercial industrial lots “that includes the hamlet plan/planned industrial park alternative that meets the town’s comments and special permit requirements.”
The entire analysis that Wainscott Commercial conducted in its draft impact statemnt assumed that each of the 50 lots would be developed at only 17 percent coverage. The Planning Department found that number conservative and said so in an Oct. 14, 2020, memo. Wainscott Commercial failed to agree to a covenant limiting it to that level of buildout in the D.E.I.S. “If the applicant cannot provide sufficient analysis to substantiate the appropriateness of these assumptions and commit to these development restrictions via a covenant, then the buildout analysis will require revision,” the department wrote in its April memo. “If these buildout assumptions are underestimating buildout potential, the D.E.I.S. has underestimated potential impacts, rendering the D.E.I.S. insufficient for impact assessment purposes.”
At the planning board’s Feb. 8 five-hour public hearing on the D.E.I.S. offered by Wainscott Commercial, not a single person spoke in favor of the development.
The Planning Department has yet to wade through all the public comments, but suggested that in addition to its concerns about the analytical deficiencies of the D.E.I.S., further study could be triggered when addressing those comments.
“We expect that a dialogue with the applicant will be necessary to fully develop the scope of study for supplemental analysis,” reads the memo. In addition to its many other concerns about the subdivision, the Planning Department suggested that Wainscott Commercial “has not demonstrated the public need or benefit from the proposed action.”
The planning board is reviewing the Planning Department memo. “We look forward to receiving the formal response from the applicant, as well as the Planning Department analysis of the public comments,” Mr. Kramer, the planning board chairman, said in a phone call this week.
The Planning Department offered to discuss the memo at planning board meetings last night and on Wednesday, to keep the application moving, but Wainscott Commercial requested more time to digest the memo and public comments. “The applicant has requested a pause until at least early June, and we have agreed,” said Mr. Samuelson. “If the applicant wants to hit pause, we hit pause.”
