Herrick Park is humming.
The long-awaited renovation, which has been split into three phases by the East Hampton Village Board, has begun on the approximately six-acre parcel.
If you walk through the park today, the work occurring behind covered chain-link fences is part of phase 1A, which was approved at a March 17 village board meeting, when the village also accepted a donation of just over $1 million from the East Hampton Village Foundation to cover the expense. Land Tek, the contractor that recently installed the ball fields on Stephen Hand’s Path, is doing the work.
Phase 1, which was to concentrate on the tennis and basketball courts and the soccer, softball, and baseball fields, was split into two parts in March, due to rising costs. And the finished product will look different from the Cashin Associates design of 2022, which reconfigured the area completely, switching the locations of the softball diamond and the tennis courts.
The phase 1A design by Cashin Associates, had included the removal of the basketball court, the reconstruction of the tennis courts, including the conversion of one into two pickleball courts, a completely revamped softball field with dugouts, and a new A.D.A.-compliant walkway leading from the Reutershan parking lot.
“During the estimation process for phase 1 we discovered that by flipping the softball and tennis courts we added over $1 million to the cost of construction,” Marcos Baladron, the village administrator, explained in an email. “By splitting phase 1 into A and B, we confirmed we could go ahead and get the work done by summer and that the East Hampton Village Foundation had all the funds to pay for the entirety of it.”
Left out of phase 1A are pickleball and the baseball field. The softball diamond and tennis courts will now remain in roughly the same location as before.
Large trees were recently felled between the back side of the Stop and Shop supermarket and the softball field to make space for a walkway that might mean fewer people traipsing across the outfield in the middle of a game.
Mr. Baladron also said in an email that “removing the trees here allows the village to be ready to move the electrical for future phases.”
As for the pickleball courts, the village decided to include them in the March plan after a survey sent out over the winter found that 66 percent of village residents who responded favored adding them to the park. However, even as they were approved, Mr. Baladron indicated at the meeting that the Ladies Village Improvement Society had asked that they be moved farther from their headquarters, which adjoins the park, due to noise concerns.
Neighbors of the L.V.I.S., Michael and Barbara Bebon, who also share a property line with the park, expressed concern privately to Mayor Jerry Larsen about the pickleball courts, as well. They were especially miffed, considering that as the village was pushing for their inclusion in the new design, it was simultaneously working on legislation restricting their installation on residential lots.
This led to a special work session on April 6, where, to appease the neighbors, the pickleball courts were removed from the phase 1A design. At the same meeting, the board determined that the work would have no major environmental impact and issued what is called a negative declaration under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act, meaning that no additional environmental analysis would be needed. A brick walkway was scrapped, replaced with concrete, and with the savings, football goal posts were added to the field between the baseball and softball diamonds.
However, the removal of the pickleball courts didn’t stop the Bebons from filing an Article 78 lawsuit against the village days later, alleging that a proper environmental review hadn’t been conducted, and that further, the mayor planned an ice rink and a permanent concert stage at the park, something that hadn’t been discussed at village board meetings. They are pushing for an injunction that would prevent such structures from being constructed anywhere in the park, at any phase.
Herrick Park was deeded to the Village of East Hampton in 1976 for $10 by the East Hampton Neighborhood Association, which was created in 1914, more or less, to give children something to do. That deed included restrictions about uses in the park. The Bebons claim pickleball, a concert stage, or an ice rink would all violate the restrictions. The deed also includes a reversion right, which means that should the restrictions not be followed, the East Hampton Neighborhood Association could reconstitute and legally regain title to the park.
“The mayor has told Mr. Bebon and many others that the village board intends to construct pickleball courts, an ice-skating rink, and a concert stage in Herrick Park,” Steve Altman, a lawyer representing the Bebons, wrote in an email. “Making those ‘improvements’ in ‘phases’ (as he and the board claim they are proceeding) is without question improper ‘segmentation’ under SEQRA. SEQRA and the village’s 2002 comprehensive plan, and the environmental impact statement within it, mandate a complete environmental review before any of those proposed actions are taken.”
In fact, under the general rules section of SEQRA, it states “Actions commonly consist of a set of activities or steps. The entire set of activities or steps must be considered the action, whether the agency decision-making relates to the action as a whole or to only a part of it.”
In other words, all phases together would be considered the “action” and would need to be reviewed as one unified plan under the law before work “phases” can begin. A judge may ultimately be asked to decide whether the village giving phase 1A a negative declaration under SEQRA at its April 6 special work session is sufficient as far as environmental review goes.
While taxpayers have been shielded from most rising costs thanks to the East Hampton Village Foundation donations, those costs could delay future phases of the park, as unexpected costs now gobble up more of the money the foundation is raising for the park.
At the April 21 village board meeting, the board accepted an additional donation of nearly $60,000 from the East Hampton Village Foundation for change orders from Land Tek. “Land Tek actually found we had three levels of tennis courts that all had to be removed,” Mayor Larsen explained. “No one knew that there were three levels of tennis courts, so it was a lot of extra trucking involved.”
But the foundation is not paying for everything. At its February meeting, the village was hit with nearly $100,000 in change orders for the renovation of the Herrick Park bathrooms, a project that was initially supposed to be completed last spring at a cost of $600,000. Work began in December 2022. At the time, Mayor Larsen predicted it would be complete by the end of January, but the bathrooms are still closed to the public.
Exact plans for phase 1B, phase 2, and phase 3 have yet to be unveiled. Mr. Baladron said in an email that phase 2 will focus on the playground area on Newtown Lane and phase 3 will tackle “the newly acquired properties near the long-term parking lot.” However, where the removed basketball court or pickleball courts end up remains to be seen.
“There are no plans past this project right now,” Mr. Baladron wrote in the same email. However, he promised that neighbors along Muchmore Lane will be consulted before work begins near their properties and that public input would be welcomed regarding the park when it is on the agenda at upcoming board meetings.
