A public hearing on an East Hampton Town proposal to alter the calculation that governs the maximum size of a house — going from a gross floor area of 10 percent of a lot size plus 1,600 square feet down to 7 percent of the lot size plus 1,500 square feet — was replete with buzzwords: community, resources, traffic, McMansion, greed, and sliding scales. Building professionals and concerned citizens stuffed Town Hall past capacity to offer mostly educated comments.
In a sense, no matter what legislation the board eventually passes, it could be viewed as a win for local government. A room full of citizens engaged over, of all things, a wonky piece of zoning code.
For reference, if the code change passes, a house on a quarter-acre, which could now be 2,689 square feet (not including the first 600 square feet of a garage and basement) could max out at 2,262 square feet. On half an acre a house that could be 3,778 square feet now, could only be 3,025 square feet if the change is adopted.
For over two years, the town’s zoning code amendment working group has toiled, parsing code, scrutinizing data, and studying residential building projects to understand the outsize homes that have proliferated across the East End. In December, the town board passed the so-called “loophole amendments” to reduce exploitation of the code.
At last Thursday’s public hearing, things kicked off aggressively.
“This is a gross overreach and a taking of property owner rights and property values,” John Barylski, an engineer and surveyor, said. “Everybody should look up something called a ‘class action lawsuit.’ “
Then they cooled off, with the next seven speakers pushing the board to not only adopt the changes but revert to the tighter recommendations of 7 percent plus 1,300 square feet recommended by the code amendment group.
In the end, the board heard the opinions of over 40 people. Roughly 60 percent spoke in favor of the changes.
Robert DeLuca, the president of the Group for the East End, said the board should stick to the original recommendation because the amount of work that went into it would make it easier to defend in court, should it be challenged.
“Nobody knows the size of this town in terms of people. The winter census population is useless. Most of the people are here right now,” said Bill Akin, a Montauk resident, drawing laughter. He put the code changes in the context of the 2005 comprehensive plan. Without a method for setting a “saturation population,” planners relied on limiting the number of building lots, he said. The size of houses or the number of people who could live within them had not been anticipated.
“What I’m saying is that houses and property and lots are not necessarily the primary problem. The primary problem is the number of people. They cause traffic jams. They leave debris on the beach. They require emergency services. They need utilities and town services. Bottom line, I’m in favor of anything, including this proposal, to limit the size of houses.”
Speakers on both sides said that if the board acted counter to the speakers’ own positions, they may be forced to leave the town.
“We may choose to pack up, move to Manhattan, rent our place here, and be one of the many renters that subsidize their income through Airbnb,” said Ruben Cano, who was against the proposals.
“If in a few years my modest house is surrounded by McMansions, imposing hedges and electric gates and I no longer can pass my neighbors daily on my street walking their dogs, saying hello, I may choose to leave. It will be because the soul of my community is gone, and once it’s gone it’s never coming back” said Christina Buckley, who supported the more restrictive 7 percent and 1,300 square feet.
Others, like Ed Krug, chairman of the town planning board, worried that overdevelopment might make people
who don’t even live here yet decide to live elsewhere, impacting property values.
“Every time a new outsized house is built that overshadows its neighbors, that is incompatible, we diminish our community character. A thousand paper cuts later we are not going to be the charming semi-rural place that attracted us all here in the first place, and this is not going to be a town that people are going to want to be in, play in, live in, and invest in,” he said.
Some became philosophical.
“There is the Irish blessing: ‘May you have enough,’ “ said Gloria Frazee. “What is enough? There is something called the Hedonic treadmill; the more you get the more you want. It’s never enough, and I think we need to get off that Hedonic treadmill.”
“There are no villains in this discussion. There are no bad guys. There are different interests,” said Katy Casey. “I would venture to guess that everybody in this room owns property, but a lot of people don’t own property. All things are relative.” She supported 7 percent and 1,300.
Speakers on both sides used our national moment to try and make their point.
“Compromise is something we could use a lot more of in our government these days” said Larry Kane, a builder, who, like others in his industry, supported a move to 8 percent and 1,600 square feet.
While Kathy Cunningham, who supported 7 and 1,300, said, “Show us that democratic government can work at this time when the national conversation makes so little sense. Give us faith that government works.”
Others kept emotion at bay and presented statistics. “In 2022, there was a global status report for building and construction, and it stated that the built environment accounts for 37 percent of global CO2 emissions and locally that has the single biggest impact on our sustainability,” said Paul Munoz, chairman of the town’s energy and sustainability committee. “Supersizing development trends are not compatible with the East Hampton Town Comprehensive Plan.”
Another theme was generation clash.
“When I was growing up it wasn’t unusual for families to have five or six kids,” said Jeffrey Palermo of Montauk, who identified himself as a baby boomer. “The houses were much smaller back then and people got along fine.”
“What people need is relative,” said Ms. Casey. “If you can’t get happy in a 6,000-square-foot house, you are not going to be happy in an 8,000-square-foot house.”
“I agree with that, of course,” said Liz Miller, of Springs. “We’re not trying to build 6,000-square-foot houses. We don’t have lots that allow that. We have tiny little lots that have tiny little homes and we need to be able to make them livable. This makes it nearly impossible. We don’t want the mansions either. Go after them. But there’s got to be some sort of solution that leaves us alone.”
Others asked for more time to weigh the pros and cons of the proposal. “I’m begging that the board take a pause and allow the substantial changes that have already been made to take effect and evaluate their impact,” said John Grant, who was against the changes.
Without a clear consensus, and with some calling for a townwide vote on the matter, the pressure on the board was intense.
“It’s going to take a lot of guts to do it,” said Rona Klopman of Amagansett, who said she strongly supported 7 percent and 1,300 square feet.
After two hours, the public hearing was closed.
The board plans to discuss the comments at the hearing at its meeting on Tuesday.
