The Wainscott Commercial Center will be required to provide more environmental analysis of its planned 50-unit industrial park near the western gateway to East Hampton Town, after a unanimous vote by the town planning board last week.
While the owner of the property, John Tintle, bemoaned the additional time the analysis would take, the board was firm, and, in comments, highlighted its responsibility to the town’s residents.
The Planning Department, working with Peter Feroe, a consultant from AKRF, recommended that Mr. Tintle provide a supplemental environmental review and offered an outline, or “scoping” of what that review would entail.
“I get the impression that you’re fine with the scoping, you just don’t think it’s fair,” said Reed Jones, one of the newer members of the board. “It is a very complex application. There are some serious environmental concerns, and I think this
is the appropriate way to go with no corner cutting.”
“I sympathize with his frustration,” said Louis Cortese, a board member. “However, the citizens of East Hampton want us to do a thorough job in estimating what this will mean for the town. We would be remiss if we didn’t dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t.’ “
Tina Vavilis LaGarenne, the town’s planning director, said the public would not be invited to comment on the scoping.
“The board has already received a significant amount of public comment,” she said. “The supplemental scope has been developed by incorporating comments from the public and involved agencies. Repeating public comment would not be advantageous.”
While Mr. Tintle has resisted calls to supplement the original environmental review of the site, the Planning Department offered two main reasons why it deemed this necessary.
First, after the original, and roundly criticized, draft environmental impact statement received a public hearing, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals decided that subdividing the 70.4-acre plot into 50 separate lots made it a “planned industrial park,” which requires a special permit.
Some of the special permit standards were not included in the original analysis.
Second, existing uses on the southern end of the site do not have certificates of occupancy, nor approved site plans, and so weren’t adequately described in the original environmental review. The Planning Department said this means the board may not fully understand the environmental hazards generated there.
Further, the potential for a sewage treatment plant that would serve the entire development, instead of 50 separate septic systems, needed more exploration than it received in the original review. Also, the idea of clustering building lots, instead of spreading them in a grid pattern across the 70 acres, presumably to allow for a public park somehere, needed more contemplation, the department said.
Public comments have called for the site to adhere to the town’s hamlet plan for Wainscott. Indeed, in January, Mr. Tintle said that was his desire as well.
The plan’s recommendations were not implemented into the town’s zoning code, however. It was adopted in 2020 by the town board and appended to the town’s 2005 comprehensive plan. It envisioned a mixed-use zone for the sandpit, including a public park and affordable housing. While it was discussed in the draft environmental impact statement that went to public hearing, the Planning Department said it wasn’t aligned with the town’s plan.
Ms. Vavilis LaGarenne said that while the department had asked Mr. Tintle “many times” to make his alternative hamlet plan development more consistent with the town’s plan, “that was not done.” Nonetheless, the town let his alternative pass, simply “to move the process forward.”
The Wainscott Commercial Center in its “hamlet plan alternative,” said it would offer lots to the town for a public park within five years of the approval of the subdivision. However, the sale of those lots to the town may not be realistic. If the planning board adopts the hamlet plan alternative, it doesn’t mean the town would necessarily have to purchase the lots from the commercial center. “You can’t compel an action from another party as part of a SEQRA decision,” said Ms. Vavilis LaGarenne. If the town ended up not purchasing the lots, Mr. Tintle would get the original subdivision map he offered, which has been widely criticized by the town and residents.
Mr. Feroe said a “soup to nuts” site history, starting from before it was a sand mine, is necessary if the board is going to understand the levels of subsurface contamination present on the parcel, which is only 500 feet away from Georgica Pond.
While the site has been tested by various entities through the years, he said it was the property owner’s responsibility to pool the tests together and present them to the board to provide “a more holistic” view of “potential issues.”
“When we’re talking about subsurface contamination here, we’re talking about the movement of 50 acres of material around the site and the regrading,” he said. “You have the authority and responsibility to take a look at what the impacts are with respect to this action. That’s why we’re seeking this additional information.”
Only with a true understanding of the environmental impacts can proper mitigation methods be contemplated, which is, after all, what the whole State Environmental Quality Review Act exercise is about.
The board not only agreed that a supplemental review was necessary, but unanimously adopted the Planning Department’s outline of that review.
“Very focused and very targeted,” said Ed Krug, the board’s chairman, describing the scope of the review.
