Government

East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez has written to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to request an amendment to the Fire Island Inlet to Moriches Inlet, Downtown Montauk project to incorporate damages to the ocean beach caused by storms in December and January.

Kevin Gilbride had just turned south on Wainscott Northwest Road from Route 114 one day last month when a dead 75-foot pitch pine, one of thousands killed by the southern pine beetle infestation, fell on the roof of his truck. “There were branches everywhere. The dogs were freaking out. I thought it was a plane or something.”

The East Hampton Town Planning Board voted on Jan. 24 to advise the town board that it objects to the latter’s plan to take the lead on reviewing the town’s new senior citizens center, exempting it from oversight by the planning, zoning, and architectural review boards.

East Hampton Town is seeking a coastal morphologist to consult with the town to provide “the most effective short and long-term solutions” to help residents of Ditch Plain in Montauk mitigate storm surge inundation.

A New York State Supreme Court judge has denied the East Hampton Town Trustees’ motion seeking clarification of a May 2023 order that both the trustees and the town must pay $389,060 of the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees as defendants in lawsuits brought in 2009 over ownership of a stretch of Napeague ocean beach popularly known as Truck Beach.

“For Windmill I alone, we have 130 people on a waiting list. For Windmill II, it’s over 450 people,” said the project development coordinator with the development for people 62 and older on Accabonac Road in East Hampton. Because of the swelling waitlist, its board wants to expand, and is seeking a path forward that would allow it to get federal grants but also meet town code requirements.

Anxious Sag Harbor residents did not get to have their say on Adam Potter’s 11 Bridge Street L.L.C. project this week, but there was news of a smaller plan at another property owned by Mr. Potter, where Michael Gluckman and his wife, Lila Beudert-Gluckman, are hoping to create a 23-seat “Smashburger”-style restaurant.

If a preliminary application heard by the East Hampton Town Planning Board on Jan. 10 gains any traction, Wainscott — known for Georgica Pond, farm fields, and its oceanfront — could soon add storage facilities to its list of attractions. There are three already, all full, and more proposed.

The East Hampton Town Board, acting on recommendations from the town’s special events committee, voted to update fees for special events, which have not changed since 2018.

With a sense of urgency, the East Hampton Town Board discussed the hiring of a surveyor to assess current beach profile conditions at Ditch Plain in Montauk and to determine the necessary volume and source of sand, its placement, and the cost to restore it to a healthy level.  

The East Hampton Town Trustees voted unanimously on Monday to grant a request from Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences to grow sugar kelp in waters under trustee jurisdiction between Barcelona Point and Little Northwest Creek.

The most detailed justification to date of the size, design, and cost of East Hampton Town’s new senior citizens center was aired before the town board on Tuesday, as several residents continued to question and voice skepticism about the need for a 22,000-square-foot, $31.6 million building.

Long in the works, a plan to overhaul the way sewage and wastewater are processed at Montauk Shores Condominiums took a significant step forward in December when the Suffolk County Department of Health Services approved an application for a new sewage treatment plant there.

Representative Nick LaLota of New York's First Congressional District announced on Saturday that he is endorsing former president Donald Trump's campaign for president. 

In a petition started Monday, the Ditch Plains Association is gathering signatures to “urgently appeal to the East Hampton Town Board to take immediate and decisive action to address the critical loss of the protective dune . . . a consequence of two recent coastal storms.”

In the cross hairs of Adam Potter's plans for a large mixed-use building in downtown Sag Harbor Village are four structures that contribute to the village's historic distrct and, according to the village code, are not to be removed.

“Now is the hard moment,” East Hampton Town’s planning director told the town board during an assessment of a ravaged coastline after three storms in the past month, as mobilization for the downtown Montauk portion of the long-awaited Fire Island to Montauk Point beach renourishment project was getting underway.

The Mill Hill Realty Corporation was in front of the East Hampton Village Design Review Board again this week with plans for its Toilsome Farms Restaurant and Brewery. Dubbed a “beer hall” by neighbors who oppose it, an owner described the proposed business as “a restaurant, not a rowdy party scene.”

The East Hampton Town Board has set Feb. 1 as a tentative date to decide whether to exempt the proposed new senior citizens center, to be constructed on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett, from the town’s zoning and land-use procedures.

Ahead of dropping temperatures expected to freeze the rain and slush left by Tuesday's inclement weather, a majority of schools in East Hampton and Southampton Towns have announced delayed openings for Wednesday. East Hampton Town government offices will open two hours later on Wednesday.

Clearing and other site activity for Cantwell Court, the planned affordable-housing subdivision at 395 Pantigo Road in East Hampton, is to begin as soon as next week.

The East Hampton Town Board’s liaison assignments for 2024 were announced on Tuesday, with the supervisor and four councilmembers assigned to each of the hamlets and their citizens advisory committees as well as town departments. Other assignments were to the All Hands on Housing initiative to create affordable housing for residents, key projects, various boards, and citizens and internal committees. 

Tuesday, Jan. 23, will be the day for East Hampton Town residents to purchase village beach parking permits, a week before they go on sale to the general public.

In papers filed with Suffolk County Supreme Court on Jan. 2, the East Hampton Village attorney said a petition filed by the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association claiming that the village had improperly transferred an ambulance service certificate away from the association, an independent nonprofit, and taken over its bank account, was a “slapdash effort” and a “frivolous filing” that shouldn’t be heard by the court.

Mobilization for the Montauk portion of the 83-mile-long Fire Island to Montauk Point beach renourishment project is to begin Thursday, with temporary road closures to allow mobilization of very large equipment including bulldozers and 35-foot lengths of piping. Beach infill is to begin next month, when an offshore dredge will pump 80,000 cubic yards of sand a day onto the downtown beach.

The East Hampton Town Board came under sharp questioning from residents during last Thursday’s public hearing on the possible exemption of the new senior citizens center from the town’s zoning code and land-use procedures.

Construction began this week on broken roof trusses at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street, where East Hampton Village has held its public meetings for decades.

The founder of a group that promotes fitness and the outdoors urged the Sag Harbor Village Board on Tuesday to improve the community’s access to its surrounding waterways.

The trustees re-elected Francis Bock to the position of clerk, or presiding officer, and Jim Grimes and Bill Taylor as deputy clerks. They also honored Susan McGraw Keber, who served three terms as a trustee until her retirement at the end of 2023.

Ian Calder-Piedmonte, vice chairman of the East Hampton Town Planning Board, liaison to the town’s agricultural advisory committee, and a co-owner of Balsam Farms in East Hampton and Amagansett, has been appointed to fill the seat on the town board that was vacated by Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez when she became supervisor at the start of this year.