Government

The church bells in the village will be ringing more often than usual this weekend as the Presbyterian Church and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church welcome visitors on Saturday and Sunday as part of the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s 2024 Sacred Sites open house weekend.

There will be more opportunities for East Hampton Town residents to transform their food scraps into healthy soil this year, thanks to East Hampton Compost. The loose collaboration between ReWild Long Island and the town is in its second year.

The East Hampton Town Board voted last Thursday to approve the purchase of a .46-acre property at 6 Oyster Shores Road near Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton using $1.4 million from the community preservation fund.

The town-owned Montauk Skatepark was recognized last month with a platinum Engineering Excellence Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of New York.

The maximum allowable size of a single-family residence in East Hampton Town should be sliced in half, from 20,000 square feet to 10,000, a working group looking at sweeping zoning code amendments told the town board. Another key proposal, which proved controversial, was to include finished basements and attached garages in calculating a house’s gross floor area.

The environmental review for East Hampton Town's new 22,000-square-foot senior citizen center in Amagansett will be guided by the town board, not the planning board, after a decision was reached Tuesday by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. 

With major improvements planned for North Main Street and Three Mile Harbor Road from East Hampton into Springs, the Suffolk County Department of Public Works and the East Hampton Town Board and town staff want to hear from the public about the road and its future. At a hearing at Town Hall on Wednesday at 7 p.m., officials from the town and county will talk about the plans and take comments from the public.

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals agreed with the town Planning Department last month that a detailed and lengthy environmental review is necessary for a proposal to build a 108-foot stone revetment, 83-foot PVC retaining wall, and new house at 117 Bay View Avenue on Napeague. This despite accusations of complicity between the board and the Planning Department from Brian Matthews, the attorney for Nicholas Grecco, who owns the parcel.

The Sag Harbor Planning Board agreed that Adam Potter’s plans for a 61,292-square-foot downtown building including 44 apartments and nearly 8,000 square feet of commercial space would require a lengthy environmental review. The developer said he is “happy to go through the process. . . . We’d love to be able to answer any questions that people have.”

Former United States Representative George Santos, who on March 7 announced his intention to run as an independent for New York's First Congressional District, which includes the South Fork, has dropped out of the race.

A reconstructed baseball diamond for Herrick Park, complete with dugouts, will be playable by "Memorial Day weekend, give or take," Chris Hines, an account manager with the LandTek Group, told the East Hampton Village Board at Friday's meeting. The board determined that the project will have little environmental impact, and approved $535,720.60 for the work, which will come out of the village's general fund.

The stage was set as the East Hampton Village Board prepared to hold a public hearing about proposed legislation to restrict business hours in the historic district, legislation that seemed aimed at discouraging Zero Bond, a private membership club, from leasing or purchasing the Hedges Inn and turning it into a night spot for the ultra-rich.

The East Hampton Town Board is considering prohibiting overnight parking at 31 town lots and road ends and is also weighing new stop signs at a number of busy intersections.

“I have a big list of thank-yous and acknowledgments, because I stand on the shoulders of giants,” Suffolk County Legislator Ann Welker said, reflecting on her first 100 days in office.

East Hampton Village is moving forward on a few stormwater-abatement projects, which together could improve the quality of the water in Georgica Pond.

Starting June 1, the East Hampton Town Trustees, the stewards of beaches, wetlands, and waterways throughout both East Hampton Town and Village, will charge a new $300 fee for events held at the five village beaches, Main Beach, Egypt Beach, Two Mile Hollow, Wiborg’s Beach, and Georgica.

After several months of delays related to manufacturing, Suffolk County's expansion of on-demand bus service to East Hampton Town is set to begin on Sunday.

Public officials in search of new revenue streams love paid parking. So now might be a good time to get familiar with ParkMobile, as the number of lots using it here is growing.

On April 10, the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued a final determination on limits for “forever chemicals” in drinking water sources, along with a three-to-five-year timeline by which testing and remediation are to occur and about $1 billion in funding to support states, cities, and other municipalities in carrying out that testing and remediation.

Proposals to deal with wastewater at Rowdy Hall and two Montauk businesses, a hotel and a restaurant, were greenlighted at a town board work session last week. But the highlight might have been an eelgrass project for Napeague Harbor.

East Hampton Town’s new community housing fund, voted into law in November 2022 and financed by a half-percent tax on real estate sales paid by the buyer, has brought in $4.2 million in its first year, Eric Schantz, director of the Housing and Community Development Department, reported to the town board on Tuesday. The money is intended chiefly for affordable housing and to help first-time homebuyers.

The Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, which in recent months has been debating the pros and cons of the proposed new East Hampton Town Senior Citizens Center, did so again this week, with many thorny questions still on the minds of members.

In his bid for the Democratic nomination for New York’s First Congressional District, John Avlon of Sag Harbor this week picked up the endorsement of the New York State Democratic Committee chairman, Jay Jacobs, and of all five members of the East Hampton Town Board.

“Our goal is to not allow what happened previously, and to keep it on the up and up,” said Tara Burke of Lighthouse Land Planning, speaking for Rhett Beckmann, the owner of the Beckmann Commercial building at 94 South Euclid Avenue in Montauk.

Recognizing that there is a need for more senior citizen housing in East Hampton Town, Eric Schantz, the town’s director of housing and community development, recommended this week that the board craft legislation to allow increased density for senior housing complexes, suggesting 12 housing units per acre for senior housing versus the eight that is now allowed.

A rocky revetment, rocky relationships, and even conspiracy theories were on display at the East Hampton Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on April 2, during a public hearing involving a proposed 108-foot-long, 10-foot-high revetment at the end of Bay View Avenue on Napeague. The structure, meant to deflect waves, was instead creating them.

Mary Mott, chief of the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, along with Mary Ellen McGuire, the first assistant chief, Laura Van Binsbergen, the treasurer, and Suzanne Dayton, the secretary, have filed an Article 78 petition in Suffolk County Supreme Court, to dissolve the ambulance association and transfer its funds to a new nonprofit corporation that was set up in October 2023 called the East Hampton Village Ambulance Members, Inc.

When the Springs General Store eventually reopens — and it won’t be this summer — it will still serve egg sandwiches and coffee starting at 7 a.m., but it won’t be selling alcohol for on-site consumption, as originally planned.

"Buses providing scheduled commuter services open to the public would be exempted" from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's central Manhattan congestion-tolling program, according to a breakdown of the plan approved by the M.T.A. board on March 27. That includes the Hampton Jitney bus company.

“For me personally, socialization is very important,” said Vicki Lundin. “The amazing staff at the senior center are caring and highly effective.” But, she said, East Hampton Town's current senior citizens center is too crowded.