Government

Two public hearings held on July 26 before the East Hampton Town Planning Board drew scant comment, though both concerned projects that are large and potentially impactful for their neighborhoods.

There’s talk lately that artificial intelligence is going to wipe out the human race. Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if first it mowed our lawns? That’s the idea behind Greener, a Southampton company recently hired by East Hampton Village to cut two parcels of village-owned lawn at Village Hall and the Isaac Osborne House with robotic mowers.

Farrell Companies was before the Southampton Town Planning Board on July 13 with two intertwined applications that could result in 156,162 square feet of self-storage space spread over four buildings at 251 Butter Lane. To put that into perspective, the Home Sweet Home storage facility application that has been tied up in knots before the East Hampton Town Planning Board for the last few years is asking for 55,000 square feet of building.

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals approved, in late July, plans by Carissa's Bakery to make improvements to its building and add housing for workers above a new structure proposed for an adjacent lot, which is to be merged with the main lot.

A plan to employ goats to remove invasive species in the Arthur Benson Preserve on Old Montauk Highway that Concerned Citizens of Montauk pitched to the East Hampton Town Board last month may sound quaint, but the board lightly tapped the brakes on the proposal on Tuesday when two residents pushed back on the idea, citing a judge’s 1994 ruling that prohibits fencing or any other structures on the roughly 40 acres south of the roadway and overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. 

Getting to the groundbreaking for the Montauk Playhouse Community Center’s new aquatic center was reminiscent of the concept of “third places,” said Sarah Iudicone, the Playhouse Foundation’s president. After home and work, “third places play an important part in our identity. They allow us to open ourselves up, learn more about the people around us, and deepen our civic engagement. And because of all of your support, Montauk is going to have a new third place.”

The Sag Harbor Village Board took a first step toward returning to the planning board authority over special exception use permits for buildings greater than 3,500 square feet in the newly created Waterfront Overlay Protection District. It reverses an action that dates back to January 2022.

The New York State Supreme Court judge who has consistently sided with plaintiffs in lawsuits that have blocked East Hampton Town from closing and reopening its airport as a private facility and implementing flight restrictions there handed the town a victory last Thursday, denying the plaintiffs’ motion to require the town’s outside counsel to return to the airport fund money received for work performed after he imposed a temporary restraining order to halt the town’s plans in May 2022. 

East Hampton Town’s Ordinance Enforcement Department issued a stop-work order at the 50-unit affordable housing complex under construction on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton on Tuesday after a heavy rainfall that morning led to runoff pouring down from the site and onto Three Mile Harbor Road. 

The East Hampton Town Board held a public hearing last Thursday on proposed amendments to the town code that are intended to tighten control over the massive geotextile sandbags that are used to protect waterfront properties from erosion. 

Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Joseph Santorelli dismissed Michael Bebon’s lawsuit against East Hampton Village regarding pickleball at Herrick Park last week, but that didn’t stop Mr. Bebon and a phalanx of lawyers from showing up at Monday’s village board meeting to draw another line in the park’s sandbox.

The East Hampton Housing Authority’s five properties will soon see the installation of solar panels that are estimated to produce a combined 927 megawatt hours annually. Once the buildings have been solarized, residents will receive at least a 15-percent reduction in their electricity costs.

On a visit to the East End last week, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced proposed legislation that would regulate perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances — of a class of chemicals known as PFAS — which have been determined to be dangerous at any level of exposure.

East Hampton Town is "leading by example with upgrading our town-owned municipal facilities to innovative alternative, low-nitrogen sanitary systems,” according to the environmental analyst with the Natural Resources Department. Five upgrades have been completed and many more are in the works.

Adam Potter has tabled controversial plans for a 79-unit downtown affordable apartment building with 34,000 square feet of retail space, and said he will instead submit plans to Sag Harbor Village for a building with 39 residential units and a third of the retail space originally proposed.

End Citizens United, which works to elect Democratic candidates and to combat the influence of money in politics, has filed a second complaint against Representative Nick LaLota of New York’s First Congressional District, this one alleging that he violated federal election law by failing to file complete financial disclosure reports.

The New York League of Conservation Voters has endorsed East Hampton Town Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez in her bid for supervisor, as well as Westhampton Beach Mayor Maria Moore, who is running for supervisor of Southampton Town. Both are Democrats.

A representative from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s Build Ready program pitched a study to the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday that would identify potential sites for solar farms and battery storage systems on town-owned properties.

The Suffolk County Legislature voted 10 to 7 along partisan lines to recess and close its hearing on Tuesday without acting to put the Suffolk County Water Quality Protection Act on the Nov. 7 ballot, which would have let voters decide whether or not the county sales tax should be increased by one-eighth of a cent to create a Water Quality Restoration Fund.

The East Hampton Town Board is in discussions with the Long Island Rail Road about the Cranberry Hole Road Bridge over the railroad tracks, which was has been closed since July 1 because of structural problems.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs who have successfully thwarted East Hampton Town’s plan to briefly close East Hampton Airport and reopen it as a private airport have told the New York State Supreme Court that they calculated nearly $295,000 in fees associated with a May motion holding the town in civil contempt, fees the judge in the suit had ordered the town to pay. The town's attorneys say those fees are excessive and that the court should reject them.

The Southampton Town Board, at a special meeting last Thursday, voted unanimously to hold an Aug. 8 public hearing on the imposition of a six-month moratorium on applications for battery energy storage systems, following an outcry from residents near a proposed installation on North Road in Hampton Bays. Several board members expressed support for the proposed moratorium.

Representative Nick LaLota of New York’s First Congressional District has joined the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, a group comprising an equal number of Republicans and Democrats.

Auditors told the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday that they found nothing amiss in a review of the town's finances. "Everything’s really in good shape,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said.

The Huntting Inn wants to add a swimming pool to its property, to which at least one neighbor has objected. “If the application is granted, I imagine the Maidstone Inn, Hedges Inn, Mill House Inn, and perhaps some B&Bs, will ask for [a pool], and the fresh precedent will be difficult to overcome,” Frank Morgan told the Zoning Board of Appeals on Friday.

Is your property overrun with invasive plants like honeysuckle and poison ivy? You may want to consider goats. That’s in part what Concerned Citizens of Montauk pitched to East Hampton Town for the roughly 40-acre Arthur Benson Preserve on Old Montauk Highway.

A lawsuit brought by four Wainscott residents challenging the onshore construction of the South Fork Wind farm, one of many efforts to stop its construction via the courts, was dismissed by a federal judge this week. 

Tom Flight, a Democratic Party candidate for the East Hampton Town Board, is on the road to recovery after spending four days at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital following a seizure on July 4. 

A proposed amendment to the East Hampton Town code would allow volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers with two years of qualifying service to apply for a partial tax exemption.

The first substantive discussion of progress made by a work group charged with amending East Hampton Town’s zoning code happened at the town board’s work session on Tuesday, and many of the dozen residents who spoke about it during the meeting’s 90-minute public comment period tied the effort to curb development to the myriad manifestations of environmental degradation and climate change throughout the United States and around the world.