Government

The East Hampton Town Planning Board did last week what it has taken nearly five years to do: agreed that the draft environmental impact statement for the Wainscott Commercial Center was complete. The vote closes a chapter in the saga of the 70.4-acre former sand mine, located just north of the Speedway Station in Wainscott, and opens another, as a public comment period has now begun.

Following a rippling cyberattack on Suffolk County in September, the East Hampton Town Board announced Tuesday that it is fast-tracking upgrades to its own computer systems.

The Town of East Hampton was awarded a $350,000 federal grant earlier this month to explore “living shoreline” projects on Fort Pond and Lake Montauk.

After being named one of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in the United States earlier this year, the Springs property of the late artists James Brooks and Charlotte Park will now be the beneficiary of a full-on historical architectural assessment by Michael Devonshire of Jan Hird Pokorny Associates, a New York City firm “with a strong focus in historic preservation work,” according to its website.

The East Hampton Town Board debated the merits of four design proposals from R2 Architecture for a new senior center in Amagansett, rejected two, and has asked the board to fine tune the other two — one with "windmill" layout, the other with a linear layout.

An amphitheater, a boardwalk, and Montauk boulders were among the items discussed Tuesday night when Ed Hollander, the landscape architect behind the nascent John Steinbeck Park, at the base of the Lance Cpl. Jordan C. Haerter Veterans Memorial Bridge in Sag Harbor, updated the village board on the project.

Suffolk County has unveiled a revamped system of bus routes aimed at strengthening people’s ability to take the bus to work, with longer operating hours, service seven days a week, and more stops at train stations and employment hubs across the county.

The East Hampton Town Board this week revealed some details and a prospective timeline for a contentious plan to build an estimated $75 million sewage treatment plant in Hither Woods to serve parts of Montauk.

The site restoration and stormwater abatement project at the end of Louse Point Road in Springs has been completed as of mid-November — well in advance of the projected time frame when work began early that month. 

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals held a heated public hearing last week on an application by Farrell Builders to demolish a beach cottage, unchanged since the early 1970s, and construct a new house at 175 Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett.

In a move that surprised many people, last week the East Hampton Village Department of Public Works removed about 35 arborvitae, each anywhere between 20 and 30 feet tall, that separated Herrick Park from the Douglas E. Dayton Arboretum, the 3.2 acres at the end of Muchmore Lane that was purchased by the Town of East Hampton starting in 2017 with community preservation fund money.

The Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee would like to see streetlights added to the hamlet's commercial district from Indian Wells Highway to Atlantic Avenue, but it's a pricy proposition and one the East Hampton Town Board has yet to endorse.

Environmental consultants from the firm AKRF gave a detailed accounting of the environmental review process now taking off at East Hampton Airport at the town board’s work session on Tuesday.

The South Fork’s L.G.B.T.Q.+ community is celebrating President Biden’s signing on Tuesday of the Respect for Marriage Act, a new, bipartisan law that protects the marriages of same-sex couples across the country.

At the 12-second mark of a short YouTube video taken from backyard surveillance footage at a Merchants Path house in August, the sharp crack of a rifle shot rings out. As workers duck for cover, a bullet strikes the house. The clip is one piece of evidence in a lawsuit filed on Nov. 29 by seven homeowners who live near the Maidstone Gun Club, which as of Friday has been temporarily shuttered by order of a State Supreme Court judge.

A long-dormant agricultural tract on Cedar Street that was bought by East Hampton Town earlier this year will be farmed once again by a duo who were chosen for a unique opportunity to license the farmland, farm buildings, and a small house there.

After years of advocacy, Suffolk residents who took advantage of county Septic Improvement Program grants to replace their aging systems with a low-nitrogen variety will no longer need to claim those grants as taxable income, and those who were taxed for them in the past will be able to recoup their payments.

East Hampton Town Board members voted last Thursday to double the cost to residents or brokers to sign on to the East Hampton Rental Registry.

July Fourth drone shows, catered weddings in the sand, and surf instructors at Ditch Plain were among the issues invoked by the East Hampton Town Board during its Tuesday work session as the town looks to update its laws addressing permitted special events at public, residential, and commercial spaces.

The East Hampton Town Board is considering numerous revisions to the town code pegged to accessory dwellings. “There is an opportunity to solve this problem by using existing property,” the town supervisor said this week. “We are not going to build our way out of this problem,” he added, stressing that using existing property “requires removing some of the barriers” and possibly lifting the cap on the number of permissible buildouts of detached accessory units in the town.

The Route 114 project aims to add 50 units of housing and 100 beds for persons of moderate means and their families. It comprises two town-owned parcels, at 776 and 780 Route 114, together totaling 6.5 acres, and an adjoining two acres at 782 Route 114, owned by the Sag Harbor Community Housing Trust.

The village has leased the lot from KeySpan Energy for parking since 2016. It became the center of controversy this week when the village petitioned the Public Service Commission to nullify a new lease on the property, held by Adam Potter through his 11 Bridge L.L.C. If the commission lets the lease stand, it will begin on Jan. 1, and the lot would be out of the village’s control for the first time since 2016.

The East Hampton Town clerk’s office is accepting applications starting today for the annual lottery for hunters who want to use firearms to hunt deer during the month of January.

The solution to persistent flooding at the intersection of Stephen Hand’s Path and Route 114 in East Hampton, devised by traffic engineers hired by the town, is a new drainage trunkline now being installed underneath the road that will collect runoff through a series of manholes on the east side of Stephen Hand’s Path and channel the water into the woods on the south side of Route 114.

The East Hampton Village Board will raise the price of nonresident beach parking permits from $500 to $750 next year. But if you're here in the winter, mark your calendars: There will be a one-day, in-person sale at the old price for town residents.

The National Business Aviation Association, one of several entities to have filed a lawsuit to prevent East Hampton Town from privatizing its airport and enacting new restrictions on aircraft operations, has withdrawn its lawsuit. 

The renovation of the bathrooms at Herrick Park has begun, and at the other side of the park, when "The Platinum Bull" moves on after the holidays, Guild Hall will help choose future works for a pilot Art in the Park series.

In an attempt to get a handle on the impacts of the region's outsize deer population, East Hampton Town established a new fenced-in deer “exclosure” in mid-October in Northwest Woods. The idea of it is pretty simple: Deer are restricted from feasting inside the fence, so that the plant life inside “can be compared to vegetation outside of it to determine the impact deer 'browse' is having.”

“There is Christmas spirit,” said Rick White, president of the East Hampton Kiwanis Club, after he received 40 trees deemed too small by East Hampton Village to offer as part of the club's Christmas tree sale, which helps fund scholarships for local high school seniors, a holiday toy drive, and a donation to Katy’s Courage, among other causes.

Demonstrating a supply issue that dates back to 2008, Canadian grower’s first shipment to Fowler’s Garden Center had no larger trees, so it offered East Hampton Village smaller ones at a discount. Now it will provide larger trees of a more expensive variety for the same price. “We don’t do this to make money,” said Rick Fowler. “This is our way to give back to the community.”