001e e e eastampton Town board we are live being streamed and recording right thank you LTV good morning everyone and welcome to the East Hampton Town board work session of Tuesday March 18th 2025 Carol if you could please do the Roll Call president pres president president if we could all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands one nation God indivisible with libery and justice for all so the this morning we open with public portion and we ask you to kindly keep your comments to 3 minutes and then we'll move on to our topics we have our friends from the mon talk Historical Society here today to give us an update it's Joe gaviola Mia certic Martha reart
002and dick white welcome today we then will have a presentation on our community services the 2024 accomplishments and 2025 goals for two of our departments we have Diane patrio the Director of Human Services and our super superintendent of recreation John Rooney presenting then Joanne pilgram will present the uh 2025 firsttime home buyer assistance program and then we'll have an after hearing discussion on the gross floor area formula that was a public hearing we heard on March 6 and that would be will be led by Deputy supervisor Kate Rogers that'll be followed by liaison reports and then we have a few resolutions so we're going to start with the with folks that signed up and we have I'm sorry Ellen I can't read your middle name cook okay please come up to the podium I just
003wanted just so we have you um Folks at home can hear you welcome Ellen good morning uh I wanted to express some concern you just have to state your name for the my name is Ellen McMahon cook I live in montalk New York on essic Street uh I have some concerns about some some things that I heard about the possible transfer of both Kirk Park and the second house property to the monok historical society which is a wonderful organization but the transfer of a large por portion of public land to a private entity is something that we should be concerned about as space is shrinking in our town and then it would be difficult to control what happens on that property and who has access to it and in what ways and I'm just asking
004the town board to proceed with tremendous caution not to keep the monok Historical Society from continuing to operate on that property but I don't understand the reasons for ownership rather than the town retaining ownership of that and as we've seen in the country in the last eight weeks things change radically quickly over time so that what sounds like one plan might not be the same plan in two years and the town would have nothing uh to say about that largely you might end up in court over it but it it just seems like a shame to give up a huge portion of at the front of our town of of public property um and then seed control over that to a private organization that's my concern okay not that I don't love the montalk Historical
005Society but still it's it's a principle that's it thanks thank you okay that's all we have signed up is there anyone here that would like to address the board Gloria welcome Gloria you can pull that down and make it on TI to you saw uh Gloria fry uh re wild Long Island East Hampton um I'm in my 60s I still remember my mother saying clean up your room young lady and uh I also remember when I finally did it with great reluctance and put everything away all the dolls that I didn't play with anyway but back on the Shelf she's saying good girl that's great everything nice and clean lovely somehow I'm betting I'm not the only person who's experienced this this Dynamic anyone else yeah a couple heads nodding um somehow we've brought that
006forward into our adult lives where we feel like we need to clean up everything and be good people and showing that with we're taking care of our our house our everything by by cleaning up there's some places that don't want to be cleaned up like our yards at this point in time until the temperatures hit uh 50 degrees and stay there for an entire week day and night you've got a massive number of beneficial pollinators and other insects living in the leaves in the soil and every time now that I hear um uh gas powered leaf blower blowing it's like I just think it's this this is the sound of death we are killing our natural resource by thinking that we need to clean up right now and I'm I'm itching with everyone else to
007get my hands in the ground right now and start you know getting everything ready for spraying and more planting but I also know it's the wrong thing to be doing right now so I'd like to encourage people to wait and this also then ties in with the discussion you'll have later on about GFA in that what we do matters what we decide matters how we act in our own in our own yards and how we help our community take care of our our properties matters and I want to make sure that we're preserving protecting and nurturing our community in every way from the smallest insects to all of our treasured community members thank you thank you Gloria would anyone else like to address the board Jason is there anyone on the line we have no
008callers on the line okay I'm going to go one more time is there anyone here that would like to come to the podium all right we're going to move on to our topics so we welcome the mon talk Historical Society Joe are you going to kick it off for us welcome okay supervisor Burk Gonzalez member of the Town board I'm Joe gaviola and I'm president of The Monto historical society and always proud to say that I am the keeper of The Monto Lighthouse so when I was last before you at a work session a couple months ago that was packed with speakers on house and lot size so my comments I'm sure got lost in the wash but I and we appreciate the invitation back Kathy to update the board on the wonderful work being
009conducted by MHS and our Partnerships I'm here with some Associates from Historic Society um Martha Riker is here our vice president and Lead counsel um M certic our executive director I saw John McDonald someplace here also one of our one of our directors is over here so um Jason Walter site manager and Amy hubt our assistant site manager oh Marilyn's Marilyn Bogden one of our directors in the back corner and did I get everyone and dick white not sure how to characterize him outside of maybe just saying Legend legendary dick white who is also on our board first a quick description of the MHS structure so we have a 10- member board and I'm absolutely blessed with a very dedicated ated and professional board we have expertise in monto's history we have multiple Financial experts
010we have a legal expert building experts and definite Hospitality experts we have a combined about 600 years of living in Monto experience but if you bring dick into that it might be half of it so we have seven major committees that are fully staffed passionate and fully involved and meet regularly and take minutes we have an amazing administrative staff under our wonderful executive director Mia certic and we have eight full-time employees and we hire about 25 part-time in season our budget this year is going to be about 2.4 2.7 million and we have extremely tight fiscal controls over it we want you to know we have a strong you have a strong reliable and dedicated Partners in the properties we aligned with I want to wholeheartedly Express how grateful MHS is of the Town support
011and investment with MHS and I know I speak for all of mon talk when I say that second house looks amazing it's been almost 11 years Dave I've been on the board eight seven years 11 years since it was last open and we can't wait to celebr celebrate its rebirth with you in the near term what a wonderful welcoming site as people drive into Mok and see this absolute treasure I want to thank councilman lease for hanging in there with us bringing it to completion and all of your unwavering Financial investment into it Fisher house it's hard for me personally to put into words how important that cpf acquisition was to MHS and Monto after the acquisition being turned down in 2018 it was crushing crushing to get a second bite at the Apple and
012have the town acquire it in 2022 is Indescribable and actually get emotional about it it is such a historic treasure and a centerpiece of our historic Mission so we very much look forward to working with the town and restoring it to its former glory I have a short video now for about four minutes if U if LTV can put that up yep and yep doing it right now let me just go turn this off and in three two [Music] h [Music] all you guys ready out there I got to hear some [Applause] [Music] noise one more time a little louder come gu do the countdown 109 8 7 6 5 4 3 [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] pretty cool stuff and I want to thank M as husband M drag for putting that together for
013us uh summarizing our year um just have a few comments about The Monto Lighthouse since we're here and this is public and everyone knows I'm actually crazy about the lighthouse so um it always amazes us how many people don't realize we actually own the lighthouse we we fully cover our operating expenses with our gate gift shop events and donations we don't receive any tax dollars for its operation outside of 15,000 from a suffa county Grant so I have to say that we pay for everything ourselves approximately one one second we're National Historic Landmark we leased the lighthouse in 1987 and took ownership in 1996 annual onsite visitors are just over 100,000 we have visitors from all 50 states sometimes in a single year and we've had visitors from over a hundred countries come to the
014lighthouse approximately 1.4 million people drive past the lighthouse every year there's a state park counter right there that a little wire that goes across the road we take pride in being the symbol of Long Island we completed a major restoration of the lighthouse Tower and ass assciated structures in 2023 at a cost of $1.8 million the new revetment has been a huge success in holding back the ocean's elements and is now a major walking visitor attraction we're embarking on a new Property Restoration Recreation and visitor experience it would involve an improved entrance and exit and most importantly a structure that would expand our historic Mission and interpret of the lighthouse and monto's history we're in discussions with shipo deeply in discussions with shipo on what we can do or cannot do with our existing 1838
015Keepers dwelling and a possible 1796 Keepers dwelling it's early but we've been at this for about a year now we've had discussions with the planning department and other agencies I can't offer much more yet but wanted to give you heads up that this is something we are committing to do and you'll be hearing about in the near term and now I think I'll hand off to to Mia and then dick not sure if Martha is going to speak or not but thank you very much thank you Jee welcome Mia thank you good to be here papers my glasses on so as you saw in our film uh last year was quite a year for the mon star Society um but I'm very happy to speak to you here today supervisor bur Gonzalez and town board
016um to share some of our upcoming events for the spring and summer um and I want to start with second house Joe's already made mention of second house we are so thrilled with how it looks and all the work that's been accomplished it's been a long road we're very very happy with where we are right now um I want to thank particularly the town board and David Lear Lea's on the wonderful Bob Hefner Drew Bennett all the town employees who've helped this project along over the years especially Tony Litman and Jim pinket the house is exquisitly beautiful and we cannot wait to share it with the community so we are planning an exhibition this summer uh Nathaniel Ward is a poet and photographer his work is collected by the Museum of Modern Art the Guggenheim
017the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the parish photographs of his have been published in aperture interview Vogue vog Italia and the British Journal of Photography as well as many other prestigious magazines Simon and Schuster is publishing a book of his photographs called ditch mon talk New York 11 1954 in May it is an absolutely gorgeous book of photographs that he took over several years when he was doing um uh a summer with the Obi Foundation I am thrilled to announce that the book launch will be at second house it's a huge honor it's a great way to welcome lots of people into second house and um especially as this summer we'll see the property will see The Return of the craft fair and the Vintage flea market and I think we'll have a lot of
018people on the property who will be able to come inside see the museum and see the exhibition at the same time uh we're planning the exhibition to run from Memorial Day to Labor Day the preview and reception is tentatively scheduled for the May 23rd and the exhibition would open the following day um and uh we're really really excited about it um we're also getting the garden into shape it's now being imagined reimagined as more of a traditional Cottage Garden which will include both flowers and herbs that would have been grown here in the 18th and 19th centuries both for cooking and medicinal purposes we're really glad that we've had advice and inspiration from Garden historian Barbara fante who has advised us on plants and their uses and has spent many many hours weeding and planting
019in the garden meanwhile the Carl Fisher house has become a vibrant Gathering Place and Cultural Center we have focused on programming and our range has been quite wide as you may have noticed in our little film this may we're hosting a very special recital featuring bass baritone Andrew dwan who will be making his solo debut this year at the riches Symphony Berlin the Hong Kong philarmonic and the Beijing Symphony I heard him last Autumn at the New York philarmonic and he was amazing he has chosen a selection of mainly American composers for us plus a little Mozart and will be making his Carl Fisher house debut on May 17th this is a terrific chance to see a worldclass opera singer here in Monto and we're so lucky to have him we have also started working
020up some excitement around our summer exhib ition at fiser by hosting our spring uh lecture series on R running featuring Hugh King and Dave cataletto Hugh's first lecture was last week it was brilliant as always and Dave will join us on April 23rd to talk about monok and prohibition and on May 7th Hugh comes back to tell us all about how and why prohibition failed um so we'll be building on the success of last year's award-winning leisurama exhibition and if you missed it there is a virtual tour on our website um our summer exhibition this year will be called how dry we weren't rum running and moonshine in Monto it will be both immersive and interactive not to give anything away but when I say in immersive I mean there's going to be a Speak
021Easy and there'll be lots of really cool interactive elements including a very special oral history corner with a video component we have a 1920s telephone booth where you can pick up the phone and listen in on a Bootleggers conversation while the FBI is listening in on another line um and we have a morse code game and and and more so there will be something for every for everyone of all ages of all levels of all interest levels and there's there's there's going to be something interesting for everybody I think uh the exhibition will be seriously steeped in history both local and National and what we're going to do is we will focus on personal stories of people who live lived and or worked in Monto at that time to illustrate how prohibition really turned our
022little Hamlet upside down and affected everyone who lived there there will be tie-in events throughout the summer with this theme for example we're planning a boat tour around um rum running spots in Monto and then we're going to carry on to Greenport where we do a walking tour of the water side and then we hope have lunch uh at um claudo um and there will be other TI events lectures and and and tours and so on and so forth uh all be on our website R running will open late June with of course a roaring 20s party and music of the era um Carl fiser was a legendary hope and we intend to do him proud how dry we weren't will also run through Labor Day I just want to mention that we're very grateful
023to other local historical societies including East Hampton Bridge Hampton East and seport Museum Marine Foundation which have volunteered to share artifacts and expertise with us um just a quick word about the lighthouse events um we have a lot going on at the Lighthouse all summer we are going to have our Stony Brook lectures as usual every week which focus on um uh really the environment marine environment particularly um and uh we will have our Triathlon which I believe is the is it the most popular in the biggest Sprint in the Northeast biggest Sprint in the Northeast um that's on July 20th 20th um and we will be having concerts this summer as well um she's carrying on from the Pelican I just want to mention you saw the Pelican Memorial dedication in the film uh
024this this year we'll have our fourth annual Pelican commemoration every year it's a little bit bigger and um this year we will be showing a scen reading of our um feature documentary about the Pelican which is called the Pelican and American Tragedy and that we on a date to be determined we have always held it on a Labor Day weekend because that's when the Pelican went down but it has become really tricky for some of the people who are coming in from out of town and a lot of them are coming in from quite a distance uh for this so we may change the date a word about the Indian museum um Lawrence cook the founder of the museum who worked very hard there for many many years has left MHS and we're now taking
025a moment to rethink the museum try to work with the indigenous people um who live here and perhaps focus more on programming to invigorate the museum space we've just completed a thorough inventory of the uh Monto Indian museum which we've shared with the monit and we're waiting for their feedback um and I just want to announce a complete new redesign of our annual publication the beacon which has been published continuously for 37 years we'll be printing 12,000 copies for free distribution in our museums and in other locations between monil and Bridge Hampton and um that's it for me please visit our website Mont historical society.org join our mailing list please please please come to any and all of our events thank you and I'm also hoping um that we'll have you folks back maybe in
026April or May where we can talk more about second house because it'll be right we'll have photos of it'll be completed by then I hope the turnover is then yes so dick I'm sorry I [Laughter] should welcome dick good morning Tom board good morning um I'd just like to point out that um when I was in my late 20s I sat right on where Tom is sitting now most of you weren't even born then so I'm probably the oldest of the old farts in this room today I was hoping huie King was going to be here because we graduated the same night from East Hampton High School and he's known as the town crier although between us we debate who's the town crier and who's the town liar my uh interest in mon talk history
027goes back through 1950 52 when Dick Gil Martin the mon talk resident and businessman would uh on a Saturday um many Saturdays would uh put six or seven um young mon talk Lads in his 98 Odenville and take us all around the East and as far away as Eastport and Shelter Island and so forth and he talked about the mon talks the Shinx the British when they were here during the revolution Camp wof Teddy Roosevelt Camp Welsh many many of you don't even know about Camp Welsh was was in the center of mon talk in the World War I and the shipwrecks and especially the John Milton for me he brought mon talk history alive it was very very important after that to to know the history of mon talk and to help uh disseminate
028it with other people so in 1965 after I graduated from college and moved back to mon talk to uh help my father run the liquor store I joined a mon talk Historical Society Peggy Joyce was the president Peggy Joyce was also my first and second grade teacher that's important it comes up later uh during those 60 years that I've been involved with MHS we have had a wonderful relationship with the eastampton town board on many levels on many issues the board in fact in 1968 at the urging of mon talk resident in eastampton count councilman sat where you're sitting Frank Borth uh urged the town to purchase second house and since then MHS has been in the care and keeping of it in fact during the years in the 70s when I was a councilman
029and in charge of Park speeches and um uh historic places Peggy Joyce had my phone number on speed dial one of the interesting first things I had to do we had a raccoon problem in the Attic of second house so it was my job every morning to go to Herb's Market get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich go craw up in the attic where it was Dusty and spiders and all kinds of stuff and I in a have a heart trap I would place the peanut butter and jelly sandwich to capture the raccoon I would then proceed to come up to East Hampton in my office then when I went home I'd go upstairs and sure enough peanut butter and jelly sandwich would be gone the Trap would be sprung no raccoon so I did
030this with three or four times it was costing me my whole salary we got didn't get paid much in in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches finally the dog warden gave me a great big trap to catch this raccoon the only problem was when I got in it I was afraid if I didn't do it right I would get caught in the Trap and I'd be up in the attic and no one anyway um one of the things that I'm really really happy about is recently the town board took over a 12E project of rehabilitating second house it was really important that it be done because the wiring in that building was ready to spark a a fire and we would have lost it so now we have all new Mechanicals and it's beautiful you got
031to come down and see it I know DAV us seen it Kathy I don't know if you have Tom I know you have also the town board recently approved the acquisition of the call Fisher house and surrounding 10 acres and also leased it to the MHS for its care and um making sorts um kept in good condition and and um and bringing it to life for The Monto Community I am so very thankful that the wonderful working relationship that started over 60 years with the eastampton town board and MHS thrives today thank you for your efforts and your care that's it thank you [Applause] dick all right well we're grateful to be partners with the mon talk historical society and all you good folks supervis yeah sure so with the m talk Historical Society I
032know Joan mentioned it um you you you OverWatch a national historical landmark you OverWatch two local landmarks and now there's an application to put second house on to uh the state and National Historical register and we completely support that um there is also uh work out there in M talk for first house there's second house but there's always first house there third house I love to see first house at some point but what I wanted to say is on my first week on the town board uh you actually have another treasure behind you and he's got a little hat on his name is Jason Walter who's a former uh officer in charge of Coast Guard Station mon talk works with MHS that first week I went out uh when I was appointed to the P
033Town board I went out to the m talk Lighthouse at the mon talk Lighthouse there is a structure out there that the town actually uh uh is duly contracted to maintain and that's the LW of SE Memorial the LW of SE Memorial most a lot of the impetus for that uh was surrounding uh the loss of one of my best friends's fathers in 1985 Mike stemman on the windblown um first thing I went out there I saw Jason out there to make sure there's anything that's needed for that law SE Memorial that town board will work with the U Mal historical societ to fix that there is also a treasure uh in many different ways to East Hampton because there's many of a history of fishermen that are out there that we have to protect
034so overall my entire lifetime I remember going up into when the Coast Guard owned uh the tower and my dad somehow knew when the GU Coast Guard guys and I would climb up there as a a little kid scared uh but now I go up there with my own kids let them roll down the banks of you know outside and it's just it's just absolutely a pleasure so it's been a pleasure of mine to work with the m talk Historical Society over these years I look forward continuing the relationship I know it's been a little bit of a a long path to get second house restored uh it's it's a it's a wonderful restoration we look forward to doing the same continue on with the other local Landmark with uh the Carl Fisher house because
035what you've been able to express to the town board as a vision you're F you're putting it out there for everyone to see on film that is very impressive so as many times as it's been a rocky or difficult Road the vision in the end result is really there right now so I commend that I commend this board and the pass boards for seeing that and working with the mon historical society and all of our historical societies but uh I really wanted to make sure everyone knew what else was also out there at the LW of SE Memorial because that's something that hits me truly to my blood and my heart and I hope uh hope my friend Willie is listening thank you thank you I just add one point which is you know from
036a business perspective one thing that many people don't realize is that especially in the offseason the darker months the traffic generated ated by the lighthouse and the other historical elements in the hamlet are critical you know you you might only get a few rooms in your hotel or a few visitors into your shop but that allows you to keep a staff on you know having that year round staff means you can hire local um so you know as we we look at The Monto Historical Society I I thank you for that too genuinely I I think you know without the preservation of these resources to the town um it would have KnockOn effects in the community elsewhere so um I applaud you for your management of the properties you have thank you I just would
037like to add that I didn't know they were we you were clocking uh I added to quite a bit of that count going around the lighthouse almost on a daily basis after work and I know this is across town um so it's everyone in town that appreciates uh uh the work that you do and and benefits from it um uh in in ways that are hard totic articulate business certainly but also for our own mental health and well-being and our sense of community um and when I see you know the the events that you're having um it really uh touches my heart that this is our community and this is who we are and I thank you so much for be a being able to bring us together and maybe I should let you know
038how many times I go around the might want to adjust that um because uh it's it's really special to take take the ride out cross the stretch as you know I know some people are hesitant to do and then get to that Lighthouse and see our history from that George Washington dedication to the families that are enjoying it today so thank you so much for all you do right and we hope to have you back in April and be there in May when we're ready to ready to launch second house so thank you okay so next up we have the presentation from Diane patrio and John Rooney they're going to present their 2024 accomplishments and 2025 goals so we're going to start with Diane and Human Services welcome Diane thank you I'm sorry oh okay
039so am can help with that Jo so we just have to give it yeah we just have to give it a minute um we just need to wait for the PowerPoint to get uh logged [Music] in [Music] okay for [Music] [Applause] [Music] pardon me everybody we just need to hold for two seconds we're uh just figuring out some uh uh problems here okay [Music] [Laughter] for [Music] Joan are you able to log in or is it the problem I had sent no I had to send her over a a new email uh link uh there was a we had some sort of Link glitch over here on on our end we had everything ready to go and then it stopped got it [Music] Joanne you should have the signin info f okay you're being admitted
040in right now great and that uh completely happened on our end there was a glitch on our end with the link for a second there so that's totally our fault my apologies no worries [Applause] all right here we go all right you're on okay good morning supervisor and town board members thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about the human services department and our 2024 accomplishments and our 2025 goals the human services department mission is to support with dignity and respect children adults and families in order to expand opportunities and enhance lives our vision is to improve the quality of life for those we serve and our values are Integrity collaboration Innovation Humanity inclusion and teamwork our 2024 accomplishments include our grab Ando meal program the grab and go meal program has expanded
041its reach especially among younger participants who weren't previously part of the congregate nutrition program this model has resonated with individuals who may not be homebound but prefer the convenience of take out due to time constraints or personal Comfort it's opened new doors to people to learn about our services and created a more inclusive environment for those hesitant to dine in uh in addition our reframing we're reframing aging with Wellness 60 plus program today's older adults want more than traditional activities they're looking for Education Fitness and social engagement and our programs reflect that shift we have techn technology classes many seniors are embra embracing the technology classes and we've Incorporated more digital learning opportunities we changed the time of our chair yoga class after feedback we decided that the class at 11:00 a.m. would better accommodate
042our members and we continue our partnership with the eastampton healthc Care Foundation which outdates me so I just want to make sure to bring that up Blanca continues to provide monthly blood pressure readings at our Center which helps our seniors stay on top of their health our senior Transportation program has been invaluable in mon talk in 2024 we enhance enhan services to help with prescription pickups this year we've also added a new driver to our team and hopefully we'll reach more people be providing more service uh and we are still looking for more drivers safety and building upkeep a much needed facelift of the senior center began in 2024 thank you to the building and grounds Carpenters weather permitting will continue to enhance our buildings appearance with power washing and staining this spring we're also
043improving security by installing cameras in the parking lot and around the center to ensure safety for the many users of the building because the building is even used in the evening and on weekends uh We've also done some things in montalk so the montalk community support included a kitchen upgrade uh when we learned that the kitchen equipment in The Monto Community Senior Center needed replacing the town secured Capital funding to upgrade their kitchen which includes a new refrigerator freezer stove and convection oven uh Jee Cora was instrumental in helping get this done because it required RFP and so thanks to Jean in addition the mon talk Child Care Program there were some changes with the local daycare provider and we once again worked with Jean to fill this void and then we all worked seamlessly
044with project most to ensure the continuation of this the vital child care services for Monto families our 2025 goals can I just jump in because I just realized that there's one other thing we upgraded the walking Track right at the at the senior center right that is part that was part of that right you're right because we were having there were issues with it we made it wider we made it wider and so that because you have a Walkin club and and folks y that's true we did do that yeah um the 2025 goals uh include expanding Gra grab and go engagement see while grab and go is suc successful in reaching new participants we recognize the risk of social isolation so for 2025 we aim to create more opportunities for connection some of these
045ideas I'm not sure about but I think they might work we're thinking of a grab and stay you know perhaps picnics or a tailgate you know I I'm not sure that's just the guidelines from theate are still being put together you know as far as what grab and go requirements will be but including socialization is important Diane would you just say what grab and go is sure um it's where you can come and pick up meals so instead of coming in and eating a hot meal every day you can come once a week and pick up five frozen meals and take them home and eat them when it's convenient for you thank you uh we are thinking maybe virtual and phone Outreach to assess social isolation and offer referrals uh the goal is to build
046relationships through grab and go that will help our participants engage with additional Services they might need you know because we have a lot going on there wellness and if you're not coming in and seeing it you might miss it so we'll try to do more Outreach we want to expand our Wellness plus programs our aging population isn't just interested in traditional activities but would like more diverse and inclusive programs this year we added Zumba on Mondays and Fridays at 10: a.m to keep things fresh and engaging and very loud I might add it's very active uh bilingual bilingual programs we're partnering with Ola now and we're offering bilingual taichi classes and and we're working with local artists to offer art instruction also we're looking into flexible scheduling because based on feedback we're offering more afternoon
047classes such as painting and drawing and film screenings actually today there's a 3:00 film screening you know for people who might want to come later in the afternoon this way we can make programs accessible to more seniors we plan to increase the availability of our senior shopping and prescription pickup programs to ensure all seniors regardless of location have access to essential Services the center facelift uh continues as we will be doing the power washing and staining and then our building will have a fresh new look later classes uh since the shift to a later chair yoga time was successful we'll explore offering additional class classes at later hours and the walking Track we're reintroducing the walking Track with new activities including a walk with the supervisor event which we think will be the kickoff which
048will be a casual opportunity for seniors to connect with Kathy while enjoying the outdoors and continue to increase our Safety and Security since the center continues to be a hub of activity throughout the week anding cameras around the building and upgrading our Locking System will help ensure the safety of everyone who uses the space I just like to share our 2024 performance numbers so 18,1 36 grab and go meals were prepared for 129 seniors 10,718 congregate meals were prepared for 26 seniors 10,010 senior Transportation r were provided to 141 seniors there were 162 senior shopping assistant trips 20 seniors received 1,320 hours of expanded inhome Services assistance 140 Wellness 60 plus participants attended Wellness classes uh there were 91 Club participants and they would be participating in yog um not in yoga on knitting Bingo
049and clubs such as that Maran 79 seniors received residential repair assistance and 198 community members received Case Management Services and this includes youth adults and seniors so final thoughts in 2024 we've laid the ground workk for a more inclusive active and engaged senior community and in 2025 we're ready to build on that success from expanding transportation to offering more diverse Wellness programs and ensuring the safety of our facilities we're committed to meeting the evolving needs of our residents and thank you for your continued support as we move forward with these initiatives thank you Diane does anyone have questions or comments yeah I mean I would say this first Diane you're a delight to work with um so so thank you for the job you do that and all the stuff um you know you you
050go into your facility and TR truly there's just such a great sense of Cam amongst the staff but also amongst the residents who visit the center um you continually evolve the programs that are being offered we've recently used you mentioned the you of the arts program because you felt there's a need there for that so I think your Innovation and leadership in that department are great and I I truly as a resident with senior parents greatly appreciate what you do so thank you thank you thanks all right okay thank you thank you [Applause] Diane John you're up welcome John still morning good morning um all the photos you're going to see are from the town's website um over the last several years we've been creating web pages for like various parks and beaches around the
051town pull the microphone just so it's directing yeah thank you um and the goal with the with what we do with the website is theoretically any question about Recreation could be answered just clicking around so I'm always encouraging everyone if if you can think of something we don't have on there or something to change or maybe we miss something let us know make those changes on here we have a picture of uh the large Simonson skate park out in Mont talk which is redone a few years ago it's beautiful Park let's have the uh the new honorable Fred theel Recreational facility at stepen H path that's an aerial photo of the new turf fields that were done and um and then we also have a a shot of the Nipper guard tournament from a few
052years back um at Big Albert so give an idea of some things we do um what we're going to go through here is not exhaustive just um just some examples of some of the stuff we do or did or will be doing uh going into next year so mission statement so um here we have more photos we had the Turkey run from a few years ago uh we have the entrance to Kirk Park um Kirk Park Beach and also the new walking trail at buckskill so the mission of uh the recreation department is to provide the town of East Hampton with a wide variety of safe recreational opportunities programs and events for all ages depending upon the time of year our department staffs anywhere between 30 to 180 or more full-time and part-time employees for
053positions such as Recreation AIDS Beach attendance lifeguards uh Recreation Specialists and office assistants the recreation department not only runs programming at multiple East Hampton Town facility beach and park locations but we also at times utilize non- toown locations such as Havens beach in Sag Harbor local public school facilities in the YMCA and the recreation department also works with The Monto Chamber of Commerce who assists in uh administering the annual Turkey Run for fun in Monto each Thanksgiving and basically is our job to make sure that the residents and guests of the town of eastampton has fun that's a great job description little lengthy about all right so just some accomplishments from um last year um an important highlight from 2024 was our ability to hire the greatest number of lifeguards ever for a season we
054had over 140 due to the town board's um decision to raise lifeguard salaries we were able to delay staff draw Downs um to later than normal at ocean beaches at Summer's end and we were able to keep the uh the Bay beaches open longer than we typically can at the end of the season because kids go back to college so thank you to town board for allowing us to um better uh watch over our beaches and the safety um the Thanksgiving day Turkey Run for fun once again saw another Milestone achieved in 2024 despite the bad weather that we had faced in hosting the event where 614 runners showed up to Brave the elements it was a r day registration still managed to slightly surpass 2023 is uh record registration by 29 participants bringing our
055best total ever to 1,165 who signed up that allowed the town to um to donate the net proceeds from the race um just over 15,000 is $1,648 to the local food pantries and that um had exceeded the previous year which was a record by about $574 so that was a good thing um this past fall the recreation department upgraded our lifeguard's rescue vehicle Fleet by obtaining two new jet skis and two new pickup trucks to replace older ones for this upcoming season um the two new pickle ball Courts at the end of South eie Street and monok received their last step of completion in the spring of 2024 when the surfaces were painted and striped uh that same project I didn't include it on here I should have um we also had completed Ed the
056the resurfacing of the basketball court at the mon skate park um we had replaced the baskets there with new glass backboards 10 Footers and we also added two 8 foot uh baskets there as well so younger kids can shoot around and it's been widely used since that change um in a joint effort with land acquisition and uh Management in 2024 our two departments completely redesigned the circular six hole disc golf course at buckskill metal preserve um to a like design with 12 holes some new unique features while also changing the configuration of all Six Original holes and the course is currently open and will be fully completed uh this year which is um some of the changes are still happening we also um we have a we have a dis golf web page on Town's
057website and on that page you can also find an updated scorecard that you can also print out from home if you want to play the course and it also has a print out you can do of a map of the course so we have that on there as well and we added um a new lifeguards web page to the town's website highlighting our Junior lifeguard programs and lifeguard certification programs as well so that's check that out um so just some things we did last year and just some things upcoming this year uh since our Cadet lifeguard program um which is for ages 15 had more than double actually it might have even quadruple if we look back at the numbers um in 2024 we're hopeful that this will lead to more recruits for the 2025
058season and speaking to Johnny Ryan our chief lifeguard yesterday he has right now about 16 of those Cadets now want to be lifeguards this year and that's the most he's had um to start a season to this point we might even still get more um as per suggestion from the disabilities Advisory Board we are planning to add Q QR coded signs um in 25 to the handicap parking space signs at lifeguarded beaches to provide a quick access link to the town's Beach wheelchair information web page so basically if someone pulls up and they park in that spot they can just scan it right there and get information of how it works there's also a photo of the beach wheelchair on there so folks will know what they're expecting if they're going to be utilizing one
059um at the end of uh 2024 we purchased new outdoor AED cabinets to house publicly accessible aeds for selected Ballfield Comfort station uh locations which will be installed to be ready for the spring these are being installed as we speak and they might even be ready by this weekend um so we're we're very close to having them completed you just explain the two locations that they're going into yes Steven H path and lions field uh baseball field Comfort station um and and can I just explain that just one more if you don't mind I mean um at those locations uh the recreation facilities are used year round right now uh we all understand the need for medical emergencies that happen but a lot of times I don't have to tell Tom this you know the
060sooner potentially you have an aad on site you might be saving a life we've seen that most recently at the high school then two these cabinets are uh are temper tempered control tempered controlled so they can be actually used during the winter time also very similar to the one that was installed at the high school uh last year outside so again it allows individuals to have that extra Aid of medical need and device if needed hopefully never needed uh but the town is doing that at our facilities now some of our most used ones we'll see how it goes maybe we can install more of them as we go in in the future Seasons thank you David John um thank you John because that that's a that's a that's a that's a great one it's
061just another level of protection allows us us to sleep at night then too um next one I have on here is the new multisport turf field project is expected to be completed in 2025 at the newly named honorable Fred the junior Recreational facility at stepen H path um at a recent Town board meeting uh we had announced our planned adjustments for the upcoming spring soccer season with regards to scheduling our two leagues on one field while the turf field is being constructed and we have that information you just contact our office how we change times around and um we're pretty psyched for next fall we have that field um and the last one is just an ongoing goal that's just always there um it is always our goal to grow our recreational options for town
062of eastampton for its Community um and if anyone listening or watching has a particular skill Talent OR expertise which they can add to our menu of recreational opportunities for the public please do not hesitate to contact our office maybe we can create a new program um the one thing I would want to add um is just a couple of stats from last year I don't have a stats page but I'll just read these off these are just general uh Beach parking Revenue not including the two new zones so it wouldn't be fair to add that in but just from what we had from one year to the next uh went up by 18 a. half% last year um Recreation programming um that has a cost involved uh grew by about 5% free Recreation programming grew
063by about 21% participation picnic area and Pavilion reservations actually dropped uh by about 25% um since covid those numbers have been lower um we think it's because it's just Cost of insurance is just higher the feedback we get from folks or we just don't want to spend the money on insurance and then they know if they go to the site they'd have to share it with someone else but um but that's that that's probably the only reason we can think I can't think of any other reason why um Ballfield booking Revenue went up by about 3% and lifeguarded Beach attendance by the public basically went up almost 16% this past year if you combine all these stats it says that more people had fun in 2024 um if I could could I just make some
064announcements of stuff we have for programming right now so the um the Lifeguard Junior lifeguard and Nipper guard training programs uh the training evaluation and testing at the YMCA is currently available for registration on the town's site um along with our lifeguard certification courses uh please uh check the dates for each for when each begins because they don't all have the same calendar schedules spring soccer grades 1 through six is also available for online registration um the leagues start on April 5th and the annual Easter egg hunt for ages 12 and under at the lieutenant Lee haes youth park is scheduled for Saturday April 12th at 12 noon and do you know how many years we've been offering the Easter egg hunt uh before I came I'm here this is my 18th year so I
065don't know when it started so it's been going on since before we year yeah it's got to be 20 years or more oh yeah so that's that's mostly my leison report too thank you for that for the hiring of Life cards and such then too it's been a pleasure to work with you and your staff we're constantly trying to reevaluate what the needs for the recreational needs and population for the town is you know and that's just not for for youth that's for seniors also then too and you have always had a very open mind about what to add not to subtract something but to add something where is conflict how can we take care of that Conflict by either use or or growth of new new recreational opportunities then too so uh for to
066you and your staff thank you very much for that personally then too it's been a pleasure to work with you thanks for your support as well I've gotten some Outreach from folks about pickle ball could you just kind of summarize where folks in town can play pickle ball and what's coming yeah sure so um there's two outdoor locations um the three Tennis Courts at Spring school we have pickable bow lines also on the tennis Bowl on the tennis line you know for for the courts so you have two different sports sometimes pickle ball and tennis communities don't mesh very well but they each can play at these locations so at at uh at Springs and then out in montalk we built the two new pickall that are there they're just dedicated to pickle ball but
067the two tennis courts that are adjacent to those also have pickle ball lines as well so you can have up to Four Courts going at once there um and at The Monto Playhouse we have three courts that we um set up daily and we run multiple programs there um enrollment for that is really high it's it's it it makes the the playhouse a very busy place and uh it's a very Vibrant Community we started Pi while back in 2012 before it actually became popular Newsday hit us HD an article I think it was around that year and um it just started jumping and we started that first year I think we had about 39 waivers there was a group of eight ladies that got together um to hey start a pickle ball I had known
068about it um no one was playing it so we started it and we got about 39 people signed waivers that year that doesn't mean only third and I played but they or how often they played they probably played a lot but can you guess what would you guess like we started out in 20 this is a shocking number in 2012 we start with 39 waivers so basically you sign a waiver for the year and then you can keep playing so how many waivers you think we might have filled out last year 750 not bad 751 749 my guess was much lower so I am going to be surprised 879 wow wow yeah so pick ball is pretty popular that doesn't mean that they all show up every week but that's 879 people at minimum played
069once and so other folks play all the time so yeah so then but we've got pickle ball course yeah sorry yes and then we're we're looking to add pickable courts um over next to ter King bfield so three pickall courts there and we've had discussions in some other places as well so well it's in the capital the cap budget to go to engineering to add pick of all Courts at Steven Hans path at The Honorable Fred field uh Recreational facility and we're even looking into uh a long-term conceptual plans to add them for for youth at the leeh haes youth park then too uh because I know pick lels being played in schools a lot of times also so that's another location that we can forward think as we look at uh potential designs for
070there than too so um yes it'll be and it's eight courts correct at stepen p i I think looking at potentially eight potentially eight maybe more depending on some of the drainage implements and how it might work together with u with the multi-use field that's going to be complete by mid June actually then too so um yeah I think that's a minimum on there but you know again with that you might want to put a shade structure in there also because it gets hot but they also get very well used so uh um yeah that's where we're at youen tried it like try it you'll probably like it so you um i' I've played I'm I'm an old tennis player and um I got into it in Co my son and I we built a
071temporary court on our driveway and that's when we started really playing but uh yeah it's a it's a fun game so yeah there's some pretty good skill out there m talk play yeah there are you get you get former Tennis Pros out there playing you have uh yeah and it's great because I see former supervisors out there playing yes very frequently yeah John thank you so very much appreciate it John thank you John thanks joh okay so now we have uh presentation from Joanne Pilgrim our community development program analyst and I just realized there's a typo on the agenda it's the community housing fund CHF 2025 firsttime home buyer assistance program it's a mouthful good afternoon welcome Joanne it's not going to be easy to follow the minister of fun yeah but um you said
072I'm I'm representing the office of Housing and Community Development to discuss the firsttime home buyer assistance uh down payment assistance program um and some recommendations for changes in 2025 um uh this program started in 2024 it's funded by the community housing fund which is the dedicated Revenue source that comes from the half perc uh additional tax on real estate transfers um it was launched in June of 2024 and we've had six applicants so far that have uh gone through or are engaged in going through the process um one closing has occurred with down payment assistance another one is scheduled for this week uh two closings are pending and two people are out there shopping for their house um we accepted applications for the 2024 pilot program through the end of December and then we took
073a look um at all aspects of the program and looked at the experience we had gained and and um uh looked at other programs and assessed what we thought might be good um specific recommendations as we go forward uh that was in conjunction with the community housing Advisory Board and we developed recommendations for this coming year or this year uh which was discussed by the community housing Advisory Board as well so the next slide just shows the basic um over overview of the program uh what we've offered are no interest deferred payment loans to help people obtain a house uh the money can go only for the down payment and closing costs it would be paid back in full at the time of a future home sale uh the recipients must be people who are
074considered eligible individuals uh per the community housing fund law um and we'll I'll discuss the details of that later it's basically a maximum income they must also be firsttime home buyers as uh defined in the community housing fund law uh which means that they have not owned uh a primary residential property in the last 3 years or be married to someone who has owned one in the last three years and not own a vacation or investment home the recipients must live or work in the town of East Hampton meaning they're defined as a resident that definition is actually either a current resident someone who has been a resident within the last 5 years or someone who works in the town of East Hampton and um in order to qualify for assistance for down payment the
075house that's being purchased must also meet the price limitation that is uh prescribed in the community housing fund law and that'll be on a that amount will be on a future slide so these are the uh an overview of the recommended changes for 2025 uh the first thing would be to increase the down payment loan size from $30,000 to $40,000 uh we have to update the maximum home purchase price and income Li limitation for 2025 uh per the community housing fund law those things are tied to um benchmarks that change from year to year so it changes um we recommend setting a liquid asset limit for loan applicants and that again will be detailed in a forthcoming slide uh we also recommend requiring an ongoing annual recertification for people to U verify that they continue
076to meet the program requirements and along along with any changes we would recommend updating and adopting a new administrative plan that would clarify and expand upon the program eligibility and administrative process along with that we were working to improve the information provided to applicants and also clarify for Town staff the procedure as we process these loans so the changes to the existing requirements that we have recommended for 2025 um a little in a little bit more detail the increase in the maximum down payment loan from $30,000 to $40,000 would provide more help to recipients um we the community housing Advisory Board uh in conjunction with the town board and we had already sort of budgeted about 1.6 million for various loans from the community housing fund that included firsttime home buyer and Adu construction assistance
077um so of that $600,000 that we had earmarked for uh for down payment assistance that would equate to 15 individual loans at $40,000 each um that $40,000 would be essentially the equivalent of what we expect would be a 10% down payment for some of the homes that are would be forthcoming on the cwell court subdivision um um the least expensive homes and this is to be determined but maybe in the $400,000 range so that would cover a full 10% down payment um and we felt that the $40,000 could provide a significant portion of a required down payment for other home buyers on the on the open market and then the update of the maximum home purchase price and income limitations that's pretty cut and dry just according to what the Benchmark is in the law
078um the changes would actually go um from in 2024 the maximum home price was 1.66 5 million and um in 2025 that's gone up to 1768 500 it's basically 150% of the home price that's established by the sunny May low interest rate loan program for our area and then the the maximum household income for eligible participants in progam in this program cannot exceed 100% of that Sunny May low interest rate loan program so in 2024 those figures for a one or two person household and you heard me say this in another presentation last week um was $184,600 or a household for three or more people the threshold was 25,40 and this year that's gone up uh for one or two people the household income threshold is 18 7,440 or for three or more people in
079a household it's 28,6 180 didn't go up that much it that's not much of a change uh in income versus the change in the maximum house price um so some of the requirements that we are recommending setting the liquid asset limit for loan applicants so that's in order to assure that the people who are receiving these loans are the people that are most in need um the liquid assets would include checking savings and investment accounts but not um pensions IRAs or other tax deferred um types of accounts right now there's the income limit um but it is standard practice we found with these types of programs to limit both the income and the maximum amount of liquid assets uh we found that those rules vary pretty widely between different types of programs that we review
080um and what we recommend is to uh basically limit the liquid assets to $33,700 the way we derived that was to think about a the maximum house price for this program which is at 1768 500 a 10% down payment for that would be $176,800 so presuming someone would have enough money for a 10% down payment we figured that they should also be able to have that same amount in reserve for liquid assets in other places for instance the county allows liquid assets of up to the full price of the house um there's another Township on Long Island that just sets the number uh in relation to a HUD Threshold at like $60,000 so it ranges widely but this is their rationale for coming up with that number the annual recertification would be to enforce the
081requirement that the property is the recipient in sole legal residents throughout the life of the loan so it would be an annual monitoring affid affidavit that would be sent to the property owner and would be have to be signed notorized and returned to verify in writing that they Remain the current owners of the property that the property is currently occupied as the loan recipient's sole legal residence and that no interest in the property has been sold rented or transferred some of the ad administrative procedures we'd like to fold in for 2025 um uh and and recommend that the town board adopt a new administrative plan that would include these would be to clarify that the properties that are being purchased have an updated certificate of occupancy as required by the town code um clarify that
082the properties uh may have accessory dwelling units if they would otherwise be able to meet those regulations can I just add there Joan would you just uh um articulate that an accessory dwelling unit under this code is an must be affordable so it's rented according to our affordable it's the affordable accessory dwelling unit right um but we didn't want say that that's going to be a discussion we're probably going to have at the next work session um because there's recommendations from the Adu committee relating to that so I know it's a bigger discussion we've had with I2 with the affordable housing overlay it's just what does affordable mean in this town anymore and I think that's something that we need to really H down yeah my point is that the the code is written to
083help people have another um living unit on you know residence on their house on their property which is something that um we're all encouraged encourage folks to look into as a way to maintain our yearound community but the point um is that this is not for a guest house or for any other use this is for an affordable accessory dwelling unit correct well the only I mean not to get too deep into the weeds but I think currently the code regulates what you can charge for rent but not income and this would be part of that same program so affordable in one way yes but and as Tom says that could be a bigger discussion this clarifica clarification would just simply make it clear that a home that's purchased through with the help of a
084down payment assistance would be treated like any other property in terms of whatever the regulations are regarding adus right because we've had to do resolutions lately for folks because it was in when they bought affordable houses from the town they had the prohibition of putting in Adu so we've done resolution so that just so we thought it would be better on at the outset to say yeah yeah absolutely I just uh you know we we use acronyms so often and and I just want to make sure the folks listening in understand that this is an affordable program part of our affordable housing program okay we would also clarify the types of mortgages and financing that were acceptable for instance just to say that the mortgage would have to be obtained from an accredited financial institution
085um 100% financing would not be acceptable those kinds of things it's kind of standard banking type of things that we have not yet articulated in the program um we would also articulate that that the way it would work is that we once someone is approved for the progam program um our office would issue a purchase CER certificate to those people that will U verify that they're that they're eligible for the down payment assistance that way when they go out and look for a house they will know that they will be able to have that that help and that the certificate would be um would be active for one year and with an ability to renew it for an additional six months uh after that we would and we would uh recertify people financially in order
086to do the renewal to make sure they're still eligible for the program um and then the other thing that's recommended as far as administrative procedures is that rather than uh the town board holding public hearings individually on each application we recommend that um you hold one public hearing at the beginning of the year or at the beginning of this program year which is now um for the program and and the administrative plan as laid out and that then we can then process the applications uh administratively except for when it gets to the point where you pass a resolution uh in order to approve the actual funding so next steps the way that would work is we kind of like what we're doing with the management and stewardship plan for cpf we do it up front
087but then at that point right now you've earmarked 600,000 so would that be part of the public hearing of how much money was put in let's call it the pot for firsttime home buyers it it it could be I assume um you know we're thinking that that number could be somewhat flexible if it happens to be more money available and you know everyone agrees that there should be more put to this if we get a lot of applicants but but yeah certainly could be laid out what the anticipation is yeah I think the budget would be part of the plan and and should there be you know huge interest and we wanted to extend that or expand it I think we could at a later time thanks next steps obviously discussion by the town Board
088of the recommended changes um and scheduling a public hearing on a new administrative plan that reflects whatever the consensus is and then having the public hearing and adopting the new administrative plan and then we would open the uh program for applications okay great thank you Joanne I appreciate the presentation and all of your work on this um and housing director Eric chance as well and and the whole chap um committee housing Advisory Board committee um yeah I think this is a great program I think that uh I was really encouraged last year by the the number of applications we got I think there were six issued and and the type of people who were applying I think that you know many represented the people that we all talk about of that we're losing in our
089community people can't afford to stay and struggle to buy a house and to see this get people over the edge was was really really encouraging and and I'm excited about the future of the program the I think the most important thing here is making the process administrative so that we sort of settle on what policies are what the requirements are and then rather than going on an individual basis which it takes a long time to schedule a public hearing there were were at times issues with the timing of closings and stuff and so um and also I think just from a privacy standpoint individual people purchasing a home to have to come for their own public hearing um might be unnecessarily um invasive uh I support wholeheartedly the the assets um as you know as
090as what part of our the conversation I think that what they you know laid out there makes sense which is about 353,000 I I'm I think that's open for debate as Joanne said people have thresholds much lower than that or higher and I think that that's a a choice that we have to make as a town for me this seems like a fair starting point and of course we can adjust in in years going forward um I also think the recertification is important uh so that if we help people buy their their you know forever home or the place that they live so that they can stay here that that remains their home and it's not an investment or a second home or an extra thing because um remember that the $30,000 first-time home buyer
091assistance is repayable to the town at the time of sale and so if you have multiple houses and you're still holding none of that money it it ends up hurting other people who could benefit from that program so um I support that it's it's a fairly simple process so to be clear we're not going to income qualify people every year and and and go through a really process just have them certifi that they live there it's their primary home and that the intention of the program Still Remains intact uh the only other thing that I would say is uh again for me the the timing and making sure that this program works in an efficient way for people who are trying to use it's very very important um and it's sometimes hard to thread the
092needle uh we don't want people applying to this before they're in contract for example but then they have a year with a six-month extension I think we might want to look at a year extension just because I don't know how long it would take somebody to get the original certification and um you know after they that six month extension would expire I think they could apply again and we might be creating more work so I'd be curious what other board members think but I I would propose you know a year um with a one-year extension so essentially once you're approved um as long as you remain qualified you could you know have an extra bit of time and other than that I would just say thanks again to everybody I think this is a great
093program and um look forward to helping more people buy their first home in East stampton thank you um no I I think this is a great program thank you to the housing department for for putting this forward I mean look it it does it is striking when you look at that number for 2025 that the maximum home price of 1.76 eight million I mean like it's such a huge number and when you compare that to people's incomes out here there there's just such a disconnect um and I think we're we're facing this in different areas so it emphasizes one the importance of this program of helping people make that step um I I'm largely supportive of your extension proposal I I you know I seeing what we've run into in the last year and the
094nuances and having to work with you know other agencies that might not have the same timelines as us you know allowing that flexibility I think would be smart um yeah I I look forward to seeing this program continue would there still be a resolution that be put on for when uh even through the administrated pro program if there's not a public hearing uh resolution put on for when funds would be expended uh yeah I believe we'd have to have a resolution to to for the funds um but I we wouldn't have to have each individual home buyer come and and sort of have the public hearing based on that correct me if I'm wrong Joanne you know we'd still have to agree as a board say hey the housing department recommended this we agree here
095are the funds so they can't release funds on their own but there's not this extra you know extra step with a 30-day notice so yes okay I understand that and I I'm I'm supportive of that then too and if even if you get to a point where the funds go get all extinguished in one calendar year or before the calendar year as you put it into it you know we can actually even have another public hearing to say where you want to transfer in another $100,000 or whatever it might be $300,000 into the same program then too so that would actually be a successful right if we we if we got to that point and I wholeheartedly agree with that because I think we're the housing department hey we're comfortable spending this much money as
096long as applicants are qualified if we get to a point where the town board decides we want to spend more that would require another conversation so I I agree with what you just let me know and i' I've always had some concerns about what's in the general obligation law what defines a firsttime home home buyer a little bit maybe you know I had my cynical hat on for this one then too if you're if you've owned the house within the last three years you you're still considered first home home buyer on there um my cynical hat says own the house sometimes yes and there's situations the reason why you might not own it anymore sometimes you can just be flipping houses on there then too so I know we can't necessarily change that within here
097that might that's something that's going to take potentially State ledge on there but the the back stop or the guard rail for us would be that um the option as you discussed for uh uh liquidity on it then too that's another guard rail to the program that we can control on a local level compared to something we might have to change in state ledge um my only other thing is per personally um I know we've been at 30,000 go to 40,000 I'd rather give up more loans than necessarily more amounts a more amount of a loan right now uh and if it's a difference of another five potential loans per year for the same amount of money I'd rather stick stick at 30 give out more than 40 and that's that's something that I we
098could talk through on there I you know if the program's successful I rather see more individuals take advantage of it uh immediately than too so that's something I would like to discuss with there I apologize daveid I agree wholeheartedly with that um in fact I I should have said that that's my my mistake I think it should stay at 30,000 I think that we had interest this made a difference for people um and we have a lot of other affordable housing needs so we you know this program is great but we don't want to use up all of the money so I spoke with the housing department I spoke with the chairman of of chab and let them know that I was going to recommend that I'm sorry that I I didn't and sort of
099you covered for me but but I I agree I think it's appropriate to keep it at 30 and again we can re-evaluate going forward and I understand the thought that went into it with with cwell court um but I think the program is already effective and being utilized at that that price and I would I would budget it 20 loans at $30,000 rather than 15 at 40 just like you said I'm not covering for it's just my opinion on it and if it's no you're right but my my mistake for not no wor um it's just this the program is uh uh it's novel for us right now and I think in some things as we see we make changes let them settle in to see to see how they settle out uh or reformulate
100then too and um if it's successful my I guess my what's a lot of people would say what's the definition of success my definition of success is more individuals as first time home buyers into homes on there and um if individuals want to try that I i' rather have more opportunities there and then we can come back to maybe next year if you wanted to say in you early 2026 it's not something I'm taking off the table but I'd rather see more individuals have an opportunity than two personally totally agree yeah I can't articulate anymore I agree with uh David anan's comments on this um you know it is an assistance it's not a full loan for what a down payment will cost obviously putting I can't see someone being able to put down only
10110% on the one .7 million house I I think after the crash 20% is the usual these days um but uh the any assistance that we can provide to people to be able to have home ownership in this town particularly to the people that are looking to buy firsttime homes um I'm in favor of I also agree with uh streamlining the process um because of there is a need to do that because as you said timings of closing how long a a mortgage is approved for the these all have dropped dead dates and if we um you know create the process that takes too long to get somebody through it we're going to lose a lot of folks uh and and make people spend a lot of time trying for this and not being able
102to accomplish it so um I I I'm um in favor of the recommendations just Adam what said that that's exactly correct you you you know this is supposed to be a program that assists and sometimes uh um we we we the town doesn't have doesn't control the banks obviously and two and they said drop dead date that produces a lot of stress on an individual that's already going to be stressed out enough by having a mortgage payment on there then too so to have a little flexibility you know as long as the staff is able to assist on that you know I think that's a great one and then the recertifications I think is just is just something we have to do uh we got to we make sure that individuals you know are are
103taking advantage of the system at the same time we're here to help them also then too so uh sorry you're exactly correct I agree with you there all right so I I'm I'm in agreement I had written in my notes Here uh staying with the 30,000 and and going you know uh in trying to serve 20 Community residents for their firsttime home buyers payment uh I support the recertification uh as far as liquid assets I think that you know the examples that Joanne cited for um other municipalities I think a 353,000 $700 um you know standard is more than fair um I'm comfortable with the way it's recommended as far as the certificate will be active for a year with ability to renew I mean I I would imagine you're only getting serious home buyers
104that are coming forward for this program you're not going to go through the process if you're sort of kind of in the market for a house it's typically um so I'm good with keeping it at a year with the six months and I think the plan the annual plan should uh designate as I had mentioned earlier the amount of money we're uh allocating for this particular program and in this case it's 600,000 so what would be the the timing in to come back and be able to have a plan that would be available to notice I would like to notice the plan plan as early as as Thursday or or the first week in of you know the first week of April um yeah I mean the plan drafted the plan is drafted and was
105circulated it didn't get posted um okay which which I noticed this morning so if we want to well we didn't want to get ahead of our yeah I understand no I understand um I I was work you know I was working with on a plan with the Department which was then the basis for this of course nothing said in stone until you know we adopt it um but the program has expired and and and and actually this is an important point and uh going forward I want to discuss this you know in the fall and at our organizational meeting it's a new program last year uh that chap had to go through it and talk about what worked and what didn't work but going forward I want to make sure that we have a a
106constant program that I think we should adopt that at our organizational meeting each year and have that sort of ready to go I know with you know transitions that might be tricky but I don't want to have gaps here but with that in mind I want to get the you know plan approved as soon as possible so that we can start taking applications okay all right so the next topic is our after hearing discussion on the public hearing we had on the first floor area formula Kate do you want to lead us off yes um and I ask for everyone's patience because I want to um spend a few minutes just updating the public on some of the statistics of um comments etc etc etc so I ask for my colleagues a little bit of
107patience as I do that so first I want to uh Begin by expressing my gratitude to the community of this town uh we heard from Neighbors from Wayne Scott uh through to Monto from every Hamlet and from different areas of every Hamlet and I want to individually thank you for um for participating and adding your voice uh to the public uh hearing um whether you were opposed neutral in favor of anything uh this is democracy at work and uh this is this is East Hampton and I thank you all so much we did have quite an engagement on this um so as you know the zoning code Amendment work group was formed to review and address zoning codes uh for compliance with the town's comprehensive plan the work group met every Monday as a full
108group for one and a half hours and then as smaller research subcommittees working with many staff in the building department planning department code enforcement natural resources and the assessors Department I'm sure I'm leaving some out but I want to thank all those staff members as well for their hours of help um we did uh the committee has uh presented at 14 work sessions uh which includes approximately uh a little bit over 45 hours of public comment and board member discussion we've had three public hearings on different zoning code a uh amendments uh and that was uh included approximately 8 to 10 hours of public comment and of course I'm sure you're all tired of my Lea Zam reports talking about all this uh over over the 22 months um I I'd like to State for
109the public the number of comments both written and in person that we received and the breakdown of those comments uh at the latest public hearing on the GFA formula uh some of the folks wrote both wrote in for the public record and repeated those comments in person but we only represented them one time in these numbers so these aren't duplicates so we received aox amount of 155 total comments in favor of the uh uh a the um zoning code work group recommendation of 7% plus 1300 um 69. 68% were in favor of that in favor of a change were 14% uh 14.84% in favor of the 15 7% plus500 which was the notice of the public hearing was 5.81% against any change whatsoever was 7.74% of the comments and in favor of the industry group's
110recommendation of eight um% of lot area plus 1600 um that was um 2.58% of public uh comment uh we can talk about numbers and goals and visions of the comprehensive plan but I think many of those public comments St the goals and visions of the comp plan best in their own words so I'm going to uh read from some of them one protect the aesthetic charm and historic uh character of East Hampton two ensure new development integrates seamlessly into existing neighborhoods uh three prevent the overburdening of local infrastructure four preserve both private and public outdoor spaces six reduce uh resource consumption and environmental impact and lastly encourage long-term residency and Community St stability for our year round uh Community uh when the girl when this group was first formed uh we conducted a a informal
111survey of the group numbers on uh gross floor area and uh I was at that time really not in favor of much of a change or any change at all uh in that first session but as we then collected more and more data on the trends of house size uh in in in uh in in uh scale to lot size and I saw the relationship between commercialization of our neighborhoods for financial gain which includes maximizing the uh economic potential of short-term rentals in relation to house size and how that greatly increased added to increasing mass and scale and then I heard over and over again that the critical housing shortage for young families for the backbone of our community our work for Force our First Responders teachers families that ready to one wanted to raise
112their children here as Generations have before us and as we heard from the Historical Society of how many people raised children here when I saw the explosion of house prices and the rental uh prices were so beyond anything I had ever seen before a $155,000 a month $30,000 a month just to rent um um and and the national um property management companies um coming in to manage hundreds of short-term rental properties and investment companies coming in to advise people on how they can maximize their Investments uh when I see our natural resources are degrading faster than we can mitigate when traffic becomes so unbearable that folks leave well-paying jobs with health insurance benefits because the daily commute becomes unbearable when we declare a housing crisis and commit to building as much Workforce and community housing
113as we possibly can and when one of the speakers who works at the Housing Authority told us that 20% of our community are on waiting list for housing to be able to stay here to be able to live here and to be able to work in our town and that's a number like 6,000 people on waiting lists and so when the reality of what was happening to our community was Prov with data and research and simply from so many community members who live here who said please I cannot recognize my neighborhood anymore we are losing the soul of East Hampton my kids can't live here anymore I knew that my perception of no change or a very small change of what we needed was shattered and changed by the reality that was before me the
114working group and the majority by far uh recommended and supported a change to our grow Flor area formula how big can a house be in relationship to the lot size and why is that important we investigated uh sliding scales and other means of coat we found that they produced in inequality of scale they said false boundaries on property simply because they were a foot or so outside or inside of a boundary they exasperated the problem in some neighborhoods and uh um created inequality and density in neighborhoods and in other words words they did not solve the problem and and I felt they were arbitrary this is why we use a dimensional table based on lot size that is consistent across all lot sizes on the town and this is why the comprehensive plan I believe
115articulated this formula as the method to establish maximum lot size per lot therefore after months of research and data collection debate and discussion I and the work group uh supported the recommendation of 7% plus 13 00 squ foot to the town and the town board we did this uh in three presentations to the town board um I agreed to go to public hearing then and can and I can now support 7% plus 1500 to give those with the smallest Lots in town an additional 200 squ ft of Above Grand living space and 200 square ft of below ground living space um so that's 400 additional square feet as I can accept and take responsibility for this additional 400 squ ft of living space across all lot sizes um basements uh and and when we talked
116about uh in a previous uh um recommendation from the zoning code Amendment workg group to include a percentage of finished basements in um GFA uh that there was so much push back from folks particularly from SM folks with smaller Lots who said the most affordable way to add space to your house was to put it underground to finish space in a basement and by uh including that basement in a percentage of GFA would really hurt their ability to have a livable house uh on a small lot and um I agree with that uh after hearing from the community um so um also uh and that basement living space does not um add to mass and scale although it does have other impacts when I look at the number of small lots that are below 20,000
117square foot in the T feet in the town we found that 37% of the lots are under 20,000 square foot and in fact 70% of all lots are less than 40,000 square foot and we call this uh 20,000 square foot and 40,000 ft² we call 20,000 ft² a half acre even though it's actually a little bit more than that in reality these are Builders terms uh 40,000 foot is an acre so we are a lot a a town of small Lots um then when I um uh fleshed out what 7% plus 1500 looks like on lot sizes on a 6,000 squ foot lot on a slab you will be able to build a 1,920 square foot house without a garage without a basement when you talk about a basement you're looking at a two-story uh
118uh if it's a two-story house an actual 2800 square foot of living space and on a on story build that's 3840 uh square foot on a 6,000 foot lot on a uh a 10,000 square foot lot you could build a 2200 squ foot house on a slab with nothing else and that's not including accessory structures or anything else that you may be able to put on that lot um that uh a two-story build with with a basement then brings that up to 3,300 square ft a one-story build brings that up to 4,400 Square ft on a 15,000 SQ foot lot on a slab you can build a 2550 uh square foot house if you add a basement it becomes 3,850 Square fet on a one-story house that becomes 5,100 square foot um and uh and
119and I'll just go up to on a half acre uh you can build a 2900 foot house I I didn't flush out the rest of those numbers so just to give some perspective um so I support the uh in short I support for the reasons I've just stated the uh public hearing uh noticed uh a GFA formula change of 7% plus500 and one more thing I apologized to community members who spoke up some almost in tears about feeling villainized uh by the comments that were made at the public hearing although I know I don't think that word was uttered by anyone and I uh repeat what I have always said from the beginning the responsibility for the development in this town does not lie at anyone's feet but at the five people sitting here it
120doesn't if you're allowed to build something you're not a villain for building it you're a member of our community We're All in This Together and we're we're all part of the same neighborhood so um I apologize to folks that felt that way but I also recognize that people are angry um and um therefore um as I said I continue uh to support the 7% plus 1500 square foot uh GFA formula change uh which is what we notice for public hearing if it's okay with my colleagues could I say something I know it's out of the normal order you know I've given this a lot of thought as as everybody has you know we've talked a lot about this um so I I over the weekend I gave it a lot of thought and crunch numbers
121I did notify all my colleagues that I was going to make a suggestion um which is to allow some of the allotted garage space to be used for livable space on smaller lots and I I I appreciate Kate's comments very much especially um in thanking everybody for the work on this and Kate that starts with you and the the working group that involved members of the community you know a lot of town staff um and then all the individuals who spoke uh you know Professionals in the industry as well as just people concerned about the town and I do think in almost every case if not everyone people were everyone's intentions are good people care about the town and they're speaking about an issue that's important to them and to our town so I I
122I really appreciate that acknowledgement and that nobody's a villain here it's a it's a complicated issue we're trying to work through um and you know I'll say that a lot of people who especially the people who were concerned about out uh I heard a lot of concerns Kate gave the stats about people who were for the 7% plus 1300 and and there's no doubt that throughout this process we've heard from a number of people concerned about I think predominantly the size of houses and what the community looks like when they drive around uh as well as negative environmental impacts and Kate even spoke to some of the comments about the comprehensive plan referring to charm and character outdoor space and the importance of the yearound community and I'm wholeheartedly you know agree with those concern
123concerns but I think that the suggestion I am making is in line with those um so what I would propose is for for Lots under 20,000 square feet for at least part of the garage space which they're already allowed as for our last code changes to have that at least 300 square feet of that and this could be debate whether it was all of it or half of it I'm I'm saying 300 because that sort of lined up with the numbers that we had previously and if there's any will to explore this further we'll go through it uh I just don't want to get ahead of myself and the reason I I I'm saying this is because I think that you know when you drive by a house that it would look the same um
124I'm not proposing any larger structures than are already allowed it's just what people are doing within the walls of of that structure same appearance um I want to recognize that some of these are going to be Renovations where basements are not an option um you know if you have an older house that has a a a shallow basement or a slab uh you might not want to tear it down and I don't think we'd want to encourage and and Kate certainly is suggesting that a tear down so that you build a full basement and have all the amenities that you might want I think in some cases that's just not um a realistic expectation and for the people I'm concerned about hurting here um they're usually ones who aren't going to do a tear down
125with the full uh rebuild uh and I want to be considerate of non-developers you know I think that a lot of this conversation and a lot of the problem frankly or perceived problems have been driven by development and spec houses and I'm not demonizing anybody like that but I think the houses we point to and say wow that's too much I think usually aren't you know individual residents who are just trying to expand and make make room for their family and I want to recognize that we have two different categories of people and we have one code to to treat you know treat them all um and it's the working class the local people that everybody cares about here um but I'm concerned they wouldn't have the opportunity to sort of trade up from a
12610 or 15,000 square foot property into a bigger one that might need to accommodate a family of two three four kids or whatever it may be we still have pyramid laws clearing setbacks other regulations that'll all deal with house size um the houses I'm talking about and lots of 20,000 feet or less are not huge houses they're not small I mean we're talking in the 2,000 to 3,000 foot range um but I don't think they represent the excess um that a lot of us or a lot of people people are are concerned with but besides all of that my main point is that the mass you know in my proposal wouldn't change at all um we're talking about the same allowed structure when you drive by that what you can see you could even argue
127I think that a garage might be more physically imposing than a you know a bedroom addition I I I'm not a builder I don't know but regardless the footprint um and the area house would take up would be the same um you know at the end of the day when I I just don't know that can when somebody comes to me and says why could I build a garage here of 600 square feet for you know which is not a luxury it's a normal thing but they might need a 300t addition for an extra bedroom and I don't know how I could look at them and say that makes sense to me um I want to reiterate I think this has been a good process everybody's trying to do the right thing and there's no
128perfect solution here for sure um you know have keeping houses more modest does that keep them more affordable I think is intent maybe um do are we also then blocking people who have a small lot and can't buy a bigger one from improving yeah so I don't think we're going to thread this needle perfectly and get it right and I'm not I'm not saying that my proposal is perfect uh but I believe in compromise I think we got here through a a good process um thoughtful conversation and we arrived at a formula that I'll admit I think there's some subjectivity here I don't think we can take all the facts and say there is one number that is the answer here um but I follow this process in good faith I believe an efficient uh
129and thorough process I didn't want to delay this public hearing while we worked it all out um and so now we have sort of the size of what a structure can be and I just think again uh can't justify saying you can have a garage but you couldn't and part of what I'm proposing would even I'm I'm leaving open the room that the house would actually be smaller with more living space without the garage and again I think we could take that farther if anybody uh else agrees so um at the end of the day another thing I do want to acknowledge is is the issues related to sustainability um and consumption I think are important and we should all acknowledge that and it's uh you know we see that around around town and and
130perhaps extra living space would and you know take up more resources I understand that but I just don't feel comfortable of of attacking that point in someone's home for 300 F feet a relatively modest amount on homes that are not um the largest Mansions um I really want you know what's become clear to me throughout this process is that you know a large majority of the community even people who object to what was publicly noticed think that there should be a reduction in GFA I want to vote for a reduction in GFA I don't know that I'm going to be able to do that if we allow for a garage for free and there's no allowance to have some living space there so I I hope we can have we'll see what the other Bo
131members think um you know again I think it's a complicated issue um but at the end of the day we have the size of the structure it's how you use that space um and I want to be able to answer questions that I know are going to come my way when we vote on this as a final um as a final legislation I also want to acknowledge something else is sort of an aside there are special neighborhoods I know where there's unique character and perhaps we could look at those to set up um different rules we have historic districts where there's different rules rules and people buy in it means they can't do as much with what they have but you get the charm of that area and there may be parts of town where
132that would be appropriate um I just don't feel comfortable with this uh blanket well again it's it's not allowing somebody to use the space within the interior walls for particular use without impacting at all the outside space um or anything else that I think were the primary concerns coming from people about overdevelopment so you may a question on lots that can then have a 600t detached garage uh because one of the reasons why we uh we went with the um 600 sqt exempt from GFA for attached garages was one to make sure we weren't um uh uh incentivizing more massing on a property by another structure and two because we were looking at an issue where people were building much larger than 6 100 foot garages 1,000 foot 2,000 foot garages none of that counted
133in GFA so that contribute to the massing so the formula um for me and I appreciate uh what you're saying and I and I understand the concern but for me um it it might what we would need to do then to be fair and to be Equitable would be to um raise the GFA uh 300 foot either on one side or change the percentage and I think that that diminishes what we're trying to do in reducing Mass scale affordability and uh uh sustainability which which uh we're all tasked with under the comprehensive plan yeah I mean I think you bring up good points and and I look I I from the very early conversation we were talking about the previous code change I wanted to talk about GFA is part of that conversation when we
134were talking about basement garages I think it's part of the same conversation and it's a little bit trick now that we've already allowed the garages and so again I didn't pick this sort of landing spot but we have something in front of us and it's what can be inside in terms of your concern about encouraging um another structure on small Lots I don't think that's going to be possible we've done a few things that would make it even less possible which is the 10t separation from accessory structures to main structures so on a on a very small lot frankly I think people are going to have setbacks and pyramid concerns before you know this kicks in on a Halfacre lot maybe it's more of a concern um but keep in mind that as it's currently
135proposed people could still build a detached 600 squ feet accessory structure um I do get what you're saying though is if you choose to have you know this extension your house and then also have that on smaller Lots based on and the setbacks for accessory structures are greater than than principal behind yeah you're going to have a lot of a lot of difficulty fitting that in um and we could dig a little bit deeper again I don't want to delay this process um significantly but if there's the will to explore this I'm confident that we could make it so that um it works so and and you're looking at drawing the line at 20,000 square feet is that what you said so you think that that's a 7% plus 1500 that's a 2900 square foot
136house yep you think that that's well we're we're letting we're letting them we've decided you know again as a group and it wouldn't have been what I drew up from scratch I mean as in as side and I've said this I I I read the code about whether garages should be accounted in GFA before our last code change I just don't believe the code says that they should have been I know that that was the town's consideration in recent years um I I've read the code carefully doesn't matter we changed it um but yeah I'm saying that if you're allowed a 29t foot 2900t house that's the top end of what I'm talking about and you're also allow a 600t garage I wouldn't feel comfortable saying you could do that but you couldn't have a
137you know 300 extra squ F feet of living space and place of that garage or as part of it thank you I mean um I look at this through many things like Risk and what are the risks we're facing as a town I mean we we talked earlier about housing um we address it through CHF um you know the the other two that are related to this very specifically affordability and environmental degradation um you know you you go go through the town Census Data um you know and there's obviously a problem on our property ladder because you know as opposed to suff County where you have 8.2% of properties are one bedrooms for the town of East Hampton with 3.2% so you know for people trying to actually get into the housing market it's very
138challenging so you know by limiting what people can build to yes there's an element of affordability um that can be addressed but truthfully I I think there might be a misperception of what's really driving the affordability change in neighborhoods I I I think you've hidden it yourself um it's not to do with people building bigger Lots it's due to commercialization of our our residential neighborhoods and I I have concerns here that we're trying to do something to address that indirectly potentially and that's really not what this needs to be I mean you know as we've lost that rung on on the property ladder I I think you know there's a question of how to replace it um my my concern here is we did the code change um initially you know from 12% to 1600
139and then to the 10% 1600 and yet we've still seen this happen so it's the changes in the house size restrictions haven't changed the affordability they haven't changed the fact that the housing is diminishing and that is simply driven by the fact that people are able to make immense amounts of money renting out their properties out here in residential neighborhoods so again the impact this then has on people who actually live in these properties I think is very very different I I I step back and I look at this is a very personal level I I live on a 1500t lot I initially had about a 2,000t house my in-laws had to sell their house and we built on to make it a 3,000 foot lot with these proposed this proposed legislation we couldn't do
140that I would have left town and I and I think that's a very kind of telling thing that we we heard from some members of the public as well is a 3,000 foot lot on a 15,000 squ foot I to me no I mean I I I think you know you had the architect who stated too like look it's how you build that has an environmental implication um you know I I I think that's a very different piece you know I think overall I I have concerns that this is too Draconian um even at the 7% in 1500 um personally I do see Ian's Point additionally that look if you're saying someone can build a 600q foot garage on on their property what is the difference between that being living space and not living space
141there's arguments that yes you could say it's resources but if you've been into most people's garages it's full of stuff so I I don't necessarily buy the resource argument um you know truthfully I I think we need to come up a little bit of this I I do appreciate that you know the vast majority of public opinion we've received is in favor of what's being proposed um however it's about 200 voices out of 22,000 houses we have in this town about half of which are only occupied um you know the voices we did hear here that came out against this came from a variety of Industries be it building real estate um or related Industries and I think that needs to really strongly be taken into consideration too because I think there is an economic
142discussion here we need to have as well which is look the economy here is is is not in the best Condition it's been um you know there's changes coming from Washington that impacting that but there's also just general changes we see it in our cpf revenues you know they they've dropped off from where they were um you know during the covid period and so there's fewer transactions we have to be cognizant that about 30% of our local population who actually live here are employed in a related business to real estate transactions be it building be it real estate lawyers Etc and you know impacting that economy is is something I know certainly when I talk to the business committee they have major concerns about so um I think we have to trade lightly here look
143as we Dro this pebble is is this going to deliver the changes we want which is is it going to change the housing ladder to allow more people to get on I think there's there's questions there I I think the truth is there's a different mechanism by which we can do that is it going to prevent environmental degradation I think there's balances to that argument Pro and and against um you know I kind of just a rough calculation if you assumed that we could knock off about I think it's 500 square fet of what everyone can build on every one of those 22,000 Lots you'd be saving roughly about I think it's 252 Acres which is equivalent to like 5 years of cpf purchases we are doing a great job as a town with preservation
144of our environment through cpf and other mechanisms is this a mechanism to pursue that I I'm not sure if it's having that much of an impact on people's day-to-day lives um you know I I think that you have to look at this again from just overall Town perspective I mean affordability employee and employer operations that that is one of the biggest challenges we're facing as a town is finding places for people to live out here and the impact that this may have on that is something that um I have concerns about personally at this stage I'm leaning more towards the the 8% number um as opposed to the 7% number uh to Ian's point though I think we had to be careful with how we treat these smaller Lots um you know know because you
145are impacting people's ability to live thank you Tom David thank you um so my overall goal uh was to come up with fair and reasonable um changes uh and I think that the process has been able to accomplish to get us the information and and the data that is needed for the uh the town board to be able to look at that I think one of the uh greatest comments I ever had when I was been on the town board was a comment when when we were discussing the new through uh affordable housing uh project that was on through M Harbor and in that discussion there in the room uh it was the question came up who would like to live in an affordable housing uh you unit overlooking a commercial Pit and one of
146the people in the room who I greatly respect said I would and it was a very honest answer that the individual will take housing wherever we could sort of find it but need to protect that then too I'm very happy that that individual continues to be engaged in this and guides us into the point where we're at sidebar to bring me forward here you know that I've been very steady and saying I might not have agreed with everything that this committee or this process did and that came up when we first did this 22 months ago and I didn't agree with it all but I do agree with where we're trying to land now I think one the main things we have to do is continuing to maintain the historical character of many of our
147East Hampton's neighborhoods and this is through either vernacular design but also house size uh I think what we still have to do is make sure we try to do fair and reasonable decreases in the overall buildout which is the goal of the town's comprehensive plan and with that I'm just going to stick to the town's comprehensive plan goal one in the East Hampton Town compehensive plan which actually governs with the town board is is is mandated to do is to maintain and restore necessary East Hampton's rural and semi- rural character and the unique qualities of each of East Hampton's historical communities uh I I feel that what's happened right now is that since this this goal was discussed in 2005 uh our rural and semi- rural character is starting to break uh it it's I
148I see it personally because this is honestly the only place that I have called home in my 49 years next week uh life life frame and the communities that we're seeing that are being uh either changed uh forever based on H house sizes right now and development which I'm not saying development is bad but when it takes out those rural characters and the sem rural character the unique qualities of these special neighborhoods which there's pockets of them all throughout East Hampton it's something that we have to protect so I believe what we're looking at right now by taring the seven % in the 1500 where we' uh public heared does affect and does help us maintain that and it helps us to effectuate goal one of the comp plan goal two is to take forceful
149measures to protect and restore the environment particularly groundwater reduces impact on human habitation human habitation on groundwater surface water Wetlands Dunes biodiversity ecosystems Scenic resources air quality and night sky noise and energy consumption this discuss does not impact all of this but it does impact a lot of it then too and specifically when we talk about energy consumption on there we're doing great strides in that and looking to our energy codes within the town of East Hampton but also decreasing house sizes would decrease energy consumption that's something we heard loudly so in a very small way it's a very fair and reasonable balance to assist and goal two of the comp plan uh I'm going to go into uh two other other goals not in line in order and I'll go write it back down
150to goal s goal s we protect historical buildings hamlets neighborhoods Landscapes signific from incomparable incompatible development prevent further loss of the town's cultural and archaeological resources uh the part in here where it says hamlets neighborhoods landscape Scenic fists from incompatible development uh I have seen this happen I've seen this happen in the last particularly in the last 20 years right now and I think what we're trying to Target right now by the two phases of of this discussion right now and specifically the last one in this GFA will help assist in the protection of goal s uh where we're trying to protect and we're deemed that we have to mandated to protect our neighbor Hess neighborhoods and Landscapes goal four the town's comprehensive plan is to provide housing opportunities to uh help meet in need
151and needs of the current yearound residents their family members and senior citizens seasonal employees public employees emergency service volunteers and other workers on there this is exactly what my fellow council members are saying this is the one that we have to Grapple with all all time my personal belief and you've heard it from me in the past is that I have I've lived out here again as I just said 49 years through multiple recessions 80s 90s uh 2008 and then through the global pandemic I challenge anyone to tell me that my house or any of my family's house prices ever went down at any of those moments Dr ically that didn't rebound within the year um house prices keep going up and when we look at house prices and how that they deemed you either
152go by location or you go by a praise value of the structure and a lot of times the praise value of the structure will go by your square footage of your structure so in a way I'm targeting a little bit of this is trying to make sure that we deemed affordability not affordable by the law but affordability based on house size also and the same we've done in the cwell court where we've Covenant it that we can't go to pass a certain house size to try to keep reclaiming those houses back into our affordable housing stocks I do feel that by us targeting these fair and reasonable uh uh protections to our GFA will also help our affordability as was stated in goal four lastly going back to the main goal which we're looking at
153right now in the town's comp plan is goal three this is to reduce the toal build out of the town to protect the natural and cultural features identified in goals 1 and two rolling that back through this is the second time I believe since the town code uh uh that I've engaged in as far as uh uh reductions to the gross floor area then too uh I think what I've heard loud and clearly that the uh when it was reduced down to um 10,600 Square ft it didn't do enough and we have to find out what the fair and reasonable reduction is here two um we have we need these reasonable changes to keep things more affordable long term for many of our youth our Workforce and our aging population uh the decreases in h
154house housing sizes through these means will hopefully potentially have a stabilizing effect on the appraised values of the skyrocketing valuations of structures uh the reasonable restrictions still allow for the need to for velopment are individual homes based on the town code and current building stard and and methods as we know in the town code right now the minimum size of a bedroom is 100 square F feet and put together with other uh needs of homes uh even with these restrictions on small house sizes the house would still be able to build multiple bedrooms bathrooms kitchens and living areas I know we talk and we hear a lot about 20,000 s fet or 40,000 square ft quar acres is 10,890 Ft a half acres 21,000 780 ft and Acres 43,560 ft so on a quarter acre
155okay by these numbers it's specifically quarter not 10,000 square F feet is actually 2262 squ ft that you'll be able to build under this potential uh reduction to 7,500 under a half acre it'd be 3,24 square F feet I know we've been targeting just for sake of 10,000 20,000 Square F feet and you know uh my math teachers at high schools will make that easier but let's just dig down to the numbers you can let's say if you're building a 15x 15t bedroom which is nice siiz bedroom I don't have those and and the others don't that's 225 square feet you want to build four of those right now in in a bed in a house that's 900 square feet of your GFA you're adding maybe another 250 square feet of baths and bathrooms and
156and vanities and two maybe a 200t kitchen another 300t of living room you're at 1,650 50 sare fet uh there and that still leaves you nearly 600 F feet on a quarter acre or almost double that on a Halfacre if you want to build other amenities so there is Rooms to Grow I'm not going to tell you what to build I just want I just want to make sure we go here to Define what's in the in the town uh comp plan and how we protect our neighborhoods Town board has review been reviewing this for nearly two years to take an input from our advisory committees advocacy groups uh resident building advocacy grp groups individuals that might agree or not agree individuals that have threatened lawsuits individuals that have cheered us many of the first
157Suite of changes that have been enacted and even during uh that of uh that we came through came through compromise compromise from withdrawing changes to gross floor area formulations that included the the finished basement this is something that I wanted to look at initially and I asked the town advisor groups and council member Rogers to look at then too but understanding how that might affect things we decided to look more at the gross floor area even recommended and since we uh uh and since we move to doing this I believe that this looking approach of decrease in the gross floor area recently through the lot of percentages is appropriate and where we landed on a compromise and it's reasonable and fair reductions to 7,000 7% in 1500 square fet I believe is appropriate and I
158will vote for that also if it came in front of me to approve I do want to Target and discuss the effectuation date on this uh I I do believe as we did in the past that our effectuation date should uh allow for time for individuals uh that it doesn't alter any submitted applications that have a building permit uh uh uh to the building department that requires no other building approvals and a valid building or individuals might have a valid building permit this doesn't change or a complete application into the zoning boorder uh planning or a or b or a complete submission of approvals to uh submission or approvals to the town's regulatory boards as we move forward I think that was requested in the past and that that is uh appropriate uh of the
159Town board to do to give individuals the time to be able to guide their client clients or their families or their needs uh effectively but overall there has been a lot of discussion here I believe that the town uh we are are backed in doing this by the tal comp plan and I am back come together over the last 22 or 24 months on this stay engaged if you don't stay engaged that's when things go right so stay engaged with government and with your town board on there even if you agree or disagree let's respectively do it thank you for your time thank you David so the last few years we've had an outcry from our community to reduce you know uh mass in scale and reduce house size and uh the zoning code Amendment
160work group went through a very methodical approach over the last two years or so um I I know Kate you shared and when you presented the 7 plus% plus 1300 I had some concerns with what that would mean reducing that was somewhere for small a lots between a 22 to a 25% decre uh decrease in house size and and I thought that was for me it was bridge too far but the 7% plus500 square foot seemed reasonable to me I I think that you know a 10,000 foot lot being able to build a 2200 squ foot house in in my world is a nice sized house I've raised my family in a house that's just under 2100 Square F feet and we have two kids and at right now with being an empty nester my
161house is too big I wish it was smaller more than I want to care for um I do think that uh you know we've had a very methodical approach as I said and I know Kate you read some of the statistics but I'm just going to read them again so because this was a very robust response to a public hearing we had 157 people respond I mean that it was extraordinary we know how it felt the you know the day or two before when Carol all she did it was an avalanche of emails that we received um and 110 people who spoke out thought that 7% plus 1300 was what they supported that 70% of those that responded supported the working group's uh recommendation another 6% recommended nine people uh one of them included the
162eastampton CAC uh recommended the 7% plus500 for me looking at 76% of the respondents to uh for this public hearing that's that's a mandate to me um so um I'm supportive I and I here we are I'm having a little bit of deu because back in December when we were discussing this uh it was 2 two when it came to maximum house size it was you know Tom and Kate and I I guess I was the deciding vote to go from 20,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet looks like I'm the deciding vote here to go with 15 uh 7% plus 1500 but it's something that I support and quite frankly I'd like to see the resolution on Thursday night can I just just say one more thing because because Mo most of the the
163support for this I hear is is coming from the mass scale perspective and I just want to reiterate that what I'm proposing it it's considering and respecting the process that got us to a particular proposal in size and what I'm suggesting would allow for zero more mass and scale it's a different use within those walls I just want to make that point because I'm not advocating for larger houses or a bigger structure more mass more scale it's to be a little bit flexible within that parameter the only other thing I want to say is and I I really appreciate all the public comment here and I think everybody knows this it's not a it's not just a a popularity contest because I think there's subtlety and nuance and you know that's the job of our
164board to do and so it's not just how many people are on one side or the other although fully acknowledge that we heard a lot of support for a reduction but I just want to emphasize and reiterate what I'm suggesting would not increase Master scale but there there is an ability because this will be in the zoning code right if you needed to um to convert your 600q foot attached garage to habitable space whether that's half of the garage or the full garage um you have the ability to do that through the zoning uh Board of of appeals yeah I think you would and I think we even heard public comments and discussion on the board of concern if what would prevent the zoning board from approving that and if it's an automatic approval why
165are we making them go through the motions I don't think it's an automatic approval Ian there's F having been on the zoning board for 10 years and David probably can back me up on this there's five standards that it's not arbitrary it's it's very different from the planning board where there's much more leeway you have to uh you have to meet five standards and one of those being that you have a unique circumstance and that uh there's no other way for you to achieve the need that you have so it's not an automatic approval um but it is a relief Val for any of the zoning codes that we have and um I I support the process uh having been part of it for a very long time so um as far as uh having
166the resolution and I thank everybody for an effectuation date if that's July July 1 is what we heard so okay that that was I think it was the same lead time that we had for the last round we adopted in December and it went into effect March 1 this is uh we were if we were to adopt right March 20th it would go into effect July 1st so um that is a change from 2017 where it went to effect immediately I appreciate that change I think it I think it's necessary and also again I I want to uh reiterate the exemptions if you've been in the process process you are not impacted as long as you have a completed um application in front of the zoning board uh or the uh Architectural Review Board you've
167already hit that Target uh this you wouldn't have to go back and and redo any plans and also a building permit and I thank everyone and my board members for all their thoughts and all their concerns this is a difficult topic and uh and I I really am most happy about the transparency of these of us I'll commend us on our transparency and having these discussions in public um and and taking responsibility publicly for our decisions so thank you all thanks Kate okay so now we're up to Liaison reports Tom thank you Madame supervisor um I will kick off with um sanitation um just advisory to homeowners um who have um dead Pine on their prop property um obviously we had a PRI work session discussion from the town far Marshall about clearing um that
168that off your property to prevent fire risk um I have spoken with the um supervisor sanitation department you are able to bring that um disease Pine to the sanitation department it has to go onto the scale you'll pay pay to drop it off but you are able to bring it there and I just want to make sure that message is out there in public um moving on to next we have license to review board we will actually have a meeting at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow um eastn fire Commissioners there is a meeting March 25th um 2025 eastampton fire department um per per direction I've received at this meeting East Hampton Village will be reviewing the upcoming fiveyear dispatch contracts uh with the different fire districts um so I will report back on that to my fellow
169board members um special events and film you know applications are starting to roll in I just want to REM remind uh businesses and residents that you know there's a few key things we see over and over again um that cause your applications to go back to you um the first is an adequate parking plan please ensure it's eligible um you know um if we can't understand the parking plan we cannot process your application uh and then the second is is that if you are holding an event on a property that is not your own just remind you that you have to have written permission of the homeowner in your application in order for us to process your application um disabilities Advisory Board we have a meeting this Friday 1:30 p.m um eastampton youth task force
170um we met yesterday the concerns of that committee still remain the same um vaping and social media um it's incredibly challenging um for the school districts and for parents to address this um when you have corporations kind of profiting off the addiction of our youth bluntly um it's something that I would love for us to send a letter to our Congressman to address because this is causing massive medical issues it's causing social issues um it's something that's not going to go away without leadership from Washington quite frankly um antibus task force um I'll I'll talk about this very briefly and my colleagues might want to talk about this too but we had a very interesting uh Zoom meeting with the uh New York attorney general last week um regarding the state's position on some of
171the changes that are coming through from Washington and what protections are in place um if people do have concerns relating to that they can always reach out to our office and we will advise and direct them accordingly um Arts Council Jason I don't know if you're hearing me but if there's a possibility you could bring up the March Madness um presentation um I sent over for the high school every year the Arts Council of eastampton sponsors uh the school high uh eastampton High School March Madness Arts competition um whereby the the four panels one done by each grade this year the winners was to seniors um unfortunately the the presentation isn't coming up but congratulations to our senior I I was about to bring it up the there's 10 different uh sub presentations sub slides
172within this and I was wondering which one you would like would you like the the uh art panel contest results would that be better for youe yeah that's yeah the results let me do that right now and I'm getting that up in three two and here we go here we go thank you so much so you can see on the left that is the first place winner the seniors um then you have your second place which is 11th grade um but just emphasizing that the amazing talent we have in our schools um we have an incredible history of artists in this community um it's something that you know as we talk about the the challenges of affordability um you know artists are the first people to get pushed out their their livelihoods are far more
173challenging than some more um defined careers um you know we kind of look to encourage the next generation of artists this is a great program um and it brings immense Joy to the students and I think as you can see from the work um there's some real talent going on there as well um then lastly um Tick Control there is a meeting this Friday at 4 pm um just to remind to members of the public if you have questions regarding ticks um you can email us tick questions at ampton n.gov and um yeah lastly business commit we do have a meeting tomorrow and you know related to part of what I brought up today will be discussion around short-term rentals because this is a problem that's really grown and you know I think we need
174to look at new regulation of some kind as to how to manage it quite frankly I I know New York state has imposed a tax on short-term rentals um they've recognized this I mean there there's estimates that this is potentially the largest business in the town of East Hampton by Revenue um revenues of over a 100 million so um it's something that I think we we need to revenue for who um revenue for homeowners oh for homeowners I thought you meant tax revenue yeah no yeah I think one of the issues also Tom as I brought up in my last GFA presentation where I link that together is that um you know when we started the rental registry we wanted to know who was renting in our community and a past model was a lot
175of folks for affordability we're renting out their house for a month or two or maybe even in the summer and so the fees for the rental registry is $100 a year while the uh these groups that are uh managing and servicing and advertising are making you know 4,000 a week so uh we're we're stuck with these sanitation issues from 10 guests a week um Etc so I'm really happy that you're uh um bring and anyway that I can uh um show share some of my research on that with you I'm happy to thank you thank you um and then just Jason just quickly on the antias task force you could pull up that one flyer from The Retreat um just related to some of the topics we've discussed there are going to be some um
176Public Work sessions going on um for parents um you know how to address some of these issues you know with your kids at home I I know I face this Challenge and and truthfully the person with the worst addiction to their phone in my household is me um you know it's it it is you you have to recognize it and it impacts quality of life impacts your interactions with your family um and we we have to all set a better example but you know mechanisms for doing so I think the retreat has some great stuff going on there if you want and you're on the TV right now and you want to scan that QR code it will bring you to some more information your cell phone thank you uh okay so since John Rooney
177was here and I took half my lays on a report we'll get to lunch sooner uh Stephen H path roundabout we're trying to work through delays with Verizon right now they should have been on site yesterday and today to start splicing in this also goes into the state project at 114 and Sten hands path where there'll be some uh traffic delays I believe today as far as uh uh some one lane uh uh work going on over there so please just uh plan accordingly the Steven H path multiuse field is under f construction right now uh please have caution over there that looks to be completed by early summer um actually maybe even before summer actually Summer's on June 21st um in mon talk the mon talk the M talk bottomlands and discussion uh we'll
178have discussions with the town board shortly about this but we are we have commissioned our survey for that I look forward to getting that set so we can uh move that uh forward to uh final stages in the upcoming weeks um East Hampton Little League East Hampton Little League signups are ongoing and evaluations uh kids are at the fields signs up all over town yep kids are uh playing uh at the the Little League fields in Steph H path they're out of M talk playing with their parents please enjoy that with them right now if your kid or your grandchild or would like to play please uh please contact East hampon Little League you can find them online then to uh the Water Quality Technical advisory committee will be meeting uh get some more information
179by some our applicants so they we will I think we're bringing that forward to the town board for discussions in early April yeah you could let me know when you're ready so I can schedule that for a work session yep um beaches will will be convening uh uh Town's beach advisory committee shortly I know the beaches took a pounding this past week so uh we'll be looking at that and lastly uh Sunday uh March 30 uh March 30th kicking off at 12: PM is the m uh is the friends of Aaron M talk St Patrick's Day Parade uh I I want to thank the friends of Aon for being such great stewards of the parade over the years and their participation and also celebrating congratulate Joe Blocker on being this year's Grand Marshall and that's
180what I have great thank you Kate yes uh first I'd like to point out to anyone coming to town hall if you see some uh grass uh removed uh in FR of the our offices uh in our little house and uh also along the sides as you're coming in I just want to let folks know that's the beginning of a grassland Meadow that change Hampton will be adding to their pollinator Garden um and we'll be giving you more updates on that as as as it progresses um it's another example of sustainable Landscaping that creates tremendous Beauty and helps our pollinators and our environment win-win um the sustainability committee met um we discussed uh uh sustainable Landscaping practices we discussed um and looked at some uh codes that uh uh towns in other mun municipalities have
181codes for um tree protection which is uh high on the list this year for the sustainability committee as far as an advisory um I'm was surprised at the amount of Nassau County U municipalities that have Tre protection laws for mature trees so uh the committee will continue to work on that and we'll be bringing that forward also um composting uh the pilot composting pilot program was a tremendous success raised a lot of awareness about composting and now we're uh the committee is looking to uh promote and educate about the benefits and ease of backyard composting um and to that end uh we're looking at um again other municipalities that are providing bins and some help for folks to be able to establish those the backyard composting and an education program and I'll be bringing that
182forward uh again um I had a pin Mar meeting with the steering committee for the New York State uh resiliency grant for Monto we met at the library uh in Monto in a lovely meeting room and uh we had a very substanti um and very productive first meeting um and in the near future we'll be introducing you to members of the steering committee of this grant we're going to start getting uh going on this um with approval from the state and uh I was really encouraged um and uh at the way that this group jelled together to work together um and we'll be inviting all Town board members plus many of community stakeholders into uh give us advice um for creating the programs the zoning changes um and when we talked about zoning code changes
183we also wanted to emphasize because even members of the steering committee that we are looking at a very longterm uh study the study itself is going to take uh uh five years to put this together um and then the recommendations will be a very longterm uh look so we're really looking at zoning code changes like overlay districts for the future so I just wanted to with all this work on talking about zoning code changes I wanted folks to know that overlays for the future are part of a zoning code um and that we can use for maybe receiving areas um where you can move properties to when that property no longer exists I also want to emphasize that this is while we talk about resiliency and a lot of times folks think about uh the
184environment and that's critical to our resiliency this is how this is a an economic look how we can sustain the important business engine of mon talk and how we can keep those businesses going and recovering after uh natural disasters so we'll be continuing to work on that and I'll be inviting you all uh out to mon talk to the library for some work on that uh as well and that's what I have thank you oh wait one more thing oh how could I forget this I'm sorry on Saturday March 22nd Gloria how could not give me you know the stink eye on forgetting this um Saturday March 22nd is Earth hour globally and this is where we helped the planet by raising awareness by turning off all non-essential lights between the hours of 8:30 and
1859:30 uh we be uh I'll be presenting a memorializing resolution for Town support on uh Thursday and um I hope everybody there's Flyers available on and um in Spanish and English and information available on the re wild Long Island website in both Spanish and English on how you can participate uh so uh that now finalizes so you're going to look to have a memorializing resolution for the for Thursday I have a already yep I'm very supportive of that thank you Tom thanks this was something that Matthew Lester used to and I'm trying to remember if it was at the spring school or it was the Boy Scouts but this was because this has been going on for years and years and I know that this was something that he had first brought to our attention
186yes so that resolution will be on for Thursday okay Ian the spring CAC will meet tonight at 6m at ashwag Hall uh mostly on the agenda are updates about various projects and things going on in Springs we're always looking for more involvement so if anybody wants to know what's going on on or has anything to contribute please stop by 6 p.m. at ashw walk Hall uh Springs Park invasive species removal began yesterday um in pretty tough conditions but they should be finished as early as tomorrow um and then we'll I'd like to bring that back to the board once the leaves pop out and evaluate how it worked and um uh you know we'll be hearing from the the public about that as well so you so you think because we've been putting it out
187on social media a day at a time so we we put out that the park was closed yesterday then I found out this morning it was closed today so should we be the well it's really Scott Wilson I spoke to him before this meeting before the update um they're working today um the work is finished when it's finished he is posting on social media of Park groups as well as to the town um so I can't say for sure um it may not complete tomorrow but my best guess at this point is tomorrow we'll keep uh posting on a daily basis and Kathy is right that Park is closed during you know for safety of everybody during that process so if you go early in the morning or late in the day the park will
188be open but during the middle of the day while work is going on it's closed so uh stay tuned for for details there I think one thing I want to say about and just you know the reason it's taking this long is because we are being very selective about what is being removed anything that can be saved in terms of shade I know the Land Management Department's gone in and you know done a good job on that so that's it's not just a quick and easy remov yeah yeah Tom and I met met on site with with uh the Land Management Department as well as a member of the public um look it's a big change it's a lot a lot of Russian a lot of automo were in there um and so that the
189point of doing this was a test um and we'll evaluate how it went but I an acre yes and and a lot of thought and Care did go into it and again I I this isn't the end of the conversation I think we'll talk about what the next steps are for that that Park um the egg advisory committee met last Thursday I mentioned both of these things PR previously but just um I I brought it to supervisor Brook Gonzalez's attention they would like to give a state of a address in the in the coming weeks hopefully in April if that's possible before the farming season gets too busy uh just to sort of give uh you know an overview to the board and to the public about all the agriculture we have in eastampton which
190is significant um including Parcels that the town is owned and placed Farmers on in recent years uh a second thing that the egg advisory has been working on for many years is sort of a recognition of agriculture not only as a use um but as a site plan classification so that if Farms are um doing site plans it's recognized as neither residential nor commercial but what it is which is agriculture and I want to give a particular the committee's done a great job on that nothing has finalized p means that'll be um in in future months but I do want to give a lot of credit to uh Tina and Chris ster uh Tina Laren from the the planning director um and Chris ster who's a a planner they were both in that meeting incredibly
191helpful um with feedback and and again I I expect that what the a community is asking for there's going to be a different side to that story and I think we should have that conversation publicly when it's more ripe it's not quite there yet uh I know Tina shared it with Kate and with the building department which I think is really really helpful so that um we sort of get all concerns out there um and I look forward to that that progressing and that's it great thank you uh I just have a couple of things I want to bring up uh yesterday we sent out a press release because the government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada which is known as gfoa has once again recognized the town of East Hampton with
192its certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting for the town's annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ending December 31st 2023 this marks the third consecutive year East Hampton has received this distinction and it's a testament to to our Town's commitment to transparency and high standards in financial reporting I'm going to have a resolution on for Thursday night and that is to authorize a request for congressionally directed spending these are um grant opportunities that are put out by Senator Schumer Senator Jill brand and Congressman Loda and uh Becky has been working with Sam Klein to look at our 2025 Capital plan and see which of the uh capital projects fit with the categories that are available so we are going to be making multiple applications and we just need to authorize that on
193Thursday night and then lastly um about I guess two weeks ago uh Joe and I attended a uh landscape therapy workshop and it was held at the Springs Presbyterian Church it was the perfect Earth Project Piaza horiculture and South Fork Natural History Museum in conjunction with aonic protection committee and they you know was a really thorough uh discussion a lot of Q&A about people's like you know home Landscapes and one of the things edu vongal brought up was that you know that the town doesn't use pesticides and that is something we've always known that that's been our town policy I know it was the policy when I was on the spring school board so when I got back to the office I tried to find where that policy is articulated and um the only thing
194we could find was a resolution dated November 3rd 2000 and it was a weas clause whereas the town recognizes the potentially harmful effects of chemical pesticides in ground and surface waters and has now banned the use of non-organic pesticides on Town property and taken steps to educate the public toward reducing and eliminating the use of these harmful chemicals as well as petitioning the state for local regulatory control over pesticide use we we couldn't find though the resolution where the town actually had you know banned the use of pesticides then we found on the town website which was under sustainable Landscaping we we have a a green page Green East Hampton that had been put up under the van sko Administration that All Landscape Maintenance performed on town properties is done without the use of of
195chemicals or pesticides so I know it's come up in discussions whether do we allow or Organic pesticides on Town property or or is this a ban on the use of all pesticides so I think it's important for us to you know come back and uh have a new policy and something that's updated it's been at least 25 years since it was articulated um by Town board resolution and I was hoping that maybe we could take this Ian I don't know you know something that you could weigh in on but the sustainability committee I think would be a great um project for them to to come back and advise us on whether or not uh I I think we're all supportive of a ban on pesticides the question becomes do we allow Organic pesticides on town
196properties how does how does that get articulated I mean my immediate thoughts to agriculture I because that's Town lands and and to not allow them to use Organic pesticides I think could be problematic I think maybe we would need to make exceptions because it's not going to be a one siiz fits all because of Agri agricultural lands but first I we I think we need to Define what Organic pesticides you know what are we talking about uh to begin with uh and I think the sustainability there's a number of people on the sustainability and we could certainly um coordinate because we don't have to our our committees don't have to work in silos either uh to understand what agricultural needs are as well yeah I think I think that that that that should be a
197a thoughtful and bigger conversation and I would certainly want to let the a advisory committee weigh in um cuz I think it's a different thing on town-owned properties in terms of Town campus versus if the town is actively buying Farmland um I think we have to very have a very careful conversation about the differences there and what what the policies um should be so I'm not going to say I'm Not Gon to say everything that I think I'll have a lot of thoughts I will say in terms of if you want to restrict um pesticides to just organic there is an organic material review Institute which uh are approved you know uh pesticides that are allowed in organic production as per National certifying so there is there is a list there it's not just wishy-washy
198um but again I think we're going to have to take um a lot of care and I want to hear from the ad Community about what they think about that yeah and and just on regular you know on on just in aside on on home owners property which we're not talking about today but maybe we will in the future um I felt really good about using organic sprays uh to fight mosquitoes but then I learned uh that it because it's an oil it is organic it's you know a peppermint oil or whatever it also coats all the pollinator wings and knocks them down as well so uh I think it'll be important to really understand from the ad committee what the uh agricultural needs are uh for food production um and then looking at what
199what else we do on all these on all of our passive uh town properties right and I think it get articulated in our license agreements with with organizations that are that are using Town property all right so that is uh our liazon reports and now we're up for Resolutions and I think David you get to to lead us off I'm happy to offer resolution 2025 421 this is a reappoint James Kylie to The cpf Advisory Board which expires uh uh March 23rd 2032 wow second all in favor uh resolution 2025 422 is to hire a hunting company conduct an appraisal uh site conditions at um u a structure located a structure structures located at suff County tax map 300-8 d326 at a quote not to exceed $4,000 second all in favor I I for 23
200is retain surveyor uh for additional work for the lake mon talk dredging project uh this is for wall bridge survey or not to U exceed a total sum of $800 second all in favor I I have resolution 424 which is to wave fees uh for the friends of Aron and amager Chamber of Commerce um this is uh where uh charitable organizations um uh uh not uh including not limited to nonprofit entities shall be recognized as exempt from taxation under the internal in other words it's a 501c3 and shall be duly registered with the Charities Bureau of the attorney generals of the state of New York and shall provide services or funds that benefit the residents of the town of East Hampton um whereas on March 30th the friends of Aon a 501c3 chatable organization is
201holding their annual St Patrick's a parade and whereas the friends of Aron requested the town board wave the associated special event permits um resolved that the town board does hereby wave the special event fees associated with The Monto St Patrick's a parade and whereas on March 22nd the amanza Chamber of Commerce is holding their annual am o ganit parade and it is a Civic organization the Chamber of Commerce of amenit requested the town board wave the associated fees resolv that the town board here uh here by WS the special event fees associated with the Amo Gans at St Patrick's Day Parade second so can I just call for discussion so I just have a question and then a comment so is I know in the past the special event committee for for um not for-profits
202we've waved their special event fees um but we've never really done it by resolution so is this a new policy that we're going to for you for every time we wave a fee for a for off for profit we're going to be doing a resolution yes um so Jake looked into this one so the the town is permitted to wave fees for 5013 C's or for entities that kind of have some defined public benefit um whether we want to make that a a blanket change so we don't have to do a resolution every time it open to option I think the challenge to that is that sometimes we are receiving 5013 C's piggy being used to piggy back corporate events and in those circumstances we might want to challenge a fee um I'm not going
203to name specific names but I've seen commercial entities put in special applications for a 5013c that you know the charity might be getting $500 from revenues of you know upwards of H 100,000 and and does that have public benefit so I I think I I I think it might be more expeditious if the special event committee did a blanket you know that at the discretion of the special event committee if you know and it's you know and you pick up you know it's a duly registered with the Charities Bureau of the Attorney General it's either or it's a chamber event or it's a fraternal organization rather than have to do it for every single one sometimes these things come up really quick um so what are the criteria by which we'd want to yeah I
204think it's in the first Warehouse Clause so I think that that um would be a better way to do it and and when I first saw this resolution I also realized that you know we this is um we we don't typically do resolutions to uh for actually for the uh police department and how they manage the The Monto friends ofon parade you know that's the largest special event that they oversee and handle each year the best well according to the chief The Monto friends of Aaron is the single largest special event the police department handles each year the average cost strictly for police overtime is about $35,000 um with the collaborative of of efforts of East End law enforcement providing an additional 50 or so police officers to assist we have over a 100 sworn
205personnel on duty for the day along with civilian Personnel support staff and then there's the mutual Aid that's required because we're um we get help from uh officers from East Hampton Village Westampton Beach Southampton Village Southampton Town Shelter Island and then we have to send officers two or three officers to their similar events which is another $155,000 in um police overtime so all told it's um it's a it's a $50,000 you know in donated you know what I mean we're not charging uh the friends of Aaron so I think it may make more sense and um maybe I'll put a resolution on for Tuesday for to cover the parade you know and the police overtime but I think it makes more sense to do this um as a blanket resolution uh uh to to exempt
206non for-profits fraternal organizations chambers of com you know Chambers of Commerce veterans organizations uh you know at the discretion of the special events committee plus this format has to be it's um there's a resolved in the middle of whereas Clauses so that would have had to have gotten fixed you know amended to begin with so I'm just missing where it says anything about the police department it doesn't but it it raised when I read wave fees and I'm thinking well why aren't we also than including the police overtime because we're we're waving that as well so I think it makes more sense to do a blanket for for exempting uh fees for Chambers of Commerce veterans organizations fraternal organizations and 501c3 is at the discretion of the special event committee and then I'll put a
207resolution on for the parade just for the um police overtime okay we'll bring back to the committee can come back to so yeah so I'll second to withdraw I'm withdrawing yeah uh okay um I make a motion to withdraw resolution 424 second all in favor I uh resolution 425 is to approve refund for n uh 992 springings Fire poost Road Architectural Review Board and this is where uh uh stelle Architects paid $350 to the Architectural Review Board for an application to be reviewed and it was discovered that the uh that the premises doesn't need an Architectural Review resolved that the town board authorizes the finance department to issue refund check to stal lont ra Rani architects in the amount of $350 second all in favor I I uh and uh 426 is to retain consulting
208services for 2025 and this is where the town requires the Professional Services of engineer for technical review of subdivision site plans urban renewal matters and similarly engineered design related items for the planning department planning board and Zoning Board of Appeals whereas Vincent gello and Raina group submitted a proposal dated January 31st 2025 resolved that Vincent gello from the Raina group be hereby engaged to provide Engineering Services as an on an as needed basis uh with an amount not to exceed $25,000 second all in favor I resolution 27 this is to adopt local law amending town code chapters 2551 41d personal Wireless facilities unacceptable applications 25541 M1 K13 activities requiring Architectural Review board approval and 730h activities requiring Architectural Review board approval second all in favor I all right that's all for the resolutions so I
209have a a motion to go into exec session yes I'd like to make a motion to go into exec session for personnel advice of counsel cpf and lisis second all in favor I thank you everyone and thank you