East Hampton Town Board Work Session - 03/04/25

001e e you hello eastampton Town board we are live streaming and being recorded thank you thank you LTV good morning everyone and welcome to the East Hampton Town board work session of Tuesday March 4th 2025 Carol if you could please read the roll call flight pres pres pres if we could all stand to the Pledge of Allegiance Ali to the FL of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all for joining us today we are going to open with public portion and we ask you to kindly keep your comments to three minutes and then we have uh six topics today we're going to start with jeie carosa giving us an overview of bids then Our Town

002Administrator and budget officer Becky Hansen is going to review the 2025 draft Capital plan we had looked at that the end of last month and uh look to make some revisions we also have a presentation by three department heads actually two department heads and and a town council member uh U for Community Development our 2024 accomplishments and 2025 goals Tina laran is going to present uh on the planning department Eric chance is is unable to be here today so Ian Calder pedmont is going to Pitch hit and do the Housing and Community Development portion and then Joe poo our chief building inspector will discuss the building department then Ian is going to give a presentation on affordable multiple residence recommendation from the housing office we're going to have an after hearing discussion on 66 waycott

003Main Street and that will be led by John jel Nikki our assistant Town attorney and then Jake Turner who is sitting in for Rob today and we appreciate you being here Jake um is going to give a presentation on a code Amendment to the Bureau of administrative adjudication that'll be followed by liaison reports and resolutions so we are going to open up with public portion and right now we have one person signed up welcome hery please step up to the podium thank you for being here this morning uh good morning supervisor Burke Gonzalez and members of the town board I'm hery eginton chair of the way Scott citizens advisory committee uh I spoke at the work session on February 18th in support of the traffic safety recommendations developed by the CAC that Deputy supervisor Rogers

004subsequently presented to the board at that meeting uh several farmers who still cultivate the land in waycott also spoke during the public portion of the meeting they pointed out that their farm equipment would have trouble negotiating the roads if stop signs were added especially at the intersection of waycott Main Street and waycott Hollow Road where the waycott school was located and in the westbound Direction at the corner of Beach Lane and Wayne Scott Main Street they did not however express any objection to a stop sign and crosswalk on the eastbound side of waycott Main Street and Beach Lane nor did they speak against the recommendations for stop signs at the intersections of waycott uh Stone Road and Sarah's path or Wayne Scott Northwest Road and Wayne Scott Stone Road while they and CH police chief

005sarlo don't think that speeding in either direction along Wayne Street Wayne Scott Main Street is a yearound problem I would suggest otherwise and in the interest of pedestrian and bicycle safety I don't see a strong rationale for doing nothing the volume of traffic year round dictates action and the speed signs whose data was referenced by Chief sarlo don't capture pressure points such as the bend in the road going south on s's path where it meets uh way Scott Stone Road this is also a you know pedal to the metal point where cars going in the other direction accelerate to race North uh onto waycott Stone Road pedestrians walking south on the correct side of waycott Stone Road are at risk unless they step into the tick infested right away I urge the town board to

006work with the cic the police and Highway departments to adopt a modified Traffic Safety plan for three of the intersections in Wayne Scott leaving the waycott school intersection as is for the time being and with my remaining time I would also like the board to take the necessary steps to Landmark the property at 66 waycott Main Street in addition to the two structures on this historic iconic property which is the heart of Wayne Scott I reference the letter I sent on behalf of the CAC regarding this issue uh a week or so ago thanks for your consideration thank you hery is there anyone else that would like to address the board Gloria good morning Gloria fry from East Hampton I'm speaking in advance of the the uh affordable housing which is so important and also

007in advance of the meeting that is going to be on Thursday evening about uh housing size limits I'll uh reference Jonie Mitchell who who wrote it so eloquently I won't sing it they paved Paradise and put up a parking lot with a pink Hotel a boutique and a swinging Hot Spot don't it always seem to go That You Don't Know What You Got Till It's Gone I've been fortunate in my career before I moved out here full-time to travel around to wine making regions around the world as part of my job interviewing wine makers and I'd always ask them what makes your wine so good because I usually think of East Hampton as being a fabulous space a fabulous bottle of wine and they all said well it's very easy it comes down to 3g's

008grapes ground and guy or gal you need good grapes you need good ground and you need people who are stewards of their land taking care of everything because they know that it's all connected you can't have a great bottle of wine a great conversation over it with friends if you don't have these 3GS we're in danger of losing them here in East Hampton we've got great people who get their hands dirdy right here we've got a beautiful example with the um change Hampton Garden re wild Long Island has installed already three pollinator Gardens in East Hampton we've got another three that just got grants so there will be a total of six Community Gardens here and so that's people guy or gal grapes it's our natural resource all of the pollinator Gardens all the ways

009that we're taking care of our natural resources and ground is something we don't really pay attention to because we don't see it so much we look out here and we see the the garden waiting to bloom in the spring we look out in front of people's homes and there there Hedges and bushes and whatever um we see the various Landscapes around us but we don't look to see what's in the ground as we cover more and more of that ground with our homes with our parking lots with our boutiques we are destroying the life that's in the ground that we all interact with that sustains us um if you don't have healthy ground you don't have healthy vegetables you don't have healthy people we're all connected we are caretakers of our community of our ground

010of our families of our health they're all intern interconnected and what we do keeps that system going and I hope to raise a glass of wine with everyone here and celebrate that we are really moving ahead and taking care of our community our grapes and our ground thank you thank you cloria is there anyone else that wants to address the board M up welc hello good morning supervisor members of the Town board uh my name is Sarah Couts I am a principal and founder of Sarah CS Consulting a cultural and historic resources firm who is working with Wayne Scott heritage project to update the survey for the way Scott historic district which was last done in 1980 so um I just wanted to because I missed the public hearing for the 66 way Scott Main

011Street um I just wanted to Echo what my colleagues at preservation Long Island and Mr Zack student Roth um concluded that the entirety of the site should be landmarked that includes the land um I noticed that um since that uh so I noticed that the the resolution for the designation includes two of the buildings and then there's one smaller outbuilding that um has since come to light that it was uh moved from further Lane by the osbornes in about the mid 20th century it was probably used by Farm Workers um and when it was moved to the Osborne Farm it was used as a playhouse for children so those are two groups that usually don't get a lot of attention in historic narratives children and farm laborers so to designate that would be very important

012because it provides a context for 20th century people who are usually overlooked in historic narratives and that's very important to keep those two groups visible and in uh the story also I wanted to mention that um The Landmark ordinance for the town does enable the town to uh designate whole Lots um see if I have it oh [Music] yeah so part of the update is to take um the significance into the last 50 years so up to the 70s so this includes that whole area of the early 20th century and mid 20th century potato farming and the resorting uh kind of a a country house estate era so the the Georg era leading into uh Suburban development today so uh this property not only has ties all the way back 400 years to the very

013beginning of the colonial settlement around waycott Pond but all the way right up to the transition in into the Suburban landscape that we see today um so all of those elements are there in that landscape and it is essential to make sure we we are connecting the open space which is Fields yards uh I just wanted to read this this is from the uh the uh designation of historic landmarks and historic districts um section a historic landmarks the town May by local law designate an individual lot and any buildings or structures there on as a Historic Landmark or as a special Historic Landmark if the property so one of the criteria is possess a special character or historic or aesthetic interest or value as part of cultural political economic or social history of the Town

014B is identified with historic personages so jam-packed of decades worth of Osborne and other folks important to local history um and then e because of the unique location or singular physical characteristic represents an established and familiar visible feature of its neighborhood so I think those are just three where this property certainly meets those criterias and um I if it meets those criterias I think it should be designated in with that because these are also criterias that uh are taken into consideration for the state and National register of historic places and this property certainly uh merits significance and integrity based on the state and National register criteria thank you um and one other thing I wanted to say landmarking is not freezing things in Amber landmarking is making sure we have a controlled uh process when

015we change a land landcape or a property it's not stopping any kind of change at all it's making sure we're carefully thinking about the change that we want to make so if the town and I really encourage you to land Landmark the entire lot if you do that you can still change it but it just needs a longer process of review where you are thinking more carefully about what those changes are and what the impacts might be to make sure you protect the Integrity of that resource for the people of the town thank you is there anyone else that would like to address the board Jim welcome Jim morning good morning I don't speak really well in front of people so I'm gonna do my best in but just turn the the the mic up

016up my mouth beautiful on my nose anyway you're doing great what what I'm here for is uh I wanted to thank the board for a a resolution you're going to pass later an agreement that uh we made uh with the Union um for maternity and paternity leave uh with pay for uh for people who are starting families but I I wanted to say more than a lot of the membership doesn't even know about it yet because I didn't want to spoil anything we're having our membership meeting next week uh but uh Becky said that you're going to be putting out flyers for this after um but I wanted to say thank you but also acknowledge uh that it speaks a lot of respect the fact that I can come into your office and and we

017can have nice chats and you can say what can I do for you is a is a really big deal that I've been echoing to everybody else to try to get them to understand where we are with our relationship with the membership and the board that uh um that you you're invested in our families and a lot of our families are very invested in this job a lot of us take the job home with us um there's enough work that demands that and uh um it's just great to have this relationship with the board and and for it to be unanimous I I wanted to I wanted to thank you for that and thank you from the membership um and have a good day Jim can I just ask you since uh and you you're

018great speaker um uh just to say your name and what union you're talking about so folks understand sure James Bennett and I'm the president of the ca for the uh our local unit 8330 and uh and you made some people happy I there's particular people that are going to use that right away but it also it also helps though for what we were talking about with recruit and retain you know it makes it more appealing for someone who's who wants to build a family on on this place you know um you know I think it it's it should be known that this is a career with how many years you have to put in here to get a retirement and it's not a huge retirement but it's a career not just a job it's not

019you know just a pass by thing it's it's an investment you're investing in us and we're investing in in uh in a career year you know these folks that are in tier six some people have to be here well over 30 years to get a retirement that's a long time to work somewhere and that's that's raising a family you know um on on this career so that's the way I look at this job as a career and uh and some some folks that are with me on that and uh and that's why we got to make it better and this is a great little launching pad for saying that you're invest in families and uh we got to get back to raising families here so they're they're your next workers and you know things like

020that it's hard enough to live here without without your help so I'm grateful the the unit's grateful and I and I really appreciate all of you for for than you can you share with us how long you've been with the town 27 years I've been here since 98 thank you for your service yeah it's my pleasure thank you than J you guys have a good day thank you okay is there anyone else here that would like to address the board Jason is there anyone on the line yes we have five callers as of now I'll unmute the first he good morning uh supervisor hi uh supervisor B Gonzalez members of the D board uh fellow residents this is Pablo sper I'm a member of the way Scout CAC subcommittee on traffic safety um who help

021prepare the recommendations that Deputy supervisor Rogers presented to you last week and on our behalf um I'm going today to um comment on some of the issues raised U couple of weeks ago by police chief sarlo and some other residents concerning um the Post stop signs along the two vious streets in wcot as wot Stone Road and wcot Main Chief Salo in particular seemed to suggest that speed is not a problem in either speed now as the material in Deputy supervisor Rogers uh shows during the summer which by the way is the only time that the speed monitors work as they are taken off for some good reason um during the fall and spring more of the More than 70% of the traffic in W Co Stone Road was about the speed limit and that

022was during the whole summer and also at all times of the day including night and as it also present in the in the um in the material um the the uh big time now um it goes from 900 in the morning to 7 in the evening so it is at all times that there is a lot of traffic and that they are speeding now for those of us who live in the neighborhood and us the street 7% of traffic about the speed limit in a narrow street with no sidewalks is serious danger and what we have been lucky so far that there has been no accidents um the combination of high volume of traffic and high speeds at most of the times of the day is really a recipe for disaster and we don't want

023to have a situation like we had in town Lane that a tragic accident triggered action we need to move now and do something to uh calm the traffic and the proposal that was presented to to you by the way CHC is a small but I believe is a significant step providing some measure of peace of mind uh to our neighborhood I sincerely hope that you will respond to way Scot needs and works towards implementing most of if not all of um the way CAC recommendation and uh I also want to support um what the latest when the lady consult who was talking on 66 W May it's a very important for us property in uh and is really the heart of of w Scot as pery said many thanks uh all you thank you Pablo

024okay unmuting the next caller let just make sure I have this all in order thank Jason one moment hello caller ending 0709 you're on the air oh wonderful good morning uh good morning Town board this is espan Salon uh calling from Wayne Scott a little bit of multitasking today I wish I could be there in person um I am about to head down to the way scottt chapel and uh I was hoping to be in front of that wonderful uh piece of property I'm calling about 66 waycott Main Street um I'm speaking as the president of Wayne Scott heritage project but in part also simply as a resident of Wayne Scott um I Echo everything that um Sarah Kouts said earlier and I just would like I'm looking forward actually to uh hearing uh John

025jel Nikki's presentation I've read the memo I would like to ask that you reconsider the designation of the structures um to include the third structure as well as the land um in the name alone John Osborne Homestead uh that indicates a piece of land um there's no Homestead with just a farmhouse and as we've said before the farm goes with The Farmhouse um and as Sarah indicated there's nothing truly restrictive about the historic code uh you it is in your hands in fact and with public input to craft the guidelines that would uh better plan for the preservation of that property in all its aspects um and in particular its historic character so um I hope that you will take that into consideration and uh again I look forward to listening to the discussion later

026on and um please please please uh if you would please um just wait on the voting of this um it's it's it needs a little more thought thank you so much thank you esparanza okay and I shall unmute the next caller let's get them up and running hello 7888 you are on the air good morning supervisor and members of the Town board this is Susan Macy I'm a full-time resident of waycott and thank you for allowing me to speak about the resolution to only Grant historic designation to two of the structures at 66 waycott Main Street but not the land formerly the John Osborne Homestead um really esparon and Sarah have pretty much covered what I had planned to say I just want to say that I I hope that you will either table the

027discussion I feel like I'm not really sure when you say you want to you keep your options open what exactly what that means um I'm I hope it's nothing like you know PVE Trails or a playground but I I just don't know because um as far as I know the public has not been privy to your vision of what you see happening on the land so I just ask that you please consider giving historic designation to the entire property and the three structures at 66 way Scott Main Street thank you thank you Susan unmuting the next caller I was just adjusting my notes great hello caller 4221 you are on the air thank you LTV good morning Town board it's Jan ning resident of git speaking this morning also as a member of the wisut

028heritage project board and also as an individual uh concerned citizen sorry resident of the Town um offering some comments relative to your work session later in the meeting wa regarding 66 Wings cut in treat I did speak at the November um public hearing at which point you will recall iend endorsed and advocated for the historic designation of all three structures on the property as they were well described and documented um as having historic and preservation value I imagine you'll also recall that I along with fellow whp board members made clear case urging the board to as it seemed to originally intend to formally put a historic designation over the entire parcel much has been done in recent years on other cpf acquired properties so I am disappointed to see the somewhat limited scope of the

029draft resolution in front of you today um I am really struck though by the first whereas in the reso which states whereas the town board considering all the information provided as as any and all comments presented at the time of the hearing believes the designation of the John Osborne Homestead property property as a town Historic Landmark is appropriate so if you believe that designation the property parcel is indeed appropriate then a bit baffled why you're not moving forward with that as part of the resolution today um I have of course read Mr J's memo um I respect it I'm happy to see that the town did that I know that you're invested in this um and my 3 minutes restrict my ability to comment or question in in depth but in short um there is

030a discussion about things that might be considered or done on the property but I have not really seen the persuasive legal precedent or case law that makes a definitive case against designating the parcel um and in fact he can Mr jiliki concludes quote if the desire is to include the real property in the designation it would be prudent to carve out certain exceptions in order to allow above improvements to be made in the future so a designation can be made without shutting down legitimate like compatible um uh uses or even to some extent structures if this board feels that it wants to deny legitimate historic designation to quote leave its options open to do things on the site that are not entirely consistent with the historical patterns and it doesn't protect the actual Vista to

031the very fullest extent that strikes us as somewhat problematic spending 56 million to preserve and protect a parcel and then not doing everything in your codified power to actually preserve and protect that parcel as strongly as p as possible in perpetuity seems like a suboptimal use of those taxpayer funds I'm sorry if I sound a bit salty um as I say this the reason people for decades have cherished this thought and the reason that folks literally jumped up and down and cheered and celebrated when you announced this first purchase is because of how they feel about the Vista and they want to protect it and not obliterate it um and I think people believe the cpf would mean that so my ask um I think it's shared is that you go ahead and put the

032designation on two structures but make the um res resolution clear that a decision about local Landmark designation for the whole parcel is not being prohibited or denied and remains a viable option for further consideration expertise and I just want to say one other thing because I you know I I like when people understand the process of the board I very much appreciate that this board is going to have a thoughtful po hearing work session to get into their mindset and how they feel in public and transparent so I never want my opinions to make it seem like I don't appreciate the work that this board does and your deliberation and consideration and I'll see you on Thursday thank you thank you Jane okay moving on to the next caller let's see we've had a few

033we had one person drop out and then a few more people came right in so 7487 you are on the air hi this is Pam Mahoney um from waycott and I would like to um WR strongly recommend um that there be um that that you designate the entire property at 66 Main Street waycott as a Historic Landmark um the property the land and all structures on it it's such an iconic piece and uh I I think it's it's it's critical that the entire entire property be designated as a Historic Landmark thank you Pam okay and unmuting the next caller hello 0299 you're on the air yes good morning Town board this is Carolyn Logan Gluck calling I'm a Wayne Scott resident and a member of the Wayne Scott heritage project board I'm calling in regarding

034to the matter to do with 66 way Scott Main Street and asking you to not approve the resolution as it has been written today but to consider amending it so that there is the possibility to Landmark the property not just the two structures the property and all existing structures uh and designate designating them as historic my predecessors who've spoken earlier today have highlighted the main reasons but I would just point out that in my view the memo written by Mr Jill Nikki does not support the resolution is written right now and he has indicated you a path forward noting that designating real property if the desire is to include the real property in the designation and I think that our that you've heard many people indicate their desire for this it would be prudent to

035carve out certain exceptions in order to allow the above improvements to be made in the future so I urge you to consider revising the resolution accordingly thank you thank you Caroline and we have one more caller who has not spoken yet unmuting now caller ending 3472 you are on the air thank you hello uh Town board members this is Bruce Wayne Solomon from 14 Hedges Lane in Wayne Scott are you able to hear me yes we are okay terrific great um I'm gonna throw a little bit of heart into this one um because as a runner and a cyclist uh who has passed that uh 66 main main street parcel on many a run and many a a a ride I can only tell you that uh from the heart when I pass that area

036my heart flutters I begin to feel that there is a uh real sense of community within and something like that just it just makes me my inside sing and I cannot imagine anybody that has gone past there who looks at that Vista who sees what I see can't think and see this uh the same way I do about that it is a cherished Vista uh at of all of the Hamptons not just Wayne Scott so you know why do so many people want to travel down down Main Street um and see that Vista when they are coming home or leaving what have you so what I would like to just do is just to encourage the uh the the the voices that have the power here to really consider what it is that we're saving

037and I would like to add my voice to the other speakers um to have this parcel designated as a historic district uh not District well historic preservation um along with the three structures not I'm not sure why the third one was left out that has probably just as much importance if not more than some of the other structures that are on the uh on the lot there so um we we went into this advocating for uh and the community advocating for this parcel to remain as is into perpetuity not cut up and decided upon maybe in the future maybe five years from now we'll do something maybe what well the farmer is going to farm this what have you all these things that I've been hearing thrown out there we want it preserved the way

038it is as we see it now and thank you very much for your time I appreciate it thank you Bruce okay Jason we have let me I'm just double cheing my my numbers because there's a few people still stayed on the line uh as far as I can see yes all parties on the line have spoken okay so I'll go back to the main meeting room is there anyone here that would like to address the board okay so we're GNA move on to topics and first up we have Jeanie carosa our senior purchasing agent welcome jeie thank you um before before I start with my bids and notices I just want to um Echo what Jim Bennett was saying about the resolution on for today for the parental Le we fully support it and um

039want to thank you and when you say we you're talking about department head Association okay thank you Genie you're welcome okay um the first bid to accept is the printing of miscellaneous forms tsg direct is the apparent low bidder for that one um the next is spring Park restoration test plot Jackson dods and Company is the apparent low bidder in the amount of 23,000 $112 a couple of notices the first is for 19 Joshua Edwards Court that's the roof and door replacement and that is a um affordable housing um affordable home for prospective um resident and um next is food service and kitchen wear items and lastly um there's also a resolution on for the joint Municipal bidding with Eastern suff boies they act as the lead agency um for several bids that the town

040uses for services and commodities and that's it great thank you does anyone have questions for jeie thanks jeie thank you okay next up we have Becky Hanson Our Town Administrator and budget officer to lead the discussion on the draft 20 25 Capital plan welcome Becky good morning um let me get my glasses here my old age you sound like David right giant writing I know I have 14 font on my uh morning that yeah good morning supervisor members of the Town Council I'm here to present a second draft of the 2025 Capital plan um it's been an update since the version that was presented on at the February 18th meeting so A Brief Review for the Public's benefit a capital plan is an outline of proposed projects for purposes that include but not limited not

041limited to physical improvements new construction reconstruction or upgrades to Municipal facilities acquisition of vehicles or apparatus to be used by Town employees and the acquisition of land the town adopts annually a three-year plan and during the plan formulation process various department heads are engaged to get a better understanding of their requests and their priority so question what's changed since the last version the draft outlines a total cost now of 12, 5984 this is $81,000 less than the plan that was presented on uh February 18th compared to the 2024 adopted plan it's 6,377 less than the 2024 plan the difference from the amount of retired debt to do new debt that that would be issued from the um first presentation has increased to $727,500 the plan still proposes to use a conservative amount of fund balance

042from each of the four major funds a total of just over $1.2 million Which is less than 2 and a half% of your total unassigned fund balance from the year end of 2023 so just to go into some of the specifics of what's changed from the initial presentation uh $225,000 is added for digitizing Town records as we determine the next steps on those programs um jeie coros and I will be doing an assessment with the various departments who have not participated in the program or those that have to see where where the future is with that program we are um reallocating or removing $50,000 for Ada improvements at as the reserve fund that we still have set up has over $200,000 available to all of our various departments we are reallocating the storage facility for

043communications to year 20 26 under U Marine Patrol Harbor Master um a vehicle that was slated for 2026 was moved to 2025 for a total of two vehicles for that department and additional funding was added for work um for the Sami Beach bulkhead although it's not noted in the plan as we await guidance from New York State we will be seeking a grant for either that project or the West Lake um project we feel that there might be funding available under the state's CFA or the Consolidated funding application program and usually that's announced in May or June June of this year uh there is a slight decrease um for the highway department for purchasing old Vehicles any vehicle purchase that was proposed namely um uh pickup trucks were all converted to hybrid uh purchases instead

044of electric and in talking with um Ricky talage who is one of the town's Fleet Service managers the amounts that have come in right now for one of those trucks is just under $60,000 so each vehicle been has been budgeted at $60,000 uh an excavator purchase was removed from the parks department as per the department head Steve O'Brien it was no longer needed to be funded that was $50,000 there is an increase under the police department for additional purchase of ballistic vests not just for the ESU team which was proposed in the initial plan but also for officers Department wide this is an annual replacement that just um the chief just failed to submit the first time around because obviously vests have have an expiration date on them so they do need to be replaced

045um you know routinely so there also is additional money for members of the ESU team so that is an increase in the police department and also um $50,000 has been added to begin the process to upgrade the generator at the mon talk Playhouse um you know again that being a um a site location as a shelter we believe that to actually make the purchase the town will be um eligible for a grant for the purchase of it but we have included funding for at least the engineering part of it so James pink hot are capital projects manager is actively working on getting between the contractor that's there now and what the needs is going to be future for the pro for the building so that we can make sure that we have the the right

046facilities there um if there are no additions after today's uh work session discussion the board can adopt the plan at your meeting this Thursday which would really give us a head start on starting to adopt Bond authorized debt authorizing resolutions which we could start probably as early as the 1 April meeting and also a resolution that you adopt an annually to appropriate fund balance um to fund those projects and I just want to clarify something that maybe for some members of the public this might seem like a wish list or desires of the Town board but really a capital plan is a sign the town is being proactive and establishing its infrastructure priorities both short and long term and each project on this list has been fully vetted and verified through the department heads as

047really necessities and it's really important that the town maintains the cycle of upgrading and updating whether it's a building whether it's computers its Vehicles just so that you're providing the best available not only for your town employees but also the residents thank you Becky any questions or you guys have anything just one question which is I don't know if you done the calculation but we've kind of had a discussion previously about just the age of the capital we're retiring so it's at 11 million but this is capital that's 20 years old 11 million 20 years ago is a lot more than 11 million today um so how are we adjusting our Capital Investments for inflation um well I mean it that's that's adjusted each year I mean the town does a debt sale each year

048so any old debt is also at the same time you're issuing new debt is rolling into new and current financing so it's not the same 11 million that was borrowed 20 years ago right but theoretically it's kind of looking at like 11 million of projects were done x x number of years ago you know we're not adjusting it for as we go are we putting enough money into our infrastructure Investments well again I mean you have to take into account also that the town has a majority over probably the last decade really stuck to a policy and it's really a best practice to not incur more debt than you're retiring in any fiscal in any fiscal year so using that really as your benchmark you know if you're going to bring in the inflation component

049to it I mean either you're going to stick to retiring I mean that number is there it's a it's a hard number we're retiring you know just over $ million in debt this year I don't know how else you make that adjustment because then we're issuing the you know lower amount of that debt so again without a change in that policy you know issuing new versus retiring old I don't know how that that you could the way I interpret what what you're saying yeah that you know $1 million 20 years ago when a lot further than million goes today totally exactly and uh you know as Becky said we you know we have scrutinized and uh believe that the projects that are in this Capital plan uh are necessary you know we've you know I've

050always said that the budget and whether you're talking about the operating budget or the capital budget it's really a reflection of what we value as a community it's what our priorities are and we talked about the last time is that there's a lot of infrastructure work that needs to be done um and we need you know roofs you know need to be replaced as do HVAC systems vehicles have to be replaced and um we also have made a huge push for recreation I mean David's LED on that and um you know I I had the Girl Scout Troop from John Marshall here on Saturday their fourth graders and you know we were talking about you know our recreational opportunities and they were kind of surprised by all of the properties that the town owns and

051um and beaches and whatnot but you know it needs investment and um while it is a tremendous rule of thumb to only take on what you retire here we're going a bit over that because there is these are all projects that we felt um very strongly about that we needed to to make um the only thing that um and I know Tom you had asked about the amig uh lighting district and we talked about that that's a a special district but the parking lot where we want to improve the lighting that those funds are already accounted for as far as I know yes right we and you had also brought up the mon talk generator and we put money in for that it's it's hard to know until we determine and engineer it what exactly

052we want you know connected to the generator what that cost would be and hopefully we're going to find grant funding I have been uh outreached by Congressman Loda and Senator Schumer's office about grant funding being available there we're going to be looking at this Capital plan and seeing uh what kinds of applications we're going to make the state as Becky said has uh funding opportunities we'll know more about May and June they're typically uh due at the end of July um but there was one request that was made that um by our Highway superintendent Steve Lynch regarding sanitation and he had wanted the to purchase a new traal and we had had that in 2026 he had asked to move that into 2025 and um we actually we Haven we didn't make that move and

053and that's basically the only thing I recall that we um we uh after speaking to the department heads and and hearing their uh the need for uh what's in their request where that netted out and I don't know how folks feel about that that's the only um sorry about putting the trauma on 25 so the trauma amortizes itself over time the trauma actually makes the town money through sanitation as we know it's probably one of the largest producers that we have and it's very similar to what the town has done at let's say uh head of the harbor which is one of the dock infrastructures was about $2 million but if you Mori tize that over recreational slip spaces over 20 years pays for itself maybe a little bit less but town still provides a

054service knowing the age of that trauma seeing it all the time uh I I would listen to what the department at maybe yeah I I I would say I mean Steve did Echo this earlier which is that if if it shuts down we lose Revenue um and so it does quickly pay for itself uman the other option is you don't put it in for this year and you get the repairs done you're still going to incur the cost somewhere for those repairs which so that's really what you might have to balance against you know the amotization piece um if if there's a way to do it in in this year's budget I I would really think it would be the prudent thing to do and and by I don't know if they're even available right

055now I know the last um the more bark that we got that was on site so it still could be months till we have it um I know theyve replaced the screens the trauma went down last year but also is very important to the composting efforts of the town and reducing the amount of amount of yardage stay within the dec 10 I think it's the 1040 Pro that we have on there so the trauma is an important Cog to that that a lot of times gets overlooked because it's behind a pile of wood yeah I'm glad you I was goingon to ask just to enumerate again what a trauma is for folks um so uh I think he just explained it how important it is the composting operation and with what we're facing with the

056closure of the Brook Haven landfill Etc anything we can get out of the stream and make money on is winwin win so I would support it uh being done in this budget as well if possible I agree so and and a couple of the things I think there's a different um a lot of the ppus for a lot of our bonds 15 to 20 years uh is that correct backing on a lot of our infrastructure needs sometimes ppus are 15 20 years maybe a little bit longer uh yeah I mean it varies from year to year what your to what the use I'm sorry if my voice is not there and also to what the usage they are uh don't forget we're nearly 18 years yeah close to 18 168 years out on a very

057Financial issue for the town of eastampton so a lot of those you know a lot of the semi austerity that the town had to go through at that time we're now have to pay for the upkeep of some of those buildings that you couldn't spend the money on then or if the debt service was low then it was for a reason on there and that we had to do that I also like the practice of what the what some of our department heads are doing is by also requesting for engineering you need the engineering to be able to apply for the grants you just can't go in with a grant without necess engineering because it makes it not as strong of an application to do so so that's very important to have and you can

058time that out it within a capital budget cycle also one of the practices is by putting money in for repairs instead of complete Replacements such as the aquaculture facility and mon Talk run by John Barley Dunn that roof blue off during the wind storms last week blew off by a couple uh a square a square is to 10 x 10 there's a couple squares that blew off of there and to so now we might have funding to replace that because the town can't go on roof Town staff can't go on roofs instead of a full roof replacement you know so we're we're we're putting a pound of prevention into there and many of those I think what the supervisor was also saying as far as uh uh there's a 60% increase in the money that's

059going into our road surfacing and road construction and to you add that with some of uh uh the grant funding we get from the state allows us to keep turning over some of the the roads as far as asphalting and as we saw this year there our roads our roads haven't taken a beating in a couple years because of not as much heaving from the snow and the ice but there is a lot of uh some there's potholes there right now that they're actively addressing but the longterm uh schedule eyes roll over and and added re not Revenue added Capital into it uh the residents will see not just in their shocks and breaks but also in in the roadways then too and if I could jump on that so last night I was going

060to bring this up in my liaison report but last night the East Hampton sber CAC met and on the agenda was potholes and everybody was supposed to bring their list of where you know the bad potholes are not that any of them potholes are ever good and when we got around the table it turns out that the highway department had addressed all of it before we even got to our meeting and that that they've been very proactive and and it was commented that this has been a really bad year for for potholes but I even had the Girl Scout leader uh Amanda Frasier was at our meeting and she said she called the highway department for one on um springy Banks and three days later it was filled so uh folks have been I've been

061getting a lot of Praise from the work that the highway department is doing to try to to fix those po holes in a very timely fashion and I I agree it's inexpensive you know somebody on a pothole down on a state road it uh blew their tire and bent their Rim uh because the pothole was so deep and uh you know you worry about injury and and I so I completely agree with that because the pole is a temporary a fix to it's a temporary fix this is a capitalized fix over time I also appreciate you uh uh the town board looking into the engineering for the playoffs and the generator Tom is correct on that get that set we're putting such an investment into that Playhouse the facil facility right now the Aging of

062that generator is it was a smart thing to do right now so I look forward to continuing that and Tom continue yeah no I mean I listen the the more that Center evolves the more it's kind of a still Benchmark of what a town community center can be you have child care in there with a public private partnership you have Senior Care in there with a public private partnership you have Recreation and wellness in there um I I think it's a really good model that we we've got some finessing to do um and having it as the Emergency Center too with that generator is key so yeah I think that's critical to have that gener uh you know a functioning modern generator as we move forward for emergency preparedness and also goes into that you

063know with this project I know we uh for the restoration of the second house that was a multiphased approach to an historical restoration of the historically designated property on there that was not cpf so you actually had to put that in the cap cap budget over years of nearly $4 million many of buildings including ones we're discuss going to be discussed today don't have to go in the capex project because they're historically designated and that might be some of the only reasons why historically designate structures is because the funding comes out of a management stewardship plan from the community preservation fund so individuals have to understand the difference in the capex and then also from the cpf stewardship plans are there's a there's a fine line to that designation and then allows the town to

064do more when you appropriately designate uh structures so the board you know if the Collective Agreement obviously is to move the traumo from 26 to 25 you're still under your threshold to re um issue less debt than what you're retiring in this year so that's the good news all right so let's let's make so if you're okay with that I can make that change and we can put a resolution on for Thursday night with a copy of the new plan on the town website um under the meetings and documents so people can see that change and do I recall that Steve Lynch also said the trumel can go to Au like we're not going to no he's going to trade it in trade it so there is value we're going to give value issue the

065full debt and then um any trade in on the debt that's issued we would use that money towards paying down that debt so it wouldn't go into the general um Revenue in the in the sanitation fund okay thank you thank you my only yeah my only comment and this this is sort of it deals with a 2026 so I know it's not it's not imminent but there's $250,000 in there for Brooks park it ties into what what councilman Lee would talking about in terms of different funds I do think that we should make a real effort to use um well that project we'll see how it develops but I think we should use cpf funds for the restoration there's a 10% set aside each year and I don't think we've always spent that so um

066I've worked with the property management committee I'll talk more in my Lea's on report about lining up projects to make sure we're taking advantage of funds that aren't you know coming out of a capital plan or you know General taxpayer funds it's still a tax in its own way but um again I just want to be thoughtful and and fiscally responsible so I think we might want to move that around depending on other cpf expenditures again if if it's not that um in the general sense of that you're issuing debt or pulling from you know the a fund fund balance to pay for it and it is going to be through cpf um you know you can really make that decision and and access that funding really at any time we just have more timelines

067in place when we're issuing debt and have to appropriate fund balance for what's contained in the plan and just because something and I think this is a misconception too just because something is not on these five pieces of paper doesn't mean again just like the operating budget it's a fluid document um if something does come up obviously during the year and something else you know needs to be replaced or we have a major storm and there's some other infrastructure reconstruction that needs to be done I mean again the town is in a really great financial position to have the ability to issue debt on the fly if you needed to um or again appropriate temporarily from fund balance until the time that you you know issue any debt that may be needed so yeah that

068said I appreciate that you do try to make this a very realistic you know Capital plan and put a lot of effort into it okay great great thankk you Becky okay so next up we have uh our department heads that are here to talk about Community Development the 2024 accomplishments and 2025 goals and first up we have our planning director Tina Laren welcome Tina I can still say good morning I got a minute thank you supervisor good morning down board members morning um log run from the planning department uh this will be a brief discussion of the planning department 2024 accomplishments and 2025 goals so on the first slide for planning it's up you just need the next slide okay there you go thank you Patrick um to introduce planning department to all I tried

069to think of one single image that could sum us up um but I couldn't we provide such a diverse array of tasks for the town um I ju suppose these images to attempt to convey our key role in assisting the town efforts to balance Planning and Development with natural resource protection and neighborhood character so on the next slide you will see our current formal mission statement which is on the website this further drills down on the tasks that we perform and expresses many of our core duties we are charged with providing professional planning and Technical Services to the town board Town departments appointed boards for application review and generally supporting uh planning initiatives throughout the town and Beyond the next slide uh looks at the 24 accomplishments l to drill down on one of the

070first things I worked on when I was acting director at the end of last year was to change the metrics we used to measure the Department's work efforts prior to this year we had tracked about four categories of work totaling up to about 500 actions associated with our application workflow in 2023 but totaling the ones here showing our 2024 efforts and just the first seven rows that have to do directly with applications that numbers over 2100 um application actions these numbers more closely align with the breath of the work that we do and demonstrate the huge volume of work that we produce we processed almost 800 applications each of those includes a complex set of steps and in almost every case requires analysis of site history complicated code provisions and understanding intricate and sensitive environmental

071and neighborhood conditions we also do a lot of site work we delineated almost 230 wetlands and inspected 140 sites for board preconditions related to building permits and cosos and those numbers don't include the initial inspections we do for sites or for special projects through all of these tasks we strive to be thorough timely and consistent in our approaches and we have just a small team so it's four administrative staff and seven technical staff members including myself um so with just that handful of folks these numbers are huge and obviously we're all working very hard to get them done the next slide continues on some 2024 accomplishments as if the thousands of reports weren't enough we also supported um a wide array of planning initiatives and there's too many individual ones to note but I'll highlight

072some that we played key roles in um one of which was the zoning uh code committee which and we contributed to the development of changes for the purposes of zoning changes to accessory structure code and changes to the GFA working with council member Rogers um major planning studies included the wireless master plan which was completed early in 2024 the Springs Corridor study and the way Scott implementation plan where detailed recommendations were uh presented to the town board last year we also completed in-depth secret reviews for major town initiatives um associated with the airport operational changes in the senior center we worked on environmentally focused projects including the mon talk Inlet dredging and the ditch PL June restoration effort and you know through all of this we're frequent collaborators with other Town departments the town board

073the town committees um on planning issues whenever they arise for this year in 2025 um our goals we imagine being just as busy with the applications while continuing to expand our repertoire of planning projects one of the new major projects we've currently working on is migrating our 32 paper based applications into an online environment called open gov I know you're all very familiar with this it's been a huge commitment to translate our paper process to an online environment and we're striving to harness the efficiencies that the online environment has to offer and we're working to complete the migration in early 2025 we're also hoping to work with it to enhance public access to basic data that can help folks better understand and prepare for environmental conditions on their property associated with Wetlands also our contributions

074to Major planning initiatives will continue um the zoning code change discussion we expect to progress with review of natural resource special permit standards We are continuing to work on the springs and waycott studies to get priority initiatives ready for implementation and we're excited to start work on the mon talk Coastal resiliency planning effort which is the $600,000 grant we got several years ago to study policy and Zoning responses to climate change sea level rise and erosion finally I'll just sum up that we do want to focus on filling Staffing vacancies you know we do have a number of vacancies in the department and filling those will be a priority so we can get all this very important work accomplished and with that I'll thank you for your time let's just see if anyone has questions

075first for anyone have questions for Tina comments oh go ahead Tom sorry yeah one thing I bought I lost me to is like is there a way to visually act you visualize what the planning Department's working on at a time like a an active pipeline but I'm sorry what was that last is there an active pipeline that we can visualize what the planning department is work currently working on just kind of to see the workflow of where different projects are yes we maintain tracking sheets of all of our like applications what's coming in what's coming out so we do have that when there's open gov I think it'll be a little bit more of a crisper system at least for the application piece and then we also have a list of projects um who's assigned

076and so I mean I could share those yeah just help they're not pretty but be warned thank you yeah I would just like to drill down on a couple of your numbers so folks understand how many applications types are there uh in the planning department that you process right so we have 32 different application forms and types currently um but there's a few of those categories that are the um bulk of the work which really is the zba Varian and nrsp the planning board site plans and subdivisions and then the ARB really does have a big mix of of what they get signs um changes to commercial egg overlays um so basically any land use project uh in any in most ways comes 99% of the time if not more comes before the planning department

077in one way or another yeah um the list of triggers for when like approval from one of the appointed boards or is huge right so really any disturbance on Commercial properties um can trigger site plan um it is an expansive list of things that we get involved in and also just one more thing of course uh the applications uh and processing the applications and time of processing the applications and it's such a vast amount um is also a partnership with the applicant correct um in terms of what you need by code to be able from an application to be able to deem it complete and then send it to the boards absolutely one of the key drivers of the overall time it takes to get an application through the process is the completeness of the

078information that we receive we'll often have to ask for the same bit of information several times before or it's really complete enough for us to act on um and at each stage in the process we're tracking how long it takes us to respond so with our internal tracking sheets we see okay this is how many months it takes to do this or that and we can then know how long it takes between submissions and the applicants also take you know time to produce the information requested so there's drivers for the length of the overall you know procedure time on both sides yeah I think one of the advantages of open GO coming in is that uh application will not be able to be submitted until it's complete yes well hopefully that'll take some of the

079burden off of the you folks exactly so the way we're configuring the system is that for each different application type the list of required documents will be there and they will not be able to submit it if they don't have all those boxes checked with an you know a COR correlating upload um so that will at least relieve our duty to check for the presence of the item a lot of times things are incomplete or inconsistent like you know they'll they'll have the structures on there but not all of them and they'll have some calculations on one plan that don't match another and you know our review catches all that and that will go back is incomplete too because we can't act on in inaccurate information um so there will still be a lot of

080work we're doing but at least that first step it will make sure that it's um consistent and present yeah I think one thing to remember with open go is your output is only as good as your input so if incorrect documents are uploaded Etc then it's still you're still going have to go back again but hopefully yeah I I see uh that allevi alleviating concerns of processing time but I also wanted to have folks understand what are the aspects of processing time that hold your department up as well yeah yeah I mean certainly if everything that came in was clear consistent and everything you know appropriately labeled and put put forth um like if the submission was perfect on the first time the application um review times would be drastically different than they are for

081certain and I know we keep talking about open gov we are going to have a presentation I believe Tom it's going to be in April right from it yeah where we can demonstrate how open go will work for the the Departments great Tina thank you thank you okay next up we have Joe poo our chief build inspector and the department head for the building department welcome Joe good afternoon everyone Joe PLO Chief Building Inspector uh building department um very busy department and sorry I I figured it would I I know I just I skipped the the the middle one have do that building parment lot moving Parts very busy Department mission statement um really strive to serve a residents homeowners applicants in a respectable professional manner the main thing here is seeking voluntary compliance um

082we we are bilding inspectors code enforcement um offices but we do try to separate ourselves from the code enforcement end and work on the compliance end so some of our accomplishments in 2024 uh we were instrumental in adopting the new code which went into effect January of 24 requiring updated CFOs upon the transfer of ownership uh this helps the buyer uh very uh very important um helps clean up old building permits um some of the history there's a lot of properties a lot of old building cards um some old building permits open clo never never work never done helps us clean it up helps us legalize structures that maybe were built without the benefit of building permits and most importantly it helps us check on the health and safety of the properties uh we also

083work can I just ask so you're almost 15 months into that and what has been you know your experience and the feedback I think the the thing that really stands out to me is um when we first talked about this there was a lot of skepticism um with the public um uh real estate attorneys Etc but as it went on we we really found that most people wanted to comply and also a lot of attorneys uh they make comments uh they they like it uh because it just helps clean up their transactions and everything's just cut and dry you know black and white so uh so I think it's been pretty successful right um another accomplishment um we have a new fee schedule that went to effect last May um I thought we were we

084were from the building when you taken a building permit from start to finish including all the inspections the reviews uh the CF um I felt like we were severely undercharging for that so uh we worked on that fee schedule which has been uh successful uh we we helped this is a moving Target but we really helped reduce the Le times on completed applications and I think the new uh open gov is going to help receiving completed applications in um what kind of boogs us down a little bit as the incomplete applications and you know U applications getting stuck on hold and uh start and stop Etc but uh so he's a moving Target uh just to keep it in perspective in 2024 we averaged about 140 building permits per month on the intake all types

085uh new bills major Renos down to uh a shed or a patio or to legalize an item but um it averaged about 140 per month on the intake um also our department is represented on the new zoning committee um and actually our first round of uh co- changes wanted to effect on March 1st uh so now anything stamped in from uh Monday going forward uh these new codes will apply yeah I I'm just going to uh jump in here for a second um uh zoning code committee is not so new anymore but the time that your department uh the data from your department and the time that you personally put in um has really been the Keystone of our work um your recommendations and where you saw um issues with the uh the passcode was

086instrumental in being being uh bringing those amendments forward uh that go into went into effect on March 1st and also the upcoming uh discussion and public hearing on GFA and the uh it was your department also that brought us the uh need to update the CFOs uh so that we actually know what's on the property your department knows and of course buyers know um so Joe's Department besides all of the other things that the department handles on a daily basis um also is a a keystone of that committee thank you and some of our goals for the upcoming year um one of my goals is to maybe get part senior building inspector to get a place to help delegate uh some of uh some of the management aspects um help with some of the building

087permits and oversight um with the building inspectors um we we are working on and we're going to propose soon uh a changes to the rental registry uh as far as inspections go um it's it'll be impossible it's a couple thousand rental Registries per year I believe it's impossible for us to do all those inspections right now we currently have um a self check list so when the applicant puts it in they'll go down and check you know if they have a pool level level how many bedrooms Etc uh but we're we're proposing uh like a lot of municipalities do is they they use a third party inspector uh like an architect or an engineer somebody actually go through and walk through I think it would be a key to um especially with the health and

088safety involved because we're not doing any of those inspections so make sure the pool F the pool has the proper fencing Gates proper fencing the pool gates closing you have the right alarms door alarms smoke alarms carbon monoxide detectors the basics the the health and safety which are really important you know if somebody has a patio in the in in the backyard you know we'll catch up with it sooner or later but that's not going to hurt anybody but the health and safety aspects are really important so having a third party looking at that um I think is uh is key um another another goal actually it's um the building spectors it to have the building spectors and the St get code certified uh the building inspectors uh when they start out they they get

089certified and every year there's so many hours have to put in to keep up this certification uh we also have uh admin staff who code certified uh we have a a building permits examiner who will be starting his classes this month it helps it helps um move the traffic along if somebody's calling up that code compliant person can then legally answer a question about a setback or about an alarm um when they're not code certified um we really can't do it then we have to wait for the building inspectors to be available um another thing we did was um actually one of our goals we're actually looking forward to getting this uh open gov up and running which is believe is supposed to take effect next week um that should once we work out the

090Kinks I think is going to make the department the town more efficient with the building department applications will be able to uh be submitted online uh we have a not only building PR application we have rental registry septic Registries uh we do research L disabil ability there's a lot of uh applications that can then come online um the fees or uh can be also paid online that'll be allowed you know these been taking in checks all day be very happy customers that's that's going to be paid um uh electronic submissions like I said the building permit we'll get we'll get the plans we able to review them online just to what I mentioned before about complete building permit applications when you're electronically submitting a building permit there's a checklist that you go down and if

091you reach a point say you don't have a survey uh and you can't click on or upload it you're not going to be able to get P go you have to wait until you get that you're not going to be able to submit in complete application so that that I think for us I think is one of the most important things and other than that uh thank you for your time and have a good day any questions no I mean um I'm I like you I think I'm excited for the open go roll out for your department specifically I think it's going to really help your efficiency in that office so yeah we're looking forward to it we we've been working on that for a long time like over a year so we're ready to

092roll yeah yeah Joe I just want to say say thank you I think you have a pretty tough job and that you have a heavy workload and you deal with you know the board and the town and also the public and I always hear positive things about your demeanor and and your approach and as you say you're looking for compliance and um I just appreciate it very much I know it's a tough job thank you appreciate that and I'll send that down uh I second that for you and your staff is very professional in dealing with with folks who sometimes can get quite I'm gonna leave on a good note thanks a lot all right thank you Joe appreciate it all right so now we have the Housing and Community Development and as I mentioned

093Eric couldn't be here today so Ian is going to pinch hit okay yeah I well first of all I'm the liaz under the housing department and it's been just a great honor to to be that I have a great deal of respect for for director chance and his whole department and the work uh that they do so I'm largely going to read his report as as he wrote it um and and provide a little bit of editorial comments the mission statement is to provide housing opportunities and support programs for the town residents primarily through the administration of the following Section 8 housing Choice Voucher Program Community Development block grants uh cdbg as we often refer to it the affordable home ownership program um that's something I know Dave Lee has worked a lot on recently

094with the cwell court um and the Community Housing Opportunity fund CHF which is a new funding based on a half per tax with real estate transfers that I think provides great opportunities the 2024 accomplishments uh they provided a total of $870,000 33 in rental subsidies to landlords which assisted 45 households in maintaining safe and affordable housing issued approximately 120,000 in Grants for eligible property projects including Improvement for ada8 compliance emergency generators solar installations equipment upgrades and administrative funding for public services worked with Community Development Corporation of Long Island known as cdli to help administer the plus one Adu grant program from New York state which will result in up to 16 grants of up to 125,000 each for local homeowners to construct adus uh this was a huge success this was an incom restricted program

095that frankly I worried we might not have applicants who would qualify uh that wasn't the case at all in fact there was a huge amount of applications and even though it's been administered by cdli the housing department I know had to put a lot of work that is still ongoing and and I view this as a huge win in that we're achieving affordable housing goals by providing adus with outside funding um you'll notice we're going to talk about funding a lot as we're going through the capital plan and and budgeting generally so that was a a big success in my mind uh they developed an opened and administer the town's firsttime home buyers down payment assistant program through the CHF fund which has approved six individual home buyers to date for interest free loans of

096up to $30,000 each and again this was a program that that really warmed my heart and was I was pleasantly surprised by not only the the applications that came in but the the people who were applying you know we all tell the story of of affordable housing and the difficulty of living in town and these you know first-time home buyer um loans it's not a grant it's a loan all went to the type of people that we all hate to see leave town and so um it's the beginning of the program but I think it was a real success and it's just one part of I think a whole you know range of things we have to do to to improve the housing situation uh we obtained Pro housing community status for East Hampton Town

097from New York State homes and Community Renewal HCR uh and I want to give a lot of credit on this um to supervisor Bert Gonzalez who I think through her efforts and coordination with other government agencies knew that this was a new thing in fact I believe we were the first town on Long Island I may be wrong but I think the first town to receive this um and it opened up all sorts of doors and so I think it was supervisor bur Gonzalez's initiative that made this happen uh but I also want to give a lot of credit to Eric chance and the housing department and the planning department too who had to put together a lot of information to uh to make it happen and and I I think we've already seen it

098pay dividends and and opening up doors for funing opportunities not only for housing but other things as well by showing our commitment to the hous initiatives the building department had to pull a lot of Rec of course and I we just actually sent an email to Eric this morning because uh this has to be renewed every year saw that so we have until April 30th to to renew yeah and I certainly didn't mean to leave Joe out of that there was a lot of work by by a lot of people that to to put that together and and we achieved the the designation um the assist of the town in reviewing multiple changes to the town code to promote affordable housing opportunities uh frankly I've probably created a lot of extra work for Eric and

099trying to be creative and look at different things we can do with the code to encourage and uh there'll be a presentation later on today's agenda actually that reflects that and there there have been others that have come before us assisted the town and uh I'm sorry uh began site work at the CW Court affordable housing 16 lot subdivision initi request for proposals for possible contractors that is out to bid and coming back soon I believe or the bids are in um but it's developing initial site work has happened on on cwell Court and um exciting things happening there for the 2025 goals um the community housing fund uh the launch accessory dwelling units for uh construction assistance program so ad Adu consistence assistance we've talked about um providing encouragement through CHF funds to do

100that uh the town board asked for some legal clarifications that were waiting to come back and then we hope to to launch a program that will encourage adus with with Town funds and this is an addition to the cdli that I mentioned earlier continue to devise the community housing Advisory Board chab and refine their process and programs for 2025 based on the knowledge gained in 2024 last year was the first year we were able to award grants and loans from the chhf funds um and that all comes through the chab committee The Advisory Board which again um it's been a great honor to work with them chairman Andrew Garvey and the whole committee I think that they they take that job very very seriously and the town is is better off for the thought and

101work they put into it that said it was the first year last year and we all have you know a lot to learn and and frankly realize that you know $5 million a year or whatever it is isn't that much money to address the that we have and so I will'll continue to refine that and make sure we're using the funds as efficiently as possible to to do the the most good that we can um the administer CHF grants and loans for five approved 2024 General projects so that's the same fund I'm referring to the projects that we approved last year which are one uh the route 114 middle income development uh The Cottages which are also on 114 right in that same area towards Sag Harbor whalebone apartment renovation which are existing affordable um

102units that that needed Renovations and were able to get funding through CHF the windmill one expansion this is a study to see if they can fit more density for for senior housing and the green at Gardener point which was funding at the tail end of a project so um those are listed here in 2025 because the the we decided to award the funds but there's still going to be a lot of work to do to make sure they're administered properly and and tracking those projects as they develop other goals for 2025 to pursue additional changes to the town code to increase affordable housing opportunities within the town continue coordination with the Community Development Corporation of Long Island to help administer the plus one Adu grant program from New York State and to help administer the

103next round of funding if available we do hope that there will be more funding available it's not a sure thing but I think the the the year we have under our belt would allow uh the town and the housing department to work well with cdli pursued possible grants opportunities available as a result of the town's Pro housing community status um again I think that that's going to be huge and and I also want to give uh some credit to Samantha kleene who helps the town with all sorts of grand opportunities and is constantly looking for things and and has actually helped me with one as a an offshoot of this community housing or this prosing community status continue to administer the town's affordable home ownership program Section 8 and cdbg programs work with other Town

104departments Andor municipalities to find additional affordable housing opportunities such as acquisition of banket or already improved properties and finalize the CW Court affordable housing subdivision including placement of individual families and begin the physical construction of 16 new homes so um hopefully I didn't butcher that too badly um you know the housing department and then that staff deserves the credit um very very pleased to to help how however can and be a part of that work and it's an exciting time with new funding um and a very committed board I'll say that there's you know the details of of how we approach this issue are going to be tricky but you know all five members here care deeply about affordable housing I think that started with the previous administration all hands- on housing and uh excited

105about the things we can do thank you Ian do anyone have questions I hope they're tough questions for Ian good I'm not gonna put you on the spot you can I talk to Eric you know not quite daily but close so I could probably answer the questions I I well do one question would be what is there any update um with regards to legal advice on Adu funding with CHF yeah there was a meeting with um there was a meeting with the attorney we hired to frame the who is who's come back with some advice for you know what he thinks but he's crafting uh he has crafted a letter to send the IRS about I guess the way you ask the IRS about their opinion is is in a very precise way which is

106how why we hired an outside attorney uh he's finalized that draft and I believe it's been sent off although that meeting was just recently and I'll confirm that for you I do think there you know we could have another discussion as a board um about the next steps there based on that advice sounds good all right thank you Patrick if you wouldn't mind staying if you could run the next presentation for Ian because he's going to now be doing the affordable multiple residence recommendation thank you Patrick [Applause] [Music] great thank you all right you're up okay so the affordable multiple residents recommendation this is something that I've been working with um it it we've been talking a lot about affordable housing obviously since you know I've only been on the board for just over a

107year um this the board has addressed a few things we've dealt with density going from eight units to 12 units for senior housing um just recognizing that senior developments were different in the health department requirements and traffic generated and in order to encourage you know units to be constructed and and identifying the need it was easy to say that we should go from8 units to 12 there um after that we looked into and this has not passed yet we're waiting for comments from the suffi County Planning Commission but we decided to also I think this whole board endorsed as to the planning board of eastampton going to 12 units of density for regular affordable housing developments as well um so long as they met certain standards like a traffic study um on-site sewage treatment plant

108so that the environmental and and other impacts were were were mitigated and through the through the the course of those conversations we spoke a lot about what else we can do to to address the affordable housing need as I mentioned we have adus home ownership program the CHF funds but we started talking a lot about um the requirements of affordable housing in East Hampton which currently um the aho the affordable housing overlay only allows for developments of three acres or more um as we all know there's not a lot of property in East Hampton that's three acres or more and so that's fairly limiting it's 125,000 square feet um we start we wanted to look at you know what we do there if we can address do we change the standards to reduce that minimum

109um and right currently there are only five properties within the aho that are under 3 acres uh so we came up with some some goals for what we'd want to achieve by a uh you know a smaller development and and what we do is we want to create an opportunity for those properties of less than three acres within the affordable housing overlay to also have the opportunity to provide affordable housing it's sort of a a hard cut right now at three acres um one of the options was to simply just reduce the acreage and say you could do it affordable housing development on two or one acre the problem with that is is we wanted to keep the scale and the aesthetic um in fitting with the the community character and if you're talking about

110going from eight to 12 units on three acres you can sort of Center that and screen and buffer in ways that you just wouldn't have the opportunity on smaller lots and so eight or 12 acres seemed excessive on a single acre or you know a smaller development and so we came up with the idea of uh of perhaps less and and and later we'll get into it but um four units per acre might be more appropriate on a on a single acre lot or on smaller Lots we also wanted to make sure that we coordinated the requirements with other agencies the suffa County Department of Health for example um these smaller developments probably aren't going to be able to have sewage treatment plants um we en you know Envision private ownership or more flexible so

111we didn't want to create a program in the town of East Hampton that would have conflict with County and make it more difficult for people who might want to pursue uh these type of affordable housing developments um and we wanted to also look at the future you know we don't have any plans right now to expand the affordable housing overlay but again there's only so many properties that are three acres in size Where Do We Go From Here If we don't have any tools that allow us to do smaller type of developments that could could address the need so the proposed affordable multiple residents use um will be a type of many affordable housing development um and by the way Patrick I'm sorry I'm supposed to be saying change the slide but you're doing a

112great job of just reading my mind um so yeah type of mini affordable housing development um and we would restrict these type of developments to the aho and this was a conversation because do we want to create a use that people can do anywhere in town um the thought now is anything new we want to be sort of conservative and cautious and by limiting it to the Aho as it's proposed currently it gives the town board control in fact as I just said there's only five properties that currently um exist that are smaller than three acres in that the aho um but if we were to expand it just allows for more um more opportunity but still maintaining control uh to see as things progress uh the as I said the five the only five

113Lots currently of of of three acres or less that are in the aho but that could change uh and and again the goal here is to allow private owners to not only build new uh developments but perhaps convert old structures so if you have a a large residential house um we know this happens anyway perhaps illegally where people will convert them into multiple Apartments this allows for you know the safe and formal means to do that okay so to go through some of the de detailed requirements which I might have sort of given a sneak previews of already but the affordable multiple residents the proposed regulations and requirements um again you can convert a single family residence or M or create a new multiple multif Family Residence on a site only allowed in the H

114aho the affordable housing overlay uh site plan and special permit approval will be required from the planning board you know as we know the planning board makes sure that things fit in the car in the the community that the traffic is is appropriate Etc uh these are private ownerships that private ownership structure that we're envisioning you know currently most of the or I think all of the affordable housing developments in eastampton are either run by eastampton Housing Authority or other nonprofits but larger organizations and it limits us for what we can do this would allow for private owner to have say A you know a 4unit um development on a single acre and just rent out for apartments to individuals they are designed to be rentals uh again I think co-ops and condos create a

115structure that can be complex and a little bit confusing these are meant to be you know privately owned and and rented by a single landlord owner uh as proposed of course I Envision a discussion where all this this could change uh the tenants must be residents uh that's to live or work in East Hampton and this is a restriction that we've had on other affordable housing options in East Hampton the idea being uh you know we don't want to be overly restrictive I think we want to recognize that a lot of people need a place to live but the goal of creating more housing in town is for the people that we see who can't afford to stay who already live here but but lose their their cheap rental or not even cheap but affordable

116so to provide you know opportunities for them or people who are are working here or coming to work here so there's that restriction that again to try to further the goal of not you know bringing in a bunch of of new residents to increase our population but to make to to recognize the need to keep the people the community that's currently here and our Workforce in place uh the affordable housing the income limit is going to be 130% of area median income and the maximum rent would be 130% of fair market rent um this is higher than other places and a lot of our developments are currently limited to 60 or 80% um but the Gap in what it costs to live here versus what that income allows you to afford just is not realistic

117and so the town um has a cap of 130% acknowledging that this is a a more expensive place to live than than western suff or other places in New York state and sorry roughly dollar amount that's you know I don't want to misquote the number and I probably should have had that had that here I think 130% of area median income is you know I'm not even going to say it Tom because I'm going to be in precise um they have to file anybody who has a development like this would have to file legal documents covenants and restrictions to ensure residency income limit maximum rent Etc and an annual permit will be required from the uh office of Housing and Community Development just to make sure that the you know any development is being used

118as intended the dimensional requirements um these are envisioned to be multi-unit buildings a maximum of four units per building the minimum lot area is 20,000 square fet and that's based on which is roughly a half of half an acre that's based on the suff county department of health requirements um who wouldn't allow this you know extra density on substandard lots and again we want to make sure that we do our best to to not confuse people and align our code with with other you know County and state requirements maximum of four units per acre uh as I as I mentioned earlier currently affordable housing developments can be 8 to 12 which is more appropriate on larger Lots but on smaller developments we feel that four is a better starting place and the maximum of 12

119units on any given lot and that's because if you go up to 3 acres that would allow you you know 4 * 3 is 12 and then you get into the the the in the code language that already exists for larger developments maximum of six uh people per unit uh there's a maximum of three bedrooms and so two people per bedroom is six people must meet all the dimensional requirements and underlying zoning coverage clearing setbacks and GFA so if if you know there were affordable housing overlay that was in a residential area they would have to meet any of the same requirements that a single family home wood the idea here is for these to look like typical developments but actually are housing more families or or individuals uh I think an example of what

120this might look like it's not a perfect example but the acabonac manor houses which I think has been a really successful development that's a condo unit it's a little bit different but I think those types of you know structures housing um you know several apartments that look more or less residential as what we're going for here um and have to be one on-site parking space for each bedroom the potential sites for affordable multiple residents um I'm not going to go through this list much as I mentioned earlier there's only five that are uh you know lots that are smaller than three acres that currently in the aho and only one of those is not fully developed which is 67 South Essex Street in Monto um next slide this is a table that goes through those

121sites with what's there uh again all of those sites except for the one are are fully developed uh and unlikely to take advantage of this um but this chart just shows uh it gives you an idea if anybody knows those sites how much traffic is generated as per the uh the standard engineering calculation next slide uh the potential site oh I'm sorry the future expansion of the aho you know this has not been in our conversation with Eric and and Tina uh from the planning department deserves a lot of credit too helped Eric uh come up with this as well and we haven't gone too far into the expanding the aho we wanted to make sure that there was a use that the board was behind and that the community was behind before we started

122talking about making it larger and that's one of the reasons we restricted it to the aho and that the impacts Now by this this action that I'm proposing would be minimal and any future sort of expansion which would allow for more opportunities you would have to be um thought of separately the 2005 comprehensive plan uh mentions this they say new construction could incorporate a variety of prototypes and layouts including multiple apartments and single family homes designed to look like the manor house where in scattered site three or four family houses are interspersed so that was it's going back as far as 2005 this sort of concept was mentioned the 2019 East Hampton Hamlet report or Hamlet study mentioned North Main Street as one of these areas where this could could take place again we're not

123proposing at this time but uh we were actually approached earlier last year by somebody in that area asking for this exact type of thing and we don't have any means to allow for it so this would be a tool that that then could possibly be used in in appropriate situations for for more housing opportunities the 2023 community housing fund project plan uh says the needs assessment addresses this the mult uh there's many community housing Advisory Board letters that you know stress the importance of having rental units available this is an opportunity for that and I hope the town board will continue to you know if this goes through we we then take the next step and talk about the expansion of the aho and where that might be appropriate but in the interest of of

124of keeping this conver conversation as simple as possible I really want to focus on this as a tool and not get bogged down about where it may not be appropriate or where it is um I think that that's a separate conversation and and this is the first step the benefit of affordable multiple residents uh well first and foremost it'll result in more affordable rental units um it'll provide legal Workforce housing created by the private sector businesses private owners but but you know typically entities or individuals that aren't involved in the affordable housing um game now and it will mirror existing real estate Trends we already see businesses trying to buy things we see some cases of overcrowding that are addressing this type of need and we just want to bring that into um legal compliance

125less intensive land use than full scale affordable housing developments the hope is that these would would blend seamlessly and it's not a replacement at all for for the larger developments but it's a it's an additional tool we'll have to address you know a real need uh and then again by putting limited to the aho the board can control the number of locations where this goes and that's a conversation for the future uh one thought that Eric has he puts in here is we may look at like the North Main Street a semi-commercial area other downtown and Commercial areas where it's more typical in in the planning world to see more dense developments would provide opportunities for us to possibly expand but again I don't want to get bogged down in that just yet so the

126next steps would be this town board discussion we're about to have um I'm sure there's going to be further information changes other ideas that come out of that we'll go back to the uh planning and housing departments once we settle on something at this level we can refer to the planning board for comments revise the code as needed um further Town board discussions as necessary we'll eventually have to conduct Seca review refer to the County Planning Commission and should this board wish to proceed we'll have a public hearing so with that I'll turn it over to the board and and um whatever everybody thinks of this I'm really happy and grateful that we're having the conversation for something I think is a really important thing in town thank you Ian well done thanks I I

127think it's great I think um look anything we can do to deliver more housing at this point is the right path because it it's such a d need and this to me is a pretty straightforward means of doing that um the the only question I have and it relates to current projects I'm working on myself as well is like even with that 130% of Ami um as the definition of affordable like it cuts a lot of people out um you know I want to say it's around 150,000 and we can logic check that but it's plus minus 10 15% in that realm like it's still restrictive for like you know what we consider critical operations to the town a policeman and a teacher you know no there you go that they're out of recognition for

128that so it's just one where and I'm running to this with adus too we're having this discussion like when should they be called affordable or should they just be ad accessory dwelling unit so you know I I think we just have to be really cognizant of that as we move forward with this is like who's this housing and is it is it enough is it doing enough because that's my my major concern with this um you know just other areas again where I think that's crossover I appreciate that you kind of have gone on with the um the one parking space per bedroom I agree with you that's kind of where we're moving with the Adu piece as well um the only other question here that we kind of did address within the Adu piece

129is ownership um you know if it's going to be an LLC owning this um having that designated Point person who can be contacted if there is an event with the building is really really critical um so there need to be a mechanism for that for me um but yeah overall I applaud this and um I think good thought and good structure put into it thank you yeah I I don't know if I can answer just because I'm doing the presentation I don't want to cut anybody else off but I think you bring up a very good point about the need and um I sort of alluded to it with 130% we're we're approaching you know higher income people who still can't afford to live here but even beyond the 130% I think there is a

130need we did speak earlier about um sort of a Workforce and employee Housing Development that was trying to get at that um that's complicated perhaps this could be a model for that with different income restrictions in the future but I do want to make sure that the problem is once we go above the 130% Ami with with either income or rent it's no longer technically an affordable development and so this problem is so huge I don't want to I don't want to try to solve everything before doing anything and to me this is a really good step and to your point if it's successful it could be expanded perhaps but I think it makes sense to stay within the framework of you know this 130% an established number that the town is committed to um

131and you bring a very good point up of obviously the concern here is how it works we don't want to have these things pop up and have problem areas and so having somebody in charge as the landlord would be key and that would be we'll have to develop that into the permitting process great David did you have any comments you wanted to make uh my comments more go to um the location of North Main Street I advocated for this um part of the Hamlet studies I believe also Bonnie kinsky did at that time very a very smart location many of those locations down there in Indian Hill my M Hill not my whatever it is M Lane Terrace they uh they're already pre-existing non-conforming in multiple density uh you know either two structures or uh

132two units in one structure on there too so I think that is that is a location that the town board's already looked at to put into the comp plan that should be moved on the only question on that location is that many of those locations might not be might be less than 20,000 square feet so I don't know if you do it as a whole but I know you're talking about this as a separate separate location I think that is if you can run on that a two parallel tracks not to put more work out there yeah but I think that that is a place that I would assist advocating for also too and working on uh some of the other benefits of the multiple uh uh multiple residences I know we hear about that

133a lot in mon talk on talk CC's discussed on on how can we uh uh reasonably design properties to fit what the need is for the workforce out there but without changing the character of the community on there as as long as those safeguards are in place I think you'll you'll see individuals that would be supportive of that then too I think Tom enumerated on some of the other ones but yeah it's something that I would like to continue to discuss also I'm generally very generally supportive of of this um I just would uh say that uh the need for this besides the uh in affordability for people to live in this town these days is that there's not many large tracks of land left so we have to we have to flex and move

134with the reality that we're presented with as we move uh forward um I also just want to note that an naho for folks is an affordable housing overlay um it's something that we have the ability to place over attractive land um and that has to be done by public hearing so there'll be further input there's there there's always opportunity for input to bring any concerns and support to us if we do expand uh it's it's not a waving a wand it's with public participation um and um you know I even look at the idea that we talk about a police officer and a teacher and when they're first hired they may fit the criteria but then as they develop as Jim Bennett said not just a job but a career and move up uh through

135their career and and have promotions or their pay increases then they're out of luck so I I also want to take a look at that that's kind of um the idea that people can get into afford an affordable uh unit in the beginning of their um uh careers but what happens then later on and that kind of deals with that g as well uh for folks that are already in uh the units where they may only be good for five years and then they have to go get out of town so that's something well just so you know like for the Housing Authority if you qualify safe for um one of their uh housing developments and your income goes up you don't get kicked out I mean you get to stay in the unit so

136maybe there's a way that we write the code that if you're you know your first year as a police officer and you're on the 10e track as a teacher that you'd be able to stay in that unit um until you reach a threshold where you can afford if that ever happens with the prices of homes now uh yeah so that's um I'm I'm supportive of the code I think the guard rails are um effective and essential um and I think they're they're well thought out and I know even you know when we look at properties where you know when Scott and Eric bring us properties uh that we could consider for the town to purchase we've seen properties that were an acre they were in a commercial kind of downtown area and we're like oh

137my God we could put manor house here and get four units but we can't because of that 3 Acre threshold so I think it's something we should we should definitely pursue um and I think as you pointed out here I think the next step is to bring you know the legislation forward what it looks like and then we could go through it to see um you know is there a flexibility where for you know half acre lots in downtown commercial areas where you could get two units versus in other that's already got an aho over it versus you know using the one acre threshold for a 4 unit um project yeah well thank you everybody uh we have worked on the the code language a little bit John J Nikki has been instrumental uh Tina

138and Eric as I said so now that I know there's support for the concept I'll ask Eric to bring it back and do a better job of answering all the detailed questions that you have um and and to Kate's point and and and and Dave's a little bit too I think that um she brings up a good point which is affordable housing overlay there would have to be more public input before we do that and I'm not one to drag my feet or move slowly here but I think it's important to separate the concept from a particular location and the concern is if we try to lump in North Main or some other property and that is objectionable to somebody that the whole thing comes down so I think right now we're saying is this

139a tool that we'd want to have to use and then we should Dive Right into where we might apply it as a separate as a separate process makes sense with input right okay next up John welcome it's been a while so we're here you're you drafted a memo on 66 way Scott Main Street following the public hearing that we held in November and if you could just introduce your memo and uh and then the board will have a discussion all right um basically I just wanted to bring to the the board's attention that um the acquisition of the property had uh four classifications of uh for which it was being acquired was open space historic preservation water qual quality improvement and agricultural use and um I wanted you to be aware that um some of

140these uses um might not be fully compatible depending on how this this board decides to designate the property um for instance agriculture uses require um the allowance of the installation of agricultural buildings as needed for agricultural function that might not be consistent with a historic um designation on the site they're not going to look like historic structures they're going to look like agricultural buildings modern agricultural buildings also water quality improvement um Can often require the installation of various structures um at present it's kind of a developing field and those may change in the future there's permeable reactive barriers there's injection Wells there's monitoring Wells things of that sort that are installed and these two are not necessarily consistent um if if the goal was to just maintain the property in a specific um configuration layout

141design um that you deem to be the the historic nature of the property and just keep it that way um some of these uses might not be consistent so you have to look at it and see how they all uh work together um perhaps maybe call out specific potential future improvements that might be made to the property I I don't know if the idea is to possibly bring some other historic buildings if there should become available as a location that you could locate other um historic buildings um what the water quality improvements will be I don't know the extent of agricultural use in the properties all things these are all factors you have to take into consideration and I think you need to probably designate and call them out in in your plan going forward

142so that everybody's aware of you know what could happen on this property and and where it can happen whether you want to designate the buildings only maybe the building in a specific area of the property um or or just you know the historic buildings as historic buildings and not necessarily the site these are all things you can or should take into consideration now because I wouldn't want to see a situation where the town um decides to implement some of these uses that you're contemplating now but not uh you know especially like a water quality improvement and you actually have to install structures and then you have an opposition that you can't do that because the property itself designated historic and they're not consistent with historic use of the property um so I'm just trying to

143call out factors that you should consider and discuss and uh developing the plan for the property going forward um there was some uh and I don't know if this was uh real or not I did mention Nature Preserve because I did I did hear some reference to that and of course Nature Preserve is basically keeping the property as it is not utilizing it agricultural use wouldn't be consistent with the Nature Preserve um depending on what the structures were for water quality improvement uh might be something we not might not want to allow in a nature preserve so I just wanted to bring that to your attention I don't think that's necessarily consistent with the four uses that you designated the property for so it's I'll bring this forward uh because a lot of this has

144came up during a discussion where where I started on there then too uh every single property particularly historical properties have different qualities and characteristics to it that's what gets called out in the code that we're looking at as far as uh uh the protections and the designations uh many that there's many properties within the town of eastampton have been designated locally historic and also others that have have not been but in the most recent times some of these properties or the structures have been deemed historic based on funding sources for potential restoration projects and that's allowed within the cpf law that's there there are already many Protections in place on all the properties that the town purchased with the cpf right now and then also specifically there's Protections in place that the town code currently

145allows once the town purchase is appropriate and it structures it is initiated multiple layers of safeguards that are place that already exist in the town code for C from cpf legislation General obligation laws and without any additional designations chapter 112 comes into place currently right now the town town code 64e the New York state law that governs the management of acquired lands by cpf the section specifically states with regards to Historic properties historic and cultural resources shall be managed maintained in a manner that is consistent with accepted standards for historical preservation also as we are aware the property cannot change hands without an act of State legislation that's already baked into the town uh into the state uh town code and the state cpf general obligation laws in addition the town has had a practice

146and policy develop management plans and I think that's what you're getting towards here John yes and it's done on multiple town properties that were purchased with cpf that also have structures I know uh Eden is moving forward on multiple ones of those currently for properties and I can see the same thing exactly happening here that management plan goes through a review and vetting process that also goes to public hearing and to that would further guide the town to any future use of the property and could further limit or Safeguard the property and structures in that proc process would go through again a public hearing process also currently within the town code additional triggers that are there right now the review would be sections for agricultural overlay districts and regulations 255 330 and actions on this

147property would have another Safeguard and layer of review through the ARB and other review boards and also now with the potential addition of local historical designation the property buildings on the property in sections two uh uh 255 725 give additional review for any additional changes to the structures and settings from the ARB so hence there's multiple safe guards in place as we go back into looking at most recently some of our purchases that I've been on the town board for not even purchases but historical designations and uh and going through these for local local designations because a local designation has a higher standard than a state or historical register state or historical register actually does not give nearly as much protections as local designations and that's why we have to be very careful with what

148we do here uh and also use it effectively then too we have adopted a local law in 2019 to designate the Victor Deo Institute the art barge this is only for the structures not the under underlying land what's different than that one is then when in 2021 we did a zoning code that designate second house and the barn as historical landmark that was not a cpf land neither of these two or the art bars we only did the structures not the designated land underneath moving forward we designate the Dodge property in 13 as a homestead under Landing Ling property there is an egg use quality that but there was not a water quality use to that also so there's there's uh there's that also and now we're looking at the John Osborne homestad and landmark

149on there what's different in this struct this property solely is that we actually are looking at multiple uses on there that would actually be environmental uh environmental stewards of the property but also for the surrounding uh Pond that is there then too none of those other properties have actually water quality designations to them they had historical designations some had a and open space which is top of the list when we go back into the town's comprehensive plan and particularly for the plan for way Scott out of the comprehensive plan specifically for agriculture within the plan for Wayne Scott and the 2005 comp plan to protect the traditional agricultural industry but s County's agricultural industry ranked first in New York state and agricultural based Land South mon Highway identified as the best farm land in New

150York state agricultural land in way Scott has been identified as eligible inclusion in the uh East Anon Scenic area of Statewide significance and designations when we take that one further into specifically the uh the the goals of the comp plan give me one moment just to find that one piece the designation of solely of the structures on there and let's remind you this is the largest piece of property that the town of East Hampton has ever purchased and it is beautiful and don't get me wrong by anyone I agree with everyone they saying that the specific that what we're doing here and the town board is seen is to protect the rural character of the areas but we have to protect it for future needs if we want to do water C the Agriculture and

151do it in the proper way it meets all the goals of the comp plan specifically goal one maintain and restore where necessary East Hampton's rural semi- rural character and unique qualities of each eastampton historical community goal two take forceful measures to protect and restore the environment particularly groundwater goal six this is very important here encourage and retain traditional local resource based fishing agriculture industries that practice environmentally sensitive methods of operation which I believe in the other rfas that we've done sorry to get back you on this one too as I just saw earlier many of those rfas don't allow for the use of chemicals herbicides or anything on our town properties then too so that goes back into what the code is and we've done that successfully the majority of the money that the town

152eastampton has purchased in the cpf and since I've been on the town board has been for agriculture theban properties Farmhouse Lan Cedar Street the Hof property upcoming in this one also and then lastly goal seven to protect historical uh buildings Hamet neighborhoods Landscapes and Scenic Vistas that's what's extremely important by having open space here from incompatible development that was the town board has to do it's not what we want to do this what we have to do and that's what we can continue doing here with the safeguards in place and the continued ones there so I still continue to Advocate that it's appropriate here for future to be able to designate the structures here because the protections that are there will protect the land also too that's what I have thank you um and they

153thank you for kind of giving over those protections I think it's good I think relatedly John I mean you know for those who are advocating for the designation to change to include the lands you know can you explain what protections would be given if any with that designation that they would not otherwise receive just by virtue of the fact that you've acquired this property as a cpf property you have a lot of protections that are already built in um you can't utilize the property in any fashion that you you please you're you're restrict it to your use and then these categories have limitations as to what can be done in each category for instance open space you certainly not allowed to you know construct a lot of improve mean you can do small improvements to

154make it accessible to people you can have Trails you could have maybe a parking area things of that sort um agriculture is under our code already very restrictive um you have a limitation as to what uh percentage of coverage you can have with agricultural buildings you'd be held to that as well if part of it was used for agriculture um even even water quality improvements are going to have to be consistent with the goals of of cpf you're not going to want structures that are going to be um that would come you have to that's that's going to be balancing test then because you're going to look at the the overall benefit that you're going to gain from from the improvements versus any impact it might create and you'd have to do an analysis of

155that um in fact I think he said the balancing test that is that is extremely important here as management get developed on there which is the next step in this process there's extreme limitations can be placed through that through the through what is appropriate from the that the town board also has that still continue going on so that that's one of them also exactly I mean it's a it's it's a pretty highly protected parcel already just by nature of a cpf acquisition and there not an awful lot of things you could allow to have happen on it and you've designated only these specific areas as as areas to be future uses going forward and they'll be they'll be fine-tuned through your management plan as to how that would occur so I know Scott here yeah

156well I just I we brought up management plan could could we just explain what the process is as far as what happens with um the creation of a management plan uh sure and actually we're going to be starting on this property next we're just finishing up the Dodge Property Management plan which should be introduced to the board over this next month our next Property Management committee meeting is actually on site at 66 way SC main uh the committee wants to walk the buildings Etc get some better understanding and ID of the property um and um from that meeting forward we'll we'll begin um um the creation of of a plan the plan is basically a basic guide on how um the town board proposes to the public what they want to see happen on that

157site um any future user groups for the structures in particular for example it gives you a nice framework uh for them to come in and say okay we have an understanding the management plan that you could do these things we're a licensee we're a nonprofit organization we'd like to license a structure um it gives them framework it also gives me as the land manager framework because then I can keep tabs on what actually is happening what they say is going to happen what they propose to happen and what actually is happening and so we can keep tabs on that and keep everybody managing that property within the scope of the management plan so it's it's a it's a great overall guide for for all concerned parties that might have an interest in property it also

158provides protections because there's a list of cans and there's a list of can'ts within a management plan so so uh my question then um is is a management plan is there an ability for a future board to amend a management plan a future board can amend a management plan only through the public hearing process but yes you could do that there was a comment here that the commenter of about a playground there is no Recreation on this so there can't be a playground here so there's some inconsistencies with what information is being put out there cpf when you do when you purchase it you would have to put in for recreational use this does not have it is that correct correct so that cannot happen on this property that specific you could do I mean

159I would consider a trail of passive Recreation that's an appropriate use on a on an open space property not not a playground not an active playground yeah I I mean it's I I don't feel it's quite that straightforward if if I'm really honest I I feel like we have approved management plans out there that you know we we don't necessarily follow through on and I think also like we're talking about say the 66 main property when we do the management plan for that are we going to take into account site planning you know things like what the parking requirements might be adjacent to the Osborne house for whatever proposed you we might start to accept in there I I think there's kind of a a level of complexity that slightly gets confusing with the management

160plans because I think they are seemingly more um Visionary in instead of being um applicable in some cases that's true so I have some questions as well because um in this as I stated in the in in public uh in the acquisition of this property the importance of the Vista um and uh to the to to all of us in the town the importance of preserving the history which we we saw a lovely uh presentation of the family history uh on this town when uh on this property when we when we bought it and for me as I indicated a very important uh part of the purchase of this property and the amount of money that we were spending is to is for water quality for a for the way Scout Pond that is severely

161it's it's one of the worst um most polluted most impacted water bodies on Long Island so uh the reason why uh we were thwarted in any ability to use cpf or a public private partnership or anything for to improve the water quality there which greatly impacts the the the residents there um is the fact that you cannot uh do water quality projects access water quality funding from cpf if there is not Public Access so that was a really important factor uh for me in um supporting the purchase of this property so um I would you know would when we talk about water what types of structures are uh used for water quality projects I know many of them require um disturbance of land to put in permeable barriers construction a lot of underground work that

162has to be done and then as we did in pussy's Pond obviously anybody can go take a look at the water quality projects you won't see them uh bios swells all kinds of things to help that pond out and I would uh ask does the historic property designation forbid the construction of underground water quality improvements for this um that would be for the pond it's a good question and I think it's we don't really have an answer to you because we haven't done it had a challenge to it um I think that the important part would be to call that out as as an anticipated use anticipated improvements at the very least because what you want to show a court that fact you anticipated these additional improvements being made to the property in spite of

163the designation so um putting would you say then that um John that putting the historic designation on the prop property could complicate the water quality potential water quality projects that we would need underground I do think that it could because it gives a tool to somebody who wants to challenge um that occurring um to argue that it's not consistent with the historical designation thank you would come out I'm not really sure I mean there are there are an awful lot of cases related to uses of historic properties and they're kind of all over the place yeah not not fan you know leaving it up to a judge and I'm sure they're not either because they have giant Cas that's the other side of especially when you're dealing with cpf properties which is very narrow area

164of properties and most judges don't have a lot of experience at all with that they may have some historical property designation experience but cpf um they tended always to kind of look back to the towns and say what do you guys say so right I mean so so I mean even with the buildings you know as as they become historically designated what are our requirements then to maintain those buildings in that existing structure you know and similar for the land were to have that designation right what would our fiscal responsibility be to keep the property in that state would we be legally obliged to do so you are supposed to do that right it's an obligation I think we're meant to do that no matter what we designate that's true but by historically designating the

165structures it gives them greater greater amount of review if there has to be any changes to it demolition changes even and even most importantly it gives Avenue of non- tax revenue of non-t tax revenue to be able to use for this uh doesn't come off the town's tax base it comes from a transfer tax to restore and one of the current structures there is a ple of restoring millions of dollars with a restoring Ian did you oh I just have a couple more sorry I was just wasn't finished so um you know um I've heard as the Le on to way Scott I've heard folks being very concerned that this if we didn't put the designation on the property that this would turn in could potentially in the future future boards turn into you know

166a huge parking lot um for um for you know for beach access or Pond access when we say uh you you know uh would that be able to happen if if we left the property uh out of the historic designation because because like the playground that's one of the things that are out there I don't see that being any different than um any other situ the only way that I could see that happening is is whether it was designated in the property or otherwise is an alienation of the property somehow that's approved by legislature in the state of New York um which requires a substitute of equal value or more um so I don't I don't really see that it's not certainly not a possibility under the cpf regulations to do that thanks I I

167think that that's important for folks to know those cpf regul regulations are quite stringent on what we're allowed to do and any future board would be allowed to do either I think those are some really strong guide rails and just uh you know we talk about passive Recreation certainly Trails or whatever um do we have a a a definition in a town code for Passive Recreation we we don't um we probably it would be something that we I mean it's kind of static right now and there are a lot of definitions of what people VI to be passive Recreation um and it's mainly like something that allows you to utilize the property but not disturb the property to any great degree um and it's it's just more p mive uh Trails walkways um you see

168a whole list of different items uh flying kites and hiking and boating and there's a lot of but the whole those they get a little more specific and I actually haven't seen it in any code at least not in New York I have seen some other states that have some definitions and they really talk about um maintaining the natural um layout of the property the topography not interfering with any of that but being able to just utilize it in a very non-intrusive way basically and as David uh pointed out Recreation is not on the uh enabling legislation well passive Recreation if you consider walkinging something like that walking through I I consider that strenuous okay for me for sure that's just me that's also part of the cpf laws about public access to the public

169lands correct on too where we've done like wood trip wood chip trails to the water in the past I think of you know um I don't know what Pond is designated but it's it's not a cpf property that was a na preserve and a gift which I think we had to do because we didn't have the cpf at the time oh yeah I mean I don't think cpf existed back then I don't know T but I don't think so either and I think that's why we we had an you know the nature preserves originally were an attempt to do what the cpf laws subsequently are able to I don't know if this property my reading of the code if this would even reach the standards of of a na preserve because typically na Reserve is

170never been Disturbed yeah this property has completely Disturbed for hundreds of years but in Li of that we have the cpf protections with everything that we buy for that property that's and and other sections in the town code too um I think that's uh those are my questions thank you um I think that's it um have we ever done water quality on any other historic properties just a question not that I'm aware no no if you if if if uh water quality wasn't one of the designations when you acquired it one of the purposes for acquisition you can't do it that's that's the reading of the law you know as put forth by um former assembl M deal so we're sing to I know it wasn't presentation to us but I believe um Dr gobler

171did a presentation to the trustees with regards to the water quality this body and it's like the second worst in the town if I'm not mistaken it's the worst on Long Island it's it's the most impacted um and and this is how you know um we have a history and speaking of Dr gobler of how with water quality initiatives private Public Partnerships Etc these this water body can be um rehabed that's the goal we've been they've been quite successful at Georgia Capon and I was at that presentation Tom and and Dr gobler was talking about how he couldn't access it to do anything right and so this purchase as Kate has mentioned you know allows for us to make a difference you can even see from Aerials that the quality is bad the water quality

172and just the question about the third structure is is there the the reasoning behind not putting that into historic designation I not not for me necessarily then to but it's such a small structure that that it could be maintained from a small amount of capex if needed so that's how you're looking at it is at this point yeah my first my question is whatever we were to do if we were to proceed with the two structures historically designated is there anything that precludes us from changing that in the future adding you know the third structure or the whole property is it is it a choice that we make now that really restricts us later I mean is there an interest by the board and designated all three structures you have to rehear it well you

173could well we could I mean we heard it as the two structures we could adopt it as two structures and go back and have a separate public hearing for the playhouse for the third structure that that's my point is that I think I nobody objects to us with the two structures it's just adding something on to that it's been heard so my inclination is we do this knowing that we're not making a final decision if the board changes their mind or a future board wants to include the rest of the property at least we're doing something good just let you rehear it right so Jake is that a substantive change yes you need hear yes it is you have to hear we've already asked Rob that you have to rehear it okay I just want

174to know um can I do you mind if I just piggy back on what you just said so so let's just say we adopt today and we cover the two structures we can go at a later date this year and do the third structure we then develop the property management committee that you know Ian leis on to develops the management plan we could after we know what's going there and maybe have gotten input from the Water Quality Technical advisory committee and know have a plan forward for remediating way Scott Pond we could come back with the carve outs that you mentioned and later designate the entire property historic yeah so to me that's a methodical way to do it um and and so we not go in blindly my perspective and until we really know

175what it is we're working with there because we don't know how we're going to remediate that pond that's exactly what I was thinking and I would hate to pause this because everybody agrees that the two structures should be preserved as historic we need another hearing to do more than that anyway so the good we can do today is is that as long as we're not you know handcuff handcuffing ourselves for the future I also just want to say that this this property is such a special cpf purchase the reason we had so much interest at that time and and now we all have the same goals everybody loves that property everybody agrees it should look much like it does today so there's not a difference in goal here it's just how we achieve that and

176I just want to point a couple of things out I trust everyone's intentions are very good but I think a nature preserve is kind of contradictory to the historic use which is agricultural so you know everybody's trying to articulate that they want this property to say stay the same and I think the board agrees I think is Cath just said we don't want to maybe make this big step that you can't undo as easily as we can add on to this in the future so um and Dave pointed out all the cpf you know protections that are already in place it's not like we can sell the property or develop it in some crazy way I think Kathy said it best which is this is the methodical approach and we'll see where it leads thank

177you okay all right so now we have our last topic today and that's uh thank you John thank you Scott John good to see you to see you too we have to town code amendments to the Bureau of administrative adjudication yeah would be helpful Jake thank you we've got Jake Turner our senior assistant Town attorney uh presenting his recommendation to us welcome Jake good afternoon Madame supervisor Town board so what I have done is looked at the Civil enforcement and administrative adjudication chapter chapter 62 of our town code effectually known as the baa Bureau of administrative adjudication what I have propos that we do is permit the filing of judgments whether they be default meaning nobody's appeared or a resolved judgment meaning somebody's appeared and a judge has decided that the person is culpable that

178we are permitted to take those judgments and file them record them in any Court of competent jurisdiction within the state namely what we are looking at is the supreme court allows us to file them in Riverhead therefore when a title search is done they show up and they must be satisfied in order for a title company to give clear title the language that is utilized in this mirrors exactly the I got to get this one right New York state general Municipal law that is the state law that permits the town to create the baa when this code was enacted at the Town level instead of one word a phrase was used Town Justice Court instead as we have implemented this program we have found that it is necessary to permit us to file these judgments

179in Supreme Court I've had many conversations with the baa director and other attorneys attorneys in the court system and we feel as though this is the best way to go so um I'll just start because I I was uh uh I I was leaz on to the creation of the baa um and also to justice court and I I fully support uh this change uh in the code I think it is necessary to be able to expand our ability to adjudicate and have and have a a disposition on a summons that's been received through the baa um I think we're handcuffed right now um and limited on that um so I think that this expands the opportunity uh which I think is a good thing Jake would you just speak explain um for someone who

180does have a judgment coming against them what this change would mean for them in terms of procedure of how they're going to get processed so one thing to keep in mind is that the judgment is at the end so person receives a ticket they either pay it great no problems they don't pay it then it could go to default which means it's settled down to a judgment and it is filed in a court and then when a title report is done it shows up same thing with if they decide to fight the the allegations then if they still decide not to pay it it will be a judgment and it's filed so it affects nobody in any way shape or form on the merits of an allegation it just goes to giving the town more

181teeth and more tools needed to ensure that that fee is paid and the uh if someone Justa objects to the ticket I'm not going to say fight it if someone objects to the ticket uh it they have a process uh where that is separate from needing to go to Justice Court and but it's still adjudicated by the judge all do process rights are still protected but that's in the beginning this is at the end okay everybody good with it yeah so I I haven't followed this as much but I trust in Kate and that what you're putting forward here and and understand where you're moving it so yes I look forward to going to public hearing this is been I had Steve dski who's our director of the Bureau of uh administrative adjudication say that

182three times fast EA and uh he has requested this change has Jake he's the one that I've been speaking mostly with and we have spoken to court attorneys Rob Conley and I have gone through this with a fine Toth comb so that's what we came up with so if you could have this on to notice it on Thursday the 6th and we hear it on the 20th that would be great understood thank you thank you Jake all right so that's we're through the topics and now we're on to Liaison report so Tom yes thank you madam supervisor um first we have the Igan CI advisory committee will be meeting next Monday the 10th 6:30 p.m. at the amag school library Human Services uh we have a free healthare uh March 7th from 11: to 2:

183p.m. St Luke's Church in the main hall meeting room um that's sponsored by the eastampton healthc Care Foundation um meal counts for the week Feb 24th through Feb 28th the congregate Mill program was at 81 grab and go we had 87 um we also have monthly blood pressure readings um Wednesday March 5th from 10: to 2 at the center and we have bilingual taiichi classes this month March 4th 11th 18th and 25th at 11:00 a.m. just a few cancellations to notice um functional fitness on Wednesday March 5th 11:00 a.m. is cancelled it will be back the following week Cherry yogas is cancelled for Tuesday March 11th at 11:00 a.m. will also resume the following week and quong dance is cancelled Thursday March 13th at at 10 a.m. also will renew the following week um digitization

184um we had a request from the disabilities advisory committee to get their historic um meeting minutes uh digitized so those records are forever held in the town um my fellow board members are amenable to that something I wanted to work with sir on and getting those over and getting those uploaded yeah I mean that or it maybe it could be done internally you know possibly yeah we got to get see how much is I mean with regards to Siri right now no one is using that stien we have with him so I think that yeah Becky and are going through that to see to just confirm the um where the project stands doing some quality control and all that great um Brooks Park um myself and Ian uh met with the Brooks uh Park Board

185um leadership last week just to kind of review where we are with that plan and you know listening to the 66 waycott piece there's a lot of crossover there because here you have a building that has an approved plan that has a historic designation that do we commit funds to maintain and so um you know there was a lot of back and forth on that um where we've left it at this point is they have had a A draft copy of the um the Duck Creek um license kind of sent over to them they've kind of going to come back with their changes while them review that with the board board members and you know Ian and I kind of said I think it would be helpful to see you know what does a p&l

186look like for you guys in year One what do you think your operating cost is going to be how are you going to have the revenues to meet that um you know the piece it does get to I think with all these historic properties is I think we need to have some kind of rubric in place that we're treating them the same way as we look to designate funds for them so you know you have someone coming in wishing to operate what is expected of people um you know I think just having that cleared out because I think otherwise you do have projects like this that have been sitting there for many many years not moving forward and um but you know I I think we we need to do some due diligence in that

187um East End fire Commissioners um I'm setting up a meeting with Brian Gallagher uh he's looking to get um permission from his leadership team to come out and meet at the um Northwest Woods locations um as noted he's one of the few burn Masters on Long Island um but before he does that he does need to get that so I'm following up with the dec to try and get that permission to help us kind of come up with our management plan for those areas disabilities advisories board uh we met last week um as well as the digitization piece um still continued push to have a uh work session on what the universal build uh design process is um and how we should uh look to incorporate that in in New Town Projects I think there's

188some misunderstanding of actually what that encompasses um in terms of the buildout so having that cleared up and understanding what the cost implications are um both short and long term is good um and then additionally we have um thank you very much to the recreation department we have new signs that will be going up um at the uh parking spaces with Ada facilities uh in the town you'll see a QR code that will be up there at the beach locations as you scan that QR code uh it will tell you about resources you can use to access the beaches be access to beach wheelchairs um access mats Etc and other other facilities within the town so I I think it's a big win for our community there um anti-ar task force um it's been a

189while since my last FM report so I didn't go into detail on this in the last meeting but I will say in our last meeting um it was very tense um there is great concern about the recent decisions coming from the federal government um and you know just the consensus that as is often the case in these situations those with the least power become um those who are on the re receiving end of of poor decisions um and in this case can be biased and so just to remind the community what this committee is out there for it is a community resource which people can turn to when they have complaints about bias race related incidents um they can organize activities and forms to educate the community with respect to issues of bias and thereby

190Foster Goodwill and understanding in eastampton town and advise and inform the town board concerning the appropriate responses to bias related issues um one follow-up question they did have as um is there any um update on legal guidance that the town is receiving um with regards to any actions or feedback or no okay Tom I think why don't you meet with Patrick and we could promote the by task force give out the phone number social media sure um I I I think one thing with that committee and we can talk about it online offline they are in an interesting process of finding their new Direction because I think you know one thing that came up in that last meeting is and that's one of the reasons I'm reading out the the mission statement for what that

191committee is is there's some things that a town committee can do and there's things a town committee cannot do so we're actually going to have the town attorney's office come to the next meeting to really clearly spell that out because a lot of these frustrations that are voiced while I might share the concerns that are driving them that that's not the remit of the town and we I think we have to be very clear on that um as well um that is um oh soor one other really good piece of little news um one good one more challenging the Arts Council committee um is working in progress with the human uh Services Department uh to offer more classes at the senior center um every other Tuesday uh we'll have a rotating uh group of teachers

192coming in to do that but that's something that'll be moving forward soon um and then lastly business committee met last week um discussion there was a lot around the GFA formula changes you know there is I think as we're all aware big concern about what the impacts are to local businesses of these proposed changes um but additionally in that meeting there was also a very interesting presentation by the um Mont talk Chamber of Commerce it was a squad analysis of where they see business in U mon talk um and where they see you know opportunities and and threats as well for the future so I have a follow meeting with the um chair of the chamber next week just to review you know some projects that they're interested in seeing moving forward waste water being

193one pos what of analysis I'm sorry SWAT uh strength weakness opportunity and could you share that with us yeah yeah as Leo sends it over I will do so um to my town board members I left my blaz on report my ashel one in the printer so I'll try my best here going off the old one uh scalp is a notice for scalp for a public hearing for scalp which is sub County aquaculture lease program expiration date on this is May 2nd 2025 please contact uh uh suffa County as they are looking at propos new lease aquaculture sites in the bonic bays and Gardner in Gardner Bay also mon talk CAC met last night um uh small discussion there was uh there was numerous support there for uh some of the zoning code amendments that

194are coming up this week there was also a request uh for potentially as Tom had mentioned uh for one of the maybe the fire Commissioners or E yourself fire commissioner someone from eastn Fire uh um eastn fire chiefs to come in and discuss fire load and preparations and such so maybe Tomy you know have talk off offline on that um in Recreation as uh uh Tommy mentioned about about uh the signs we're also Recreation uh signups are going for Nipper gards and Junior lifeguarding training please contact uh go to the town's website for those you're also seeing a recreation of multiple multiple locations that we have right now that we're reinstalling safety padding that includes Maidstone Park and other locations then too again as little league UPC comes right now and I believe they're starting

195to do little league evaluations uh that goes through the eastampton little league board uh please Google their website I believe they're going to start playing in about four weeks W umast let me see here I'm trying to remember it all the nation preserve committee met on the 13th of February unfortunately I was not able to make it so I didn't have a report for the next uh the last time going over what they had talked about on there the maintenance report report was very simply they did uh they did some uh mowing of the properties cutting fall uh Fallen trees um they actually removed moved uh a hunting stand from the Osborne property uh and fence uh from the driving path and some of those locations they did reclose vandalized windows that uh happened at

196Brooks Park also then too and some other encroachments and other locations uh they continued the discussion under jar Drive about a management plan for some of those properties they're going to move that forward uh uh trying to get that to the town board or they might be discussing on adding that to the changes to chapter 182 which is uh uh uh talks about nature preserves and also town properties that goes back to the main discussion that they had was revisions to town code chapter 162 this has been a slow burn um this is I think first started 10 years ago they will uh they took by unanimous consensus in the nation preserve committee we recommend the changes to the uh generic management plan outlined chapter 182 and various enforcement violations of protected lands they uh

197recommended that and they'll getting that to the town board from their chairman shortly that again would come to another town board discussion town uh public hearing and such also um let's see here uh they had a a a member member Jim Grimes and another member uh another individual Alex blor uh discuss a proposal for a restoration of a Wetlands near the Willis Point Road and Clen point which is a nation Preserve in that location uh they are interested in proposing uh the restoration of a a part of the reserved area which is a wetland a pond in there they cut down frag muddies and re uh restore the pond this project would be funded uh as a as a a private partnership with the town the committee was in support and they'll send more information

198to the town board we can bring that to the town board discussion in the future uh lastly a couple updates uh stepen H path long Lane uh the public safety Road Safety uh project there it's move move along we are it's slowed down because we're waiting for Verizon to move some uh wires off the poles there that is the same that is happening at 114 and also stepen H path is just removing some of the wires you can't do a lot of the drainage or the road work without the wires and the poles being removed uh at kwell court uh suffa County Water authorities requested uh uh an amended fee schedule that is coming up for a resolution for next I believe on Thursday and they should be there installing the the water main by

199next week it's we told as we've received the DOT permit for that finally on that project um that is all I have and I'll come back on Tuesday with more I apologize thank you David Kate yes um thanks the U Wayne Scott CAC met uh it was a well attended not just by the members of the CAC but it was a full room of people who who live in the hamlet residents of the Hamlet that's not unusual for that group uh a guest speaker was Katie Casey of the East Hampton Housing Authority first I want to thank her for all the time that she put in on a Saturday morning uh coming out to explain what what the entity of eastampton Housing Authority is the name confuses people and they frequently think it's the housing

200department for the town uh she spoke about the 114 project she was uh very uh it it was a wonderful conversation very insightful and productive on how the Housing Authority develops a project designs a project and all the considerations Community considerations School District everything that's put into place um and uh her openness and her her knowledge was deeply appreciated by the committee members there uh and the residents as well um the airport remains a concern of the residents uh there is a new leaon uh to the airport uh subcommittee Mark fron who was newly appointed to the committee and I believe he's made some appointments to meet with Jim brge with him in a couple of weeks yeah so uh that's uh uh I I think he's a fresh face and uh I welcome him

201uh to the committee um of course the issues discussed were traffic uh safety pedestrian safety um and also with David's permission uh I was able to convey uh the projects uh the stop signs and crosswalks that David had emailed uh his support for um with the caveat that and public hearing new information that that recommendation can change that was much appreciated by the committee um and I think it reflected that's just my opinion on there they understood that um but they appreciated the feedback um uh on that um I did have a a separate uh resident not a member of the committee uh who came and spoke of a a in a totally different area of the town but one that I'm familiar with because uh one of my doctors is in the office buildings

202there on in waycott uh regarding using um cross West Gate West Westgate to Eastgate and the cross the cut through through Crossways this is very short roads in a kind of a z um that is heavily used if you want to get back to uh waycott um to the traffic light so that you can make a left and what he say he's a very long-term resident and what he's also seeing now with the the the uh business activity uh at the uh pit is that now we're H he's having big cement trucks and commercial trucks also go through this these are very very narrow streets I'll be uh furthering uh looking for uh support for a recommendation for at least to reducing that heavy truck traffic I also think that saves a road pavement because

203I don't think those small streets in the pavement in those residential neighborhoods were meant for that kind of heavy construction equipment but also these are very narrow streets highly residential it's a it there's a lot of sideline issues with it's a quick left quick right quick left quick right uh to be able to get back to that TR the traffic light and avoid trying to make a left turn uh west of the traffic light onto uh onto Monto highway so um he was uh talking about uh talking for some of his neighb neighbors and I'll be uh just bringing that forward on a totally separate track from any of the other recommendations uh sustainability committee met uh they were talking about their priorities for uh 2025 it was very productive meeting uh of course um

204moving from um our composting pilot program to educating folks that hey you don't have to leave your house and take your uh food scraps to some location uh and and take time out of your day you could do it in your backyard so that's going to be the next uh education phase and uh for the sustainability committee also I'm going to bring folks information on um uh asking you to uh Proclaim that East Hampton will um participate in uh International Earth hour which is scheduled for Saturday March 22nd between the hours of 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. I'll have more information on that I left that flyer in my printer um as well but uh the East Hampton Village is participating and uh we're just looking at a potential uh proclamation to support Earth hours

205turning your lights off for an hour to acknowledge uh greenhouse gas emissions that are caused by electricity production um not dis similar to um some of the other uh National cleanup day except it's only an hour uh in the evening um they're also going to bring back and uh for discussion as a recommendation some of the tree protection um um legislation that's already been discussed we had actually had a public hearing on the bamboo um but that that uh there was some comments from the public and I think that sort of fell off on bamboo restrictions and also David you had spoke about uh protecting Street trees critical root Zone protection yeah critical root Zone protection that's something they they'd like to uh bring back to the board um and also expanding the gas powered

206leaf blower transition to Electric uh they looked at some other towns uh for example white Plaines offers a tighter usage period and has a Down the Line complet phase out date uh they'll be coming back to the board on these recommendations and again recognizing that we're always looking to transition rather than ban um liter action committee has sent this board a list of recommendations I uh forwarded those recommendations they took a lot of time and thought into this in the area of Code Enforcement temporary sign placement and uh I don't know if board members who go past Springs fireplace recycling center or mon talk have noticed or ever noticed the uh cover and secure your load it's the law signs uh trying to get the litter from flying out the back of uh open trucks

207um they have a a sign design also uh that they'd like to propose for that messaging um that I could send to the board uh also they have recommendations for trash cans rental agreements um and an anti-litter campaign uh they meet they're meeting here in uh the main meeting room on Wednesday at 4M if board members can just take a look at those recommendations and give some thoughts that is on their their agenda um the zoning code amendments there is a public hearing on March 6 6: PM in in here right here in town hall regarding um a change uh recommended change to the uh GFA formula um and that's uh where we are with that I attend I'm on the pep manage the Panic Estuary partnership management team um and I met with they

208had their meeting and I just wanted to highlight some of the projects that are funded for East Hampton which is a monitoring the oil injection at a permeable reactive barrier three M Harbor at tambar Creek um they also have a continued partnership with stakeholders of East Hampton Town's aconic Harbor and are working with smart teams which are Regional experts that have developed an emerging minimally invasive Wetland restoration technique to restore over 30 Acres of salt marsh at aabon Harbor uh it's permit ready plans and they're look uh going with a final Workshop to8 permanating Outreach on this project has continued pep partners with the acaban protection committee and goes to their meetings and assist in the field workor led by uh us fish and wildlife uh along along with the nature conservative effort e effort

209to survey for salt marsh sparrows and also the funding of $105,000 uh this year for the lake Monto storm water control they're uh still doing their nitrogen reduction out Outreach and are looking to uh uh encourage and partner with suffk County on funding to increase the ma maintenance uh grants that are available of course we partner with suffa county in providing grants for people to be able to update their aging septics to low nitrogen uh nitrogen uh the latest technology and removing nitrogen from septics before it gets back onto our groundwater um they also have a which I didn't know about a homeowners reward program uh this year they'll continue to provide Financial rewards for homeowners who remove Turf and pavement and add green alternatives to their residential private properties that benefit the environment homeowners

210can up earn up to 500,000 uh 500 500,000 imagine $500 to offset the expenses of installing green infrastructure on their properties which includes rain barrels and Rain Gardens and Native Plant Gardens so I hope to uh that that uh Pro rewards programs opens applications on March 17th uh they need to update their website and get us a current application and then we'll I hope we can do another social media bless I know we've done it before uh two two Town um NOS are mini grant winners of of Pep grants that's a perfect Earth project with reducing nitrogen pollution in the ponic Estuary Watershed through residential Outreach and nature based land care education and the aconic protection committee with enhancing water quality Communications in the aconic Watershed they're also looking for um another grant for pfos

211and pfoa uh legislation on the county level uh the important date is June 5th to save the date for their bi banial shine Summit um and this is to bring stakeholders from across the EST AR who are involved in Shoreline protection and adaptation projects presentations will share info on the process of Technical Resources being developed for Shoreline managers and Regulators uh I also attended the uh Anthony uh C state senator Anthony Palumbo's and New York State assemblyman Tommy Don Chon's environmental Roundtable carrying on the tradition that was started by Senator Laval and uh Fred theal uh it was well attended um a rough estimate was about 75 to 80 people at suffa County's Culinary Institute the discussion was engaging informative and critically important subjects range from Coastal resilience to community Beach nourishment funding um County

212state and federal funding sources for multiple environmental causes implementation of Clean Water Act funding New York State Environmental Bond monies uh we spent over two hours touching on water quality emerging contaminants and drinking water sea level rise Southern pine beetle and so many more uh issues uh that face Our Town multiple levels of government were represented as were many nonprofits ccom was there uh ponic Estuary partnership ponic Land Trust Eastern Long Island chapter of Surf Riders Cornell Cooperative uh division in nature conservancy every organization and governmental entity represented in the room relies on uh Federal funding uh to to continue the work and I also advocated since there was a representative from uh Congressman lot's office uh to uh on the importance of FEMA for uh municipalities like ours and uh I was thinking about

213maybe we could join together with other municipalities to send some information up to uh Congressman L Lo on how important uh FEMA is for our recovery efforts and for also like funding for the uh the ditch PL stun that we're in the process of going through the permitting uh for uh to be a FEMA compliant Dune I will have a grant update um uh I will have an update on Ditch Plains at for our next um meeting which is a mon talk and also on the agenda there'll be a $600,000 grant update presented by Samantha Klein we have movement from the state on moving forward with that update and that's all I have great thank you Kate Ian yeah I'll have just a brief um liazon report first of all to answer Tom's earlier question

214130% Ami I've got the precise numbers my patients avoided me making a mistake uh for one person it's $142,200 for two people $62 62,500 and for three people $1 182,780 thanks to Joan Pilgrim from the housing department for getting that to me so you know for one it's quite a bit but as you go up you realize that yeah so when you have a professional couple it gets very tricky and you make a really good point um so something to explore later uh otherwise I want to focus mainly on the property management committee which met on February 26th um I think that's relevant to a lot of the things we've talked about today um we are finalizing the Dodge Property Management plan um and the approach to that and hopefully we'll present it soon is

215to make it as broad as possible so that we're really open to all good ideas and restricting only the bad ones but I look forward to bring in that Scott said within the month um hopefully that we can meet that goal uh and shortly thereafter as as Scott alluded to we'll work on 66 Wayne Scott Main Street um there are two structures there we've talked about them today we'll want to come up with a management plan for for those as well as the the whole property and and then generally what I want to focus on here is the the cpf the restoration budget um there is a certain allowance and I and I mentioned this earlier for historic Restorations and maintenance and the more properties that we have I think the more important it becomes

216that we we use that money um it's become clear to me that fiscal responsibility is important and difficult with all the rising costs and so I think the extent we can tap into different revenue streams and cpf while it still is um technically a tax it's outside of our general funding and I think that we should take advantage of it whenever possible so um we have structures the Carl Fisher house needs work the Edwards house which we've you know um authorized engineering for is going to need to actual have work done the Dodge property needs work there's a an engineering report or an assessment anyway uh 66 main as Dave said earlier is going to need some work second house Barn in in Monto uh and Brooks Park second part it's not cpf what's that

217it's not cpf oh I apologize okay um Brooks Park in the uh was in the capital plan for 2026 I mentioned this earlier Tom brought it up uh and we did meet with some people from from that committee and I think that I would like to have a path forward I know that this was originally purchased as open space later designated as historic and and the town has gone back and forth on that for a while um to Tom's point about equal treatment I agree that we always want to be fair in terms of how we treat different properties different user groups the issue for this particular property that or that that has it it's confounding for me is the location um David mentioned earlier vandalism that's been repaired so I just want to make

218sure that when we invest money cpf money or otherwise that it's going to you know we have a plan in place for that money to be used and used appropriately in the way it's going to last so if we were to redo these structures and they're broken into I don't know if we we get anywhere there and so that's where I'd like to see um you know I don't want to put any User Group through too much trouble to come up with what their plan is but I want to know that if we're investing on properties that are 800 feet back into the woods or whatever that you know do we have cameras there do we have electric and it's a bigger to me the conversation on the Brooks property is a little bit different

219than say the Edwards house for example which is in the middle of an open field in a park um but my main point here is I want to just just quickly on that because I think it's it's really important to the overall understanding of the Brooks Park concept is that is precisely what they're trying to protect is is an artist Colony that was removed that was invested in nature away from kind of Main structures and how that was a movement along with poock and krna in that period of time which is now lost and diminishing and and you know that's historically what it's had that significance so just to give the context of the specific location no I totally understand and I really understand the passion on the people who are involved in the property

220and how much they care and why it all makes sense it's just then we have to to square that with you know if it's open to the public we then have to have parking spaces we have to have access that meets our standards there's planning elements that go into this and I just want to understand that there's a long-term plan for how that can be used sort of effectively it's safe and as with all properties of course it's just trying to preserve sort of the the natural setback feel makes it more vulnerable I think to certain types of vandalism or or abuse but my main point in saying this is just that we should come up with a plan and and specifically with the c uh the property management committee we've been talking about the

221various structures we have and and trying to prioritize they don't all have engineering plans so we don't know exactly the cost of the work but we're trying to analyze sort of what's needed what's the most urgent and I would like to get the town board sort of a list of all these things that are coming up so that we can spend some money in 2025 from that fund because if we don't spend the 10% that's to set aside for restoration my understanding is it doesn't roll over into the next year and so just I think fiscal responsibility dictates not that we have to use that money for this if we figure you know purchases are better but I want to make sure that we're in a position so that we know what type of Maintenance

222or restoration need to take place and we're at the ready to spend that money should the board choose so I think a lot more to to to come on that I just wanted to make you all aware that that's was the focus of the property management committee and I think it's it's a really good focus and something that's become more and more important as we acquire more and more historic properties thank you Ian so I just have a couple things I wanted to bring up one is I think Tom at the last work session you brought up um what it would cost to bond for the new Senior Center so um first let me just start with an effort to offset the costs for taxpayers the town has and will continue to apply for New

223York State and Congressional grants and we're also going to continue to Monitor and apply for Grant fundings as programs are announced other potential sources of funding that are being considered include the orad funding which was something that was supported during uh the vanak administration and private Foundation grants and donations But ultimately the difference between the final construction cost and all the other sources of funding will be met through a municipal bond with a 30-year term early estimates suggest that if the full $28 million cost of construction was met through a 30-year Municipal Bond the annual cost to a resident would be $30 per year for a house with a market value of $1.1 million or as it states on the tax bill an assessed value of $4,000 so for just $30 per year over 30

224years we're ensuring that older residents have a place to stay active connected and supported uh today we have a resolution on for uh a temporary paid parental leave policy uh it was something that our CSEA president Jim Bennett addressed and uh becoming app parent is one of the town's most like one of life's most life-changing moments no one should have to choose between their paycheck and time with their newborn or newly adopted child that's why the town is introducing a temporary paid parental leave policy to give our employees the support they deserve when they need it most with this policy eligible employees will receive up to eight weeks of fully paid job protected leave to bond with their child this is not just about supporting our employees it's about strengthening our entire Community when we

225we take care of the people who keep our town running our First Responders our maintenance Crews our office staff and more we can better serve our residents a workplace that values families creates a more stable experienced Workforce reducing turnover and ensuring the best possible services for tax taxpayers so right now this policy is being introduced on a temporary basis as we prepare for collective bargaining negotiations with our employee unions in 2026 the town is Comm to having those discussions but in the meantime we're taking this important step because we believe supporting our employees needs building a stronger eastampton for everyone I also uh want to touch base on and I know Kate uh you said that Katie Casey was at the way Scot cic which was great but um I don't know if everyone's heard

226that the Housing Authority has issued a request for qualifications to select a developer for the route 114 community housing project which will create up to 60 new rental units on the 62 acres at 776 and 780 route 114 in waycott as you recall this past summer we had transferred that property to the housing authori so that they could uh develop this property this is a first step in selecting a qualified development partner who will Design finance and construct the project in collaboration with the East Hampton housing authority and the town so I believe they're press release and the dates you okay yeah fine sorry and the dates for uh the RFQ are on the East Hampton Housing Authority a website but we're excited that this project is moving forward and lastly I just wanted to

227touch base I had mentioned that the eastampton S Harbor CAC met last night uh they had a discussion about the um the upcoming public hearing on Thursday for the gross floor area formula and the CAC unanimously supports the formula the 7% of the lot plus500 square fet and we'll be sending a letter to the clerk uh I mentioned we talked about potholes everybody was going to bring their list and then when we got there it was all praise for the highway department for all the work they've been doing and keeping ahead of that we also talked about the long Lane roundabout um and waiting on Verizon I know Steve Lynch has reached out to his contacts at Verizon and the supervisor's office will be doing the same uh they the CAC discussed ebikes on S

228sidewalks particularly in the North Main Street Corridor that Still Remains an issue and they're recommending that signage be posted there and there was also a discussion about the Long Island Railroad waiting room at in East Hampton Village there was some inquiries regarding when the station is open and we will be following up with the railroad I'm I'm also told that there's a sign that they're looking for a commercial tenant for that space that and Southampton also has the same so so that's happening one thing on that quickly because they they have the warming room at that train station but they close it during the winter which seems particularly counterproductive right yeah um it's there any way to reach out well that's what we're trying to find out I you know I mentioned to some folks

229that use the uh South for commuter connection and they say they've seen people in there they've seen the lights on so I don't know if there's set hours and that's what we're trying or is it like when the temperature gets you know below you know what's the what's the process so that's what we're going to be looking into thank you all right so that's my leison report for today so now we can move on to may just say thank you for getting um that feedback on the tax bill for the senior Senate and I and I agree with you I think look when we're looking at what Provisions that provides to the town that cost that that's a good investment in my mind yeah because it's it's the senior center plus the Human Services Division

230um also that doesn't have a home right now right and you just you know in your liaison report listed all of the the programs that they're doing and yeah and what they you know they they're doing blood screen blood uh blood pressure monitoring they are always at the health fair and they're giving out information they're um got a lot of classes going on and a lot more requests for classes with the wellness Wellness 60 plus it's a very popular program okay so first up Tom you have thank you yes I do budget resolution y uh this is 2025 348 be resolve the town board hereby directs the budget office to make the following budget modification to increase Revenue budget lines Solid Waste feeds in the amount of 846501 second all in favor happy to offer

231res resolution 2025 349 this is rettin appraiser Lawrence and diate uh Consulting Corporation for uh property located tax map 300-6 d213 .5 the appraisal should not exceed $3,800 second all in favor uh 350 is approve agreement with ponic uh land trust for mowing of Stony Hill lands the work rate of $150 an hour not to exceed $600 second all in favor I 351 is uh John John osburn's Homestead historical designation after hearing this is the amend zoning code that designate John Osborne Homestead historical landmark the property name is Osborne Street location is 66 way Scott uh Main Street uh TX up number 300 -2002 D21 second in discussion sure uh so I just want to say that I was appreciative of the memo that we received uh from uh uh John J Nikki on this

232issue and um in reading the memo and listening to the presentation today um I I support uh what we're doing right now I agree with Kathy on on being methodical and I also would would not want to put a designation that would on this property currently that would preclude us from water quality projects which is one of the enabling missions of why we purchase this property I think that's extremely important also when we look at the layers of protection on cpf doing a management plan uh being able to come back on that third structure and potentially in the future once we know what water quality projects will will be needed on there uh coming back with a property designation I can um vote uh in the affirmative on this uh resolution okay so David moved

233it you second it all in favor I I is that your last one David okay uh resolution 352 is to authorize employee imbursement reimbursement for Beyond Plastics pollution course resolved that Megan folks and Emily Klein shall be reimbursed for the registration fee at the cost of $100 each with the c total cost not to exceed $2200 second all in favor I resolution uh 353 is a 2024 budget modification in the planning department this is moving um $1,689 from full-time salaries to outside professional second all in favor I resolution 354 this is the incre uh this is 2025 budget modification for community housing fund this is the increase Revenue budget line real estate transfer tax in the amount of 1, 345,000 and increase expenditure line for Grants community housing in the amount of 1, 345,000 and

234also to move $1 million from Rehabilitation of community housing and $1 million from construction of community housing uh both those going to Grants and community housing in the amount of $2 million second all in favor I resolution 355 is to adopt the temporary paid parental leave policy the town recognizes the importance of supporting employees as they welcome a new child into their family this policy provides eligible employees up to eight calendar weeks of job protected paid leave following the birth of a newborn or the placement of a child with the employee through adoption this policy shall run concurrently with any pregnancy related leave an employee may be eligible for pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement and it the town board hereby adopts this policy effective immediately second all in favor uh 356 is to authorize

235payment for prior year invoices for emergency responder products this is in the amount of $583 183 cents second all in favor so that is what we have for Resolutions do I have 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 contracts litigation and cpf second all in favor I thank you everyone for joining us today and thank you LTV thank you all very much and have a great day