Proposed East Hampton Senior Center Should Be Vetted by Review Boards, Critics Say

Residents, who say they are worried by the quick pace with which the East Hampton Town Board has seemed to be advancing the planning for the construction of the new town Senior Center in Amagansett, this week urged the board to tap the brakes and let the town’s Planning Board and other regulatory boards give the proposal a thorough inspection, rather than bypassing the town zoning code, as town lawmakers have indicated they plan to do.

A chorus of critics raised doubts about details of the Senior Center design — not least of all it’s nearly $32 million estimated cost — and the process by which the Town Board appears to be marching toward getting work underway as soon as later this month, with a 2025 completion date.

Some said the project seems to be irresponsibly expensive and that justifications for the size and some amenities not thoroughly vetted for the public; that some crucial planning details have been left out of the designs presented thus far; and that the board and town officials have seemed to obfuscate their intentions for how the project would be handled and approved.

“Your review hasn’t even started and yet you’ve already announced that you’re going to break ground on the project this month,” Jeff Bragman, an attorney and former town councilman, said last Thursday, January 4, at a public hearing on a proposal by the Town Board to exempt the project from an official review by the town’s three regulatory boards.

Bragman, who had frequently butted heads with his colleagues on the Town Board over the review process of a variety of town initiatives, pointed at other town projects that had been pushed forward with haste and without the deliberate review by other boards: a proposed aquaculture center on Gann Road, a cell tower on Lincoln Avenue in Springs and an earlier proposal for the new Senior Center to be built on the current Springs-Fireplace Road site. All failed under scrutiny because they hadn’t been vetted by savvy planners ahead of time, he said.

Giving the project first and foremost to the Planning Board for a diligent review and then to the Zoning Board of Appeals for needed variances and the Architectural Review Board would take more time but would result in a better senior center, Bragman, and others who lobbied the board on Thursday, said.

“These boards are appointed by you so that we could have better buildout in East Hampton,” said Carolyn Logan-Gluck, a Wainscott resident. “I understand the urge to move forward quickly, this has been going on since 2014 and there is some urgency. But this is a big project. It’s big in size and it’s big in cost.

“I understand it may take longer and that’s painful, and the project may have to be modified, and that’s painful,” she added. “But maybe it’s better.”

The architects who have designed the new building only presented the first detailed plans of the 22,000-square-foot facility in October, and the $31.6 million price tag the week of the Thanksgiving holiday. A public hearing on the proposal just a week after the costs were first aired drew only two members of the public to comment and, Bragman claimed, misled the public on the town’s plans to exempt the project from review. Those intentions were not then made clear until just before Christmas with the scheduling of last week’s public hearing.

Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, who has shepherded the years-long quest to build a new senior center for the town’s aging population, said that the design has gone through years of development and discussion with the public and will continue to be pored over by the Town Board, town planning staff and the architects in search of efficiencies and cost savings at public discussions in the coming weeks and months. She said she believes the Town Board is comfortable with the project as it is designed and with the estimated costs — which they still hope will be pared down by the bidding process and grant funding to keep the amount the town will bond for to a minimum.

“This has been a very deliberative process, we did a tremendous amount of community engagement up front and … we feel that what we have now is what we need,” she said this week. “The size, you have to put it in the context of other facilities in our community. The YMCA is 21,000 square feet. The new Stony Brook emergency department is 22,000 sure feet. The Montauk Playhouse, the part we control now, is 25,000 square feet, I think. This is going to be a place for active living and serve very important needs for a very large segment of our population for the next 25 years.”

She said the town is eagerly watching the anticipated announcement of bids for the Montauk Playhouse aquatic center, which are expected to be announced soon — as an indication of where building costs stand. The town has anticipated an approximately $1,000 per square foot construction cost for the building, and the architects have estimated that site work on the 7-acre flag lot property off Abrahams Path will be more than $9 million.

Some of those who spoke last week took issue with some of the specifics presented by the architects — a collaborate of two firms known as R2 Architecture — and the associated costs.

Springs resident Brad Brooks questioned how the costs ballooned to $32 million from what had appeared to be talk of only about half that much two years ago. He said the $9 million in site work should be explained in greater detail and that the $3 million cost for solar panel canopies over parking areas should be no more than $1 million in his estimation. He accused the architects of running up costs, to inflate their fees — which are about 6 percent of the total.

“At $32 million, the interest will be $1 million per year,” he warned. “I think the target should be $20 million to $22 million. For that, the town could build a great senior center.”

Don Matheson told the board on Thursday that in his experience in the building business, costs could be trimmed by building a two-story structure, because the foundation and roof are major cost factors, and that eliminating the three-winged “windmill” design would reduce the number of exterior walls and further trim the costs.

Rona Klopman, an Amagansett resident and chairwoman of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, questioned whether the demand for senior services by senior citizens themselves even justified the size of the facility.

Burke-Gonzalzez said the single-story, three-wing design was chosen after much discussion because it shortens walking distances within the building and improves the staff’s connection — including direct line-of-sight — to important components of the facility. She said the board is still reviewing what exterior materials will be used — the architects have recommended stainless steel “shingles” — and other details about equipment and facilities like walking paths that could trim some costs.

The board will hold work sessions with the project’s designers next week on January 16 and again on January 23 — both at 11 a.m. at Town Hall.

The board on Thursday closed the public hearing on the exemption from zoning review, but made no indications of whether or when it would approve the step.

Bragman said that giving such a project to the Planning Board for review could easily mean a full additional year of review, but that it would prove worthwhile in the long run because Town Board members themselves are not qualified for and do not have the time to dedicate to conducting the sort of deliberative analysis that such a sprawling project requires in examining dimensional plans, parking needs, site layout and even calculations of whether the project’s painted “net zero” status is accurate.

“My motto in planning and zoning is that fast decisions are bad decisions,” Bragman, who is a land use attorney, said. “Getting the public in to a board that can take its time and absorb comments and look at a project of this size is essential. You have to trust the public.”

Louis Bradbury, also an attorney, said that the board should turn to help from the other review boards if for no other reason than self preservation.

“The problem with going it yourself,” he said, “is that if it goes wrong, it’s on you.”