Committees - Regular Meeting

Welcome to our meeting. I'd ask for a motion to approve the April 2nd minutes.

All in favor of accepting them?

All right.

The

The next thing is the Peconic Bay Regional Advisory Committee to eat sort of, you know, spoke. I spoke with and he gave me a, uh, you want to just say what I told me probably may have a little bit more than me.

Basically, that there were a series of organizational meetings to get the rules by which the committee will operate in order. And I think that they've been.

almost approved yeah we had the subcommittee meeting and then on april no may 21st we're having the full committee get back together and hopefully then get this approved so what day is that may 21st may 24th are you on that committee or something what do you know about it like because i go to the meetings well i zoom to the meetings so you're not actually on the i'm not on it i'm not

So somehow I had that. Whatever. But I knew you had some insights into it.

I have to figure it's a big learning curve. I mean, everybody else has professional staff who do this and they do it all the time and they've been doing it for 20 years. And, you know, you just ask each other.

You're the chairman of the CPF. Oh, thanks. You're the chairman of the WQI. Go invent it.

Right. Anyway, so you did, Amber, get those questions that I sent you? Yes. Okay. So... know and this is my only only my personal opinion i mean i think a couple of those questions i think you know you know we could answer inter i mean i think we gave our opinion you know and i don't know i don't see that anybody giving us a problem if we did act on something you know for instance like the commercial grants

You know, I have something to say about that. Right.

I mean, um, I think, you know, I, I don't, I don't think we should defer everything to this committee is my point. Well, you know, I think, I think something like the ADU thing, um, that's a universal issue for. Right. Everybody. Yeah. It's a, it's a bigger thing, you know, and, and the other ones that are more specific to shelter Island and, and, you know, You know, very unique questions, right? Like, and they're not even really questions. It's just what we want to do with the town. Um. You know, I think maybe we answer it internally.

Well, so the 1 that I'm just that I thought we should have approved a long time ago was that. Catch him sold office. I agree. I agree. And does this committee make a decision to move it to the town board?

because i don't know that i mean i think i think our our general feeling was that we would want to approve it but we we didn't know that we if we could or not you know and we didn't get a any kind of response from the town attorney that i know of you know regarding that we really put it to him but well i think it was fast he was asked

have been during transition of attorneys.

I haven't heard the WQI mention much at all, if at all, in these organizational meetings. They're all focused on preservation, not on WQI.

But they know that they'll have some questions. I'm not sure every single town signed up for WQI.

Well, that's true, too.

So that'll be interesting to see what happens.

Does that alleviate them ?

No. Is it just called something else? Like I know East Hampton, it falls under the principal environmental analyst, Melissa McCarron. So do they just call it something else?

Well, it still would be the WQI committee, right? I mean, she may just be the administrator for it. Right, like a paid person.

Okay. Am I not making sense?

No, no. I think there is supposed to be an advisory board for those who adopted it. They may have staff who supports and brings projects. That's the thing with other towns is they will have projects that the staff pull together and then present.

Right. And that's what we try to stimulate by asking people, hey, what's going on with this? What's going on with that? Do you need a dry well? We've done different things like that. The new business thing is the question, what more should we be trying to do to do this? You know, we've come up with some thoughts, you know, like the commercial thing and the ADU thing. The ADU thing is a more universal thing as we're talking about, you know, which needs maybe that does need to be adjudicated by a committee like the Peconic Regional Advisory Committee. Commercial thing, you know, I mean, that we just need to, you know, I think internally we would need to flesh out if we said, oh, yeah, let's go ahead. Or if the tab would say, yeah, I think we can do that without. Getting anybody else involved, you know, and it might be.

i think you and i talked about you know might be like a stimulus for other places and maybe the county and the state to think about it well i i went to this east hampton meeting which happened in montauk and um bob de luca who was there was he's the president of the group of the east end sarah davison who used to be the former uh georgia capon head Melissa McCarran, Tom Vallely, is that how you say his name? Center for Clean Waters and Technology, and Ann Welker, Sulphur County legislator. And so they had Gobler give a little presentation talking about why systems are important, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they had a moderator, Joe Shaw, from the Express News Group, yeah, who asked some really good questions to the panel, that whole panel. And then that precipitated questions from the audience, the people that were there. And after that meeting, I went up to Melissa because she had mentioned something about commercial grants. And what East Hampton has done is they've created their own application for commercial grants as a town And the money comes out of the CPF fund. So, of course, they have a lot more money than we do.

They give... Don't they have a water quality improvement? Yeah, we do. Why would it come out of the seat? Well, I mean, it ultimately comes out of CPF one way or the other. Right. I don't know why. We're under the same system we are.

Right. So it comes out of that percentage. Right.

And they give 60% of the total value up to $300,000.

For a project.

For a commercial project.

What's the rule? 60%?

65% up to $300,000.

Well, I don't know that we would. I think we would. In my head, it would be obviously much less.

Yeah, right. We don't have the same amount of CPF money.

But it would depend on what the... If it was a really important project, then 300,000 may not be an unreasonable number.

Maybe not.

So anyway, and...

So there's more thinking that needs to go into it. But here's what you... The point, I think... that you're at least making to me is that somebody's already doing this without going to get an opinion.

Exactly. And I asked the Suffolk County person whether either New York, the state, or the county offers assistance for commercial grants, and they said no. No, we don't. So this is solely done by the town of East Hampton, and they manage the applications. Of course, they have more personnel than we do.

it falls under her department, who she's a permanent, you know, I mean, I saw this as, you know, like a one off thing. I mean, it wouldn't fall into the no public hearing category thing, you know, it would be an application, you know, made by whoever, you know, XYZ restaurant, or whatever hotel and come to us with, you know, what, what their, you know, the design is, and, and what their approximate costs are and if you know in my head i sort of set a number that you know we would go up to you know as an incentive to get you know to get these things going because you know the reality is that you know down the road if they ever any of these people decide to do something more you know the county or and or shelter island if you know it's going to make them put one in You know, so they'd be smarter to, you know, think about it sooner than later. I mean, some places, you know, I don't see changing. I mean, you know, we mentioned the Sunset Beach. It doesn't look like they're going to do any major work there. But I mean, I think that that place would be a place that you'd really want to, you know, get something in the ground there. You know, I would encourage them to do it.

But it's got to be, it needs to be a significant number. You can't say, oh, 10,000, 20,000, because Sunset Beach's cost of doing it is, I don't know. I don't know. We don't know what it is. I can't conceive of it. But the point is, whatever, you know, think of what the Pridwin spent to do theirs, and that's...

But the Pridwin was much, you know, more spread out. And, you know, the same thing with Pearlman, you know, it's much more... you know, like there's a lot more pieces, you know, like the Ram said, for instance, I mean, I spoke to, you know, the owner there and, you know, I said, well, if there was an incentive for you to do this, you know, would you be, would you be encouraged to do it? You know, because, you know, down the road, you know, you're, you're going to probably have to do it, you know, like, so if you anticipate, you know, and try to get ahead of it, you know, you might be, you know, getting a little help to do it. And, uh, you know, and be doing the right thing. You know, I mean, you know, they, they purport to be like very involved in wanting to protect the caucus harbor. I mean, you know, and it's, that's where that effluent's going pretty much.

I'm sorry.

Uh, you know, you had to put in less oysters. He did that.

In about 2 weeks, we're going to know what the, what the regional advisory committee, whether or not they have anything about this.

Well, they will, but, you know, the point of it is that this thing exists. And he's already doing it. He's doing I mean, I don't know that anybody's going to I don't I can't see that anybody's going to come out and say, oh, I'm going to sue you because you're doing this. You know, it's not a bad thing no matter what way you look at it.

I mean, UCF wouldn't have gone down the road of creating all of this if they thought it was against the rules. Against the rules, right. That's what I'm... So it's not against the rules to do it. Nobody said that. So that's the commercial one, which again, for our specifics, we'd have to really think about it and maybe really think about some priorities, some of which are pretty obvious.

And then there's the one-off thing like 144 South Midway. Right. But that's...

Again, we're questioning it. I don't know that anybody else in the world would question it.

I don't think so, but I think the town, for its part, should weigh the benefits and the negatives and the positives. Is there a negative? The only negative is that it, in principle, goes against what the criteria was. You know, but the benefit is, you know, it helps, you know, a young couple with affordable housing, you know, it helps, you know, volunteers stay on the island, you know, it seems to be the right thing to do. I mean, and one could argue that, you know, it could have been a real estate office that had, you know, much bigger, you know, operation, you know, than it was, it just happened to be a small thing.

So can we run it by the lawyer again? Yeah. I'd like to ask a question. Should James do that, or are you going to do that?

I can send it to Thomas. OK. Yeah, you're talking about?

144 South Midway.

OK, so this one will send to Thomas.

And also to see if he concurs with our thought that the giving grants to commercial people, for instance. we can decide on that I would think so you know I mean usually I'm not saying you know you know the heck with this committee I think you know there's a and the more I think about it it was you know like why it's 100 logical to do it it's true yeah but it depends again the standpoint that is the leg that when the legislation was originally written up until this last

it may change had very limits on what you could do and now this committee is supposed to come and say okay here's the new rules right but in two weeks well no no they're not going to make up new rules

reworked the rules for cpf and this committee's job is to interpret those changes because they're they're the regulations are less restrictive now so there might be more questions of can we should we what if

I don't think, you know, I think in terms of, you know, a policy that is always going to go against the criteria of additional. You know, design flow on a property like an, you know. Which is a program that exists already and it would be an ongoing thing. Every time you approve one, it would be in violation of what you thought was your criteria. Whereas the 144 South Midway, there were very compelling circumstances that you would want to give them a grant. And the same thing with the commercial grants. helping water quality it's just there's just no other people doing it other now than east hampton i thought maybe other places too we don't we we well we looked around and we couldn't find any you know maybe this is how how recent did they when they started doing it

No, she didn't tell me and they and they specifically ask the question that they specifically say that we're taking out of the fund.

Yes. Okay.

So that's not the fund. Oh, yeah, that's it's part of that bucket, but it's a different. Well, it's different rules. i think if they're using if i can speak to that if they're using the cpf fund and they're doing movie theaters and all sorts of stuff right with that money and is there a similar prior commitment from the state legislator saying here's what you can do i don't know i i'd be more comfortable taking it out of the wqi fund if they're if both of them exist in that town then taking out of the cpf fund to to fix i don't think that's what i'm just saying i don't think so either but we're taking this situation with it was southampton east hampton East Hampton. We're saying, okay, East Hampton is doing it with CPF funds.

Well, we don't know that.

Well, no, that's what, Betty, they were very specific.

That could be.

Let Amber speak.

Okay. I can say, theirs is called the Water Quality Technical Advisory Committee. And so it is the same thing as our Water Quality Improvement Advisory Board. They use the 20% of the Community Preservation Fund. Right. So their mission is pretty much the same as ours.

I just took it as meaning the CPF portion. The grand CPF.

Yes. The umbrella.

Right. Right. Was where they got the money from.

But the comment to you was that we're taking this and we're using CPF money to do it. Yes?

I don't think we need to spend a lot of money. It doesn't matter. We're not going to take it out of CPF. I think it makes more sense to take it out because you're helping the quality of effluent being discharged into either the aquifer or into the tidal wetlands. I think it fits, by any definition, our mission to improve what we can. And it just wasn't in existence until now, I guess. And I think maybe the lawyers should weigh in on that. And we, for our part, should think harder about it.

Why don't we get the East Hampton protocol? I'm sure they've developed a set of rules and regulations. I mean, probably go online and download that. Just get that and review that and talk about that as opposed to having the lawyer, spending money on the lawyer to do it. They've got it. Make everybody feel better. I think here, you know, I don't know.

I feel fine if I feel fine too.

Greg has some reservations about it. Well, no, because we got confused on CPF. I think he does.

I may have misconstrued her statement because I know our money comes from CPF and not thinking that that might be separate you know right that that's something that could be cleared up obviously if i well they have they have the same system we do okay it's two separate coffers so anyway um i think let's all look at that

You know application and whatnot and think how it might work here, you know I think their coffers are a lot more substantial and and the cost for putting the thing in is the same in both places, probably. So they might be able to just pay a greater portion of of that cost and where we might not want to do that well.

My general feeling is that, you know, you look at the businesses and you drive even in Greenport, right? There's a lot of shuttered stores that weren't shuttered before. Correct. You know, and We're not making them do it. No, no, I understand.

But if there's not a big enough incentive for the most part, I well, I mean, I guess, you know, it's like everything we've done with this committee, we have to see, you know, we have to come up with our best guess. Right. Which is maybe not my best guess, but our best guess about what would be the thing that's going to make people do it.

Well, the other question is, is I don't know what the town's space for town use space planning is and and whether or not you have separate money for doing kind of septic treatment for town buildings is it separate than the wqi or would it some of it come from wky um we have one and a quarter million dollars to use for its municipal building septic okay and there is i think a five percent match that you would want to use that you know to go to wqi so they're

that was a grant right yes yes so it depends on like what projects we eventually land on right is it going to be like one system for multiple buildings or each building's going to have its own system we're waiting for the facilities master plan to help guide us on that um so let's let's look at their app

You know ourselves, but then let's think about how it would apply to us. If it does, if it can. You know, it would be great if it was just a good fit and we could just go.

Okay. 2 weeks we'll have the, the committees, the, the regional advisory committees rules. I take it, which.

I don't know if they're internal operation just to get the committee operational.

So that would be the so that's we'll have the May meeting. So maybe at the June meeting start to function and solicit.

Questions okay, but do we even want to ask that question? No, it's the question and that's that's the question. So maybe maybe Tom crouch can help us answer it. Maybe, you know, he's Hampton has helped us answer it. But let's see.

But I'm going to repeat it again. If East Hampton is doing it, I would have to assume that you're permitted to do it. I agree with you. Follow their regulations and speak to Melissa or whatever her name was a little bit more about how they came to the conclusion that they could do this. And then.

And are they funding it through the WPI fund? And are they funding it through WPI?

That's the question.

It's definitely the WPI. We really don't know that. Well, we do know it. No, we don't know.

Well, you're misinterpreting something that she misinterpreted.

She didn't say she misinterpreted it.

OK. We'll figure it out. Why don't we get the answer? We'll get the answer.

Which would be injured, I'm looking at these Hampton website and it is from the 20% of funds and they have a commercial application there. There is an application that I just forwarded to Jess who will then forward it to you. It's 15 pages. Okay. So, but that's different than their residential 1 and other towns when they do talk about funding. Sometimes they do use the language of funds because it. So it's just semantics. Right. Okay.

I think we're on the right page here, right?

We are. Okay.

Okay. So to be clear, though, we're going to re-ask the town attorney about the house conversion from commercial to residential.

Both things, you know, just to have him, you know, He might say, oh, they're really good. If he has great reservations about it.

There's probably nothing to research, even.

There probably isn't, which I'm glad. But I don't want to make it seem like, oh, we just did it. I think we should try and answer everybody's questions and make sure everybody's happy with it. Anyway, have we had anybody at all want to?

At least not that I'm aware of.

I've asked a couple of my friends to see if they want to do it. And they're all thinking about it. You know, we'll circle back.

Let's see if there's anything on the spreadsheet that just hasn't gotten forwarded to me yet. Shake the bushes.

Shake the bushes, you know.

Whatever they're saying.

And just maybe we get her to write a little blurb. You know, maybe I'll call her to say, you know, stimulate a lot of different stuff, including getting a committee member. Maybe she'd put something in the paper. Maybe I'll do that. Anything to add for financial updates?

Accounts closed the books for 1231 last week. And so we've engaged the auditors to start the audit for CPF slash WQI. So I get some numbers from them that I know I have a good starting point for the year. Because they pick up all of the interest income and staff salaries, you know, committee clerk and things like that. So I'll have a good starting point so I can pop in some numbers again.

I mean, you know, there's a good chunk of change by any stretch of the imagination.

And there's a big sale that occurred that I saw in the newspaper. So I should be getting another big chunk of money in the next month or two.

What was that?

I guess like $15 million was the sale price.

Is that different than the one on Fandion?

I don't know.

It was a different spot.

I think this was up in the Hay Beach area.

It was Jaffe's house?

Yes, I think it was Jaffe's house.

I think it was Jaffe's house. Good.

Good. um happy design sets new shelter island record it was in dance papers just shy of 16 million dollars wow that's it it's it's being used to figure out what the appraisals are in many parts of the island

Just kidding. We got the assessments that came out not that long ago. And the assessment from my mother-in-law's house, which we've been trying to sell, was more than what the average price was. So I guess we'll just have to raise the price and then still not sell it.

Or repeal your taxes.

Right. That's probably what we'll do. But in any case, any old business that we should... think about. And the new business is to how to stimulate action and that, you know, the Juliet Lane thing, you know, and maybe taking, you know, some of these decisions unto ourselves and running with them would be good. That's where I was going with new business.

There was something on old business. We It was the timing of the Suffolk County and New York State increase in grant from 20 to 25. The timing of these increases will take effect remains unclear.

That was our... That's still unclear as far as I know.

I'm getting the increased amount.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

Say that again.

So we're building a house and we're putting a ia system in and i have the increased mo from the state and the county awarded to me for more for the 25 000 45 000 right once again the 20 from this uh is it 20 from the state 20 from this from the county and 25 from the state okay so so the they are just going to keep putting them in and make money that way

Didn't the county have a restriction on it? They looked at that or?

What?

The grant funding. Yeah. For new construction.

Yes, but- Well, this is a- This is a different situation because- This has already improved a lot. We had a pre-existing failed system. Oh, okay. And so that's how we got it expedited.

Oh, that's great. But it was an improved lot already so that they would be eligible.

it's a different funding source like we have the overriding legislation that says our money isn't supposed to be used for new growth right their money comes from a different source so they don't have they don't have that same thing um and that's that's good for you know people who are doing stuff um

anything else that anybody yeah once that all plays out and becomes kind of uh certain that we know certainly how it's supposed to operate then we may tell people we may have some flexibility to increasing our input input into the right if they're now getting 45 they would wind up like raffle like last last year i don't understand that at all yeah but whatever you know that he had to pay you know he he uh he didn't get of a he the funding that he got was

It was under the old amounts. But he still didn't maximize what he could have gotten.

And I think that has to do with him. I don't know. Because he didn't enumerate any other expenses. We encouraged him to go back and look. I don't understand exactly why things weren't more. He didn't get more from us. Right. um anyway i know that this is um you know it's kind of a minimal agenda you know but i think it's important to keep the ball going you know and even if it you know it seems like oh we don't have to meet you know i think it's a good thing absolutely i do have a comment on the adu um

So people are being incentivized to develop their property, expand at a fairly healthy chunk from the state or the county, whoever's given them.

Well, the program, that program, yeah, it's like $125,000. But the income limits are very stringent. On that individual's income. Yeah. Or I think joint income is 140 or something like that for the homeowners that putting it in or the people, you know, the homeowners putting it in to get the grant to get the grant. Right. For an, you know, and that that program. does not have any, it doesn't tie into affordable rentals. Correct. You know, I think if we give a grant, you know, for somebody putting an ADU in, you know, that's part of that other program, whatever, I think part of our criteria doing it should be that it's affordable. Yes.

Which it is.

Well, we haven't gotten, this is what we need to get an answer on, whether we can do this. Are you going to speak to the woman from East Hampton?

I'll try to, yeah.

All right, so maybe ask her if they have an ADU program, do they give grants for that? Right. And how do they do their WQI grants for that, if they do it?

Sorry to dump all this on you. That's right. Okay. So if we followed the flow of money regulation saying that joint income of $125,000. $140,000, I think. I think I'm right. I think it's $125,000 less about $10,000 for their operation. Yes.

Part of it goes to their...

You know, carrying costs or whatever. All right. But I think if my thought, if we were going to be able to do these would be that we put the stipulation that there's something that it, you know, it, it is an affordable rental for X number of years.

The X number of years are going to have to be 10, because after 10 years that ADU is considered the owner's property at that point, and it doesn't have to be an ADU anymore.

Well, what else is it going to be? It is an ADU. Well, they could move them. You could call it a cottage instead.

Right.

I mean, there's no constraint if they build the thing. Now, if they take the $125,000 grant, they can charge whatever rent they want.

Exactly. That's why to me, it's not necessarily affordable.

It's not. So my point is, if they want to get help with putting in a new septic, which many of them have to do, then they would agree to make it affordable for a certain time period.

So this is the part that I have a problem with, okay? If anybody else puts an ADU in, it's not considered an ADU, it's a new bedroom or whatever above the garage, right?

Correct.

They don't, they're not, especially if it's above 25% of the square footage of the house, they're not liable for the town to get the money. So they're not eligible. Right? So, why should. Why should we give people that are putting in 80 use. Money when it and it's not necessarily affordable housing. I mean.

They're not, I'm not saying that they didn't say that it's not going to be affordable, but there was no constraint. The point is that there's no constraint on that grant. You know, if somebody takes the grant, there's no, nothing that makes that person who accepts the grant doesn't stay with any guidelines for the rent they charge. Whereas if we gave them the money, you know, And maybe it's not even worth it to them because they're going to get $45,000 from the... Are they? They would. From the state and the county, they would.

Are they now?

Well, they're eligible for it if it was, you know, already developed property. I mean, if it's a new house and they're building an ADU with it, then that wouldn't qualify for a county or state grant. But if it's anybody who has their house and they're converting their garage to an ADU, but they have to put a new septic in, they would be eligible for the state and the county grant. So...

Just the one thing is, a little bit for your question, Betty, is the person who owns the property has to qualify financially to take part in the program. So the goal was to sort of keep people in their houses because they can now derive another income source.

Right.

So if somebody was retired on fixed income, they participate in this, then they will have another another revenue stream.

The rub had been that many of them had to upgrade to an IA system. If they qualified for that income level, then they probably needed help with the septic system.

It just makes the next 10 years that much more profitable.

You know, there's a couple of teachers on the island, you know, or one teacher and the other person works for the... A not-for-profit. Anyway, you know, and they both, you know, would like to stay here you know and and this is helping them um one of them is still in the zba phase so i don't know what's going to happen with hers but um yeah the other one is actually it's putting it in is that the one that's that's on midway road not midway uh smith street i'm sorry oh smith okay yes the one that says zba is is down by the uh car Anyway, um, things to think about. So let's, let's work on, uh, information that may already be available and, um, and then come up with our own thoughts and see what, uh, our attorney says. And maybe we keep moving on, you know, it'd be great to do something, you know, besides waiting for people to come and ask for. I would like to make a motion to make a motion to join the meeting. Second. Perfect.