Committees - Regular Meeting

There you go. Good afternoon, everybody. We have an unusual meeting because we are fortunate enough to have Melissa McCarran with us, who is the principal environmental analyst of the town of East Hampton. But we thought it would be a great idea to pick her brain before we embark on our own commercial. uh grant program um so just before that i would ask for a motion to approve our minutes from our last meeting on july uh second uh can i i'll come from one of you out either in the ether or the his betty's online if so he's online yeah yes hi look good to you

Yes, they look fine.

If no further discussion, I would say all in favor, aye.

Aye.

Okay. I hope Tui will be able to join us because I know he had some questions. Melissa, can you hear us?

Yes, I can hear you.

Okay, great. Good afternoon. Well, thank you for taking the time out of your day to join us.

Sure.

It's not so much, I believe I speak for our board and the fact that I think we are all sort of in favor of dispensing grants to commercial properties, which up to now we have not done. I know you spoke with Betty Bishop, at some length, and when she reported back, it seemed to elicit other questions about how and why East Hampton did certain things. So I wanted to give these guys a chance to ask whatever questions they might have of you. I have a couple, but I'd wait. You'd wait? I'll wait until you guys have

Okay, well, I think I would let Dewey and Betty get on with their questions.

Okay. Dewey, do you have anything specific that you'd like to ask Melissa? Uh-oh, you're muted.

I hope you're muted.

Yes, good morning, and thanks for joining us. I'm interested to know about the process and then the scope of the projects, You have a much bigger budget than we do, but a commercial building is still a commercial building.

Yeah, sure. So there's kind of two different avenues that property owners can take. So our septic incentive program, which is probably similar to your grant program for residents, is available to residential and commercial applicants. It's got the same cap. And that's not a competitive process at all. Basically, you just have to prove that you own the property and file the paperwork. We need the deed survey and CO and then property owners get approved for that. They go through the process, install, and then they get reimbursed after they show us proof of payment and everything. And then the other, which I think other program that you guys are kind of interested in looking into for Shelter Island is our larger scale projects. Um, so it's not limited to just commercial IA septic upgrades, but it is at least usually 50% of our applicants and awardees are commercial property owners. Um, so that program we started in 2019, we do, we offer it once or twice a year, depending on how much funding we have and you know, how, the quality of applications we get the first round. If we want to basically award all the money that we've allocated to the program in the first round, that's it. And that's it for the year. So that's a more competitive program. We usually get between, I'd say like eight and 15 applications per round. And that ranges from basically it's all other than single family home

Applicants so, you know traditional commercial applicants like restaurants and hotels and things like that They already getting they have the ability from what I thought I understood that you already give them They can easily get the IA grant.

So yeah, we don't let them do both though so they if they basically They want to go after more funding, which our cap right now is 65% of the installation costs up to $300,000. I have a spreadsheet I can, or like a, what do we call it? A funding guide for all of our other than single family home upgrades that are eligible for the program and what they can get. So it kind of differs based on the property use.

So these don't have a specific grant period. They can apply any time for those up to the 300K grant.

No. So that one is the one that's competitive. And it's basically our next round will open in December of this year and close February or March of next year. So basically people have three months to submit their application. Once the grant window closes, then the town does a review of all of the applications that came in. And then the water quality committee also does their own review. And we just get together, discuss, and then the committee makes their recommendations of what projects are gonna get recommended to the town board for actual awards.

So I'm sorry to be so,

No, no, no. It can be very confusing.

So, but the program for regular, if a restaurant wanted to put an IA system in, they could apply any time?

They can apply any time for the up to $20,000.

Up to $20,000.

Okay, that's what I'm... For our regular, you know, septic incentive program, similar to like what the county and state offer. Yeah. So if they don't want to wait and they want to just install and that's enough of an incentive for them to move forward, they can basically get that because it's not competitive as long as they show us proof of ownership. But if they want to go after the more money and potentially get up to $300,000, they wait for our, we call it the RFA, Request for Applications grant program.

So can you give us some examples of the $20,000 commercial ones?

Yeah. I mean, it's really up to their choice. Um, but, uh, like a couple that there's only been a handful that have gone through that way, um, without getting this higher grant money. Um, so we had like a coffee shop, um, that, that went through, um, because they weren't going to be getting basically enough for it to be worthwhile of putting together the application for the RFA would have been probably around the same award based on, um, you know, we used to calculate it based on flow. Now we just go off of the installation costs. Um, we had, uh, like a expansion of, uh, like a t-shirt gift shop kind of thing in Montauk. They did, they got just the 20,000. Um, And then one of the marinas earlier on, I think before we even had our other grant program, they, they, they got the 20,000 towards their system instead of the, you know, more money through the other program. Those are the ones off the top of my head that. Right. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. So small, well, this marina could be larger, but the typically smaller coffee shop.

Smaller things would, yeah, we, we would probably, even if they tried to, A lot of people reach out to me to get some advice before they go through the application process. And depending on if the use is smaller or if it's like an industrial warehouse kind of thing, we would direct them through the regular program because it's really not. We're looking for higher flows for the more money, like restaurants and things like that is the target.

But it's mainly those installations of larger scale IA systems that we're talking about here and not, or are there other commercial projects that are in this, grouped into this grant process?

Let me, can I share my screen possibly? Let's see if I'm allowed. No, it doesn't look like I have the ability to. I can email this to you, but I have like a guide for all the different property usage. And I can run through it quick if you want. So people, you know, projects that we've, and we've seen.

You can try to do it again if you want. Try to share your screen again.

Okay, let's see. Oh, okay, here we go. Let's see. Let me know if you can see this. Can you see this? yes okay so this is the guide and we make it available with every time we go out with the grant application so we're really trying to target higher flows areas that have known water quality concerns things that are failed they'll get ranked higher if they apply and so we've had i think projects in each of these categories come in in the past. But municipal properties we've had, so the villages of Sag Harbor and East Hampton are included in our program. So we've had applications from both Sag Harbor Village and East Hampton Village come through. They're eligible for up to 100% of the install cost and the design. So we've had like main beach pavilion is one that was most recently awarded for the public comfort station restrooms. And they were awarded the full cost of the install minus, I think some of like the site restoration stuff was on the village to pay for. And then another category is publicly accessible spaces, usually like a not-for-profit. So like a church we've had like Ashwa Hall and Springs is like a community meeting space. They got money to, And those are also eligible for up to 100% of the install costs. And then the next category is multifamily and high density residences. So we've had some affordable housing projects come through. They can get up to 100% design and installation, but it has to be affordable housing designated. So, like, not-for-profit owned has to have that special, like, designation to get 100% of the money. Otherwise, it would fall into the multifamily dwelling section, which is condos, townhouses, HOAs, and trailer parks. We also had More recently, a multifamily home, which was just like a two-family home, it was two apartments, and that was much lower flow. But since they're considered other than single-family home, they had to comply with Suffolk County Health Department commercial standards. So they were eligible to apply through this program and got a little bit more money than they would have if they went through our other septic incentive program for $20,000. I think they got $35,000 instead through this program. Um, so we offer up to 65% of the cost if they're in a priority area or 50%, if they're outside of a priority area. Um, and then next is the commercial property. So that's probably more what you guys would be looking to target retail office and restaurants, hotels, uh, also could be included in that depending on what the zoning is. And that's also 65% of the install costs. Um, we just don't pay for engineering. and like application fees or, um, expediting fees and things like that, uh, through this program for those types of applicants. And then commercial projects are capped. They're the only ones that are capped at $300,000 max. Um, and then sewage treatment plants, we've only have the one inside Harbor really. Um, and that's kind of more on a case by case basis. We want to see it come in phased, um, And it gets a little bit more scrutiny just because it's such a large project. But and then so warehousing and industrial, we would direct them to go through the other program because generally it's like going to be one bathroom. It's not going to be high flow. So it makes more sense for them to go through and get the 20,000.

Right. Makes sense. Sure.

Go ahead, Betty. Yes. Hi, how you doing? Thank you for coming, Melissa. So I think our program is a little bit different than yours in the sense that if on the residential, which would be slash commercial, we are not allowed to fund things that are mandated by Suffolk County or mandated by the town. the building department.

And I don't believe- We wouldn't award those projects through this program either, but I think they would get up to 20. But this program, this grant program's a little bit, there's more scrutiny.

Is it for voluntary stuff?

It's not like an anticipation of- Yeah, if there's an order of consent or a stipulation agreement, then they basically have to pay for it and not get grant money.

Yeah. I got it. How do you determine the amount that is going to be available each year? I mean, just based on what comes in CPF?

Yeah, it's based on our total budget. I kind of allocate a certain amount to our residential grant program every year. And then I designate. It's usually around a third, a third, and a third. So a third goes to our residential septic incentive program. A third goes to town projects. are ongoing that we're you know in different phases of installing like um a lot of stormwater projects that we do and then the other third goes towards this program which is usually between like 1 million and 2 million um so

You have the water quality funds that you have available to you. You have divided it up sort of like into like septic stuff and then other projects like, you know, as you said, stormwater or do you do, you know, tidal wetland stuff, seeding or, you know, eelgrass planting or oyster reefs or anything like that?

We would. We've funded a few small projects like that, and we have actually had some of those type of projects from outside applicants come through this program. So this is the RFA. We fund a lot of commercial IA upgrades, but also eligible projects include aquatic habitat restoration, stormwater, anything basically that would qualify as a water quality improvement project.

So your one-off projects, even if it's not septic, might fall under the same application process?

Let me see if I can pull up my spreadsheets from the last round. Do a new share, and I'll share that. I didn't open it yet. This might be a lot because it has a lot of detail in here, but I think it might be somewhat helpful. So I do this whole spreadsheet basically summarizing all of the applications that we get and I I fill it in and then I share it with our water quality committee and that this is kind of how we go through each project. So these are the applications that we received the last round, I believe, or 2024, round two. So we awarded this project. So this was the one I was talking about before. It's a multifamily home that's, basically two apartments. So they, um, asked for 84,000. Um, originally they were, yeah, so this was the previous round. They were only going to get a little over 20,000 and we actually in 2025 modified our, um, funding guide and changed how we determine how much each applicant would be eligible for. Um, so they were actually ended up the next year reapplying and got 35,000. Um, NAPI camping club is kind of like a, it's actually technically a not-for-profit, but it's a trailer park, um, in NAPI and they were awarded, uh, $375,000. This was a commercial one. So 28 Maidstone Park, Rita Cantina is a restaurant in Springs. They were recommended. Village of Sag Harbor was awarded. They have a sewage treatment plant system and they are doing some expansion of the service area. So they got some money for engineering for that. South Fork Sea Farmers is a not-for-profit. This was a reef building project. So they proposed doing, they actually bought some equipment to do some expansion of an oyster reef in Three Mile Harbor. So they got awarded money for that. This one was a commercial application for the Springs General Store for a new septic system. And they got the money for that. We had Save Environmental apply for an eelgrass restoration project, but it was a little preliminary. They wanted money to do a round two when we hadn't heard back around their round one yet. So they weren't awarded that. So we had, you know, this is a large scale condominiums that they came in and got money. So this kind of gives you an idea of the range of, of projects. And these last two were wetland restoration projects. So one got awarded and one didn't. But this basically was for, stabilizing a shoreline, improving aquatic habitat, and then also as an additional benefit, mitigating groundwater nitrogen intrusion.

Well, yeah, so this does kind of follow things that we already do. We just don't have, you know, we have for the residential IA grants, it's kind of a streamlined process, but everything else, you know, goes through an individual vetting process and, you know, individual public hearing and all that stuff.

Okay. That sounds really similar to how we were operating at the beginning and basically what we were getting, one project at a time, like as they came in and it was more difficult for our water quality committee to review and then say we got a better project later in the year and we didn't have the money left over. So this kind of streamlined those other than residential septic projects.

And it gets everybody thinking more. Maybe it might stimulate stuff better.

Yeah. We do like a little bit of an outreach. I have a mailing list that I just send reminders that, you know, okay, this next round of the water quality grant funding is open. And then, you know, kind of spurs people to say, oh, I could get money for this and they apply. So who does that go out to? I mean, so I get kind of requests throughout the year. So I just add people to my, my list of, emails to send it out to, but we also send it out to like not-for-profit organizations and some like community groups, things like that, that might be like have a project coming up that could be eligible kind of thing.

Yep.

Like Peconic Estuary Partnership and Peconic Land Trust and all those groups.

Yeah, I could see where that would be. It might evoke them to think more.

Nothing like having a deadline.

Melissa, I have a question. Obviously, a sewer treatment plant is an entity unto itself, but what other kinds? These are not all IA systems, right? There are other kinds of septic

Uh, no, most of the ones that come in, this one's an IA septic, this one's an IA septic. So is this, um, Village of Sag Harbor is one of the only sewage treatment plants. We did get Montauk Shores condominiums is, um, was really high flow. And I think they needed to install because they, you know, were operating a little above their means um but they they they were in a sewage treatment plant every other one is an ia system oh okay yep but some of them are larger than others like the treescape condominiums is uh 7 200 gallons per day which is really high um so um so is your committee a volunteer group that you you kind of um

Yeah. You know, you do a lot of the grunt work.

Yeah. Yeah. We have a six person committee right now. We're allowed up to seven, but we have one vacant seat at the moment. But yeah, I mean, I have Billy Hayjack as our chair and he's the planner for the village of East Hampton. So, I mean, they're all volunteer, but I think he kind of doubles because he's still employed by the village and can work and do things on their time. But yeah, we do most of the heavy lifting and I organize all the applications and submittals and everything. And we do a full review and share this with them to kind of help guide them. But ultimately they all have their own opinions and make the recommendations. Do you guys have any, like, is there a staff member in the Sag Harbor town that helps you guys or are you guys all on your own?

Well, I mean, we have Jessica. We have a town engineer, I guess, if there are questions about things that need to have a little more technical stuff. But a lot of the vetting is done by us. So it may be a little more of the volunteer thing here. But the town does give us support as needed.

It seems it would be if we had the larger scale project, if we operated in that type of, okay, December to February, you can apply. I think that the need at that point would be stronger than what we have now to have experience to have a number of applications at once.

Right.

Yeah. Our committee puts in a lot of time, a lot more time during that period than they do probably the rest of the year. Um, we have committee meetings that just come up as an issue comes up. Um, but yeah.

If you're in this category of, of larger scale project and, uh, you say, okay, I'm not going to apply this year. And then in April, the system falls into a hole and no longer functions. Is there an emergency part of the larger scale and you say, okay, we'll put this in the list?

So we kind of give like a little bit of a grace period, especially if those were the circumstances, I think that the committee and the town board would be a little bit more lenient, but yeah, It definitely looks better if it's not been installed yet, because it's more of we're providing an incentive for you to do the project. But in that case, they would be able to apply retroactively as long as they didn't buy like install and then say, we're not going to apply and then try to apply in like two years. But if they applied the next round that it was available, they'd be eligible.

Suppose if they had contemplated doing it and then the thing failed. That's one thing. But if they hadn't contemplated doing it and the thing failed, then they'd be mandated to do it.

Right. I think they would. I mean, they would have to do it. But I think in that case, the thing. Yeah, I think they would still be eligible for the money through our program now.

We certainly do that system failure.

Yeah, we do for residential.

We understand that, but I'm just thinking in terms of somebody who's not applied and not even thought about it, and then all of a sudden something goes bad, and then they really have no choice. They need to do it. you know, the Suffolk County Health Department is going to make them do it. Yeah. So I would see them later. That's sort of a, you know, kind of one of those things you have to noodle a little bit, I guess. Yeah.

I think it would definitely come into the discussion, but I think ultimately at least our, our board would be supportive, especially if they were in like a sensitive environmental area or something, we would want to get that new system in.

I guess the bottom line is the more you get in the ground, the better it is. Shelter Island is a very unique spot in the fact that we have a little bit of Suffolk County water presence only to manage existing systems, but that all draws from the same aquifer, which is specific to Shelter Island. Essentially, whatever we're putting in the ground, we're ending up in our aquifer or in the tidal wetlands. So we have a double need to make sure that whatever we're putting in there is better. So our thoughts have always been the more you can get in the ground, the better it is.

Can I ask this? ADUs, you guys, the town does accessory units, right? Affordable housing units. How do they fall into the picture that you're describing?

Those are a little more tricky. So CPF funding can't be used on any new construction, like vacant lots. So if the ADU is going to be linked into the existing sanitary system on the property and they're updating it, the whole property, they would be eligible for funding. But if they're installing a new IA just to serve the accessory dwelling unit where there wasn't an existing system, previously they wouldn't be eligible for any money.

And that's sort of the conundrum that we are in. We have a prohibition if somebody's project involves either additional bedrooms where there weren't any or enclosed square footage in excess of 25% of the existing, the town is mandating that they put an IA system in, so they're not eligible. You know, the ADU thing, you know, we've been wrestling with because, you know, it's sort of designed to keep people on Shelter Island, you know, to give them another income source and also to some degree provide some affordable rentals. So we're sort of wrestling with the concept of whether they should be eligible for WQI funding for septic systems, even though what they're doing is probably increasing the design flow on a piece of property. So it's sort of one of these things that we've been wrestling with. But it seems sort of clear that if it's an undeveloped lot, you definitely don't fund it. Right, no, they get no funding. But if somebody were finishing their basement as an ADU on obviously a pre-existing thing, you would consider that?

Yeah, as long as they're upgrading an existing sanitary system.

OK. Well, the capacity.

We've struggled with the capacity thing too, but as long as they're within existing zoning, if they're allowed to, like, say, add a bedroom, do a small expansion, if they need a new system for that, we would fund it for a rebate.

And that rebate would be based on the original state legislation of what you can and cannot use.

Yes, yeah. Melissa, is that independent of the size of the update or addition?

Can you explain it another way?

So in other words, our town, if someone's adding an addition on with the bedroom, or two or whatever, and it goes over 25% of the original square footage, then we are not allowed to fund them.

Oh, okay. We still do as long as they're upgrading and existing. So even if they did have to do it for the, if they triggered the required install, we still fund it.

So taken to the extreme, if it's a teardown.

Mm-hmm.

but there's a system on the property, you would still fund it?

Yes, right now. I wanted to change the town code for a while to limit that. It's just a little bit harder to, the way our program works, track that and limit it because a lot of the times we don't find out until we go there for the final inspection that it was a demo result.

Well, that's one of the benefits. While we get a lot less of everything here, we have a better finger on the pulse of what's going on because generally a trip to the building department is involved in vetting an application to see if they have any apps into the building permit apps.

Yeah. The other problem is a lot of times that people end up doing more than they say they're going to do even on the building permits and applications.

Yeah, that does happen.

Yeah. So that's, I think, why we've kept it a little bit more flexible up front. But I would like to eliminate the demo rebuild aspect of it. It's just not written in our code the way our code is. It's a little bit more vague. And it basically just says, as long as you're upgrading and existing.

Updating and existing, is that putting a larger unit in the ground? I'm a little confused about what it is.

Basically, if you have existing septic system or cesspools and you're installing a new IA system, you would be eligible for the rebate.

Okay. Regardless of whether it's a mandated situation, let's say this property has four bedrooms and they want to expand and now they're going to have six bedrooms. Part of the archivist's requirement then would be it's a mandated upgrade to that capacity.

East Hampton doesn't do that, I don't think. Suffolk County does it for new builds. You're required to put an IA system in, but I don't think Suffolk County mandates re-rental on a property that they have to as long as they meet, as long as the thing is certified okay. I don't think Suffolk County makes you do that. Yes, but our code does. Our code does make it. That's the difference.

Yeah, so even if it's an expansion, like going from two to four bedrooms and you're required by the county to install a new system, you would be eligible for the town, county, and state grants at this point in time still.

Does East Hampton allow people to, if they need a bigger system, put in a conventional system?

No, it has to be an IAEA. Yeah, so if your systems fail...

So that's a similarity to us.

Yeah, not since 2018 in East Hampton have you been allowed to install a new cesspool without an IA attached to it.

Right. Are there many pressurized drain fields installed?

There is definitely some. I don't think the county is permitting those anymore. Maybe I just heard that

I heard that.

Yeah, I thought they were having issues with them. But we definitely do have some in areas with shallow groundwater or percolation issues. Not recently, though.

It seems to me, I don't know if they have just recently changed something, but it seems to me that's a better way of... you know, filtering everything instead of like putting it all the way down into the bowels of the earth.

If, if the county though, if the county isn't supporting that, we need to check with them with bank procedures to follow up on. Yeah. Yeah.

Cause I don't think they give that they used to provide an additional $5,000 grant through the county program for the pressurized shallow drain fields. And they don't offer that anymore. I can confirm.

Or do they just lump it into their increased grant? You know, between the state and the county grant, it's $45,000 now. So maybe they just say, well, that's it. I mean, if you want to use it for pressurized shell and drain field, I guess it's okay.

It's part of that, yeah. I can confirm with the county, though, to see what the deal is with the PSDs.

Sure, that'd be great. Wonderful help. Yeah, we do provide, you know, we have in our grant, you know, we have like, if you need to move your well, you get some money if, you know, you have a base grant. The base grant for the IA is $12,000, then you have the well, and then you have an incentive if you want to put a perpetuate shallow drain field in, and then in rare instances, there's an income incentive.

So do you guys, on a case-by-case basis, determine how much? Like, do you have a cap? What's the maximum anybody can get?

Yeah, we have a, you know, the base cap is $12,000, and there's like $4,000 for the well, $5,000 for a pressurized shallow drain field, and I'm not sure what, how much for an income thing. Up to $4,000, is it? I don't recall what that is.

And does this group look at all of them?

Yeah, but there's not that, you know, in comparison, there are not that many of them. You know, maybe on Shelter Island altogether, there might be 200 installations.

Yeah, we have upwards of a thousand, I think now.

If it's the economic incentive, that gets handled by the town attorney, not by us. So that it's, you know, a professional looking at it, not a public. Yeah, it's not disseminated to us.

Like for an income?

Yeah. But since the county and the state have upped their numbers, you know, I don't know that we're going to be hitting even our max. The county and state don't give anything for a commercial. Well, no, 100%.

And they also don't for certain aspects of the install. I don't think like for engineering and miscellaneous stuff. The well... or if you're going to hook up public water, which I don't think you guys have public water at all, right?

A couple areas, like three areas, there's quote-unquote public water.

Yeah, we actually just proposed increasing our incentive up to $30,000 in priority areas immediately adjacent to our water bodies. Yeah, but with the more money from the county and the state, I'm not sure if we're going to be giving out the max to most people now. We'll see.

That's true.

But at least it'll be available because some projects, especially on Montauk, there's clay soils and some of them are just exorbitantly expensive. So I think it will help certain people.

Also for the commercial, right? If there's no county money backing it up, It's a hefty bite, so.

Yes. Yeah. One of the projects we just funded, they got the max of $300,000 because their install, I think, was like $700,000. Wow. Yeah. For a restaurant.

You have a couple projects like that on Shelter Island where the costs are certainly above $500,000.

What's the total amount you guys get on average annually for water quality?

shelter island um somewhere i would say 800 000 maybe in a year chili what do you think i think that's about right but we do have a a pool of money that is sort of sitting there and we're not right we it accumulates we you know we um You know, it doesn't get, at least at this point, has not been given back to the general CPF fund. It's accumulated.

Ours just started rolling over, I think, in 2025.

We've done that from the inception of the whole thing. But there were times when we hardly got any money. And then, you know, during COVID, it just, like, went way up.

Yeah, yeah. We had that, too.

And it's held fairly steady, wouldn't you say, Toi? Mm-hmm.

Well, certainly about half of what it was at COVID, but it's going up.

Tanked at all, really, like prior to COVID. Right. Right. All right. You know, as that happened, as the CPF revenues were going down. We started making more and more criteria and reducing grants and this, that, and the other thing to try and husband the money that we had. And then COVID came along and we reversed that.

Can you share some of those documents with us, including your screening criteria?

Sure.

That would be great.

Yeah, we have a scoring sheet that I can share, and I can send you our application, which was modeled after, I believe, Southampton's program, which they started doing this first. And I think they modeled theirs after a DEC grant application, just to look at the type of things to ask. It's definitely more in-depth than any other program that we have, and Some of the information may not be entirely necessary, so you might want to use ours as a guide and, you know, clip it down to what you really need to know.

But for the, call it the commercial regular residential commercial grants, the $25,000, $20,000, that's just a regular application that doesn't go through this comprehensive application, correct?

No. No. Yeah, that's a one-page form. We require the proof of ownership documents, and that's handled in our office. It doesn't go through the Water Quality Committee at all.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. It would block them way down.

Is the same true of the regular residential applications?

Yeah, regular residential. That whole program is on its own. It's run through our office. Environmental Analyst reviews all the applications that come in. And they get approved through us that the Water Quality Committee never even sees them. But they look at everything that goes through this larger grant program very in-depth.

I'm chuckling. Because we have Jessica, who's the clerk to 11 committees. Who's actually qualified in many areas.

Yeah.

Well, she's great. No, I'm not saying that. But she does this for 11 committees. So she's got not a lot of extra time.

Plus, we see every application for anything. Yes.

Right. Yeah, you guys must be pretty busy. So I... full-time water quality. So I do pretty much everything for the water quality improvement program for the town. And then I have an environmental analyst that she's 60% me and then 40% for the natural resources department. And then we have our water quality committee that reviews any funding requests that comes in.

Is part of your job description also involved in You know, vetting like dock and bulkhead applications too, or is that somebody else?

That is through the planning department, typically. Yeah, we don't see those. And the East Hampton Town Trustees also, I think they do permits for them.

With the water, just drinking it with the potable water, PFAs, I know Quag had all that trouble, but that was, is that, I don't think anybody at this point is trying to grab any money out of your role.

For the PFAS stuff? Yeah. Not at the moment. I think it technically, like a public water extension program, in the case of a PFAS plume would be eligible, but I don't know how the town would feel about actually funding it through CPF. I think it would really depend, but we haven't done it yet. We did have one project that came through our grant program that was for a pilot permeable reactive barrier to treat or basically use Activated carbon? Yeah. Well, no, for the nitrogen, but they also wanted to include activated carbon to try to sequester the PFAS because that's thought to be a potential treatment. So that'll be interesting.

What were they trying to protect? I mean, a body of water?

Yeah. So it was right on Georgia Capon. And it was to try to capture the plume from the airport of PFAS before it gets to the pond. And then also secondarily treating nitrate with a traditional PRB.

Okay.

I think we have a good... I have a good handle.

You've been... giant help. Um, we appreciate it. Uh, if you can share some of those criteria documents, it'd be great.

Um, and, uh, yeah, if you have any other questions, you can either, you know, shoot me an email or call me anytime. Or if you have another meeting lined up and you have more questions, I'm happy to do the same thing again.

Oh, we, we thank you. And we thank the town of East Hampton for your time. Um, uh, and, uh, Wish you well. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Have a great afternoon.

Thank you. Yeah.

Bye-bye. You too. All right. Bye-bye.

Well, that was helpful. Yeah. Yeah. It's still, you know, looking at my notes, there's still a lot of fuzzy things that I don't quite, I have not captured, but I know someone who will. Make it happen.

um especially i think you know like i think we need to think you know regarding this you know long and hard about you know how we would even you know come come up with a number i guess to start with you know and you know would we want to like have a specific grant period you know that for these other projects. I like the idea and the fact that it stimulates people to think about, oh, maybe I can get some money, but I think it could concentrate a lot of work in a short amount of time.

I think my initial reaction is I think we should expand the residential to commercial with a limit, you know, the small number, the small operator. Right. Maybe instead of our $12,000, it would go to $25,000 because there is no... county incentive to go with you know just that's that's just an off the top of my head reaction because if there's a small if there's a small standalone store uh which we do have you know then they can do something with that amount of money some of which are even open

No, I'm only kidding. I miss restaurants looking at feedies.

Well, there you go. Exactly. But, you know, I think they need a bigger thing because it's wet. It's a wet service there.

Anyway, I think coming up, you know, and maybe lumping it in into that easier to obtain grant. Yes. With maybe that let's call it 25,000 cap, and then invite if somebody has a greater project in mind to actually just come and apply, you know, and make the, you know, use some of their criteria, as she said, pare it down a little bit maybe, and invite people, you know, with a bigger residential or commercial project to, Come before us and make a case. Yes.

I think we, we, for, you know, that that could happen after. We take a look at the documents. No, I definitely, I don't think we're going to do that.

And then the town board, we have to make the recommendation to the town board, you know, and that, you know, I think we need to fine tune it based on the documents we may get. And, um. Come up with a plan and see how it works. I mean, it's like everything from since the inception of this committee. I mean, we, we try things and if it works, we, you know, we, we move ahead and then we change change something else.

Um, but this is good. I like this because.

Um, it was interesting to see that they, they had it, you know, they, they did have all from the beginning. They, they gave grants to commercial.

Yes, for quite a while. Obviously, when we did it, nobody knew what was happening, and we committed it to the residential for simplicity's sake. But, you know, we're not getting that many residential applicants, and if there are small commercial, let's get them going. And then I think, like Greg said, we have a lot of work to do to organize a presentation to the town board to say, let's consider X dollars, you know, as an incentive. But there's criteria, 65, okay, there's a number and it seems to work for them because they're getting applicants. 65% up to 300,000. Even if we use those numbers and we say, well, that's all we're going to do for the year is one 300,000. Okay, then we've accomplished something significant.

Yeah, no, I agree.

I agree.

I agree.

And if we do one a year and over three or four years we get four big systems done, that's a lot. And maybe we have more money and we say, you know what? We can afford to do it.

Maybe do another one.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I think starting in bite-sized chunks would be the way to go.

And to doing our style, which is, you know, it's a 24 to 12 month application came in 12 months versus applications come in for two months. Well, what's the how does that work? How would that work for us? Is that which which would we mean?

I think. you know i don't have a problem in spreading it out you know other than maybe if you're putting out a uh request for application rfa as you called it um to you know just putting out to the business community once a year Maybe it stimulates something more than that. Or maybe, um, Julie Lane and I have had, uh, uh, back and forth, uh, telephone tag thing, but, you know, to, you know, use the vehicle of the reporter to, you know, you know, all of a sudden say, Hey, you know, we're, you know, we're contemplating this and, you know, is there interest, you know, if there is, you know, contact our committee. We can even ask that before we finalize it, you know, and just say, if we see where the interest is, you know, I mean, you might get, you know, like radio silence and I don't know. Okay. Well, maybe there is no interest, you know, but eventually, you know, everybody who doesn't have one is going to end up, being made to have one more than likely. So let's get that documentation, review it, you know, and then maybe our next meeting just, you know, say what we would like to suggest to the town board. I like Thuy's thing about coming up with a, you know, kind of the smaller one and then, you know, something up to 300,000, 65% of 300,000. is I think a doable thing. And I think a thing that could get somebody's attention. You know, like, like, that's, that's maybe something that would make me think about doing it now as opposed to wait until the thing fails on that I'm in the weeds. Right? Yeah. Anyway, so let's, let's Talk about that next week or next month and we'll hopefully get, you know, I think we, I thought I saw something from East Hampton already, but. Let's see what she sends.

Betty had a few documents. I think you had the application document.

So I think we may be getting that again or we might get something else. So let's see what it is.

Well, I want to see the list of the awards that they gave out or didn't give out. Again, that would, I think, help to stimulate our thinking, how they did it, why they did it.

I'll send her an email, thank her for her time and all that stuff, and I'll ask her to include that with anything else she sent. Okay. All right. Super. um so um we have um commons uh uh bevin place it's in the heights it's one of those few you know there's the upper heights that isn't on the wastewater or some of the upper heights and some of these lower lower heights areas which this is this was i think ben jones's old house down from the fair.

It's on 3 Bevin Place. I kind of tabled this because I think he's putting the cart before the horse. The building department hasn't even looked at this and given him his permit. He doesn't have the red stamp from Suffolk County. I've talked to him, and also there's another person involved. I don't know if it's his brother or if it's part of the LLC. I don't quite understand. What I don't understand is, is this being mandated? I don't quite get a grasp of how these things are mandated, either by the town or by Suffolk County. And he didn't know when I asked him. It doesn't say that it's voluntary on the... on the application?

I think in the absence of any other building application, if he's not going to do anything, then it's voluntary. If he's applied to the building department for something, which I thought I saw in there that he contemplated.

He has. It's just the building department hasn't looked at his application yet for a permit.

But what is he applying for, I guess, is the question. Did he say what he was applying for?

He claims an addition with a bedroom, but it's not. He claims, according to his architect or whatever, that it's not over 25% of the original house.

It doesn't matter.

Why is that?

Because it's a bedroom. He's increasing flow.

He is, but I thought that even though it was increasing flow and he put in a system, that doesn't necessarily have to mandate that he has to put in a system, does it?

If he applies for something that's either more than 25% of the enclosed square footage or he's adding a bedroom, then Shultron says you need to put an IA system in. We, at this point... up to now have not funded that.

Okay.

You know, obviously East Hampton obviously has a more open policy about that kind of stuff. But she seems to be having second thoughts about it.

I mean, up to a point, you know. Is this Bevins for an ADU?

No, no, no. I just think that we shouldn't even entertain the application. I mean, we can leave it in the system. And then once he gets his red stamp and the building department, I know more from the building department. I actually went to the building department. They had no clue what was going on until they knew that the application was there, but they haven't even looked at it. So they don't know what's happening.

All right. Well, it's easy enough. Once they do look at it, then they'll be able to tell us what it is.

Right. Exactly.

So that's why I say, conversely, you could ask the guy and say, if you're applying for a new bedroom, an additional bedroom, and you're going to do it within three years, then you're not eligible.

Okay.

You know, that's unless in our infinite wisdom, we recommend that we change that. But

Yeah, well, you know, I... Like I said, I told the guy that I didn't feel that we were ready to make a decision and that the application will remain in the office. And then once he meets the criteria that I told him, i.e. the red stamp, and we can get more information, he gets a permit from the building department, then we can revisit his application. That's basically what I told him. And I told him that if it's above 25%, because I didn't realize that. I thought even though you added a bedroom, even though it was above 25%, that we wouldn't be able to give it to him. And he, you know, he understood all that.

But he understands he can apply for the state and the county though, right?

Yes.

Okay. That's a big deal. Right, which he already has, I mean, he has that because if you definitely want to do it, because if you put the system in before you get the okay from the county, then you don't get the money. So, that's an important little detail that you should be aware of.

Okay, so maybe I'll go back and say, we're going to table.

This is what you're saying.

Right. I feel we should. And I can go back to the building department to find out when, you know, when they look at it and what exactly is going on. He's, he's very, they're both very sketchy. I have a feeling that, you know, they don't really live there, but they're doing this. I don't know.

He did one in, uh, in South Ferry Hills, you know?

Ah, I see. I see. Okay. Okay. So that's the way I left it. Do you feel I should call him back and tell him what?

Well, I mean, you wouldn't be telling him anything. You'd be asking him. Or you could wait until the billing department gets to the bottom of the pile and see what they see.

Right.

I'm going to go in there. I have to go in there anyway. So I'll ask them if they've come across it yet.

Okay. That'd be great.

That's no big deal. I don't think we probably have any update on the Peconic Bay Regional Advisory Committee update because we don't have our rep here, right? New board member search. I reached out to our potential new board member who's on Fire Island with actually my daughter. So she is not able to attend this month, but she hopes that she could do it in September. So she's still interested, but I still think we should just keep looking.

Absolutely.

Because, you know, it seems like she's pretty busy.

Have you have you spoken to Julia? I mean, I saw her. She said she had lost her job and she's working at the courthouse and that perhaps she could have time. Maybe if we pressured her, she would get back on the board. I don't know.

Oh, Eisenberg.

Yeah, I mean, we'll we'll see her. And I see her all the time. She.

So why don't you just kind of...

I'll just say, hey, you feel like getting back in the saddle again?

Right, right.

All right. I mean, all she can say is no.

Correct. I mean, she was kind of ambivalent when I spoke to her, you know? Okay. So I think if you approached her, maybe, you know, give her a little nudge, maybe she'll get back on. I don't know.

Okay. All right, one additional thing and I am not going to be available for the September 3 meeting. So, if we don't have. You know, I may not have some trouble getting a call. That's that's fine.

All right. Well, I'll be around anybody else know that they're not going to be around September 3rd.

As far as I know right now, I'm here.

If it turned out that it's a problem, we could maybe, in contemplation of that, move the date.

At the moment, it looks like I'm here. Okay.

You're fine. Just let us know.

Davidson, I don't know if we can vote on it. We all decided... I'm not sure how we left it the last time. I did speak with Mrs. Davidson and... She indicated they are not doing an ADU. Okay. So that was the big question we had.

That was the big holdup.

Albert had mentioned that he had thought they were doing an ADU, and she said, no, they can't afford to do that. So...

Your recommendation was to go ahead with it, right?

Yes. Yeah, that was very high.

They had like a huge savings of nitrogen, right?

Yes. And it's in the center, right?

Yeah. Do you guys want to?

I don't know if we can do it because we're on Zoom.

Oh, yeah, that's true.

But we did, I don't know exactly the technical status of how we left it the last time, but really we just had to.

It was waiting, you know, Albert wanted to find out about the, you know, he made the point, you know, I said, well, let's do it and contemplate, you know, let's prove it. And, you know, with the caveat that it's not going to be an ADU. And he wanted to, he wanted us to wait, so. I guess we can wait until September. I don't know if anybody had a chance to look at the CPF acquisition plan. We had done it. There's not really that much that's changed with it other than now we're contemplating the commercial thing. We could add that in as a... You know, something new that we're doing.

Um, I, I think that that's a good idea.

You know, that, you know, that we're, you know, strongly in favor of that, you know, and we could maybe. Uh, well, maybe I'll just. I'll I'll update it a little bit and send it out to you. And you can look at it and if you want to add anything else to it, we can. But, I mean, I think in general, the nuts and bolts of it, you know, there's nothing that's changed.

Well, no, except this, which is a big step, but it's not an unanticipated step. We've been talking about it now for a while.

I mean, the commercial thing, yeah. But I'm talking about the actual acquisition plan that we submitted.

No, I'm saying it should be included in there.

Right.

Because by the time, you know, this is a five-year plan, so it will get approved, arguably. It will get approved, and it should be in the plan. All right. So that's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to put it in there.

Yep. I would put it in in two steps. One is the, you know, smaller, if they're willing to do up to $25,000 or $35,000 and that's sufficient, then they would just be under the regular residential.

I agree. I think, you know, I think unless somebody else has a problem with that, I think that's a good approach to this.

I think the town board has to grant us the permission to do it. public hearing every time one of these smaller applicants comes through.

Well, in our what we do in our recommendation to them, that's what it'll be. But we can fine tune that this next meeting, I think, and then I'll just get something to them and hopefully they can act on it in the near future. And in the meantime, I will get a hold of Julie Lane and just kind of put that out there for people to munch on.

Well, let's get the town board to approve it first, right?

No, I'm not saying that we're definitely doing it. I said we're contemplating it. Okay.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

You know, just so that people are like, oh, you know, that might perk some interest.

Yep. I like that.

So let's do that.

Okay.

And then everyone's favorite, the Green Expo. I'm not here. You know, I think in the past, what we've done is we've gotten sort of a joint table, you know, the WAC and like Fresh Pond and us.

Right.

You know, and it's not, you know, it's a busy day for me, but I think, you know, if we all, you know, give it an hour or two. It's only from 10 to 1 or something like that, I think.

What day is that?

The 22nd?

Yeah. Okay. I'm definitely not here. Okay. It's in conjunction with the usual.

It's the usual arts and crafts fair, and I think the fire department's doing something. So, uh, so there's no financial report, uh, any old business, uh, except for Davidson, which we have to wait on, um, and new business. Uh, I think we discussed our new business.

Well, it's not really, I got nothing that I remember right now. What have we forgotten? Jessica, anything? I don't think so.

Okay.

Well, on that note. I move that we call it a day. Second.

All right. Thank you all for taking the time on this beautiful afternoon.

But enjoy Thursday night instead.

Thanks. Thank you. All right.

Take care. Thank you.

Bye, guys.