Hearing to be held on East Hampton CPF plan for 2010

Recommend

Comment

Email this article

Print this article

Get news alerts

RSS Feeds

Share Digg Mixx Linked In Facebook Twitter Delicious

The 2010 stewardship and management plan for East Hampton’s Community Preservation Fund will be up for public hearing next Friday, December 4, at 10:30 a.m. before the East Hampton Town Board.

This is the second year that the town has been required to create a plan for how it will use the up to 10-percent of its annual CPF budget on management, after it was revealed in 2008 that the town had used $8 million in CPF money to cover shortfalls in the town’s operating budget.

Questions abounded at that time over what expenses could be properly charged to the CPF, leading the state to tighten restrictions on the dedicated fund, which is funded through a 2-percent real estate transfer tax.

Next year’s management and stewardship budget is $539,000. This year’s stewardship and management budget was $894,000.

The decrease in the budget for stewardship and management is due in part to the uncertain real estate market. East Hampton’s CPF fund took in only $14.5 million in 2008, after taking in a record-breaking $30 million in 2007, and had brought in only $4.2 million this year by mid-August. In order to comply with state law, the CPF fund must raise at least $5.39 million in 2010 in order to allot the full amount for management and stewardship.

The plan also calls for $300,000 to be put into a reserve fund to create an endowment to fund the management of CPF properties beyond 2030, when the program is set to expire. According to the plan, the town will need to set aside between $7 million and $10 million by 2030 in order to make the fund self-supporting by the time money is no longer coming in through the transfer tax. The fund can also be used for emergency debt service repayment.

East Hampton had purchased 189 properties, totalling 1,600 acres, through the CPF fund from the beginning of the program in 1999 through the time the draft management plan was compiled, and authorized the purchase of two more properties in Springs last Friday.

Last year, critics of the town’s CPF management decried the use of CPF money to restore the historic Selah Lester house on North Main Street, arguing that CPF money could not be used to renovate the buildings for use as the town’s Land Management Department’s headquarters. The CPF fund can be used to buy historic and recreational properties, but the resolutions authorizing those purchases must make clear why the property has been purchased. The Selah Lester house was initially purchased for open space preservation, but the town later changed that designation when it was found to be in error.

This year’s management plan calls for $173,000 to be spent on repairs to the Amagansett Life Saving Station on Bluff Road and $55,000 to be spent on materials and subcontractors to complete work on the Selah Lester house.

The plan also calls for up to $58,000 in reimbursements to the town’s Natural Resources Department for invasive species removal, meadow restoration and revegetation and for up to $36,000 in payments to Natural Resources, Sanitation and Code Enforcement for the removal of garbage from and restoration of wetlands.

A draft of the plan can be found online at http://www.ehland.org/pdf/proposed2010cpfm&splan.pdf.