East Hampton Town Board Adopts Maximum House Size Reduction in Split Vote

In a split vote, the East Hampton Town Board officially adopted a measure aimed at reducing maximum house sizes in the town at its regular meeting on Thursday, March 20.

The legislation, which will take effect July 1, is aimed at curbing overdevelopment, which some say has harmed the environment, the community and local affordability.

At the meeting, the Town Board voted 3-1 to move forward, with one abstention.

Practically, the measure will cap maximum house sizes at 7 percent of the size of the lot it is built on, plus 1,500 square feet, down from the current number, which sits at 10 percent of lot area, plus 1,600 square feet.

A public hearing on March 6 drew a packed — yet divided — crowd.

Despite the divisiveness, the Town Board relayed at its March 18 work session that some 76 percent of the public comment it received supported a reduction of some sort, with a substantial portion of the responses calling for an even stricter cap at 7 percent of lot area, plus 1,300 square feet.

Deputy Supervisor Cate Rogers spearheaded the effort, introducing the resolution at the March 20 meeting, before casting a vote in favor. Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Councilman David Lys joined her in support.

Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte voted against it, while Councilman Tom Flight abstained; his nonvote essentially counted as a “no” in the final tally, since an abstention generally requires a reason, such as a conflict of interest. At the work session two days prior, both had expressed reservations.

Explaining his position on Thursday, March 20, however, Calder-Piedmonte voiced general support for a reduction — but he objected to the details of the legislation as proposed, which he said “doesn’t allow for flexibility.”

Two days prior, the councilman offered a measure that “allows some flexibility,” referring to his idea to allocate garage floor area alternatively as livable space.

With his idea, “everything’s the same, except for how you use the space inside the house on smaller lots,” Calder-Piedmonte said.

For his part, Flight acknowledged that most public comment that the Town Board received “is in favor of this change.” However, the councilman’s own home fails to comply with the new regulations, so he said it would be “hypocritical” for him to support it.

Flight said he agreed with Calder-Piedmonte’s reservations from the previous work session, before adding his own concerns about “potential implications for young families’ abilities to live here” and the “knock-on effects in the building, real estate, and related industries,” which he described as “a primary driver of our local economy.”

In closing, Flight mentioned that he hopes the new legislation has the “desired impacts of those who brought it forward.”