Frustrations Over East Hampton Town Planning Delays Culminate in Lawsuit

Frustrations over scheduling delays in East Hampton Town government boiled over into a lawsuit last week in which attorney Jon Tarbet alleged that the Planning Department and Zoning Board of Appeals obstructed permit applications.

A few weeks ago, Tarbet told The Express News Group that the town’s application processing speed has slowed down considerably over the past few years — a development he linked to town staffing shortages.

Until the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, planning and zoning applications took around six months to clear all necessary hurdles. Then, the timeline leaped up to 15 months.

Now, Tarbet said, the trend has worsened — and the application process frequently takes over two years.

Tarbet told the Suffolk County Supreme Court in a filing that “unchecked” delays have created a backlog of applications in the town government.

Right now, there are about 50 applications marked “complete” by the Planning Department that are due for a hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeals, according to a list obtained by Tarbet through a Freedom of Information Law request and submitted to the court as evidence.

As for the case at hand — which is one of the 50 — Tarbet said that his clients own an 11-acre lot on Bendigo Road in Amagansett, upon which they are looking to build a single-family home.

Previously, the Planning Department identified “beach vegetation” on the property, which means the landowners need a special permit to develop the land. The landowners submitted an application for the permit on July 26, 2024.

In the petition to the court, Tarbet argued that the town can impose restrictions on the construction, but it can’t excessively delay the process or outright refuse to hear the petition. Outside the special permit, the construction would not require further variances.

Further, Tarbet asserted that the town has made a “policy” of impeding legal construction through “obstruction and delay.”

Over time, the policy has been left “unchecked,” which has turned a months-long permitting process into a years-long one, Tarbet said.

The Planning Department has “routinely” found reasons to mark applications incomplete, he went on, even if the proposals are otherwise in accordance with town code.

In this instance, it took the Planning Department around four months to deem the application incomplete, returning it as such on November 18, 2024.

However, Tarbet asserted to the court that the Planning Department is required to review each application within 10 days, whether or not it is complete.

Ultimately, the Planning Department cited two reasons for sending back the application. First, it required an additional fee, which Tarbet said his client paid soon after. Second, it wished to see — in “paragraph form” — a plan for where cars would park during construction.

Tarbet argued that town code does not require a parking plan, but nonetheless, his clients had previously included the requested information on a site plan attached to the original application.

Eventually, on March 28, 2025, the Planning Department deemed the application complete and ready for a hearing. When asked, officials told Tarbet that a hearing would be scheduled in some eight to 10 months.

While town code does not specify a time frame for a hearing, Tarbet told the court that the code requires applications be scheduled within a “reasonable time.”

Separately, Tarbet said that “the important thing to know is that these are complete applications just waiting for a hearing.”

Each month, he went on, the ZBA has open hearing slots, but the time frequently goes unused — despite the aforementioned backlog — as complete applications are left unscheduled.

Tarbet reiterated that the Planning Department requires technical analysis memos, but “that is a made up Planning Department thing,” as town code does not require that step. Further, “no other ZBA does them for every application.”

If the Planning Department must review applications within 10 days and its decision has to come down within 62 days, then eight to 10 months to schedule a hearing “cannot be deemed reasonable,” Tarbet wrote, especially when the applications can take “up to a year” before the Planning Department marks them complete.

As for the Zoning Board of Appeals — the next stop for his application — Tarbet said it had reviewed “only” 11 applications in the first quarter of this year, as the Planning Department delays have caused meeting cancellations due to too few hearings.

Concluding his petition to the court, Tarbet said that the Planning Department has “no commitment to schedule hearings in a reasonable amount of time,” which prevents his clients from using their property in a way “permitted by code.”

Patrick Derenze, a town spokesman, said that the town is “in the process of reviewing the filing with counsel.”