Letters

I am a resident on Springs-Fireplace Road, since February 1990, and have watched with increasing sadness the steady decline of the area along Springs-Fireplace Road from North Main Street to Abraham’s Path.

As essentially uncontrolled commercial development has moved ahead, green space has been cut down, and heavy truck traffic and smaller commercial truck traffic have increased exponentially, especially in the last 10 years. Dust and mud drag out onto the road from the commercial activities, including the sand mine, mulching operations and commercial vehicle parking areas, and have made the air nearly unbearable in the summer dry periods and the spring rainy period.

The Town Planning Board has tried to approve appropriate planning but either concentrates on individual applications without taking the whole corridor into account or more often is outrun by owners/developers who are willing to pay fines for non-approved activities or simply expect not to be fined or punished.

The latest Wild West activity is the lot at 228 Springs-Fireplace Road between the entrance to the Highway Department and Queens Road. Over the weekend of May 11 and 12, all of the vegetation and trees up to nearly the edge of the road—95 percent of the surface of the lot—was cleared.

This was among the last green spaces left in the corridor. Curious to find out if there was a permit for this activity, I inquired at the Building Department and was informed that no building permit had been issued and that Code Enforcement had been contacted. This is an example of flaunting the rules, which owners do with impunity, knowing that whatever commercial activity they engage in will produce enough revenue to cover any punishment.

The Below the Bridge Project next to 228 Springs-Fireplace Road has been negotiating a site plan for more than a year but continues to operate a commercial truck parking lot and a garbage transfer station without any approvals. It is incentivised to prolong permitting negotiations for as long as possible. One must conclude that revenues produced more than sufficiently cover the cost of any possible fines or other forms of punishment.

Uncontrolled development, with the resulting blight, along this heavily traveled entryway to Springs has to stop. We suffer from dust and mud drag-out, heavy traffic congestion, unsightly streetscape—all of which is going to become worse with the opening of the East Hampton School District bus depot, a proposed car wash, the commercial truck parking lot at Below the Bridge at the corner of Springs-Fireplace Road and Queens Lane, and the new Farrell development off Queens Lane.

Enough is enough.

Robert PineSprings