Letters

Ever since Adam Potter proposed the mixed-use shopping center and affordable housing complex in the heart of Sag Harbor, many have felt the review process was being fast-tracked. The proposed project would be the largest development in the history of Sag Harbor — larger, even, than the 100,000-square-foot watchcase factory. Transparency and community engagement are essential.

Based on the online agenda available earlier in the day, the Village Board meeting on November 8 was to focus on the Historic Black Beachfront Communities Overlay District. However, the agenda provided at the meeting — and time-stamped “Revised” at 4:45 p.m., just 75 minutes before the meeting started — was different from the agenda that had been online earlier in the day. It included an “action item” for Cameron Engineering to “Review EAF Part 2&3 for the Conifer Realty Project.” Action items are typically procedural.

For those not steeped in environmental law, an EAF Part 2 is the responsible agency’s review of an EAF Part 1 submitted by a project sponsor. An EAF-2 determines whether there needs to be a full environmental impact statement, which is formally noticed in Part 3.

More than two hours into the trustees’ meeting, Cameron started to review a document to which we, the public, did not have access. When we objected, we were told we didn’t have the right to see draft documents.

Even if correct, that is counter to the spirit of community engagement. But the village wasn’t correct — under New York State Public Officers Law, the draft EAFs presented at a public meeting should have been made available no later than when the agenda was modified.

Cameron’s review was inchoate. They said the Bridge/Rose Street site was not prone to flooding — I thought that had been thoroughly debunked by your photographs of substantial flooding after Superstorm Sandy.

As you reported [“Sag Harbor Will Require Environmental Impact Statement on Potter Housing Project,” 27east.com, November 9], I shouted that the meeting “is a sham.” “Sham” is a term-of-art in environmental reviews that means the review does not reflect the reality of the proposed project.

Fortunately, Trustees Aidan Corish, Tom Gardella and Bob Plumb observed that, even before correcting errors in the Cameron draft, 13 of the 18 points in the EAF-2 referenced moderate to large potential environmental impacts, clearly meeting the threshold for determining the need for a full environmental impact statement.

However, the matter isn’t over.

An EAF-2 typically provides the initial scope of the EIS that, in this case, Conifer/Potter will prepare. That scope will be reviewed by state agencies and the public, as well as the trustees. Unfortunately, we now know that we will have to watch vigilantly for notices and last-minute changes to agendas throughout the holiday season.

That is not the sort of “engagement” the village was seeking.

Douglas Newby

Sag Harbor