2 Photos
An example of the ubiquitous blue domes of Santorini. MARSHALL WATSON
Sag Harbor Village officials on Tuesday unveiled a plan to upgrade and redesign a municipal parking lot so that it not only includes more spaces but also is less prone to flooding.
At Tuesday morning’s Village Board meeting, Deputy Mayor Dr. Robby Stein presented a long-in-the-works plan for the approximately 100-spot, triangular-shaped parking lot that lies between Spring and Rose streets, just west of Main Street. The plan, he explained, would involve resurfacing the entire parking lot with semi-porous materials to prevent it from flooding, and expanding it to include about 40 more spaces.
It also calls for putting in landscaping and rain gardens, which are designed to absorb rain and stormwater runoff, another way to mitigate flooding.
“There’s a lot of excitement about this, because this is the first, true retrofit project on the East End,” Dr. Stein said. “We’re really looking at something that’s done in other parts of the country.”
Dr. Stein said that although the village has received a grant for the project from Sag Harbor Partnership, a local civic organization, the total cost of the redesign is still not known. However, he noted that he spoke with officials from Apple Bank, which owns a portion of the lot, and said that they are on board with the idea.
Dr. Stein added that the village could morph the project into an educational opportunity by installing a monitoring station and teaming up with the Sag Harbor School District so that students could keep track of flooding levels in the lot.
“It’s going to demonstrate what we can do in other areas, what you can do in your home,” he said. “I’m excited about it. I’m hoping we all agree and go ahead with whatever we need,” he said.
Alyssa Melillo on May 31, 2016