Village of Dering Harbor gets it together

The first order of business at the Saturday, July 18 Board of Trustees meeting was to get the Village of Dering Harbor organized — an annual event held each July that sets out who’s who, and who will be doing what for the municipality in the year ahead.

Heather Brownlie was appointed deputy mayor in the event of Mayor Tim Hogue’s absence, and more than 15 other resolutions were passed unanimously — affirming members of the board; the approval of Laura Hildreth as village clerk, treasurer and records officer; Joseph Prokop, village attorney; Richard Surozenski, highway supervisor; Hap Bowditch, water commissioner; Arthur Bloom, village fire marshall; Chuck Modica, village harbormaster, Narwocki Smith LLP, auditors; and Aram Terchunian, environmental engineer.

Ms. Brownlie will continue as chair of the Architectural Review Board; Ken Walker, chair of the Planning Board; and John Colby, chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals

Bridgehampton National Bank was designated as the village’s bank and the Reporter as the newspaper of public record.

A schedule of meetings for the year was approved and next year’s organizational meeting confirmed for July 16, 2016.

Hedges & speed bumps
More than a dozen residents followed up on the discussion at the June meeting about hedge height along the waterside of Shore Road.

Although some continued to be concerned about protecting the water view for residents and visitors alike by reducing the height of hedges, Shore Road resident Chuck Modica spoke strongly, for safety reasons, against cutting back hedges.

He cited a very recent example of a cyclist who had an accident on that roadway because he said he was “distracted by the view.” Given the number of small children living along Shore Road and the road’s curve and down-slope, he suggested a “draconian” solution. Since most residents had access to their driveways on the roads feeding into Shore Road, he recommended Shore Road be closed to everyone except pedestrians and emergency vehicles.

Kirk Ressler, a Shore Road resident whose driveway is directly on Shore Road, noted that speed bumps did work in slowing down the traffic, but a number of residents recommended installing them earlier on the approaches, running them all the way to the curb so cyclists couldn’t go around them and providing appropriate signage.

Mayor Hogue and the trustees agreed that priority would be given to ordering and installing more speed bumps.

Back to the subject of hedges: The mayor said he would send a letter to Shore Road residents about voluntarily cutting back their hedges. One resident. Clora Kelly, had already trimmed hers as a result of previous discussion.

“We’ll continue to think about this,” Mr. Hogue said.

On another, somewhat related topic, resident Stuart Goldman commented that recently landscapers were clipping hedges and doing other lawn maintenance as late as 8:30 at night and all day on Sundays. It was suggested that a resolution could be added to a village law that currently prohibits work after 6 p.m. and on Sundays for building projects requiring a permit.

The mayor recommend first asking residents to inform their contractors about restricting use of equipment in the evenings and on Sundays; the village could also contact contractors directly.

Dering Wood Lane LLC Application
At an earlier ARB meeting, the question of water runoff on the building site proposed by the LLC had been referred to the board. At the June trustees’ meeting, the LLC applicants were informed they would need to submit a Storm Water Pollution Protection Plan (SWPPP). Mayor Hogue invited Aram Terchunian, an environmental engineer and the village’s consultant, to Saturday’s meeting to explain to the trustees how SWPPP works.

Mr. Terchunian said that SWPPP was a federal/state mandated program under the Clean Water Act. While state DEC guidelines apply — and are very routine and straightforward — each municipality was permitted to tailor the regulations to their own requirements. The village local law passed in 2011 mandated that the plan would apply to any size property, not just those over an acre as stipulated by the DEC. Joel Sunshine of the LLC said later that he had understood the DEC’s over-1-acre rule would apply; the Dering Woods Lane property is under 1 acre.

Mr. Terchunian agreed to meet with Mr. Sunshine during or after the ARB meeting, which followed immediately after the trustees’ meeting to obtain additional information for the filing.

Flooding
Mr. Hogue updated the long-standing efforts to reduce flooding on Shore Road, noting that the dry wells installed were filling up too quickly and that other steps would need to be taken. Plans are also underway to improve the conditions on the Ferris property.

The next meeting will be held on Saturday, August 15 at 9 a.m.