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Sag Harbor Express / Editorials / 2215892

Save Spring Farm

Editorial Board on Nov 14, 2023

Land preservation in 2023 is a tricky game: Even land where millions was spent to “preserve” it from development is attractive to some buyers, with deep pockets and creative attorneys.

So though Southampton Town purchased the development rights on the 107.6 acres that make up Spring Farm, between Sag Harbor and Bridgehampton, for $5.2 million in 2002, it’s time to get out the checkbook again. This is a property worth saving.

Adjacent to other tracts of preserved land, including the Long Pond Greenbelt, in a part of town that remains much closer to unspoiled than most of it, the former game farm along the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike is up for sale, and a private buyer is looking to make a horse farm, a perfectly sensible use of a large property that can’t be built out.

The town is interested, though limits on how much Community Preservation Fund money can be spent, compared to appraisal, will make the town a weak competitor for a determined private bidder, a handcuffed combatant in a fistfight.

As the town tries to make the numbers work, and the community waits and hopes, it’s a small bit of comfort that the 2002 CPF purchase will severely limit what happens on this 100-plus acres — a small victory, perhaps, but a victory nonetheless.

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