A New Perspective

Last week, Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said something that is not controversial. Speaking about the fact that town zoning, like most of the zoning on the South Fork, is rooted in a desire to protect the environment, he pointed out that all that land preservation has largely accomplished its mission — but has created a problem. “We did a great job protecting the environment,” he said, “but we can’t really function if there’s no one to pick you up in an ambulance when you have a heart attack.”

That statement is plainly true, plainly accurate. The region’s historic land preservation effort is not something to second-guess — the Community Preservation Fund was the right thing to do, it transformed a region facing overwhelming development pressure, and it likely laid the groundwork to preserve its precious natural features. It was an overwhelming success.

But Schneiderman’s remark is notable in that it speaks a truth most elected officials have avoided saying out loud for 25 years: Land preservation also made it more expensive to live here and created less housing in general, not enough to keep up with demand. And we’re starting to feel the effects on our quality of life.

The South Fork is on the edge of a new era, a pivotal moment. Tough decisions will have to be made. And we can no longer afford to call “off limits” on any conversation about its future. The CPF was imaginative, bold thinking in 1999. It still has a place in 2023, but it is no longer the answer. A new threat to “community preservation” has arrived, and we can’t begin to address it unless we find a new perspective, rooted in reality.

There is no greater crisis facing the region than the complete absence of affordable housing for its workforce. Water pollution is a very close second, but it’s slightly less daunting because we know the solution — stopping the steady flow of wastewater from leaky septic tanks and other sources, with sewer systems and better treatment. It’s just a matter of funding it all, no small matter, but something the CPF has shifted to take up.

Development is obviously the other part of the water equation, but the two towns have used tools to limit density in an effort to mitigate the impact. It didn’t work, primarily because there wasn’t nearly enough follow-through on the wastewater treatment side. But now, with density being anathema, it makes the affordable housing dilemma even harder to address.

For this problem, there will be money to spend. Starting April 1, Southampton and East Hampton towns will join Southold and Shelter Island in collecting a new tax to create the Community Housing Fund. The towns will use the revenue to construct, to create incentives and to give the workforce a helping hand in finding affordable dwellings. Ultimately, though, there’s no miracle solution without adding housing units. It threatens to undo some of what the CPF accomplished.

That’s why a new perspective is needed. A tenet of the CPF — that development is more expensive for a community, in addition to being more environmentally damaging — is still heartily true. But we must add a new truism that competes with it: A low-density resort destination that is attractive only to high-end buyers cannot sustain itself, and it won’t make allowances for the men, women and children who make it a healthy, functioning community. There have to be places carved out for them and integrated into the larger whole.

So we must say it out loud: Density is an essential part of the solution. It sounds like blasphemy, but we have to get past that. In truth, it’s going to be the only way to realistically create houses and apartments where the local workforce can not only survive but thrive. The South Fork was never Disneyland — its appeal was rooted in the real-life neighborhoods of working farms and mom-and-pop businesses. That’s what made it a sanctuary and gave it a new seasonal life. Keeping those families here is necessary.

Which is not to say that every single development proposal is now on the table, or that no project is ever wrong for a particular community. Of course there are aesthetic considerations, and infrastructure limitations. But the knee-jerk rejection of any proposal simply based on the number of units is outdated thinking, and must be discarded.

Maybe there’s a vision of life on the South Fork that keeps the small-town feel alive by keeping the small-town people here: the kids on bikes, the men and women you know from stores and restaurants you visit. Or staring down at you when you’re in the back of an ambulance, or when you get to the hospital. Apartment buildings or townhouse complexes aren’t merely a blight; for these lucky people, they are home.

Quality of life is an important phrase, a guiding principle. But it’s time for a new perspective on what “quality” is about — and it’s not merely preserving real estate values. House prices are rising, but they are choking off the living, breathing life around them. We need a new plan, and a new way of both talking and thinking.