Let's Talk

In all its sloppy glory, last week’s Express Sessions event in Hampton Bays gave attendees a chance to hear directly from Alfred Caiola about his vision for an expansion of the hamlet’s business district. Other panelists, including a Town Board member and the town supervisor, offered reactions and could likewise ask about the shimmering vision Caiola presents.

As with a meeting last year hosted by the Hampton Bays Civic Association, a much bigger gathering, it eventually got a little loud, a little heated, a little chaotic. That’s the nature of debate in Hampton Bays, the town’s largest hamlet, with so many voices and points of view. Because of the smaller crowd, this conversation got a bit more traction, and both critics and supporters had their say.

It’s far too early to decide whether Caiola’s proposal — changing the zoning on a cluster of parcels he owns between Montauk Highway and Good Ground Park, allowing him to create a square of new retail and residential development linking downtown more directly to the park to the north — is what’s best for Hampton Bays. Certainly, it would give the sleepy downtown a jolt of energy, create a more walkable destination on the park’s edge, add some much needed workforce housing, and potentially change the business district from “one stop and out” to more of a shopping destination, where one would be tempted to linger and browse.

But there are questions. The lack of sewers is a bigger problem — as noted, new development could help solve that, but finding an acceptable location for a treatment plant is a challenge. Any new road will interact in some way with busy Montauk Highway. In addition to sewers, new development will need water, and the small district’s infrastructure might struggle to provide it.

Then there is the biggest question of all: If you create a sizable cluster of new storefronts, who will want to open up shop there? And if they want to do business in Hampton Bays, why aren’t they there already?

Still, there’s no denying the excitement among most of the people who attended the Express Sessions event in seeing what Caiola has in mind, and at least hearing him explain. He is a developer who has invested heavily in the properties he’s bought on the north side of Montauk Highway, but there’s something more in his passionate presentation of what Hampton Bays could be, about what it might become. Developers often talk like that, but Caiola has roots in Hampton Bays. His interest seems to go beyond the bottom line.

The event was a little raucous; it’s spillover from some of the more heated exchanges Caiola has had on social media with opponents of the project. In the days leading up to the Express Sessions, some people were posting memes to attack the event itself.

But in the end this messy extended discussion was exhilarating. As was noted by some, there has been so much talk about the future of Hampton Bays without much actual movement — and any movement is bound to run into hamlet residents who have objections. But many who attended, and several who spoke, noted that change is coming, one way or the other, and acknowledging that fact is the first step to finding the right path forward.

The worst thing for Hampton Bays is for residents to plug their ears and not consider any change, for fear that progress will bring problems. Because the status quo won’t hold, and inevitable change can either raise a neighborhood up or bring it crashing down. If Hampton Bays is going to ride that wave instead of being drowned, we need to keep talking — not shouting — and, even more important, listening.