Nipped in the Bud

The Southampton Town Board last week hurriedly adopted a change of zone affecting properties along Montauk Highway, or Main Street, bordering downtown Hampton Bays. The lawmakers said it was an effort to protect the hamlet from large commercial developments in the corridor.

The move also effectively extinguished a proposal by Mottz Green Grocer to build a cannabis dispensary in the former North Fork Bank building next to the Carvel store in the corridor. The lawmakers say blocking the pot shop was an unintended — but welcome — consequence of the zone change. The business owners have cried foul. And hamlet residents who were opposed to the dispensary have certainly claimed it as a victory.

The move rezones about two dozen properties along Montauk Highway, east of the Main Street downtown corridor, from highway business zone to hamlet commercial zone. Two other properties will be rezoned from highway business to village business. Both of the new classifications favor smaller developments leading into the downtown business district.

Cannabis dispensaries, which are allowed only in highway business zones, are not permitted in either new classification. They may only be built in the highway business zone.

Opponents of the proposed dispensary, vocal critics belonging to the hamlet’s civic groups, complained that the dispensary would be too close to St. Rosalie’s Church, which operates a preschool and an outpatient drug rehab program, and that, generally, they didn’t want to see a pot shop in downtown Hampton Bays.

Southampton Town chose not to opt out of allowing cannabis shops when it had the chance, and that left open places like Hampton Bays, Water Mill and Bridgehampton as obvious landing spots. This case, interestingly, demonstrates changing attitudes: The current board seems eager to dissuade pot shops from popping up, despite the decision of an earlier board.

Still, the town’s hands seemed to be tied — until the civic members reminded officials about a seemingly forgotten recommendation in a decade-old hamlet study to change the zoning of the buffer properties leading into downtown.

Town officials charged ahead quickly, introducing the legislation to change the zoning in May and setting up a public hearing for June, and a short two weeks for written comment. Last week, after just about six weeks, the board approved the measure. For a municipality that typically moves at two speeds, slow and glacial, the breakneck pace in getting the zone change approved was simply breathtaking.

The proposed pot shop developers have hinted that they will file suit against the town, or ask the state to intervene, claiming the zone change was, in essence, designed solely to block their plans, and is without merit.

The town’s planners, who recommended the zone change, say they were only following up on the good suggestion made in the hamlet study — even though it was a recommendation that collected dust for a decade. This case just goes to show the dangers of letting studies languish too long.

It may be up to the courts to decide whether the recent rezoning was simply a ruse to block a single proposal, or a legitimate effort to make good on an old promise to shape overall development in the Main Street buffer zone.

Town planners and lawmakers should see it as a lesson learned to keep the volumes of planning studies fresh and to implement their recommendations — which the taxpayers of this town are paying dearly for, both figuratively and literally — before the wolves are at the door.