No Need To Look For A Reason To Say No

Southampton Village, Southampton Town and the Southampton African American Museum are seeking permission to build a visitors center at the Pyrrhus Concer homestead on Lake Agawam. The town purchased the land, which is located within the village, using the Community Preservation Fund, and the museum is the caretaker of the timbers of Concer’s house, which will be rebuilt in its original location after the village allowed its demolition a few years ago.

With these three entities on board, the plan to complement the reconstructed historic house of the famed former slave turned international seafarer with a visitors center should be smooth sailing. Instead, a majority of the members of the Southampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals are putting the application through the ringer, and neighbors are grasping at straws to find an excuse to stop it.

ZBA member Susan Stevenson recently called into question whether the museum’s state charter allows SAAM to pursue a visitors center on the homestead. Chairman Mark Greenwald told the applicants that the board is trying to find out if the museum is planning to operate as something more than a museum — a designation that would scuttle the plans. But his line of questioning is entirely speculative.

Neighbors have hired an attorney to question whether the Town Board approves of this application — the board members have, in fact, unanimously supported the plan — and suggested that allowing a museum to have a visitors center could somehow lead to modest homes all over the village being turned into accessory structures to behemoth houses.

Calling that a stretch really undersells how baseless that argument is.

The resistance that the planned visitors center is meeting is unwarranted. The site is just two doors down from the Southampton Cultural Center, and the new museum will only enhance the village’s arts and culture district.

The fact that the Concer house was ever taken down is a stain on the village — and rebuilding it only goes halfway toward making it right. To get the rest of the way there, the village needs this visitors center. The Concer legacy has long gone unknown or under-appreciated, and a place to honor him and to teach new generations about his life is merited.

ZBA members are turning over every rock to find a reason to say no — but they won’t find a good one.