Proceed With Caution

Overlay districts are a common zoning tool used by many municipalities. Southampton Town has used them to varying degrees of success — the aquifer protection overlay district has been a winner; a downtown overlay district in Hampton Bays less so — in various parts of the town. They essentially look at the existing zoning, then allow those rules governing what can be done on properties to be reconsidered if there’s a newer concern to be addressed.

In a bid to clean up the process for creating more affordable housing, the Town Board is looking at a new overlay district that would, in essence, grease the skids for projects that will be subsidized with Community Housing Fund grants. The idea is that an expedited process for these projects makes sense, because they’ve already been targeted by the CHF as wise investments for creating more housing options for workers and seniors in particular.

It sounds pretty good, generally, especially since there are many instances of projects that are taking far too long to work through the regulatory process, which delays construction and, in the long run, discourages other developers from going down the same path. Trading a little time for cost considerations makes a great deal of sense for a town desperate to create affordable units.

But this can be risky stuff. Note the hand-wringing that occurred over one such project, in Westhampton, when there was Town Board turnover and some concerns by new members that the higher density on the targeted property might be too much. An overlay district could recreate that brush fire in multiple places, and it could worsen the feeling from neighborhood objectors that their voices are not just being ignored, they’re being quieted by the process itself.

It’s reminiscent of the “planned development districts” that were a part of town zoning for more than a decade, giving the Town Board wider latitude to ease the process, and change the zoning rules, for certain projects considered beneficial to the community. The law creating PDDs was repealed, unanimously, in 2017, and called “fundamentally flawed” by then-Supervisor Jay Schneiderman.

The fundamental flaw: Developers saw a “wild card” of sorts, which means they had an avenue to pitch all kinds of proposals, allowing them to make new rules to their liking. That runs counter to the entire idea of zoning, which is for a community to step back, look at its map and decide what kinds of development are appropriate in which places, before a specific proposal is made anywhere.

Without question, there is a reasonable middle ground, and that’s where an overlay district lives. The proposed affordable housing overlay would give the town a great deal more flexibility in seeking to allow beneficial development. But that was exactly the sales pitch for PDDs. It’s something for the Town Board to keep in mind as it considers this radical new tool: As beneficial as it looks, under some circumstances it might be used as a weapon.