Editorial: Ready for action
Will the Town Board’s proposed regulations to control development on the causeway fly this time? That’s the big question for tomorrow, Friday, December 2, when the board holds a hearing at about 5 p.m. on a set of revised rules drafted with the help of concerned residents over the summer.
When the original causeway proposal was aired in June, the Town Board withdrew it post haste in the face of strong opposition, went back to the drawing board and extended its moratorium on causeway construction to the end of the year to cover the revision period.
No board member publicly embraced the original proposal. No one has proclaimed the revised version worthy of adoption. That has given it a certain orphaned quality. But comments made at Town Board work sessions over the summer suggest that at least some critics are satisfied and there won’t be a standing-room-only crowd of opponents this time around.
The opposition’s main theme in June was that the town should do all it can to prevent development on the causeway by acquiring any buildable private property there. Setting up special building regulations, they said, seemed an invitation to landowners to start filing applications.
As has been noted by Councilman Ed Brown, there hasn’t been an application to build on the causeway in decades, except for the controversial Zagoreos reconstruction project to replace a 1960s house destroyed by fire in 2007. There are no signs any applications are imminent. One property owner with a larger parcel met some years ago with town officials to talk about development but so far nothing has come of it. Maybe he was trying to boost the price of a sale to the town.
Acquisition of every buildable parcel on the causeway is not an option for the town, Supervisor Jim Dougherty has argued convincingly. The town hasn’t even been sure it will have enough in its Community Preservation Fund to close two pending deals for Sylvester Manor development rights without having to float bonds.
The next best thing is for the Town Board to make its move and adopt the revised causeway regulations. Along with existing town and state rules protecting wetlands, the causeway regulations will prevent any Westhampton-style skyline from ever emerging along the northern edge of Coecles Harbor.
The biggest difference between the current proposal and the original unveiled in June is the definition of the causeway as an independent district with its own set of rules. Another major change is that the minimum lot size for any new subdivision of property was increased to five acres from two.
