Affordable Housing on the Front Burner

East Hampton Town is set to buy a 4.2-acre parcel off Route 114 just outside Sag Harbor to build 20 to 30 units of affordable housing, and that is just one of a number of projects afoot to alleviate a critical shortage here. 

The East Hampton Town Board will schedule a Jan. 17 public hearing at its meeting tonight on the purchase of the property from the congregation of the Triune Baptist Church, which secured the land in 1993 but fell short in its effort to raise the money to construct a church on the property. 

The proposed purchase price is $900,000. The property is adjacent to cottages owned by the Sag Harbor Community Housing Trust, according to the Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc’s office, and there is potential for the sites to be developed in conjunction with one another.

In an interview on Monday, Mr. Van Scoyoc referred to the acquisition, the location of which had yet to be disclosed, in recapping the town board’s efforts to create affordable housing for residents struggling to pay market rate for rental housing in the town. “I think we’ve made strides on affordable housing,” he said, referring to the 12-unit Manor House project on Accabonac Road in East Hampton, which he said would be completed this month, and a 38-unit development at 531 Montauk Highway in Amagansett that is expected to be completed and occupied by the end of 2020. “That is fully funded now, has received permits, and is moving forward,” he said. The Manor House apartments will be offered for sale, and the units in Amagansett will be rented. 

The town is also eyeing “a couple of additional affordable housing properties for acquisition,” apart from the Triune Baptist Church property, Mr. Van Scoyoc said on Monday. 

The flurry of activity follows a long fallow period, as the outgoing chairman of the town’s community housing opportunity fund advisory board and director of community housing and development conceded at the town board’s Dec. 11 work session. There, Job Potter and Tom Ruhle, the housing director, said that the board must be mindful that a housing project’s timeline from conception to completion can span as many as eight years. “It really puts pressure to keep adding projects, keep buying land, keep things in the pipeline,” Mr. Potter said. 

Mr. Potter stressed the importance of acquiring vacant land for housing development. “As a committee, we’re not privy to executive session material,” he told the board. “There may be ongoing acquisition efforts.” Mr. Van Scoyoc confirmed that observation this week in disclosing the public hearing to be scheduled tonight. 

The town’s record in creating affordable housing over the last decade “may be disheartening,” Mr. Potter had told the board, but the next 10 years “I think are going to be much better.” Patience is essential, he said, “because some of this stuff takes a long time.” Creating affordable housing is among the town’s most difficult challenges, he said, given the complex grant process and resistance to new development from neighbors. “It takes hammering away,” he said. 

“We know there’s more to be done,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said on Monday. “We’re going to try and keep getting projects into the pipeline . . . and there had been a gap of roughly a decade since a town board had taken on a new project. We’re pleased to be pushing that effort forward again and actually getting some units created and completed.”