Board Okays Land Deal Despite Mixed Response

Two lots on Squaw Road in East Hampton will be bought by East Hampton Town from the Nature Conservancy, following a vote of the town board last Thursday night.

The properties, totaling about 1.6 acres, front on Three Mile Harbor. Formerly owned by the late Robert Olson, they each contain a house, which will be removed at the conservancy’s expense. The $2.6 million purchase price will be paid from East Hampton’s community preservation fund.

The proposal to buy the ecologically fragile property, which was highly rated as an important candidate for preservation by the town’s community preservation fund committee, became a topic of debate among neighborhood property owners and members of a local residents’ group, the Duck Creek Farm Association.

But following a hearing last week at which both opponents and proponents spoke, the board voted unanimously to proceed with the purchase.

Ira Barocas, as president of the Duck Creek Farm Association, a homeowners’ group in the neighborhood, said at the hearing that he “wholeheartedly endorse[s]” the purchases, which is important for water quality and for “mitigating septic into the harbor.”

But some Squaw Road neighbors said they would prefer that the property remain in private hands, and for houses to be built on the lots.

That, they said, would preserve their privacy, prevent extra traffic in their neighborhood, and keep the land on tax rolls.

“My family would be severely affected,” said Richard Levin, who circulated a petition against the purchase and told the board that area residents are “10-to-1” against public preservation of the land.

But Jack Lester, another Squaw Road resident, painted neighborhood opinion differently. “There’s a consensus in favor of the acquisition,” he said.

“Gone will be our privacy, gone will be our tranquility, due to the hordes of people. . . ,” said Mr. Levin, an immediate neighbor to the lots under discussion. He predicted that people “will come to swim, fish, perhaps picnic and watch the lovely sunset” and that the site “will be trashed.”

“My property will go down in value,” he said.

Denise Schoen, an attorney representing a group of the area’s residents who approve of the purchase, said she had reviewed the history of similar preservation fund properties and that the types of things that opponents said they feared had not occurred. Land preservation, she said, has been shown to have a beneficial tax impact, keeping municipal service costs down, rather than impacting the public by removing properties from the tax roll.

“The concept that the purchase of this property will bring an onslaught of people and cars and an overwhelming amount of use . . . that concern appears to be misplaced,” she said. The property will not attract beachgoers, she said, because the shore “from corner to corner” is covered with beach grass and rocks.

But, said Susan Tyler, a neighbor of the site, both she and Mr. Levin have sandy beach in front of their properties. If people can’t set down beach towels on the former Olson property, she said, they might use the nearby beach areas, which are publicly owned to the high tide line, including the one in front of her house. “And that’s frightening,” she said. If the land is publicly owned, she said, “nobody really knows what will become of it. It could be small use, and it could be huge. I worry about it.”

“I respect people’s anxiety; I really do,” said Steve Dickman, who lives across the street and circulated his own petition in favor of the purchase. But, he said, he has “the other anxiety,” about the impact of two new houses on the neighborhood, the properties, and the harbor.

“What is the true public environmental benefit of having an open space preserve?” asked Darren Rubin. He suggested houses that would have to adhere to the town’s zoning, health, and other regulations, would have a minimal effect on the environment and would provide “a better guarantee” that the area’s security and peace would be maintained, versus a public preserve for which a management plan is yet to be created. “Sell the land privately and let the neighborhood remain a private place,” he said.

“This is an opportunity for you to . . . protect the fragile ecology of this land, to let it return to its natural state, and to let it be what it should be — a gift to our world,” said Ellen Frank, Mr. Dickman’s wife, who also supports public acquisition.

She referred to the differences of opinion among her neighbors, and opposing information campaigns and petitions that burgeoned in recent weeks. “The tactics of really creating fear, creating divisiveness, the tactic of really misrepresenting what this would be saddens me.”

While the existence of other public lands in the neighborhood, such as the nature preserve on Babe’s Lane, was used by opponents to question why another public purchase is needed, others used the nearby lands as examples of preserved sites that don’t draw people who cause problems.

Eric Van de Bovenkamp, who only two weeks ago became a full-time resident of Squaw Road, where he has owned property for a decade, said that he shares neighbors’ concerns about traffic and other impacts of outside visitors, but that overall he supports the purchase. But, he said, “I do hope that we would have a good management plan.”

That plan will be developed by the town’s nature preserve committee and reviewed by the town board, which will have a hearing to consider public comment on it before deciding on its adoption.

In addition to the Squaw Road lots, the board also voted last Thursday, following hearings, to buy Peter Israelson’s 2.2 acres at 79 Bull Path in East Hampton for $950,000 and a shy half-acre at 57 Glade Road from Christine Singer for $235,000, both using the preservation fund.

Hearings will be held next Thursday night on additional proposed open space purchases with the preservation fund, including a .8-acre lot at 22 Fenmarsh Road in Springs owned by L Lucky LP and .8 acres at 124 Waterhole Road in Springs owned by Mary Spitzer, each for $700,000.

Another hearing will be held on adding 88 parcels in Springs to the preservation fund plan for potential future purchase, as part of an outreach effort targeting a total of 119 environmentally significant lots in the hamlet. They are properties that are contiguous or near other protected lands; that can accommodate trail connections or new trails or buffer existing trails, or that are waterfront parcels or in watersheds, the preservation of which will help prevent contaminants from reaching ground or surface water.

The lands comprise 105 acres and could be purchased only from willing sellers.