Land to Be State Park - Town, county, and state buy oceanfront acres

Amsterdam Beach, 122 acres of Montauk moorland stretching from the Montauk Highway to the Atlantic Ocean bluffs, will be bought for $16.5 million by East Hampton Town, Suffolk County, and New York State, and will become a New York State Park.

Officials have been trying to preserve the property since a seven-lot subdivision proposal was submitted to East Hampton Town in 2000.

A pristine maritime shrubland and grassland environment - an ecosystem classified as globally rare - the property has acres of tidal and freshwater wetlands, and ponds, meadows, and forest that provide a habitat for bullfrogs, snapping turtles, toads, and other reptile and amphibian species, including the protected blue-spotted salamanders, as well as nearly 100 types of native plants.

The Amsterdam Beach moorland, considered virtually undisturbed for much of a century, is covered with shadbush, highbush blueberry, and black cherry, with few, if any, alien invasive plants. The blue-spotted salamander population that lives in the Montauk moorlands is believed to be the only pure strain of the species left in New York State.

Six plant and animal species also deemed globally rare are found in the area.

The property supports a large number of wintering sea ducks and other shorebirds, according to the Nature Conservancy, which helped to focus attention on the property's environmental importance.

With 1,288 feet along the oceanfront, the tract is contiguous to some 2,400 protected acres stretching to the north and east, encompassing the Theodore Roosevelt County Park, Montauk Point State Park, Camp Hero State Park, the "Sanctuary" property, also owned by the state, and the Nature Conservancy's Andy Warhol Visual Arts Preserve. It lies just west of Deep Hollow Ranch, which is privately owned.

The majority of the cost will be contributed by East Hampton Town: $7 million, including over $6 million from the Community Preservation Fund and $989,477 from a federal grant obtained by Representative Tim Bishop from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program. The county will contribute $5.5 million, and the state, $4 million.

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said yesterday that he had worked for over a year to line up a state contribution and that originally only $2 million had been pledged. A federal grant for East End land acquisition is unusual, he said.

Although the $16.5 million price tag makes the tract the second most expensive ever purchased for preservation in East Hampton Town, after the 98-acre Shadmoor State Park property, which was bought in 2000 for $17.6 million by the town, county, state, and the Nature Conservancy, the cost per acre, $135,000, is lower than that of other significant purchases.

The Fort Pond Bay park, 22 acres on Navy Road in Montauk, cost approximately $281,000 per acre; 40 beachfront acres on Napeague cost $218,000 an acre; Shadmoor cost $189,000 per acre, and the 57-acre Duke property on Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton cost $210,000 per acre.

The Suffolk County real estate division took the lead in negotiations over Amsterdam Beach with the property owners, 96 Meadow Lane, a limited liability corporation of which Peter Knobel of Colorado is a principal, and committed to a $5.5 million stake in the land buy in April.

Robert Jessup, a Laurel developer who was originally a partner in the land, and who developed the Beach Plum subdivision on Napeague, no longer owns a stake.

Although an equal three-way partnership among the three government entities had originally been planned, the State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation said on June 8 that only $4 million in state money would be contributed. East Hampton Town officials agreed to make up the difference.

Passive Use Planned

The property will be managed by the state, under a joint management agreement among all the parties. A management plan has not yet been discussed, but only passive use, for activities such as hiking, is planned.

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing on the deal at Town Hall at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, July 1. County legislators must still formally approve the purchase with a vote, which is expected to take place on Aug. 9. Review of the contract by the state comptroller and attorney general's office could take up to four months.

Christopher Kelley, an East Hampton and Riverhead attorney who represents Mr. Knobel and 96 Meadow Lane L.L.C., said that two development proposals for the property, one to create a seven-lot subdivision, and the other to create one large, estate-sized house lot, are still pending before the East Hampton Town Planning Board.

His client, he said, had agreed to sell the property for preservation at less than market value because he and his wife wanted to protect the environment. An appraisal had set the land's value at $18.5 million, Mr. Kelley said.

The entire parcel was listed several years ago with Allan M. Schneider Associates for $16 million. Potential buyers, none of whom pursued a deal, included a Japanese group that considered the land for a golf course, a religious organization, and developers who envisioned a hotel and restaurant. It was scheduled several times to be sold at auctions, none of which took place.

Amsterdam Beach has long been included on East Hampton Town's Community Preservation Fund list and is considered a priority. The town is also eyeing other oceanfront and moorland tracts in Montauk, including 40 acres off Old Montauk Highway, 20 acres near the Montauk Shores Condominiums at Ditch Plain, and 96 acres owned by Dick Cavett and Carrie Nye. The town board approved a $750,000 purchase of 13 acres off South Greenwich Street in Montauk owned by Joseph Farrell after a public hearing last Thursday.