Napeague, Springs, Wainscott Land Buys
The town board voted last Thursday to move ahead with three property purchases using the community preservation fund, following hearings on the deals.
Three lots on Cranberry Hole Road in Amagansett totaling 2.6 acres will be purchased for $2.2 million. They are owned by Helen S. Rattray, the Star’s publisher, the Sky and Ray Family Trust, and Indian Pot L.L.C.
According to Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, the area has “pristine secondary duneland” that is a good example of a maritime dune community.
A .44-acre lot owned by the late Eileen Roaman, at the juncture of Accabonac Road, Neck Path, and Old Stone Highway in Springs, will be purchased for $220,000 to maintain open space. The property at 817 Accabonac Road is adjacent to the former Roaman residence. The land contains wetlands, is in the Accabonac Harbor watershed, and borders harbor protection and water recharge areas.
Ms. Roaman, who had purchased the lot and removed a decrepit house there, restoring it to an open, meadow-like environment, wanted to see it preserved, said a friend, Zachary Cohen, at the hearing. The open space will “set the tone,” he said, for a stretch of Accabonac Road between the juncture of the three roads and the Green River Cemetery that retains a sense of the hamlet’s historic flavor. He suggested involving local schoolchildren in restoring a meadow there and perhaps using the land for traditional pursuits, such as beekeeping.
A joint purchase with the Peconic Land Trust of prime farmland on Beach Lane in Wainscott could cost the town more than planned. The private nonprofit organization, which was to split the $7 million cost equally with the town, has so far raised $2.5 million in a fund-raising campaign launched in April. Grants from 84 different contributors ranged from $100 to $200,000, said Rebecca Chapman of the land trust at last week’s hearing. The contributors included Ronald Lauder, the businessman and philanthropist who has a house not far from the site. Ms. Chapman thanked him not only for contributing himself (the exact amounts pledged by different donors were not disclosed), but for enlisting other donors.
The farmland, now owned by Jane Weigley, has been in production since at least 1962, Mr. Wilson said, according to the town’s first aerial maps, and has been farmed by members of the same family for more than seven generations.
The town board approved the purchase with a maximum contribution by the town of $4.45 million, although the Peconic Land Trust’s fund-raising will continue until the real estate closing.