Year’s Moratorium Proposed in Southampton

Southampton Town officials are calling for a year-long moratorium on all new planned development district applications so that the town board can address what the supervisor called “real problems within the law.”

One issue that Supervisor Jay Schneiderman raised during his campaign for office addressed flaws in the planned development district code. Planned development districts, known as P.D.D.s, call for a community benefit, but that component need not be related to the development itself. “It was creating a situation where developers could line up special-interest groups,” which in turn lean on town officials to approve the project, Mr. Schneiderman said.

In one example, the Hills at Southampton, a mixed-used development district in East Quogue with a golf course and over 100 residences, college scholarships have been promised to local students, as well as a donation for a new piece of equipment to the fire department. “This is a golf course being proposed, and the community benefit is ancillary, unrelated to the actual benefit, but the code currently encourages that,” Mr. Schneiderman said.

The community benefit could be anything — he cited donations to the Retreat or creating a shellfish program — and “it becomes part of the package,” the supervisor said. “That’s not fair. That’s now how you plan.”

The moratorium, sponsored by Councilman John Bouvier, who was elected in November with Mr. Schneiderman, would bar any new applications under the P.D.D. except agricultural ones. It would allow the town board to evaluate “whether P.D.D. legislation is a tool it wants to continue to utilize within the Town,” the proposal states.

The town board would continue to process applications already submitted, such as the Gateway project in Bridgehampton, the Hills, and a condominium project in Water Mill. “I’m not trying to avoid making difficult decisions that are in front of me,” Mr. Schneiderman said, adding, though, that he thinks the town has been inundated with large-scale proposals. Several such projects, Sandy Hollow in Southampton, the Canoe Place Inn in Hampton Bays, and the Riverside development, have already been completed.

A hearing will be held on the proposed moratorium on April 12 at 1 p.m. at Southampton Town Hall.