Letters to the Editor: Corcoran Promo 04.06.17

Unimaginable

East Hampton

April 3, 2017

Dear David, 

Corcoran Realty, once a trusted local firm, has raised the ire of the aircraft noise-affected on the East End by arranging free helicopter rides via Blade, for “high end” clients to view summer rental properties this coming Sunday, April 9.

It’s unimaginable to me that a real estate firm could promote helicopter travel in this way. The Town of East Hampton has been engaged in a legal battle to return the right of peaceful enjoyment of home and property to residents all over the East End suffering the deleterious impacts of aircraft noise and avgas pollution. Where has Corcoran been these last three or four years? 

Summoning more helicopter noise to our community in this fashion identifies Corcoran as part of the problem. It is either the height of ignorance, arrogance, or possibly both. 

A once small recreational airport now exacts a terrible price from thousands who lose their right to peaceful enjoyment of home and property and suffer adverse health impacts and property value reduction, so a tiny fraction of the population can enjoy easy access by air. Aircraft noise and avgas emissions are aviation industry waste products no one wants. Yet Corcoran is actually funding this mode of transport! 

East End municipalities tax themselves to fund purchase of open space, important scenic vistas, and farmland to preserve our unique community identity and sense of place. Our quiet agrarian and maritime character, built from independent, resilient endeavor, is a heritage we cherish, pay dearly to preserve, and have a right to control. 

When greed trumps reason, we all lose. Corcoran should abandon this experiment while they can still save face.

KATHLEEN CUNNINGHAM

Quiet Skies Coalition

Terrible Marketing Idea

Southold

March 31, 2017

To the Editor:

I read in Newsday with great horror about the offer of free helicopter service to the Hamptons for “select” summer renters ($150,000 & up).

I live on the North Fork, in Southold, directly under the preferred route from the Long Island Sound to East Hampton. We on this side of Long Island have been fighting for years the increasing helicopter and seaplane noise over our homes from May through September. At peak times — Fridays from 4 p.m. until 10 p.m. and Sundays from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., plus, often, Monday mornings beginning at 7 a.m., there will be as many as 40 flights in an hour.

The helicopters fly so low that normal conversation is impossible, both inside and out. My windows rattle from the vibrations of the rotor blades.

The helicopter and seaplane pilots have thus far refused to go around Plum Island or even fly at a higher altitude so the noise is reduced. 

I have lost the essential good of my summer — the rest, relaxation, and reflection previously enjoyed in the summer months.

The fact that Pamela Liebman of the Corcoran Agency is using free helicopter rides as an enticement to customers to get them out to the Hamptons to rent hugely priced summer rental properties is beyond offensive. 

If these renters can’t stomach the idea of the summer traffic, let them take the train. Why are these people’s needs to get out east quickly to get their party started more important than the countless thousands of us — the actual community paying taxes — who are coping with the noise and pollution caused by the aircraft? 

This is a terrible marketing idea, and deeply hostile to those of us affected by the endless aircraft noise.

I am thinking of selling my home and relocating to a quieter place. Should I be forced to do so, Corcoran brokers will not be the brokers I will be using.

CATHY HAFT

Intrusive and Abusive

Noyac

April 2, 2017

Dear David,

I was appalled to read recently in a local newspaper of an ill-conceived, thoughtless marketing ploy by the Corcoran Group, in partnership with Blade. Promoting the convenience and “upscale feeling” of Blade helicopter travel to and from the Hamptons, the day-trip promotion includes a free helicopter journey for Corcoran rental clients, from New York City to East Hampton; brokers will greet prospective buyers and renters at the airport. This folly is scheduled to take place on Sunday — perhaps a residents’ meet-and-greet committee at the airport would be in order! 

Oddly, the Corcoran C.E.O., Pamela Liebman, quoted in the article, appears to have little idea of the qualities which attract people to buy or rent homes in the Hamptons. It most certainly is not helicopter junkets, it is the bucolic East End environs, and among the most desirable qualities are peace and quiet — a respite from the incessant cacophony of the city. People seeking relaxation at weekend or vacation homes do not want to spend large sums of money to later discover they have been duped, and are overwhelmed throughout the season by nonstop aviation noise and pollution above or near their pricy home or rental property! 

And how could the C.E.O. of Corcoran be unaware that residents of the Twin Forks and Shelter Island, not to mention many thousands of Long Island residents from Queens to the East End, are fed up with both aviation operators and their commuters, and are demanding closure of the airport? Ms. Liebman must have been living on a far distant planet to be unaware that aviation noise and dangerous fuel emissions are anathema to the economic future of our upscale resort community. Few flight routes are mandated by the Federal Aviatrion Administration and transition paths can change in the blink of a pilot’s eye. No sane person wants to jeopardize the well-being of their family by living under or near a noisy, polluting aviation highway. Low-altitude fuel emissions produce health-threatening fine particulate matter, invisible to the eye. But if particulate matter were visible, colored bright red or black, the population would not be waiting for a Supreme Court or town board decision on local control of the airport, they would be storming the gates and closing the airport.

Our community has many fine realty groups with knowledgeable brokers who are sensitive to the needs of buyers, sellers, and renters as well as to the needs of residents and to safeguarding our precious already threatened environment. Corcoran appears poorly attuned to what today drives real estate in the Hamptons, has ignored concerns of their local brokers, and disrespected residents the length of Long Island by neglecting to consider the negative aviation impacts of its polluting “partnership” with Blade. This upcoming event is touted by Corcoran as a special event, but it may become a regular event, one that greedy promoters of other services could eagerly emulate. 

By partnering with an unwelcome industry widely viewed by Long Island residents as intrusive and abusive, Corcoran’s C.E.O. has provided those fighting aviation noise and pollution and pushing for closure of KHTO with a priceless advocacy tool, one that could negatively impact Corcoran’s real estate business and, hopefully, help close the airport. 

PATRICIA CURRIE

Disrespectful

Mattituck

April 3, 2017

Dear Editor:

Clearly Corcoran Real Estate has no sense of community by associating themselves with a company that promotes noise and air pollution. Do your real estate agents live in a cave? Are they so clueless as to how noisy and invasive helicopters have become over the years? 

What this marketing strategy actually does is to send a very strong message to other realtors and hotel owners: Be respectful and sensitive to those who surround you and those who are your neighbors. 

Encouraging additional air traffic over our homes and ignoring environmental concerns is blatantly disrespectful. A bad business decision at the “expense” of thousands of Long Island residents. Thanks, neighbor! 

TERESA McCASKIE

Free Helicopter Rides

Southold

April 1, 2017

Dear East Hampton Star,

Thank you for publishing Ms. O’Reilly’s update on free helicopter rides to help Corcoran and Blade make more money encouraging an environmentally disastrous way to commute to the East End that shatters the peace and tranquillity of thousands of North and South Fork Residents. 

I am glad to see The East Hampton Star is providing free advertising so that corporations and wealthy renters (+$150K for the season) are not inconvenienced by traffic or concern for the neighbors. Might I suggest that The Star encourage the copter patrons to employ trickle-down economics and start dropping $20s over our homes so we can pay for the soundproofing of our houses. Perhaps we can also purchase hearing protection should we venture outside. 

Who knows, we might even be lucky enough to have a movie star or Matt Lauer flying overhead. That would certainly make the roar of the helicopters much more tolerable.

L.B. HEIT



The story to which the writer refers appeared online at 27East.com, not in The East Hampton Star. Ed.

Outrageous Concept

East Hampton

April 3, 2017

Dear David, 

The community should be aware that Corcoran Real Estate has made an agreement with Blade Helicopters to provide free rides to “high-end” clients looking for rentals on the East End. If you notice more noise and carbon emissions on Palm Sunday, you can thank Corcoran. 

This is an outrageous concept, and you should let them know!

NAOMI SALZ

Sabotaging Tranquillity

Wainscott

April 2, 2017

Dear David,

The environmental preservation move­ment here took off in the late 1970s when real estate interests recognized that the nicer it was on the East End, the more money they could make. Corcoran Realty didn’t exist here then. That company has reached a new low by soliciting prospective renters to chopper freely out to the East End, thereby sabotaging the tranquillity and unpolluted natural environment of a place they are coming to for its tranquillity and unpolluted natural environment.

We live in an era of international alarm at climate degradation, and scientific proof of the extensive role carbon emissions play in that degradation. Those few who profit from East Hampton Airport (users and operators) live in a dream world where they simply do anything they want with impunity, current and future humans be damned. And our town subsidizes its own degradation.

A question: If aircraft emissions were black, rather than white or invisible, might there be concern about the thousands of tons of pollution being generated each year by an unregulated facility situated on a vast public watershed in one of the most beautiful natural places anywhere? To paraphrase Nietzsche: If East Hampton Airport didn’t exist, would it be necessary to invent it?

BARRY RAEBECK