CPF Purchase In Amagansett Thwarted By 'Right Of First Refusal'

A plan to preserve land above the Stony Hill aquifer in Amagansett has hit a roadblock, blindsiding and mobilizing environmentalists from Alec Baldwin to State Assemblyman Steve Englebright.

Alexander Peters, who founded the nonprofit organization Amagansett Springs Aquifer Protection in 1987 to safeguard the water supply serving much of East Hampton Town, was poised to sell 7.2 acres to East Hampton Town for $3.6 million. The Town Board had unanimously approved the use of Community Preservation Fund money to make the purchase.

The deal was set to close in September, according to Mr. Peters, who had bought two lots of the three-lot tract roughly 25 years ago from Richard Smolian of La Foret Lane in Amagansett. At that time, Mr. Peters said on Friday, Mr. Smolian retained a right of first refusal, specifically to prevent Mr. Peters from going on to sell the land for development.

But now that right of first refusal is being exercised to enable Mr. Smolian’s family to purchase the property—and develop it, according to Mr. Peters. The property’s market value is millions more than what the town was going to pay.

With the two lots, which total about 4.5 acres, thus encumbered, the town purchase is off the table until the situation between Mr. Peters and Mr. Smolian can be resolved.

“This is the major town conservation work at the moment, to protect the Stony Hill aquifer,” Mr. Peters said, adding that land preservation to protect the aquifer had been stalled through two previous town administrations, while large houses were being built right on top of it. “Until this whole right of first refusal question is taken care of, the title company will not allow the town to purchase the land … this is holding up the whole thing,” he said of the sale of his property, which includes the two lots on La Foret Lane as well as a third, contiguous parcel on Stony Hill Road.

Richard Smolian could not be reached by phone on Friday in Amagansett, and a message left for other members of his family in Manhattan was not returned.

The East Hampton Town supervisor, Larry Cantwell, on Friday indicated that the seller of the land to the town would indeed need clear title, but said he would not comment on “a contract relationship between two private parties,”

Meanwhile, a letter with a dozen signatories composed on Amagansett Springs Aquifer Protection letterhead was to be delivered to Mr. Smolian’s son, Jonathan, in New York City this week. It was copied to The Press, along with a quote from Mr. Baldwin, who has a house in the Stony Hill area of Amagansett and is a board member of Amagansett Springs Aquifer Protection.

“It’s an outrage that the clean drinking water of two-thirds of East Hampton is threatened by greed,” Mr. Baldwin says in the release. “We must stop reckless development of the Stony Hill aquifer.”

The aquifer is, in fact, “a standout water resource recharge area,” Mr. Englebright, who is another one of the signatories, said on Friday. “Generally, the property is part of an area that should be regarded as a reservoir,” said the Setauket-based assemblyman, a geologist and longtime consultant and advocate for groundwater protection on Long Island.

“Because the Town of East Hampton has agreed to buy this critical land for conservation purposes, which we understand was the expressed purpose of your family retaining its right of first refusal, this matter of vital consequence to the community will undoubtedly become an increasingly public one that will focus on the undermining of decades of community efforts—including those of your own family—to protect the precious drinking water that lies beneath the Stony Hill aquifer,” says the letter to Jonathan Smolian.

“We sincerely hope you will consider this issue carefully and choose soon to act in the best interest of the people and resources of East Hampton and Long Island,” it continues.

The letter was also signed by Rameshwar Das, former chair of the East Hampton Waterfront Advisory Committee; Bob DeLuca, president of the Group for the East End; Christopher Goeken, director of public policy for the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund; Susan Harder, founder of the Dark Sky Society; Marjorie Latham of the Accabonac Protection Committee; T. James Matthews, chair of the Northwest Alliance; Betty Mazur, vice chair of the East Hampton Democratic Party; Kevin McAllister, president of Defend H2O; Gordian Raacke, executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island; and Jeremy Samuelson, president of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk East Hampton Environmental Coalition.