Town Trustees To Hold Public Hearing On Renting Hampton Bays Property To Neighboring Business

The Southampton Town Trustees will hold a public hearing next week on whether to allow a local bar in Hampton Bays to use a Trustee-owned property as a parking lot.

A resolution before the board would allow Shinnecock Station Inc. to rent a 0.2-acre lot on Shinnecock Road as a parking lot for patrons of The Station Bar, for $500 per month.

The board voted to approve the agreement in April, although it was not official at the time because Trustee President Ed Warner never signed it.

The Trustees unanimously approved a resolution on June 4 that reopened the decision made in April. At that earlier meeting, the Trustees had been listening to members of the public express discontent with the board’s decision to allow a Water Mill homeowner to take over a portion of waterfront property on Rose Hill Road owned by the Trustees in exchange for maintaining the property.

The Hampton Bays lot has been rented to the Station Bar in the past. In fact, the Trustees entered into the same agreement in 2017 after reaching out to the neighboring property owners.

On Thursday, Mr. Warner said back in the 1950s and 1960s, well before he was a Trustee, the property was an open lot where people parked their cars and baymen would tie their boats up to the bulkhead.

When he became a Trustee in 2006, Mr. Warner said, a maintenance crew would go down there regularly and clean up junk and marine debris. The maintenance alone became a nuisance.

On top of the garbage, he added, the motel next door to the property, Bel-Aire Cove, regularly spews effluent into the bay.

“We’re looking at clearing it up and making a small parking area,” Mr. Warner said. “Making it look nice would have a positive spin on the community.”

The public hearing on the matter will be held on Monday, July 16, at 1 p.m. at Southampton Town Hall on Hampton Road in Southampton Village, and will allow neighbors and other members of the public to comment.