Feb 1, 2012 11:31 AM
Southampton Town officials have taken a significant step toward preserving an environmentally sensitive parcel in Riverside. Last Tuesday, January 24, officials announced the acquisition of a 20-acre parcel located at 60 Whitebrook Drive in Riverside for $175,000 appropriated from the town’s Community Preservation Fund.
The Whitebrook property, which consists of 19.7 acres, is one of the larger purchases made in the Riverside hamlet in recent years. When nine owners of the property expressed an interest in putting the parcel on the market last year, the Town Board authorized the acquisition following a November public hearing.
“It’s a wonderful environmental effort on our part and I support it wholeheartedly,” said Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst.
The parcel, located within the Peconic River Target Acquisition Area, includes a stretch of wetlands that are considered a... more
The Whitebrook property, which consists of 19.7 acres, is one of the larger purchases made in the Riverside hamlet in recent years. When nine owners of the property expressed an interest in putting the parcel on the market last year, the Town Board authorized the acquisition following a November public hearing.
“It’s a wonderful environmental effort on our part and I support it wholeheartedly,” said Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst.
The parcel, located within the Peconic River Target Acquisition Area, includes a stretch of wetlands that are considered a... more
Thank you, Anna and Bridget!
Nice wisecrack. Aside from the fact that CPF has bough a LOT of land West of Southampton, the overwhelming majority of acreage West of Southampton is already developed OR in the Pine Barrens and thus is already preserved. Wouldn't you rather have big lots East of the canal preserved instead of having more McMansions erected?
Show your usual class, ( that is a sincere remark) and point out that this was something the board did as a team without bi-partisan crap involved.
And I would ask, that you provide any evidence that the other town board members were in any way at any time opposed to this, or for that matter any CPF purchase.
Lacking your ability to provide that that: my point exactly, Sir.
Before you elevate this into a scenario wherein you credit Anna and Bridget with saving the "crown jewel" of the east end, please read Nature's postings on this.
The cost to a purchaser of falling in line ...more with DEC restrictions on this property would have been exhorbitant. And if you haven't noticed, folks with that kind of dinero, don't spend it in Riverside. This property never would have sold to anyone who did their research.
Are you now seriously claiming that only the Dems are in favor of land preservation or the CPF fund at all. Because I could take you to school with that one.
Let me see now, can I find where a Republican sponsored the purchase of CPF property? Well I would have to start after the Republicans first sponsored the CPF program to begin with. Then I guess for all those years when the Dems were "locked" out of town hall, it must have been the Republican who sponsored all those purchases I guess. Unless of course you can provide contradictory data?
Either ...more way, unless you post something of any real value, the conversation has grown boring.
Well done IMO.
Also, residentially developed land generally breaks even or costs more in taxes than it brings in (which is why commercial development is so important).
This property would have yielded 1 single family dwelling (despite the acreage) due to severe wetlands constraints (hence the tiny purchase price which is what the property was valued at). Plus, the 9 property owners WILLINGLY sold this to the Town. They made a choice that they wanted this parcel preserved ...more forever and wanted it to protect the natural resources of the Town that makes it such a desirable place to live.
You honestly believe taxes on a vacant parcel whose value is a measly $175,000 makes any noticeable contribution to the tax base? No ones taxes will increase because of this.
Nature I guarantee you if you went to purchase those 20 acres it would have cost you or anyone else way ...more more then 175k regardless what you would or would not be able to build...and you are assuming the sale price to anyone else would have been the same cause if that was the case I would have bought it. These 20 acres would have sold to anyone else other then the town 1.1 million...
Have you spent any measurable amount of time researching the CPF law, the benefits of open space programs, PILOT programs and how local taxes are structured?
The *thousands* of acres that have been purchased by CPF haven't had a noticeable impact on your local Town taxes either. What people (such as yourself) fail to realize is that vacant land pays little in taxes and uses virtually nothing in services (the things the taxes pay for). A developed property requires ...more MORE in services than it pays. Let's take this property for example. Assuming a family of 4 moves in and sends their kids to Riverhead schools the cost to educate those two kids is between $30-40,000/year. The school taxes that property would pay is in the $3-4,000/year range. So developing this property would actually COST the school district ~$35,000/year. And that's just schools - not to mention the costs of police, fire, ambulance, library, highway etc. Residential taxes are subsidized by commercial taxes - vacant, undeveloped properties pay peanuts in taxes. I hope that clears it up for you a bit.
With regards to the price - no, it wouldn't cost $1 million + for "anyone else other than the town". The Town paid the price that it was appraised at. Care to take a guess as to why it was appraised at that price? Lookup the property on Google Earth (first without having the satellite image loaded). See all of the ditches cut on the property? It's all wetlands. Now load the aerial and you can see (especially if you use the "bird's eye view" on bing maps) that the vast majority of the property is wetlands. That means that building a house is extremely difficult and the size of the house would be severely constrained.
Furthermore, the upland portions of the property are surrounded by wetlands, meaning if you were to actually get a permit for this property to build a house, you would have to construct a bridge to get to it - and that bridge would have to be capable of holding a fire truck. The cost of all the permits and and construction of the bridge alone would cost around $150,000. The property owners sold this to the Town because they knew it could not be developed feasibly.
I hope that's enough information for you to realize that perhaps I know what I'm talking about. When people such as yourself get on her and cry wolf and say the sky is falling and, who is paying the taxes? other people who are not educated on CPF think you are right and will never understand the benifts of CPF. Rich people who swap houses like they do cars PAY the town to buy land which we can preserve. And not just wetlands properties like this which are critical to the health and wellbeing of our waterways. It pays for farmland preservation (so you can stop at your local farmstand) and it pays to preserve lands over our sole source aquifer (which provides clean drinking water).
Every piece of land has inherent worth - even land that's underwater. While the 20 acre piece is extremely difficult (and expensive) to develop, it's not impossible. To forever prevent the construction of a home there and the addition of a sanitary system that will negatively impact the Peconic River and Peconic Bay AND to add another piece of land to the incredibly expansive open space system of the Town of Southampton ...more is easily worth $175,000.
If you are such an expert on the purchases of CPF, give me 5 (FIVE) examples of "unbuildable, worthless land" that CPF has bought over the last 5 years. And I'll even let you count this one!
1. Property is in Riverside, not Flanders. If you're so outraged you should get your facts right
2. It's not worthless - it has value, namely sanitary rights. Even though the property is almost exclusively wetlands there are inherent sanitary credits that could be stripped off the land which means the property could never be developed but those credits could be use to develop other properties. ...more Depending on how the yield is calculated and the underlying zoning, this lot likely would have yielded 4 - 5 credits which means 4 - 5 houses could have been built elsewhere in the Town. By having the Town purchase the property (and the development rights), increased development in the Town was prevented. Additionally, TWO appraisers agreed on the price (or very close to it). CPF has to get two certified appraisals before offering a bid.
3. Just because you *THINK* a property is landlocked doesn't mean it is. There could be an existing easement over an adjacent property or an easement can always be created. It's extremely rare that there would be a bona fide landlocked parcel in the Town and even so it still has value because of its sanitary rights and the fact that an adjacent land owner could create an easement or merge the properties.
4. Have you ever stopped at a farmstand? Have you ever ate at a restaurant that used local produce or bought local produce from the grocery store? Where do you think it comes from? our Farms. What County in New York State brings in the most $$$ from agriculture? Suffolk. What happens when all the farms are paved over and covered in lawns? We pay more for food that gets shipped in and we have more development which harms our groundwater.
Keeping slingin' that ignorant mud Chief I'll always prove you wrong.
I mean really, why preserve farms right? who really needs food anyway?
What an ignoramus.
As far as your development theory if it wasn't for city people building and buying homes here we would be unemployed, and our taxes would be much higher. We have our bills payed by out of towners and they use few services.
I'm glad you like the 175k for the underwater property it makes me scratch my head on the stupidy of buying unbuildable property
. The landlocked piece on Old Sag Harbor Rd was offered to me for 400k a year before it was sold. But I guess selling it for nearly three times the price is not an issue. It's always some fool looking at the world from rose colored glasses making their tree hugger comments
How many thousands of years does it take, for rainwater to make it to the aquifer?
"Better living through Modern Chemistry"...