PDDs: A Continual Blunderbuss

Since the adoption of the 1999 Comprehensive Master Plan, when the planned development district (PDD) replaced the much-abhorred quasi public use service district, Southampton Town has been continuously mired in conflict and contentiousness over proposed PDD submissions.Considered a planning tool allowing for creativity in establishing alternative uses prohibited in zoning districts having specific bulk area and use regulations, the PDD has pitted local citizens against the Town Board as well as developers whose grand ambitions have shown a blatant disregard for preserving the character of the township.

When a PDD is approved by the Town Board, the applicant is required to provide mitigation in the form of community benefits in exchange for proceeding with a project that clearly deviates either in terms of density or usage from codified zoning requirements. These community benefits come in various forms such as a lump sum payout for pine barrens credits (PBCs) used for open space acquisition; underground or overhead utilities and water main extensions; conservation easements; and special agency and trust accounts for land acquisition to protect groundwater or wildlife habitat as well as parks and recreation and historic preservation. Other community benefits have also included the donation of a 3-acre Peconic Bay parcel for a town park and the dedication of a 54-acre nature preserve at the former Bayberry Land estate, now the site of the Sebonack Golf Course. Clustered subdivisions are also allowed, and with the majority of the land preserved on a tract, development rights can either be sold or transferred.

The problem with community benefits has to do with the fact that the allocation of benefits is purely subjective and citizens who live in the neighborhoods affected have little or no say as to what is or is not appropriate. When the Sebonack Mixed Used PDD was approved, Michael Pascucci, the owner of the property, commented that the town didn’t even ask him for things that would have truly benefited the local citizenry—like a public walking trail along the edge of the property. All of this PDD mitigation money, which is routinely used for land acquisition, should really be coming out of the Community Preservation Fund. Community benefits derived from PDDs in other municipalities are benefits that the community can really enjoy.

Furthermore, the town hasn’t been able to do a good job of keeping track of monies extracted from developers. In June of 2010, for example, Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst initiated a walk-on resolution that would have purloined the entire $500,000 out of the Sebonack PDD preservation trust account, dedicated solely for historic preservation projects, and used this money for the purchase of the Katie Press property for affordable housing in Tuckahoe. When Councilwoman Nancy Graboski heard about it she introduced a resolution to overturn the supervisor’s resolution and consequently avoided what would have been a real debacle for the Town Board.

Even now, the Town Board is still scrambling over what to do with the rest of the Sebonack trust account for parks and recreation. They called for a public meeting last month and gave such short notice that it seemed very clear that public input is not something wanted on this subject.

Compared to other municipalities Southampton falls somewhere in the middle in terms of PDD regulations, and yet the code itself is loosely written, which enables the players to simply make it up as they go along—a-seat-of-the-pants invention so to speak. It is interesting to note that PDDs were originally devised in order to provide affordable housing in distressed areas around the country as opposed to facilitating high-end condos in luxury resorts. While the town has cleaned up its act a little by requiring pre-submission reviews of proposed PDD applications in the fetal state, its overarching raison d’être for allowing PDDs just doesn’t pass the litmus test. The use of the PDD violates, for instance, the very smart growth principles that the town touts by entertaining the idea of downsizing in areas such as Tuckahoe that cannot provide the infrastructure for all the increased density that multiple PDDs will bring.

While it is commendable to provide rental housing for middle-class residents, the idea of doing it in PDD “projects” like Sandy Hollow Cove doesn’t fit with the smart growth notion of keeping this sort of housing near hamlet centers. With all the vacant town-owned lots in this township it wouldn’t be hard to build small two- to four-unit houses, not overburdening any one neighborhood or school district while also eliminating the perceived stigma of living in affordable housing. The Sandy Hollow Cove PDD affordable housing project is the poster child for a banal, contemptible project whose architectural design reads as military base housing for transients. To refer to these buildings as “Manor House” and “Barn” just adds a level of disbelief and contempt to an already pathetic design. With Sandy Hollow Cove the Town Board has now established a pernicious precedent paving the way to legitimizing the Brookhavenization of Southampton.

So why are there so many problems with successive administrations and Town Boards regarding PDDs? First, Town Board members rarely have training in architecture, land use planning, engineering, landscape architecture, archaeology and other professional disciplines needed to oversee the evaluation of a PDD. It’s even questionable as to whether or not they can even read the very plans on which they are passing judgment. Second, elected politicians often receive donations from developers, so there is always a question of conflict of interest when it comes to voting on the passage of PDDs. Given their unenviable lack of training and a perceived conflict of interest, wouldn’t it be better to have a PDD board, much like the zoning and planning boards, which would be composed of individuals with training in the professional disciplines related to PDD review? A board like this could hold public hearings on a PDD and make determinations accordingly.

Lately, however, this particular Town Board seems to have crossed a line, particularly with the last Sandy Hollow Cove PDD hearing. As if expecting something incendiary aside from the verbal castigations by citizens, Supervisor Throne-Holst had uniformed police officers present with guns in tow in the Town Board meeting room. After the supervisor characterized one vociferous member of the audience as being in disorder, the police approached her and insisted that she sit down. To threaten a citizen at a public hearing, whose constitutional right to free speech was being challenged, not only showed poor judgment but also served to inflame an already acrimonious situation.

The Town Board seems to hide behind the Comprehensive Master Plan in its self-righteous justification of the use of PDDs in much the same way as some people hide behind the Bible—only certain passages are used when it’s convenient. What they seem to forget, first and foremost, is that the visioning studies for the Comprehensive Plan indicated that the thing most important to the community is the preservation of the rural regional character of Southampton Town. This will never happen so long as PDDs are allowed to remain as an excuse for a spot zoning mechanism in the Town Code. It’s time to finally strike them out of the code, as they are tearing Southampton to shreds in every way imaginable.

Anne Surchin is an East End architect and co-author with Gary Lawrance of “Houses of the Hamptons 1880-1940.”