Letters

Your article “Opposition To North Sea Condo Plan Crowds Zoom Hearing” [27east.com, December 22] describes the backlash of neighbors to the application before the Planning Board for a 120-unit condo development in the bucolic hamlet of North Sea.

I attended the public hearing via Zoom on December 15 and was impressed to find that 100 residents were already waiting in line to speak in opposition to this awful plan, and approximately 300 residents had already sent opposition letters to the Planning Board.

Also this week, a Wall Street Journal article, “Home Builders Face Shortage of Land Sites” (December 26), began with: “Amid the biggest housing boom in years, home builders are worried they are running out of land.” Of course they are. We are all losing precious open space where there was once farmland or undeveloped fields and woods. Developers are at our doors wishing to cram as much as they can onto any sized property. And they are, too frequently, successful at doing so.

And, yes, there also seems to be no shortage of buyers willing to snap up these oversized and out-of-character homes. But that, in my opinion, is why we need our Southampton Town Board, the Planning Department, the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals to amend what is allowable in our building codes, to enforce the codes, and to eliminate variances except in a handful of extreme cases.

That is also why Southampton Town needs to designate more historic districts, buildings and homes. Bridgehampton, for example, does not yet have an historic district; more and more of our historic homes are being torn down and replaced with oversized houses with pools and tennis courts on modest-sized properties on busy back roads.

In Bridgehampton, there are increasing numbers of up to 7,000-square-foot homes with up to seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms being built on half-acre or smaller lots, many in the Aquifer Protection Overlay Districts.

I applaud the North Sea neighbors who have mobilized to try to stop the 120-unit condo application, as it is not just their hamlet that is at risk; rather, it is all of the unincorporated hamlets in Southampton Town.

I agree with the North Sea neighbors who say they bought their properties with the expectation of the country atmosphere in the area and now feel that is endangered.

Pamela Harwood

Bridgehampton

Ms. Harwood is the chair of the Bridgehampton Citizens Advisory Committee — Ed.