Hampton Life Owner Proposes Building Affordable Housing on East Hampton High School Grounds

The owner of an East End magazine is looking to construct multiple affordable housing complexes for East Hampton Town business workers, and has asked the East Hampton School District to build one of them on 40,000 square feet of land on the northerly edge of the high school campus, to house district teachers and employees.

Kirby Marcantonio, who owns the publication Hampton Life, said Superintendent of Schools Adam Fine suggested building one-, two- and three-bedroom units on the property that fronts Cedar Street after he met with the publisher to discuss the district’s needs.

“If you were to approve this offer, we would handle all aspects of the project,” Marcantonio said during Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting, where he presented the trustees with his plans. “We would work with the town and all allied agencies to secure permits. We would oversee construction, obtain New York State approval of the offering plan, sell the units to any outside groups and close the sales.”

Marcantonio said according to his plan, the district boasts roughly 3 acres between the road and the rear of the last ballfield on that side of the high school. Currently, half of that land is occupied by the maintenance and grounds facilities, buildings and parking.

His plan, Marcantonio said, is to use roughly an acre for four one-bedroom, eight two-bedroom and eight three-bedrooms units that would collectively take up 13,000 square feet. An additional 5,000 square feet would be for parking, with the remaining 20,000 square feet devoted to a nitrogen-reducing septic system and open space.

Marcantonio said the estimated price tags for the homes would be $375,000 for one-bedroom units, $475,000 for two-bedroom units and $575,000 for three-bedroom units.

“If you do not need all 20, I would suggest asking both the Springs and Amagansett districts if they would want any,” the magazine owner said. “From discussions I’ve had with them, I think the answer may well be yes. The same can be said of the Ross School. I also think this is a perfect place for [Stony Brook] Southampton Hospital or any other local health care facility workers. The Town of East Hampton itself may very well be interested, too.”

But Board Vice President Christina DeSanti said if the district were to move forward with the plan, she would only want the housing to be for district workers.

“I would say I do not want to see the school become a landlord for anyone other than school employees, if we were to go down this road,” she said. “I think the hospital has a huge campus where they can build their own housing.”

Marcantonio said he initially began discussions with the town over a year ago. Working with Chris Kelly of Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin & Quartararo LLP, who was also in attendance at the board meeting on July 11, the pair met with myriad town planning and housing department members.

“They all agreed this was a pressing, even existential threat to the fabric of this community, but no one had a plan,” Marcantonio said of the affordable housing crisis. “So we created one.”

The publisher said he is also currently devising a plan to build 30 or more units on a 5-acre parcel north of Montauk Highway on Daniels Hole Road.

“There may be another 7 acres next door that the town also owns that we will ask them to contribute to the cause. But even so, considering the needs of the area, that’s barely a dent in the demand,” Marcantonio said.

“Currently, renting a home, if you can find one, is a $5,000-to-$6,000-a-month item. Owning a home starts at $1 million plus. In either case, unaffordable for 95 percent of the employees east of the Shinnecock Canal.”

The magazine owner said he’s seen restaurants close for one or two days per week in-season, businesses that have had to turn away work because there aren’t enough hands to help and, after talks with recently departed Chief Administrative Officer Robert Chaloner, said he knows Stony Brook Southampton Hospital has lost “key staff” because of housing issues.

“As impactful as that is on Main Street businesses, those that employ the most essential workers — doctors and nurses, teachers, police and even town workers — are in the same boat, unable to hire new workers to fill key positions,” Marcantonio said. “There is currently no doctor in their Montauk or Amagansett facilities, and their Wainscott staff is under increased pressure. Looking ahead, they plan to open their new emergency room in East Hampton, but have few staff to actually work there. This is not a problem, it is a crisis.”

The East Hampton School District faces similar issues, with roughly 25 percent of teachers and staff, Fine said, spending an hour or more per day commuting to and from work. And with more approaching retirement age, the challenges of filling positions, he said, will only increase.

“As someone who has lived here almost my whole life — a proud member of the East Hampton High School Class of 1970 — I realized that something had to be done,” Marcantonio said. “And with a background in real estate and town planning prior to my career in publishing, I felt there were things that could be done.”

The Hampton Life owner said the project itself wold be privately built with no public subsidies or grants, and reemphasized that the units would be built expressly for the use of town companies. None would be second homes or Airbnbs, he said, and no subletting would be allowed.

“Leaving aside the dire need for this kind of housing, given you are a school district, we feel strongly that your status will make overall approvals easier than with privately-owned land, and given the end-users will be teachers, health care workers and even town employees, we feel confident public sentiment for this project will be overwhelming,” Marcantonio said.

DeSanti said it will not be that simple, stressing the need for State Education Department approval.

“It’s not as easy as you think. That kind of offsets the ease of the zoning,” she said. “The school would need to buy the property — we cannot sell houses privately on our land — the school develops land and leases back. We have a lot to discuss.”

Fine suggested the next step would be discussing the idea with members of the district’s housing committee, who can come back and inform the board on more specific details.

“Working together, we can prove that given enough hard work and vision, we can offer opportunities for the people who make this town work to actually live here and enjoy this beautiful area,” Marcantonio said. “Of course, there will be hurdles to overcome — all new ideas come with doubters — but I believe, firmly, this is the right time, the right place and the right idea to begin solving a problem that threatens to cripple this town.”