Bridgehampton Gateway Owner Says CPF Purchase Will Not Happen

The idea of using Community Preservation Fund revenues to buy and preserve the proposed Gateway commercial property on Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton—which was broached at Monday’s meeting of the Bridgehampton Citizens Advisory Committee—was quickly shot down by property owner Carol Konner.“I don’t know how many times and how clear I have to be that the property’s not for sale,” Ms. Konner said when reached on Tuesday.CAC Chairwoman Pamela Harwood had said at Monday’s meeting that the Southampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals has not yet received an application for Equinox, a 27,000-square-foot luxury gym proposed for the property on Montauk Highway.Under the Southampton Town code, the maximum size per business on the site is 15,000 square feet. The Equinox is now proposed to be constructed as two buildings, one 13,000 square feet and the other 14,000 square feet. It is up to the town to determine if that plan circumvents the law.Ms. Harwood said that Ms. Konner and Eric Friedlander, who owns part of the acreage, might be willing sellers for the CPF if the town turns down the Equinox plans.“This all may be pie in the sky—it all may not happen—but I just wanted to let everybody know it’s not just nothing,” she said of possibly preserving the 13-acre site as open space, an idea supported by the Bridgehampton CAC, along with Bridgehampton Action Now, a group formed to oppose the Gateway proposal, and the Group for the East End.However, Ms. Konner made it clear in an interview on Tuesday that a CPF purchase would not happen. Plans for the Equinox will move forward, and there has never been a question about that, she said.“I wish they would find something else to focus on,” Ms. Konner said of the CAC’s efforts. “They can do what they want at their meetings.“I had three years of it, I’m done,” she added, referring to a town-initiated proposed planned development district for the property, known as the Bridgehampton Gateway, for which she withdrew her support in May.The PDD proposal would have grouped together several properties for the development, under special zoning approved by the Town Board. Both commercial uses and affordable housing were part of the original proposal. Opponents criticized the plan for its intensity of development.