Citizens group urges town to preserve former motel property in Westhampton

Now that most of the scraps of wood and moldy mattresses have been removed from the former site of the Bailey’s Motel in Westhampton, a group of citizens would like to see the 32-acre property stay the way that it is now—as open space.

“[Building homes] would put an additional strain on the area,” said Janet Beck, a member of the Citizens Advisory Committee-West, whose members represent those living in Westhampton, Westhampton Beach, Remsenburg, Speonk and Eastport. “Rather than having it built on, we’d like to see it preserved as open space.”

The property owner, 6 Pierrepont LLC of Brooklyn, which demolished the 16-room motel and a two-story house on the land in early January, plans to resubmit an application to the Southampton Town Planning Board that seeks to subdivide the land into 32 buildable lots, according to Wayne Bruyn, the Southampton attorney from O’Shea, Marcinuk & Bruyn LLP who is representing the company. He did not know when that would happen, though he previously said he expects his client to file an application with the town in the coming months.

Part of the property, which is bordered by Montauk Highway, Nadine Drive and Old Country Road, is zoned residential and motel. KMT Enterprises, an arm of 6 Pierrepont LLC, wanted to build 32 homes on the land in 2003, but that application fell by the wayside after the company entered negotiations to sell the property to Southampton Town—a deal that never materialized.

The motel and historic home featured on the property were owned by the Bailey family from the 1940s until 2002, when the land was sold to the developer. The motel closed at that time.

Shortly after the buildings were demolished last month, members of the Citizens Advisory Committee-West e-mailed Southampton Town Board members, urging them to buy the land, which Mr. Bruyn says is assessed at about $12.5 million. The group wants the town to make the purchase using money from its Community Preservation Fund, and transform the land into a park with walking trails.

“We’d like something big enough to have a nice walk, or have a bike ride through there,” said Carol Corcoran, a member of the group.

Group members are starting to circulate a petition, which will eventually be forwarded to Town Board members, asking them to consider acquiring the property, according to Hank Beck, the co-president of Citizens Advisory Committee-West.

Members said they hope that a recent influx of new revenue in the CPF will encourage town officials to reexamine possibly buying the old motel property before the large swath of land is lost to development.

After a considerable stretch when they dropped, CPF revenues actually increased during the last eight months of 2009, as compared to 2008 figures, according to New York State Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. In December, the CPF, which is financed by a 2-percent tax on most real estate transactions and used to buy and preserve open space, raked in some $5.66 million in the five East End towns. Each town has its own fund.

Still, the $40.3 million collected in total CPF revenues in 2009 represents a 28.8-percent decline from the $56.6 million that was collected in 2008.

“Money is still coming in,” Ms. Corcoran said. “If we don’t do it now, we’re going to lose the chance.”

Mary Wilson, the administrator of Southampton Town’s CPF, said that the Westhampton property remains on the town’s list of possible land acquisitions. Still, she stressed that there have not been any new discussions on that possibility.

Town officials nearly made a deal to buy the land for $8 million in 2008, but backed out after the economy went sour. Mr. Bruyn said that if the town wants to preserve the land, it needs to approach his clients.

“The town will have to come back to us,” he said.

Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst said she was hopeful that the town could discuss acquiring the property soon, but noted that money needs to be available.

“The Bailey’s Motel property is certainly under consideration for purchase through the CPF,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Hopefully, we will be able to ... talk more definitively about acquiring it sooner rather than later as more money comes into the Community Preservation Fund. But at this point there is nothing further we can do until more funds become available.”

The property owners, meanwhile, are also talking with other developers who are interested in acquiring the land, according to Mr. Bruyn. He declined to name those parties, but said that they are developers from Long Island.

“They are pursuing their own options,” Mr. Bruyn said of his clients. “They’ve had recent interest from developers.”

Mr. Beck said it is “really critical” that the former motel property be preserved. He cited some pending developments that are on his group’s radar, like Serenity estates in Speonk, a project in which Barry Bernstein, the property owner, is seeking to build 60 condominiums over a plume of contaminated groundwater near North Phillips Avenue.

The motel property sits on a hill that overlooks Cook’s Pond in Westhampton, and that makes it an ideal spot for a park, Ms. Beck said. “It’s really a visual gate to the Hamptons,” she said.

Ms. Corcoran, who has been pushing the town to buy the land since the Baileys sold it in 2002 for $5.5 million, said the Westhampton area lacks such a park right now.

“It just seems a shame that we don’t have anything,” she said.