Express Sessions Will Return to Hampton Bays This Week

The Express Sessions discussion series will return this month to Hampton Bays for a refreshed exploration of myriad issues of concern about looming new development in the hamlet and the various interests that see them as beneficial or potentially disastrous.

Southampton Town’s largest hamlet is facing down the ongoing construction of a gas station off Newtown Road by the Shinnecock Nation, which commenced in the dark of night with no evidence to residents of environmental protection or monitoring protocols.

Beyond it, and just across the street, is also the looming plans by the tribe to build a convention and entertainment center with a 200-room hotel fronting Shinnecock Bay. Residents have demanded that Southampton Town take action to halt the current construction and head off the larger project in the future.

An energy storage company has proposed a battery energy storage system, or BESS, be built on a property off North Road. After nearly granting approval, the Town Board has shelved the project while it conducts a townwide analysis of what conditions and regions would be appropriate for such facilities, which have been beset by fears of threats to human safety sparked by a few well-publicized fires at similar facilities. Residents have said the proposed location, despite being between two highway exit ramps, is too close to residences and should be built in industrial zones.

The town recently approved the Pattern Book, a baseline blueprint for how the hamlet’s downtown could be redeveloped, part of a decade-long effort by the town to revitalize the flagging hamlet center.

Part and parcel with that is a proposal by a private developer to construct a new area of the downtown, just north of Montauk Highway, which is the hamlet’s Main Street. The developer, Alfred Caiola, has said that to truly bring the downtown back to life and make new businesses sustainable, the new development needs more than 100 apartments to be built on second and third floors above retail stores.

Just up the road, the owners of the hamlet’s largest apartment complex, Town & Country, have proposed an expansion, adding another 24 apartments and 11,000 square feet of new commercial storefronts at the western end of the downtown.

In order for any new development to take place in the downtown — especially if is to have residences — the town will need to construct a new sewage treatment plant, on land it has yet to identify. Town officials have said they are looking at a site in the Red Creek Park area as a suitable location, but planning and construction of the facility would still likely take several years.

Also lingering in the wings: the redevelopment plans for the Hampton Bays Diner property and the long-vacant North Fork Bank building, which most recently has been rumored to be eyed for a new cannabis shop.

The panel for Thursday’s discussion will be longtime Hampton Bays resident and town policy hawk Marion Boden; Ray D’Angelo and Gayle Lombardi, the president and director of the Hampton Bays Civic Association; John Leonard, who founded the Hampton Bays Alliance earlier this year as a counter to the Civic Association’s stance on the downtown revitalization effort; and Southampton Town Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara.

The event is being held at Cowfish at noon on Thursday, October 10. Panelists and attendees will be treated to a three-course lunch and a lively discussion on the many, many topics at hand in Hampton Bays. Audience tickets to the event are sold out.

For more information on upcoming Express Sessions events, visit 27east.com.