Fowler Farm Subdivision in Southampton Village Is Still Before Planning Board, Frustrating Owner

For the past nearly two years, a proposed plan for a seven-lot subdivision with an agricultural reserve at 560 Wickapogue Lane on 28 acres of former farmland owned by the Fowler family has been before the Southampton Village Planning Board.

At the latest board meeting on July 1, the Fowler family’s attorney, John Bennett, and Rick Fowler expressed frustration that the process has dragged on for so long, urging the board to provide them with more clarification about what they need to do so that the plan can move forward to the next steps.

Despite the frustrations, the back-and-forth has been cordial, and Chairman Mark London said the board members were “comfortable or very close to being comfortable” on certain issues that have been brought up over the course of many months into the plan. A few questions remain regarding the agricultural easement, although Bennett said it is the most restrictive agricultural easement he’s ever drafted.

Issues that have come up frequently have been providing access to Phillips Pond, which borders the southern end of the property, and providing open vistas to the agricultural reserve, which accounts for 25 percent of the area of land, in the northeast corner.

Fowler spoke at the meeting and expressed his and his family’s perspective on the proposed plan and what has been a drawn out process for approval. The family will continue its privet hedge farming operations on its adjacent remaining farmland in the area.

The board ultimately decided to adjourn to the July 15 meeting before voting on approval that would allow the process to continue on to seeking SEQRA approval and working with the Suffolk County Health Department, the next steps in the process.

“We’re almost two years into this, and we can’t keep kicking this down the road,” Fowler said. “It’s been a great deal of time and money to hear, ‘Oh, let’s deal with this later.’ I don’t like that.

“This agricultural easement we’ve proposed, the [Long Island Farm Bureau] has looked at it and given us advice, and there’s a lot of useful things in there. From our standpoint, we’re not far off, unless you guys say we are. So we need guidance here.

“We’re trying to do the best for the land and the community, and to preserve what we have,” Fowler continued. “We’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to preserve our right to farm. I want to farm, I want to preserve this, but I also want my family to have the option to do whatever is the right thing at the time. I don’t want my family’s hands tied.”

The board authorized its attorney, John Bourquin, to start drafting a resolution to approve the preliminary plan, contingent on language in the agricultural easement being finalized, but London still said it would be very optimistic to expect a vote on July 15.

He did say, however, that once the preliminary plan is approved, the process should start to speed up, mainly because, after so many months of back-and-forth, the board now has a “death grip” on the issues at hand.

“My view is that when we get to the next step, things can go quickly, because everybody is already up to the curve,” he said. “I think the most challenging hurdles are the details and specifics of the agricultural reserve document and the language, and I think that will be difficult to reach agreement on between now and the 15th.”