Golf Resort Hearing Closes and Vote Looms, Despite Objections From Southampton Planning Board Chair

Planning Board Chairwoman Jacqui Lofaro asked the question, gesturing for someone to come up from the Southampton Town Hall audience, as a nearly two-hour public hearing on the Lewis Road Planned Residential Development drew to a close on Thursday, September 22:

“Who sent us courage?”

With board members Glorian Berk and Kate Fullam absent from the proceedings, she was the sole voice of dissent, as colleagues, led by Vice Chairman Dennis Finnerty, voted to close the proceedings, while leaving open a 30-day window for written comment from the public.

Finnerty and Lofaro were the only members at the dais who’d been there through the years-long process with the application, which looks to develop some 600 acres in the Pine Barrens in East Quogue with a luxury golf resort, the largest proposal considered in the Town of Southampton in 30 years.

Lofaro balked at closing the hearing on the complicated and controversial plan because closing the hearing and public comment period starts an “action deadline” clock. According to Deputy Town Attorney Christine Scalera, both town code and town law provide the Planning Board has to take action with 62 days at the end of the public hearing.

“In context, the word ‘action’ means to either approve, disapprove or approve with conditions/modifications,” Scalera wrote in response to an email request for clarification. “During that time, it is really up to the board how they choose to proceed/deliberate, and whether or not they will amend or supplement their findings statement before rendering a decision.”

Board members may request an extension of the action deadline from the developer, Arizona-based Discovery Land Company.

“We are going to look at the whole process, the viability of the process,” Lofaro said.

“I would hope you would,” attorney Wayne Bruyn said, speaking on behalf of the applicant, Discovery Land Company. He noted the board is “bound” by a preliminary approval granted in 2019. Back then, Lofaro and Berk voted to deny that application but were outvoted.

The attorney noted the approval was challenged by opponents in a legal proceeding that was dismissed. The dismissal, however, was on the issue of “standing.”

The court determined that the petitioners, including State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and the Group for the East End, didn’t actually reside close enough to the development to suffer injury. An appeal was filed.

Opponents have raised a panoply of objections to the development, which debuted under the title “The Hills” as a request made to the Town Board for a zone change to a planned development district. That proposal underwent a comprehensive review as required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act but was ultimately denied, prompting a $100 million lawsuit by Discovery Land against town officials.

The plan was subsequently resurrected as the Lewis Road Planned Residential Development. And though it changed — and was under Planning Board purview — town officials allowed the earlier SEQRA analysis to stand for the new application.

Approved at the preliminary level, the proposal went to the Central Pine Barrens commission for review, where opponents repeatedly objected to the notion that the SEQRA analysis prepared for The Hills could be applied to Lewis Road Planned Residential Development. The commission didn’t support that objection and approved the plan, sending it back to the Planning Board for final approval with more changes.

Opponents this week brought forth, once again, a laundry list of why the project should be denied, or at least undergo a more thorough review of new aspects and environmental impacts.

They say it relies on an examination undertaken by the Town Board, which has no jurisdiction under the current review by the Planning Board; it removes promised community benefits required as environmental mitigation methods under the PDD, a zoning tool that has since been repealed; it calls for a commercial complex far larger than the limited golf course and maintenance buildings allowed by the Zoning Board of Appeals in an approval that is also the subject of litigation; and inside the proposed clubhouse are residential units in violation of the town code, which prohibits housing in accessory structures.

The application lists the Town Board as the lead agency, fails to adequately protect water resources by moving golf course holes closer to Weesuck Creek, and sites a sewage treatment plant closer to homes on Spinney Road and the creek, with required affordable units placed between the treatment plant and golf maintenance buildings.

A revised access should be reviewed by a traffic engineer, and earlier on the day of the hearing, the board discussed hiring a consultant to review it. And, finally, mention was made that the majority of the Planning Board members are new appointees who have not had adequate time to learn the lengthy and often convoluted history of the plan.

“It’s a mess,” Anne Algeri of East Quogue declared, calling for denial during this week’s public hearing.

Supporters list a much-needed economic infusion for the community and argue the project has not changed substantially since The Hills plan came to the fore. In fact, Discovery Land representatives have called it a better, more environmentally protective plan.

Speaking to planners earlier this summer, Bruyn asserted that since the earlier iteration, the project has been modified to provide further protection to the environment and significant mitigation of potential environmental impacts.

“It’s more of a positive application,” the attorney argued.

Changes to the plan are “very beneficial to the environment,” Carrie O’Farrell of the consulting firm Nelson Pope Voorhis affirmed during the July 28 work session. They result in what she deemed “more compact development,” with greater preservation of contiguous open space. She predicted the completed project will look and feel different from the classic emerald green golf course and sprawling estate homes.

The residential units were clustered more tightly, and course holes were moved to offer more open space — 433 acres of it. While the overall size of the property increased by 20 acres since the earlier approval, the applicant is not requesting any additional yield of units — they could have four more per the town code.

The required 12 units of workforce housing would be available to anyone who goes through the town’s affordable housing process, Bruyn explained.

Closing the hearing for in-person or Zoom comment Thursday night, Lofaro encouraged community members to submit written comments to the board. “They’re very helpful,” she said the following morning.

She acknowledged the project and its history are very complicated and could be confusing.

“It started out as one thing and morphed into something else. That’s why it’s confusing. It deserves scrutiny.”

Discovery Land is looking to construct 118 units, an 18-hole private golf course and other private recreational facilities on 588 acres, 65 percent of which would be open space, in the Central Pine Barrens Overlay District and Aquifer Protection Overlay District.

Submitted at the beginning of this year, the application for final approval breaks the 118 units down: eight clubhouse units, 15 village cottages, 53 village lots, 16 village estates, and 26 woodland estates. There are also an additional 12 workforce housing units planned, for a total of 130 residential units.

Also proposed are a recreational complex, fitness center, community pool and clubhouse, plus the golf course, all as on-site amenities for the exclusive use of the site’s residents. The plan increases open space set aside to 72.67 percent.

The site is land located generally north and east of Lewis Road in the vicinity of Spinney Road and extending north to and beyond Sunrise Highway in East Quogue.