Letters

Supervisor Maria Moore and the Southampton Town Board seem to be rocking on the rickety fence that Ralph Fasano and Tommy John Schiavoni have constructed to underpin an approval of Liberty Gardens. Though not in an enviable situation — which the former supervisor imposed on them by his last-minute “special meeting,” which left Fasano in control of timing of the vote — they have had ample time to see that nothing has changed from the initial misrepresentations spewed by Fasano and Jay Schneiderman, nor the serious concerns of the public.

The optics of Supervisor Moore, in colloquy with Mr. Fasano, his lawyer and Councilman Schiavoni, and the exclusion of the rest of the board, are troubling to many of the people who elected them, not least because of their strong pre-election opposition. Now they are teetering toward the developer and his lobbyists (among them, former Town Councilwoman Bridget Fleming).

An independent, conscientious board would not allow the developer to sidestep SEQRA, waive myriad studies and reports, preempt the county traffic study, ignore the master plans of town and village and the Tuckahoe Corridor Study to limit the identified problems.

The compelling reasons for denying Liberty Gardens are that it answers no need for “supportive apartments” in Southampton; it can double in size; it is not affordable, local housing; it is the worst possible location on a dangerous, over-burdened road; it will drain local services and tax the police with heightened criminality (last Saturday, a random, unprovoked stabbing of a tourist in Times Square by someone identified as “living in a supportive housing apartment nearby”).

The Town Planning Board adamantly told the developer to “find another place for it.” And they just denied an application for the Farrell medical building on the site directly across from Liberty Gardens because it did not address the Liberty Gardens traffic study. But not to worry — Mr. Fasano has solved the traffic problems ahead of the county.

The supervisor and the board shouldn’t assume the public will be gulled by a feigned reluctance posing as due diligence, nor any pat rationale, like “the ‘housing crisis’ is immediate” and “the newly minted Traffic Mitigation Task Force will provide long-term solutions further on down the line …”

The Tuckahoe Corridor Study (1993) identified pressing issues to address “public concern” about County Road 39: increased traffic, safety, burden on quiet residential streets, as well as what the future would portend due to burgeoning development of highway strip businesses due to zoning and increasing curb cuts. Subsequent town boards have heeded these warnings from 1993 by increasing highway strip businesses, increasing curb cuts and increasing special exception uses.

Unfortunately, we have heard it all. And we all are suffering from it.

Frances Genovese

Southampton