Letters

Declared “radio silent” last year by Jay Schneiderman, the Full Gospel Church “affordable housing” scheme is now radioactive, thanks to him, Diana Weir and his compliant Town Board [“Southampton Town Board Gives Green Light To 60-Unit Affordable Housing Application,” 27east.com, January 29].

Nothing has changed since the public outcry against this egregious zone-killing attempt to increase density on an inappropriate site under the shifting, catch-all mantra of “affordable housing.” Not the original 60 units on 5 acres, the traffic and safety problems, the tax burden shifted to the actual taxpayers, the population to be imported here, and the many other burdens the community will be forced to bear to house it.

What is meant by “affordable housing” must be scrutinized, locally defined and analyzed in relation to available, existing land. Assuming you’re on a spacecraft looking down at the revolving planet Earth: What is not water is in “need of affordable housing.” Zoom in to the USA: The need for “affordable housing” is desperate. Zoom in to New York State: really bad — urban areas, housing crisis, rich foreigners scarfing up everything. Zoom in to the tiny fingerlings of the end of Long Island: Same as above?

When Mr. Schneiderman and the hustlers and hacks speak glowingly of the “desperate need for affordable housing,” which they are hot to capitalize on by destroying zoning to accommodate developers wearing different hats, they count on you thinking of your sister-in-law’s nephew who wants to “move back here,” and “local demand” for that nice landscaper to move closer to the estate lawns (workforce housing). What is the definition of the buzzword “workforce”? Is it defined by wages? And where is it defined? Ditto for the rest of their blanket concepts.

By law, these 60 units are not for “locals” — they are for anyone in the USA who applies, with only 15 slated for veterans.

After the focus zoomed onto Ralph Fasano of Concern for Independent Living, he has widened his description of his services as “providing workforce and affordable opportunities and support services to those in need.” These “support services,” which include gates, guards and a “building” — for what? — must be closely examined and fully understood. All ignored by Mr. Schneiderman and his board.

For him, it is sufficient to be “for it” because it is in “my neighborhood and my school district.” Mr. Schneiderman is new to the neighborhood and hasn’t been overly concerned with the onerous taxation co-existing with unregulated pockets of slum businesses, nor the relentless push to exploit and “re-purpose” every inch of land that we, his new neighbors, have exhaustively opposed.

It must stop here, even as the parvenu-progressive Realtor Michael Daly is again chanting “shame” and “bigotry” to smear the opposition. Rubber-stamping, obfuscation, shoddy work, opportunism, exploitation: The shame is all theirs.

Frances Genovese

Southampton