Proposed Bridgehampton Horse Farm Clears First Hurdle

If anyone still thought that a horse farm, proposed for a 30-acre open field in Bridgehampton, could be staved off, those thoughts were disavowed on Thursday, September 26, when the Southampton Town Planning Board reviewed a presubmission conference report — a precursor to a formal application — for North Edge Stables II, LLC. The property owner wants to build a facility for up to 26 horses with stables, riding rings, a garage for farm equipment and horse trailers, and employee housing at the corner of Lumber Lane and Scuttle Hole Road.

Wayne Bruyn, the attorney for Gabi Morris, who has proposed the horse farm on the site, told the board his client was requesting a construction permit to build the structures for a horse farm as a matter of right under both town and state agricultural and marketing laws.

Bruyn said the application was similar to applications for Two Trees Farm, Campbell Ranch, and Edge of Woods Stables.

“The Town Board empowered this board to issue construction permits,” Bruyn said. “That’s what you’ve done on all those other horse farms.”

The discussion was interrupted briefly by Charles Platto, a neighbor who opposes the project. He stepped to the podium to argue that Bruyn had made misrepresentations about the nature of the application at a previous board meeting. Planning Board attorney Christine Scalera told Platto public comment was not allowed and urged board members to not engage with him. He was eventually convinced to step away and return to his seat.

The development rights to the property being proposed for the horse farm were purchased by the town in 2001 as part of the Tater Fields subdivision. Board members sought to get assurances that the property would be used for a bona fide agricultural use, and Bruyn told them a horse farm fit the bill.

Board member Glorian Berk said that Morris, at an initial appearance before the board, had said she planned to use the horse farm for her personal horses. “I didn’t hear anything about boarding other people’s horses,” she said.

But Bruyn said boarding horses is a common practice at a private farm and said it could not be considered a public use of the property unless there were plans to offer riding lessons and other activities that brought the public to the site.

Board member Kate Fullam said in the interest of transparency, Morris should provide a business plan, but Bruyn flat out refused, saying any business plan was the property of the business and not a public document, and he again cited other horse farms in the area. “There’s nothing different. These are the same activities,” he said. “We want the same rights and activities as they have.”

Fullam also pressed Bruyn to ask the applicant to do as much as possible to preserve prime agricultural soils on the site, but Bruyn responded that she was asking him to hold his client to a standard that had not been codified by the Town Board, and he pointed out that Edge of Woods Stables, approved in 2012, had more buildings and more horses than this proposal.

“A lot has changed since then, Wayne,” Fullam said.

“Not really, the regulations haven’t changed,” he responded.

But Fullam pushed on, saying it was the board’s duty to consider current factors, and the board’s chairwoman, Jaqui Lofaro, said to not do so would call the very need for a planning board into existence.

Lofaro added that the town’s intent was to protect agricultural soils when it purchased the development rights to the land. “You know this as well as I do that when these easements were done, these were farmers growing food,” she said. “Horse farms were not even on the radar.”

Bruyn said if the board was that concerned about building on agricultural preserves, it should lobby the Town Board to tighten coverage restrictions, which, he noted are in line with residential development.

Before accepting the presubmission report, the board did urge Bruyn to talk to his client about rearranging the layout of the farm to perhaps reduce the total coverage and size of the buildings. The board did not set a date to begin the review of a final plan for the farm.