Resident Circulates Petition Challenging Proposed Canoe Place Inn Project

A Shinnecock Hills woman has taken her fight against the proposed Canoe Place Inn redevelopment project in Hampton Bays viral by circulating an online petition against the development—one that tallied roughly 350 signatures in four days.

Hope Sandrow, a vocal opponent of the maritime planned development district, or MPDD, launched the petition on the website change.org on Saturday afternoon and shared it with her fellow opponents, who then broadcast it via email and social media. According to the website, 22 of the first 348 signatures came from people who identified themselves as residents of Hampton Bays, with many others claiming residence in Southampton, Sag Harbor, New York City and various other municipalities, some of them in other states.

“I basically put all the facts together and had a colleague of mine edit the petition before I sent it out,” Ms. Sandrow said Monday morning. “I posted it Saturday afternoon, and by 7 o’clock there were over 50 people who signed on.”

Ms. Sandrow said she would like to see the would-be developers, Gregg and Mitchell Rechler of R Squared LLC Real Estate Partners, turn their property along the east side of the canal into a park, with bike and kayak rentals as well as outdoor cafés, rather than building 37 townhouses, which they are calling for in the MPDD application. If granted the necessary change of zone by the Southampton Town Board, the Rechlers also would renovate the Canoe Place Inn into a functioning inn and catering hall.

In her petition, Ms. Sandrow criticized the proposed plan for encroaching upon wetlands, adding groundwater pollution and robbing the public of access to the canal.

Jim Morgo, a spokesman for the Rechlers, said he is concerned that Ms. Sandrow is spreading misinformation through her petition. “People signed the petition based on false information,” he said. “The narrative on the petition is fraught with one inaccuracy after another inaccuracy, and I really recommend folks go to the [Southampton Town] website, which is about as transparent as any website I’ve ever seen, or talk to the Town Planning Department to get the facts.”

Ms. Sandrow’s petition raised several issues with the Rechlers’ proposal, including that the development would cut off long-standing public access to the Shinnecock Canal. She also maintains that the proposal does not address stormwater runoff into the canal, that the Rechlers have no landscaping plan, and that buildings will be torn down on both sides of the canal. Mr. Morgo contends that all of these points are inaccurate.

According to the final environmental impact statement, or FEIS, which is posted in its entirety on the Southampton Town website, less than half of the canalside property will be landscaped, and 18.3 percent of that parcel of land will have fertilizer-dependent vegetation. A drainage reserve area also will be provided on the canal property to capture and recharge stormwater runoff, according to the document. The FEIS also promises a full and detailed landscape plan upon Town Board approval of the project.

Mr. Morgo said no buildings will be torn down on the Canoe Place Inn property. He also noted that currently there is no public access on the east side of the canal, and previous access was limited to customers of the Tide Runners restaurant. At a public hearing on the MPDD Tuesday night, the Rechlers announced they would be offering a 220-foot floating dock along the canal that would be open to the public.

Ms. Sandrow said she doesn’t consider any of the so-called public benefits offered by the Rechlers—including the floating dock, the renovation of the Canoe Place Inn, an underground protective barrier running along the western side of the canal, an easement of land for a hiking trail, and cash—to be worth the trade-off.

In particular, Ms. Sandrow has spoken out against the proposed restructuring of the Newtown Road and North Road intersections with Montauk Highway. The Rechlers have offered to create T-shaped intersections at both crossroads, removing the current layout, which includes winding entrance ramps separated by large medians. Ms. Sandrow, who said she traverses the area frequently, maintains that the medians provide her a sense of safety and help ease the merging of traffic onto Montauk Highway.

“They don’t understand that it’s dangerous and everybody likes the medians between the turns,” she said. “We need those medians, we need those buffer zones to give us protection as we’re turning on and off Montauk Highway.”

Suffolk County Department of Public Works Commissioner Gil Anderson said his staff has been looking at those intersections for the past couple of years, and though they are not on his department’s official schedule of projects, he expects they would have been changed to “T” intersections within the next five years.

“The more complex the intersection, the more a driver has to look around to see all the traffic movements,” Mr. Anderson said. “By bringing it to one intersection, it makes it easy to see the traffic from both directions. Simplifying the intersection makes it easier and safer to traverse.”

Mr. Anderson said often when a development is constructed and causes an increase in traffic flow, the developer must pay an impact fee to help cover the cost of upgrading the roads, meaning the Rechlers might have been required to pay the cost of restructuring the intersections anyway. However, the traffic study conducted by engineering firm Nelson and Pope that was included in the FEIS projects a decrease in traffic on the canal property compared to the previous uses, which included two restaurants, a bait and tackle shop, and a private residence.

Mr. Morgo said the Rechlers were not required to pay for the improvements but rather are doing so electively.