Letters

The Southampton Village Board’s proposed “workforce housing” law should be tabled and reworked. As written, it does little to help the people who keep Southampton running — our teachers, nurses, first responders and retail workers — while offering developers a generous new path to overbuild.

During my tenure, I introduced the concept of allowing office-to-residential conversions as part of the village’s Comprehensive Plan, but with a key requirement: 100 percent of the new units would be true workforce housing. That approach was designed to let employees live near the downtown they serve.

Unfortunately, that original plan was rejected by some of the very board members who now present this weakened version as their own.

The current draft would allow office-zoned parcels to convert to residential use and boost density from six units per acre to at least 10. Of those 10 units, only two must be set aside for “affordable” rents, pegged at residents making up to 130 percent of Suffolk County’s area median income, about $214,350 for a family of four. Even a modest unit at that threshold could command roughly $5,360 a month, or $64,305 a year.

On a 1-plus-acre site like Brockett Funeral Home on Hampton Road, that means at least eight luxury condos plus two “affordable” units that remain out of reach for most working residents. That is a developer’s dream, not a workforce solution.

Equally troubling is the process. Major zoning changes have traditionally begun with the Planning Commission, giving residents ample opportunity to weigh in. This proposal has not followed that path. Many neighbors don’t know about this, leaving the public without the open discussion such a significant change demands.

If the village is truly committed to workforce housing, 100 percent of new units on these parcels should be dedicated to workforce households, not just a token fraction. Income limits also must be realistic and tied to what local employees actually can pay.

Note that town voters recently increased the transfer tax by 0.5 percent to support affordable housing. But this law does little to leverage those dollars.

Southampton Village can still get this right. The board should table the proposal, return it to the Planning Commission for genuine public input, and bring back a law that honors the original intent: housing our workforce, not enriching developers.

Jesse Warren

Southampton Village

Warren is a former mayor of Southampton Village — Ed.