Letters

It should be known that the proposed housing on County Road 39 is not for locals. Anyone from around the country can apply, because it’s federal.

It is my understanding that 1,600 applicants are pending. I’m wondering how many locals that includes? The traffic is unbearable in that area, and it is not the right venue for adding 60 units.

I live in a community of 90 homes where our only exit/entrance is County Road 39, across from the Atlantic Hotel, which is a busy corner with uncountable accidents that often close the highway.

This proposed unit will face the same problems. There is no way to make a left turn heading west, and accidents will further add to that congested area, closing the road, forcing the traffic to reroute through the village.

How many road studies need to be done to prove this road is capped out? Our town conducted a road study in 2014, the Highway Corridor Plan, costing the taxpayers $250,000, and it clearly stated that the road should only allow light business.

Elaine Bodtmann

Southampton

Ralph Fasano, executive director at Medford-based Concern for Independent Living, the applicant, said there is currently no waiting list for the project, and that the state eventually may permit the firm to use Southampton Town’s affordable housing waiting list. He added: “Our experience has shown that the vast majority of applications we receive are local. To my knowledge, we have never received an application from outside of New York State, with most coming from the vicinity of the project. Curtis Highsmith Jr., executive director of the Southampton Town Housing Authority, said, “Historically, people have not applied to live in an area where they don’t work, have history or where family is not currently residing.” He said the town’s housing lotteries and waiting lists have shown that fewer than 3 percent of applicants reside west of Brookhaven Town, and many of those are people looking to move “back to the area they were forced to move from because of the lack of affordable residential units.” He said the idea of people applying from around the country to live in local affordable housing “is not supported by any factual data” — Ed.