The Southampton School District plan to purchase a $2.3 million house on Narrow Lane, across the street from the high school, to use for new administrative offices likely will sidestep a typical review by the Southampton Village regulatory boards.Since the property would be owned by the district, which falls under state rules, variances that would normally need to be obtained from the village may not be necessary.“A school district is exempt from certain variances, so depending on what the variance would be, would determine if we need one or not,” Superintendent Dr. Nicholas Dyno said on Friday.School board members agreed to enter into a contract to purchase the 4,700-square-foot home at 50 Narrow Lane in February, after weighing options that included building new ones where the current administrative offices have been since 1971—in a 5,000-square-foot trailer beside the intermediate school on Leland Lane.District officials say that building new offices on Leland Lane would cost nearly $5.5 million, to which $420,000 would have to be added to lease 4,000 square feet of space for three years while construction is under way, making the total closer to $5.9 million. In purchasing the house and modifying it to fit the administration’s needs, the district would save nearly $400,000.District voters will have the ultimate say on May 15, when there will a referendum on whether to dedicate $5.4 million—which the district already has set aside in a capital reserve fund—to the purchase and renovations. The district has made a $115,00 deposit on the purchase from John Pace Jr. and Donna Marie Pace, which could be refunded if residents vote down the referendum.The property at 50 Narrow Lane would cost $2.3 million to buy, but additional costs—gutting and refitting it as office space, outfitting it with a lift to make it accessible to the handicapped, paving parking spaces, and installing a new HVAC and sanitation system—increase the price tag to more than $5.4 million. The total cost, according to school officials, also includes fees for legal, consulting, engineering and planning services. Once completed, the building will be 7,200 square feet.Some neighboring property owners have voiced concerns about parking, building entry points, whether the building is going to change, if the building is going to be illuminated late at night and whether there will be parking in place of a swimming pool now located behind the house.Dr. Dyno said the exterior of the building is not going to change. He added that four parking spots would go in the back, with additional parking on the school side of Narrow Lane, between the northernmost football field goal post and the firehouse on the corner of Hampton Road and Narrow Lane.To address the concerns of neighbors, he said, he is in the process of setting up a meeting to try to clarify what is going on. “People hear all kinds of rumors in Southampton, so people want the facts,” he said.The most recent attempt to find a new home for the administrative offices was in 2016, when district officials proposed the purchase of two properties on Hampton Road. The district sought authorization from voters to spend up to $7.75 million from the capital reserve fund, which was created in 2009 to set aside funds for acquiring property.The plan was to buy the existing building at 300 and 310 Hampton Road and install the district offices there, moving them from the trailers. District officials had stressed that approval of the move would not affect property taxes, because the district had $8.2 million in the reserve fund already—money specifically set aside to fund a new office. Still, voters rejected the proposal in May 2016.
Greg Wehner on Mar 7, 2018