When County Road 39 was widened two years ago, going from a gridlocked roadway to a more adequate four-lane stretch of highway, Southampton Town officials realized that the potential for increased traffic capacity along the corridor would need to be managed and studied.
The preliminary findings of a land use plan of County Road 39 recommends that the town undertake various zoning-related changes calling for reduced building sizes along the road and new setbacks, requiring features such as green space and trees, and defining the number, placement and design of allowable curb cuts on properties. The recommendations are meant to complement an overall set of design guidelines in what the town would like to see along the corridor to improve the aesthetics of the area—speaking to parking, building and landscape design.
Assistant Town Planning and Development Administrator Freda Eisenberg, along with town officials and consultants, unveiled the preliminary findings of that study, called the County Road 39 Corridor Land Use Plan, to members of the Southampton Town Board at a work session last week.
The town used two consultants to help conduct the land use study, in conjunction with an advisory committee that is made up of community and town representatives. The consultants are Cashin Associates, of Hauppauge, and ADL III Architecture Architects & Town Planners, a group that has offices in Westhampton Beach and Northport.
Ms. Eisenberg, the project manager, did not immediately know the cost of the study, and referred the question to another town employee, Kim Davis, who did not return calls seeking comment on Tuesday.
The study area includes the length of County Road 39, from the point where Sunrise Highway becomes County Road 39, near the Lobster Inn, to the intersection with Montauk Highway at Flying Point, Ms. Eisenberg said this week. The draft of the study is expected to be released sometime early next year.
Some of the recommendations include decreasing the building size from 15,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet for properties that fall under the current zoning along the road, which would apply to highway business district and office district zones, according to the presentation. Setback lines would be refined if the recommendations were enacted, requiring that buffers between commercial and residential properties along the road be heavily planted.
The preliminary suggestions address non-conforming uses of properties along the highway. Nonconforming uses are those that have been grandfathered in from previous zoning designations. The land use study is recommending guidelines that would promote the expiration of nonconforming uses. Under the recommendations, if enacted, owners of properties would not be permitted change from one nonconforming use to another. They would also be prohibited from expanding nonconforming uses. Under another recommendation, property owners would be required to reduce their allowable expansion under the nonconforming use by 25 percent. Also, the study recommends that any new site plans with nonconforming uses would have to be brought into conformity.
The study also includes a list of recommendations for design standards and guidelines. The goal of those guidelines is to reinforce the proposed regulations in the study, according to the presentation. Such guidelines speak to the aesthetics of development along the corridor—building placement and orientation, landscaping, parking, best practices for storm water management and architectural style.
The study also attempts to recommend ways to improve the overall look and feel of the corridor. At least one recommendation would mitigate traffic congestion by planting long, narrow sets of trees in the median where Sunrise Highway becomes County Road 39, Ms. Eisenberg said. The narrow feel of the trees, she said, would produce a traffic calming effect. “I think the best outcome of the study really is design guidelines,” she said.
Other landscaping recommendations are being made, as well as alternative transportation modes—which include additional bus stops and shelters, enhanced crosswalks and bikeways.
Town Councilwoman Bridget Fleming said she would like to see the study focus on economic redevelopment along the road—an issue that wasn’t addressed when the initial scope of the project was drafted two years ago, before the economy took a toll on the businesses along the corridor.
Ms. Eisenberg said this week that while it’s too late to change the entire scope of the project, economic development is a concern that will be addressed in some form in the final draft. “We’re broadening the study,” she said.
Once the draft is made public, there will be a series of public hearings on the document, said Ms. Eisenberg. That would precede a potential approval and accepting of the study by the Town Board. Once accepted, the Town Board can choose when to implement the suggestions.
“The thing about any kind of plan, a plan is just a document that makes recommendations and provides potential strategies,” she said. “Then a plan has to be implemented. Implementation comes in array of different strategies, and it doesn’t come all at once, it comes in time.”
Rohma Abbas on Dec 21, 2010