Letters

I have written over the years to The Press concerning Hampton West Estates and stressing that we have been one of the few affordable housing sites in Southampton Town for years, despite the town’s general neglect. Suddenly, the town has “awakened” to the crisis, passing a new real estate tax and attempting to purchase the U.S. Coast Guard site.

Yet this crisis is of the town’s own making and it looks to essentially destroy the very affordable housing neighborhood next door to the Coast Guard site.

I can count on one hand the number of town supervisors who have taken any real interest in Hampton West. I’m talking over 40 years. And as for the issue of “affordable housing,” the town has done some good things but in general has sputtered and stumbled.

There are 175 units at Hampton West, and the neighborhood has improved by its own efforts with little town support. (The Northern Sites lottery in the late 1990s was the only exception). There are some town employees involved in the Coast Guard issue who have been around long enough to remember what Hampton West was like 30 years ago. Absentee landlords, many with 11978 zip codes, were ruining the quality of life.

We residents with long memories do not forget and will do our best not to allow a return to the bad old days.

Forest Markowitz

Westhampton Beach