UPDATE: Friday, 9 a.m.:
Discovery Land changed the time of Saturday's meeting where officials will be discussing water quality and The Hills. The meeting will be held on Saturday at 9 a.m. at New Moon Cafe in East Quogue.
ORIGINAL:
An accidental scheduling conflict or a calculated move?
A pair of competing meetings—both scheduled for 10 a.m. this Saturday in East Quogue, and both of which will focus on different projects by the same developer, Discovery Land Company of Arizona—has the leader of the local civic crying foul.
Al Algieri, president of the East Quogue Civic Association, said this week that his group scheduled its meeting—which will be held in the cafetorium of the East Quogue Elementary School on Central Avenue—weeks ago, and mailed fliers about the gathering to an estimated 4,500 homeowners two weeks ago.
Discovery Land, meanwhile, recently scheduled another one of its informational meetings—for the same time, though at a different venue—to answer questions about its proposed The Hills at Southampton project that calls for the construction of 118 homes and an 18-hole golf course on nearly 600 acres in the hamlet.
“We were weeks ahead of their mailing,” Mr. Algieri said, referring to an oversized postcard that Discovery Land Company recently distributed in the hamlet about the competing meeting.
Dr. James M. Cervino, a marine scientist from New York City who has traveled to the Bahamas and completed independent studies of the water and a reef situated near Discovery Land’s Bakers Bay Golf and Ocean Club in the Bahamas, is the scheduled guest speaker for the civics meeting. That development, on which ground was broken nearly a decade ago, currently features 125 homes, 240 buildable estate lots, and an 18-hole golf course on 585 acres located on the island of Great Guana Cay.
In an interview this week, Dr. Cervino said he would be sharing his findings of that project and how he believes, based on his research, that nitrogen and phosphorous from Discovery Land’s golf course down there has damaged a nearby reef. “They managed to destroy a 1,000-year-old reef in the matter of two years,” Dr. Cervino said
He added that his findings have been backed up by other scientists, including Dr. Thomas Goreau, president of Global Coral Reef Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to growing, protecting and managing coral reef, and Brian Lapointe, principal investigator and research professor at Florida Atlantic University.
Dr. Cervino added that he and his colleagues are speaking out at Saturday’s civic association meeting because they believe that Discovery Land, which is proposing a similar-type development in East Quogue, is again making promises that it cannot keep, and that its development could further threaten already damaged water supplies. The company is seeking Southampton Town approval of a planned development district, special zoning that allows developers to bypass established zoning, that will allow Discovery Land to built 118 residential units and an 18-hole golf course on nearly 600 acres.
Mark Hissey, vice president of Discovery Land, this week dismissed Dr. Cervino’s allegations about the Baker’s Bay golf course.
“It’s absolutely not true,” he said of the allegations. “What I can tell you is that the scientists that have commented—they haven’t been on the property,” he added. “In our opinion, it’s not based on scientific facts.”
He also dismissed Mr. Algieri’s suggestion that Discovery Land purposely scheduled conflicting meetings. “We had intentions on scheduling a Saturday morning thing for a while now that the weather is getting nicer,” Mr. Hissey said.
Jessica Insalaco, who was hired by Discovery Land to schedule and facilitate the ongoing series of informational meetings, said this week that she started telling people about the meetings “a couple of weeks ago.”
Mr. Hissey said that company officials attending their meeting, which will be held at the New Moon Cafe on Montauk Highway, will focus on how golf courses have received an unfair labeling even though they are not the hazards that many environmentalists make them out to be. He also noted that Southampton Town is especially critical of golf courses, noting that they place strict restrictions on their developers and operators to limit runoff and the utilization of potentially harmful pesticides.
“Southampton Town has proved to be an incredible overseer to ensure that golf courses do the right thing,” Mr. Hissey said. “I doubt there’s a municipality that is as good as they are.”
Amanda Bernocco on Jun 7, 2016