Call it an inflection point: One of the two news weeklies on the South Fork of Long Island, N.Y., propounds, “[I]t’s time to turn the page on land preservation as a priority and begin to think about preserving something else: a workable, livable community.”
For decades under previous and current ownership, the Southampton Press with its now-sister publication, the Sag Harbor Express, has championed efforts to shield increasingly valuable acreage from development. This was the cause that, more than anything else, transformed the area from a Republican stronghold to one dominated by Democrats.
Now the scales are being tipped in favor of “workforce housing.” Staff positions in the public and private sectors have become too difficult to fill because potential or current employees can’t afford a nearby place to buy or rent. Some try, regardless, and face hours of commuting that in turn chokes the lucky-enough residents trying to get around on limited roads.
The history of efforts to build “affordable” units on the South Fork also goes back decades. Ultimately, few got done. Beginning in East Hampton township and now creeping into Southampton town’s affluent areas, the tide is turning. Planning agencies, nudged by the New York State government, are pushing past familiar neighborhood resistance.
To have the sanctity of blocking the bulldozers questioned, to have the Press/Express further say, “Land preservation was the right priority for a generation. It may not be the right priority for the next one,” and to have no published pushback to this in the following week’s edition, is to witness a shift. It must be noted that the newspaper group qualified its support: for “redeveloping properties, aggressively, to avoid turning to virgin land.” But even that sort of buildout has met past objection, that it “changes the character” of the place.
The counter-argument is that holding off relatively modest housing by restricting supply and setting zoning minimums that guarantee super-expensive properties has already changed the South Fork’s character, in ways that even many of the well-ensconced do not now accept. Just how many? That will be an ongoing subject for the local press and a pressure point for the Democrats who rule the towns today. –Feb. 28, 2026
Tim W. Ferguson 