While planning decisions, including sites for scarce housing, continue to be made piecemeal in “the Hamptons,” just to the west in Brookhaven town major infrastructure is in play. This week’s update on the opening of a new Long Island Rail Road station near the Long Island Expressway in what some call East Yaphank is a reminder of what can move the development needle. The station will replace a barely used and obscure depot a few miles away, and be more convenient to the Brookhaven National Laboratory, a major employment and visitor center. The linked article from Newsday doesn’t also mention the proximity to the retail and residential hub that’s been erected nearby after years of controversy over affected woodlands. Meanwhile, further west, in the town of Islip, maneuvering continues to try to link the LIRR station at Ronkonkoma to MacArthur Airport, Suffolk County’s only airline flight hub. This could be part of a sizable residential and commercial complex. Though that part is more controversial, the groundwork for more intensive land use clearly would be laid. Even as the LIRR’s direct links to the most prized places on the East End are underused, the carrier’s connections “up island” remain strong and will have ancillary effects, fostering a bigger nearby presence that can bleed over. Eastern Long Island remains a highly desired location, with accommodation to change ever knocking at the Hamptons’ golden door. –April 5, 2025
These periodic pay reports from NY’s Empire Center (which I help support) are of more than nosy appeal. They chart the upper end of what public employees can stand to make in total compensation, which is a sometimes shocking reminder of how packages negotiated with compliant local officials can put taxpayers at risk. In communities such as those in Suffolk County, tax rates are rising (even with already steep property values as a base) in order to accommodate ballooning pension and health-care benefits. And as this Empire report highlights, “public safety” jobs can be particularly prone to pay escalation. This has ancillary effects, too: New York City is struggling with increased departures from its police force–and many cops have gone to surrounding suburbs with higher salaries and/or easier working environments. Blue-state laws often advantage unionized staff, yet final agreements are reached at the county and town level. (And if a senior officer is hired after already qualifying for a pension after 20 years on another force, as happened in Southampton, N.Y., the double-dipping is somebody else’s problem.) Employee unions often are highly influential in community elections, but residents of the New York municipalities cited in these data should be asking if they are getting the premium returns they are paying for.
I was encouraged to find an article stressing the importance of U.S. labor productivity in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, produced by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. (The CFR’s agenda includes national competitiveness.) The piece, produced by a former member of George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and a former economics writer in the Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau, hits familiar notes about better training of the workforce, along with a few curious side jaunts (arresting climate change and repealing the Trump 45 tax cuts). What I didn’t find was a case for removing impediments to more productive use of both labor and capital, which often as not impinge on the public sector because it is subject to more direct political constraint. I have in mind such obstructions as those that hamstring modernized air-traffic control by the chronically tech-lagging Federal Aviation Administration (the notorious Elon Musk is now on that case). Also–and more often the local level–there are the legacy strictures that prevent government services from adapting to changed circumstances. It’s very difficult to close a public school, for example, even when neighborhoods change, so they stay open for too few students to attend. Likewise, as a recent report from the Reason Foundation explains, transit lines do not adjust as passenger traffic demand shifts, because discarding or diminishing routes is too difficult. Constituencies organize and legislators clamor. Failing that interference, lawyers are retained to tie matters up in court. The Foreign Affairs authors refer admiringly to China’s productivity leaps, which partly stem from the Communist Party’s leeway to force changes over democratic resistance. (This power also deters innovation, but that’s another topic.) You can be confident that the People’s Republic will employ self-driven vehicles on a mass scale long before the U.S. does, even though the software is pioneered here. A full picture of America’s productivity lags should encompass not only inputs (R&D money, as per the article) but outputs, and why those can’t be realized as quickly as they were in less politically “engaged” eras.
As the South Fork of Long Island saw a housing boom in the mid-1980s, development pressed into woodlands—the very areas whose environmental worth was finally gaining currency. Roughly 40 years ago, a pair of adjoining subdivision proposals north of Quogue Village drew particular press and public notice. Unlike several other large projects floated during the period, these two were ultimately approved and built. What was gained and lost as a result?
In the plans for what were called Wildlife Associates and Woodland Pines—today flagged by entry signs as simply Wildlife and Woodland—the few hundred acres between the Quogue Wildlife Refuge and County Road 104, north of Old Country Road were to become 200 single-family homes. Objections flew from the nearby village of Quogue, from Westhampton down the road, and from preservationists at what was then the Group for the South Fork.
The developers were guided through the approval process by a young outfit called Inter-Science Research, headed by former water-quality advocate Richard Warren. Inter-Science would go on to become one of the go-to shops for property applicants on the South Fork. In this case, a set of concessions–reducing the number and footprint of the homes and handing off a 100 acre “buffer” between the developments and the wildlife refuge–greased eventual approval. The town planning board, led by Roy Wines Jr., drew considerable criticism for such comprises during the hectic 1980s rush into the “Hamptons.”
(A history of the process must mainly draw from newspaper coverage at the time, which was more consistently attentive to development matters than it is today. Personal memories unfortunately have faded. Prominent local attorney Stephen Latham represented some opponents but is now semi-retired and his clients have also left the scene. Carolyn Zenk objected for what is now the Group for the East End—and later became a Southampton town councilwoman—but didn’t respond to inquiries, as Warren did not as well. An attorney who represented the developers also couldn’t be reached.)
Forty years later, what can be seen? By most indicators, a successful settlement. The residential streets, most notably Whippoorwill Lane and Peacock Path, are populated with 128 moderately sized houses with a woodsy backdrop. (Prices have risen considerably, but most sell for well under $2 million.)The home sites bear a great resemblance to Whalebone Landing in Noyac, an early cluster subdivision welcomed by town planners. As family domiciles, they benefit from being part of the Quogue Union Free School District, one of the best performing in the state.
The Quogue refuge, meanwhile, has only grown in renown as Southampton town’s pioneering wildlife park, dating to its days as a private sanctuary the 1930s. Assistant Director Marisa Nelson told me that there’ve been no measures of feared harm to the sanctuary’s ponds (which share a watershed with the developments), no discernible effect on the fowl and mammal life, and only periodic violations of the buffer area for hunting or refuse. A recent walk along the perimeter of the refuge yielded not even a sight of homes or their outcroppings. A more noticeable presence, noise-wise, is the nearby Gabreski Airport, operated by Suffolk County and due for expanded use.
East Quogue, the hamlet where the subdivisions arose, today maintains a middle-class character. But the gloss of the modern Hamptons is reaching it. A luxury home development with a private golf course is under construction barely a mile away, also approved after years of contention and in its case millions of dollars in lawsuits. Its go-ahead marked a rare defeat for the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, which took up advocacy on developments by the late 1980s. The stakes, it seems, have grown far higher in the four decades since the Wildlife and Woodland neighborhoods were born.
At the same time, maintaining some vestige of “affordable” housing (that is, beyond the richest percentiles) in or near the Hamptons has also become a focal point of public policy. This will require concessions of the sort that opened up the woods near Quogue 40 years ago. –Jan. 13, 2025
I’ve been waiting for the New York Post, which this month ballyhooed a coverage push into Long Island, to seize on a land-use story that captures its aggrieved-middle-class shtick. It’s the Shinnecock tribe’s rush to build a “travel plaza” (for starters) on its 79-acre adjunct site in a wooded part of the Hampton Bays hamlet, just west of the locally-renowned boating canal named for these earliest settlers. Construction of the giant gas station (officially recognized “Indian” peoples can sell without tax) along the Sunrise Highway is taking place in defiance of local zoning and abutting a neighborhood of homes that sell for less than the multimillions commanded on the east side of the canal–the true “Hamptons.” The Shinnecock have long eyed their so-called Westwoods holding for development; they say a bay-facing resort hotel will follow the fuel and convenience retail, and the neighbors further fear that once-quashed casino plans there will be resurrected. This is now a full-fledged political crisis in Southampton town, which includes the hamlet. The town council voted 3-2 just before the Christmas holidays to sue the tribe to stop the project, as the article below from the Southampton Press ably explains. The Press and the East Hampton Star, flagship weeklies on Long Island’s South Fork, are left-of-center editorially and support the tribe–thus contributing to a regional media vacuum that the conservative Post seeks to fill. The Hampton Bays homeowners complain that the town’s government, which is majority Democrat, neglected their concerns until the state of New York, which has its own beef with the Shinnecock, forced the issue. The hamlet has a longstanding grievance over being a “stepchild” to the richer nearby precincts. The only Republican on the town board has supported the residents, while the two most liberal members opposed the lawsuit against the tribe. So, in a twist, the GOP member is the most pointedly anti-development. Shinnecock leaders, meanwhile, brusquely won’t give an inch, asserting their own historical grievances. Underlying the pushback they face is an argument that Westwoods, which lies a few miles from the formal Shinnecock reservation in the town, is actually owned (in fee simple) by the tribe but is not part of its independent “nation.” Got all that? Maybe soon it’ll be distilled under a blaring headline in the Post. –Dec. 29, 2024
UPDATE 1/3/25: The Biden Interior Dept., in a letter released yesterday, sided with the tribe over its claim to territorial jurisdiction over Westwoods.
I have to disagree somewhat with my libertarian friends at Reason who argue in the piece below that New York City is stifling a “creative, organic” outgrowth of the food-and-drinks business by shutting down the pandemic-era street sheds. I do so for the same reasons I have veered away from a number of laissez-faire positions: Just too many impolite or arrogant people abuse the public unless held in check. In this case, the offense was a form of squatting: Restaurants and bars were given “emergency” leeway, after Covid had largely emptied many streets, to expand outward in what was 1) initially considered a safer dining space and 2) soon became additional floor space to recoup lost business from the lockdown days. Then guess what? They never wanted to leave the sidewalk or curb areas, even as most of New York returned to full throttle. However, there were complaints of rats and late noise, plus the obstruction. In the winters, some spots had few outdoor customers but it was a hassle to dismantle and reassemble the structures so for months they just collected dirt, debris and the occasional substance abuser. After a long political stall, the city finally made the sheds come down last month, to be replaced next spring only in approved areas and formats (with fees, of course). Reason’s authors are right that the bureaucracy will limit their comeback, and stretches of the city will be lessened. But that’s the thing with people who make their private pleasures or profit a matter of the commons: Some add to others’ enjoyment and some detract, and we only have one rule book to enforce decorum. Most displays or displacements are tolerable for awhile–live and let live–but then you have the chronic or obnoxious cheat. This is why we cannot enjoy the sweet liberty of natural order in many walks of modern life, especially when people are crowded together. Too many of them don’t behave decently anymore, if they ever did. My older but still libertarian self has less time for that.
So much can and will be said, but one helpful message to be drawn from this election is that politicians and policymakers should be deathly afraid of ever loosing the inflation beast again. Memories and aftereffects of the price rises of 2021-2023 fed into the economy being an overriding reason for ousting Democrats from the White House. This should be particularly useful in restraining Donald Trump and whoever he might appoint to the Federal Reserve from pursuing a monetary out from the looming fiscal squeeze that he has yet to address. If anything, Trump has ruled out significant steps to contain the budget deficit and national debt, promising only some Elon Musk magic along, of course, with tariffs and deportations that would elevate costs. If Democrats win the House majority, he will not gain social spending cuts even if appoints officials who will seek them. But there will be no free lunch from debasing the dollar and inviting another round of inflation, either.
New and potentially partisan battle lines over “affordable” housing–or overdevelopment, if you prefer–are forming in Southampton town. It’s a tussle that has shape-shifted over recent decades but is now resulting from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s carrot strategy with local governments. After Long Island in particular bucked her earlier plans to intensify residential building in affluent suburbs, the Democrat adopted a “Pro-Housing Community Program” to make grants available to localities that better behaved. To qualify, they must supply zoning and permitting data in support of a pledge to increase the housing stock by 1% a year. Southampton’s majority-Democrat town board is due to consider its application this week, and Republican council member Cyndi McNamara on Saturday flagged various neighborhood associations in an email about the effort. “While that [1%] doesn’t sound like a lot, it is roughly 500 units per year in the Town outside of [its separately governed] Villages,” she wrote. “We will also be required to pledge to streamline permitting for and enact policies to encourage a variety of housing, including ADUs [so-called accessory additions], supportive housing, multifamily and more.” Some of these–particularly supportive units–are hot buttons in Southampton, as a recent simplified New York Times story* recounted. So McNamara’s alert may interrupt what would otherwise have been a quiet maneuver to bring the town along with neighboring East Hampton (dominated by Democrats) in obtaining “Pro Housing” status. Whether piecemeal in its many currently low-density areas, or through extensive development in a relatively depressed part of town, the matter of adding to Southampton’s population–especially when done with density to shave cost–is not a purely apple-pie affordability question. –Oct. 20, 2024
*The Liberty Gardens project got entangled not only in the political personalities involved–namely, the outgoing town supervisor, Jay Schneiderman, who shepherded it–but in its location. It would be roughly adjacent to one of the last tracts of historically black-occupied homes in Southampton Village. Those blocks fought any traffic access to the development through their streets.
Most political commercials are about hot-button nonsense like which congressional candidate is against fentanyl, so I ignore them. But because Wisconsin is such a key U.S. Senate race, the campaign of its mediocre senator Tammy Baldwin paid to put an ad on the national broadcast of the Brewers-Mets game last night, so I watched. The video attempts to get overweight voters–Cheeseheads?–to prefer Baldwin to her Republican opponent Eric Hovde because he in years past said that obesity should come with monetary costs. Obviously it does have such costs (health care, especially)–the question is who should bear them. The people speaking in the ad, presumably real, are outraged that Hovde might seek to have them pay more for health insurance. Now, under Obamacare, pre-existing conditions are supposed to be a socialized risk, so applying that implied moral imperative we might say that those who are genetically disposed to be fat should not suffer a penalty. But plenty of “weight issues” are a function of life-style, so in those common situations I would side with Hovde’s past (and maybe present) sentiments. Yes, for the same reason tobacco users should incur a premium cost for their risky habits. Sen. Baldwin wants to stigmatize Hovde as a cruel, rich financier, and her tactics may work. They will do little to help curb obesity, which may finally be dipping in the U.S. (thank expensive Wegovy). Politics is a lot like junk food, and America is asked to swallow more of both. –Oct. 4, 2024
It’s no surprise to see in new figures from the St. Louis Federal Reserve that ethnic Asian households in America, on balance, do better academically and have higher incomes. Their achievement phenomenon is one of the great U.S. stories of the last two generations. But this summer’s study breaks down such success into at least two notable components. The first is the parental influence. Typically parent backgrounds, particularly the holding of college degrees, are a great predictor of offspring attainments. This is dramatically less so in Asian families, which means that more parents without higher-ed are nevertheless able to imbue study-and-advance ideas into their children. Socioeconomic circumstance needn’t dictate outcome. A second takeaway is that once in college, Asian-Americans rely much less on student loans (less than 17% of post-grad households carry this debt) than their countrymen. (The comparable figure in black households is nearly 62%.) However accomplished–more seed corn? more side hustles?–this avoidance in turn provides more running room for building wealth after graduation. We read much about lessened mobility in our supposedly class-stratified country. The Asian experience continues to belie this, and the data help to explain why.
Tim W. Ferguson 