Tag Archives: Hamptons

Sag Harbor’s Re-Emergence, in One Address

This weekend’s New York Times real-estate section has a nicely turned encapsulation of changes in the village of Sag Harbor, N.Y., over the last four decades. It’s told through the ownership of one of the formerly modest homes from the “UnHamptons” village’s industrial past–houses that now sell or rent for a fortune in Sag Harbor’sContinue reading “Sag Harbor’s Re-Emergence, in One Address”

Political Upheaval on the Southampton Shores

Amid the national “blue wave” at the polls Tuesday, engaged Southampton Town Democrats scored another triumph, most notably in sweeping five trustee seats, traditionally a Republican redoubt in much of New York’s Long Island. Town trustees manage the various (and many) waterfronts, including both salt and fresh-water ponds (aka lakes). They are distinct from theContinue reading “Political Upheaval on the Southampton Shores”

Is Southampton Using Permits to Weed Out Commerce?

It’s common among preservationists on the East End of Long Island, N.Y., to regard the town of Southampton as lax in its allowance of development and other commercial concerns. There’s some basis* for that, especially in contrast to the town of East Hampton, but just as much reason to see dilatoriness in getting projects approvedContinue reading “Is Southampton Using Permits to Weed Out Commerce?”

When YIMBY Comes to a Southampton Hamlet

Providing “affordable housing” in the midst of a price surge on the East End of Long Island, N.Y., is challenging enough—but the additional political wrinkles that come with each specific project were on display this month at a community-board meeting in the North Sea hamlet of Southampton town. It took place not far from whereContinue reading “When YIMBY Comes to a Southampton Hamlet”

Data Factories Within Reach of the Hamptons?

Squaring New York State’s stringent green-energy law with the looming demand for power-intensive data and AI centers is going to be hard enough most places, but especially on Long Island. There, long-standing grievances against the electric utility, now known as LIPA, that date back at least as far as rejected nuclear-plant aims from the 1960sContinue reading “Data Factories Within Reach of the Hamptons?”

Hamptons Living With a (Tree) Farm View

In the hypermarket that is today’s Hamptons real estate, a property bordering on an agricultural reserve has a powerful selling point. Anyone with a few million can have a McMansion, but is your vista protected from somebody else’s development? Still, there are reserves, and then there are reserves. And what I picked up from aContinue reading “Hamptons Living With a (Tree) Farm View”

Tangled Politics of Tribal Construction in Southampton

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,Continue reading “Tangled Politics of Tribal Construction in Southampton”

Affordability May Hit the Fan Again in Southampton

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 inContinue reading “Affordability May Hit the Fan Again in Southampton”

Taking Hamptons Traffic Seriously

Here’s a “letter to the editor” from me, published this week at the Southampton Press site. It concerns the worsening traffic situation on the South Fork of Long Island, not only the backups on the primary east-west arteries, but the onslaught of diverted traffic onto residential roads (including–no surprise–mine). I make reference to some renderingsContinue reading “Taking Hamptons Traffic Seriously”

Arf! Arf! Is a Hamptons Sound

Among the many 50-year milestones being observed in “the Hamptons” over the last year or two–reflective of the fundamental changes that were taking place there in the early 1970s–is a four-legged one. This golden anniversary year for the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons (ARF), now a celebrated (and sometimes celebrity) charity, will culminate inContinue reading “Arf! Arf! Is a Hamptons Sound”