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”
Tag Archives: Hamptons
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”
Bedroom Reform for Today’s Housing Crisis
Long Island, N.Y.’s East End has a housing price/supply crunch, like the United Kingdom. So it might want to look at an earnest argument out of the UK for addressing the scarcity by restricting or reallocating bedroom supply. (See this derivative blog post.) The scholars there found no actual shortfall of home square-footage in theContinue reading “Bedroom Reform for Today’s Housing Crisis”
Last Shot at New Golf in Greater Hamptons
When an 18-hole golf club—private and exclusive—opens in the next couple of years at the controversial Lewis Road luxury development in East Quogue, it will mark the latest and probably the last of 135 years of links building on and around the South Fork of Long Island. This will bring to 20 the number ofContinue reading “Last Shot at New Golf in Greater Hamptons”
Hamptons Farmland: A Death and a Legacy
A significant but underappreciated aspect of the South Fork of Long Island land-preservation story is the role that old farming families have played. This is particularly true of the Polish clans that so prominently figured in the agricultural belt below the moraine that runs along the Water Mill to Bridgehampton stretch, some of the mostContinue reading “Hamptons Farmland: A Death and a Legacy”
Long Island Supe Wants to Build
Even with diminished editorial resources, like most “dailies,” Newsday remains often the only public-affairs coverage resource for much of its home base of Long Island, N.Y. So this week it reported the striking pledge of the new town supervisor in Brookhaven to open up housing development there. Republican Dan Panico said he would seek to eliminateContinue reading “Long Island Supe Wants to Build”
Trashy People in Fancy Zip Codes
Litter and large-scale refuse dumping is a continuing–perhaps even worsening–problem in the towns of Southampton and East Hampton, N.Y., as this week’s article in the local Star reports. As more McMansion residents accumulate more furnishings, go through more food wrappings in their industrial-scale kitchens and collect more yard waste from their lavish grounds, the potentialContinue reading “Trashy People in Fancy Zip Codes”
Tim W. Ferguson 