
After postponing judgment on the revised redevelopment plan for the former Canoe Place Inn and Tide Runners properties in Hampton Bays, the Southampton Town Board will discuss the modified proposal, which calls for three fewer townhouses, at its work session on Thursday, October 16.
Earlier this month, cousins Gregg and Mitchell Rechler, the developers behind the Canoe Place Inn Maritime Planned Development District, or MPDD, submitted a final environmental impact statement, outlining the size and scope of the project to refurbish the inn and bring townhouses to the eastern side of the Shinnecock Canal. Town planning officials declined to release a copy of the document on Tuesday, stating that the board must adopt it first.
The Town Board was poised to accept the statement during its meeting on Tuesday afternoon but ultimately tabled the resolution to further discuss the changes and craft a response. The work session, at 11 a.m. Thursday in the Town Board meeting room at Southampton Town Hall, will focus on the impact statement prior to determining its completeness.
In preparing the final environmental impact statement, the Rechlers were tasked with addressing concerns of town officials and residents that the original 40-townhouse, 88,000-square-foot proposal for the canalside property was too dense a use for the 4.5-acre property.
After Tuesday’s meeting, Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst said the Rechlers reduced the number of townhouses they were seeking to build to 37, but officials on both sides are refusing to divulge further details about the revised plan.
“That is what they have submitted,” Ms. Throne-Holst said. “That doesn’t mean we have to approve it. We can say, No, that’s not good enough. But we have to accept [the final environmental impact statement] before the horse trading can begin.”
Jim Morgo, a spokesman for the Rechlers, said last Thursday, October 9, that there have been seven areas of change in the new proposal, although he declined to specify what any of them were. “I’m very confident that the community is going to really realize it’s much improved,” said Mr. Morgo, who, at the time, also declined to say how many townhouses the developers were now looking to construct. “That’s too specific for me right now,” he said last week.
In February 2012, the Rechlers submitted a plan to the Town Board calling for the creation of a planned development district on the Canoe Place Inn property, which would house a renovated inn with 20 rooms, a catering hall that can accommodate up to 350 people, and a restaurant that can serve up to 90 people. The plan also calls for the construction of townhouses on the east side of the canal, while a third property, located farther to the east, would be home to a proposed wastewater treatment facility for the residential units.
This proposal came after the Rechlers initially footed a plan to level the inn and build condos in its place, but faced substantial pushback from several community groups that wanted to preserve the 90-year-old building, which has most recently been utilized as a nightclub.
After the second of two public hearings was closed this past February, the Rechlers submitted revisions in May before being sent back to the drawing board again in July, according to Mr. Morgo.
(just kidding of course) Get something done. What is there now is a complete eyesore.
What is needed and clearly what has been successful is waterfront businesses (such as restaurants). Eliminating this possibility via open space is just as bad as the Rechler's eliminating it via housing.
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Is there a fact that you are basing this on?
That's why she is very insistent on approving PDDs even with huge community opposition, which profits developers who buy cheap land because of its limitations by zoning law and convert them to illegal commercial ...more ventures by getting the Town Board to make an exception. It's in your face developer arbitrage with insiders in exchange for campaign contributions and hefty legal fees to well connected lawyers in town.
Those in the know see it as the biggest scam in town. Out and out obvious regulatory capture right Anna?
Of course, isn't that the same for all politicians everywhere?
That change is good that restaurants support the local economy abd provide
Jobs for our kids and all this fighting is not doing anyone any good
The rechlers plan is a good one build new housing which increases tax dollars
At New construction rates not 1950's renovation rates and Re build a building that has ties to.The community all the while making it beautiful now I love that building I spent 20 years ...more in it and would love to see it brought back to its former glory the rechlers could have easily torn it down and used that space for another
For a new gaudy strip mall out what ever they felt it would be to maximize profits
But they decided to restore it but they need the condos to make it financially worth doing so the town keeps playing this game they may just sell the property
To someone who doesn't care what goes on the property and then we're will we be the residents are afraid of change but do you remember the traffic
Every weekend when CPI was a night club our the noise or the kids
Peeing in your.bushes or drunk on your lawns and that was every weekend
All summer and it could.be that again or a nice b&b with a catering hall
Supporting the community adding jobs I'm foot the latter do it's time for the town.board to stop throwing up road blocks and let this project get started before it's too.late