Revisiting Planned Development Districts

The Town of Southampton is restructuring legislation on Planned Development Districts.  Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst and Councilwoman Nancy Graboski joined Deputy Town Supervisor Frank Zappone at Town Hall for an Oct. 28 PowerPoint presentation outlining the new draft.  About 35 members of the community were in attendance. 

Throne-Holst said the town's new approach is to seek more community input in the pre-application process for Planned Development Districts at the outset.  "The hope is that this will be the beginning of a very productive and inclusionary process," she said. "Our hope is to start compiling this into suggested legislative changes."

Residents were given a copy of the PowerPoint presentation along with a questionnaire and suggestion sheet for comment on the current legislation. 

The goal of the pre-application process, according to Throne-Holst, is to establish a definitive community benefit and a measurable timetable for development projects. Part of the preliminary, amended legislation allows for pre-applications to be posted on the Internet prior to a public hearing.  Throne-Holst said this would address concerns about large applications going through lengthy and expensive application processes, sometimes for years, only to be rejected by residents.  "They spend all this time and money only to go back to the drawing board," she said. 

Zappone said publishing pre-applications on the Internet would shorten the process and give residents more information up front.  "There's a big shift in the amount of information that's available to you and the time frame that it's available," he told residents.

Freda Eisenberg, assistant director of Planning & Development for Southampton Town, said residents wanted more specifics on the public benefits that would be offered by developers.  "It became clear that there were specific thresholds that the community wanted met," she said.  "We're asking for a full analysis from the applicant. 'This is what I'm offering and this is what I'm getting in return.'"  She stressed that community benefits must meet certain criteria.

Throne-Holst said the town must find a way to quantify the community benefit of Planned Development Districts and suggested that the community benefit should be a percentage of the project cost.  Others suggested that applicants should give financial disclosure as part of their application.  Councilwoman Nancy Graboski objected saying that such a policy could have legal complications.  "It's a slippery slope," she said.  "We have to stay within the law."

Hampton Bays resident and past president of the Hampton Bays Civic Association, Mary Jean Green, said she agrees with a financial evaluation of applicants, but is still wary of Planned Development Districts in general.  "I would like to see them repealed.  End of story," she said.  "They're too complicated and, you know, it just invites unethical behavior."

Joan Hughes of East Quogue agreed, adding that the public benefits are vague.  "So far they've yielded very little in the way of community benefit," she said.  "They're a way of changing zoning that makes it look like it will be a good move.  So far, most of the planned development districts have been a great benefit to the developer and little benefit to the people."