Hampton Bays Residents Speak Out on Canoe Place Inn Plan

Hampton Bays residents — some there to see the deteriorating Canoe Place Inn brought back to its former glory, and others who have concerns about a busy business coming to their neighborhood and near the water — poured into Town Hall Wednesday to speak out on a change of zone petition and draft environmental impact statement on the plan.

Developers Gregg and Mitchell Rechler have pitched a maritime planned development district that includes sparing the inn from the wrecking ball — and completely restoring it as a catering facility with overnight accommodations. A planned development district is a zoning tool that allows greater density on a parcel than is permitted by current zoning, in exchange for a community benefit.

The plan also includes five cottages as part of the inn's operation, and replacing the site of Tide Runners bar and restaurant on North Road with townhouses and boat slips.

The latest iteration of the redevelopment plan comes in front of the Town Board seven years after the developers first acquired the Canoe Place Inn property.

The Rechlers own the 5.8-acre Canoe Place Inn site, located on the corner of Newtown Road and Montauk Highway on the west side of the Shinnecock Canal, as well as a collection of parcels located on the east side of the canal.

Initially, the plan was to raze the Canoe Place Inn and build a 75-unit private residential club. But after meeting community resistance, in late 2009 the Rechlers scrapped the 75-unit plan. Instead, they would raze the building and build as of right, skipping the arduous process of requesting a change of zone.  "We actually went as far as pulling the demolition permit," Gregg Rechler said during his presentation Tuesday.

But instead of going forward with using the demolition permit, Rechler said they agreed to hold off.

He said that he too is now caught up in the romanticism of saving and restoring the historic inn, and the new plan calls for building the townhouses on the east side of the Shinnecock Canal to subsidize saving the inn.

"We're going to rehabilitate something that's important to all of us in the community," he said.

The plan also includes public access to the waterfront at the townhouses; he said the plan was changed from condos to townhouses because there will be greater tax revenue for the town.

Several residents said this was the right plan for Hampton Bays.

"This is a no-brainer," a resident remarked during the public comment period of the hearing. "This is a deal that has to be done."

Dr. Bruce King, the president of the Hampton Bays Civic Association, recalled, "It was about seven years about that I was here talking about saving the Canoe Place Inn."

He said that disappointment that Tide Runners will be gone under this new plan should be set aside. "That property's too valuable; it's going to change."

The townhouses "will add money to the community. It will not add students to the school," Dr. King said.

He encouraged the Town Board to vote for the overall plan. "It's good for Hampton Bays. It's time for us to get moving in Hampton Bays."

Several residents of the area surrounding the site told the Town Board their concerns, including too much density at the townhouses site and the catering hall and grounds becoming a noisy nightclub. Other concerns named were making sure that foul air does not escape from the proposed septic system.

Kevin McAllister, the president of Peconic Baykeeper, a nonprofit that advocates for local waters, said what is proposed is the first use in Southampton of a new modern wastewater system that results in less effluent. "Suffolk County would not approve this system if it wasn't the real deal," McAllister said.

The presentation laid out a timeline of the Canoe Place Inn's storied history — and when it began to lose its historic integrity.

The Old CPI burned down in 1921 and was rebuilt by Julius Keller in 1922. Its first 20 or so years was the Canoe Place Inn's heyday, but it has been in decline since Keller died in 1945 and it changed hands a number of times.

In the 1950s and '60s, the building was altered. "The vast majority of the historic fabric of the building is not there," architect Scott Pollack said.

The decline escalated in the 1970s. "In 1974 the site was irrevocably changed when the Old Montauk Highway overpass was built," Pollack said. The move cut the Canoe Place Inn off from the water and the grade of the site was raised, burying a third of the first floor.

Pollack said part of the restoration plan is to bring the first floor back to ground level.

The public hearing was adjourned, allowing for further comments, written and in person.