Dan's Papers - April 25, 2008 - Development Could Change Historic Community

Dennis Suskind, the former Wall Street investor and present day Hampton Classic board chairman, is embarking on another high-profile transaction here in the Hamptons with several of his friends.

Dennis and Co., under the corporate name of Jellow Inc. have signed an option to purchase 43 acres of vacant land that abuts Scuttlehole Road and the Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton Turnpike. If they get approvals from the town, they will have permission to create a subdivision there, consisting of a winding road and 14 home sites. When it gets sold, the area will have 14 new McMansions behind hedgerows, the investors will have pocketed a lot of cash, and the largest community of African-Americans in the Hamptons, which is just adjacent to this proposed development, will likely begin to disperse.

The African-Americans live in a tight knit area along the Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton Turnpike. The new development backs up to their modest homes. As these McMansions for wealthy New York summer residents rise next door, the black community will be under considerable pressure to sell its properties and move along. Money is money, after all, and time marches on.

As someone said to me the other evening, isn't that what it's all about? Money?

I don't think so. And a whole lot of other people don't think so. When a hearing was held recently for public comment on this proposal, the developers and town board members were very surprised to see a good many members of the black community in the audience, the very people who will "get rich" because of what might get approved here, to voice their objections to that very thing.

Hard as it may be to believe, there are those who would put the pleasure of staring at a large number in a bank book in second place behind the joys of living in a warm, loving and supportive community.

The black community along the turnpike was founded from the struggle to free the slaves during the Civil War. Actually, it came into existence before the Civil War, when concerned northerners both black and white created the Underground Railroad so slaves could make their way up from the Deep South to freedom in the north.

After the Civil War, the community grew and when potato farming became the mainstay of the local economy around 1910, still more blacks, mostly migrants, came up here with their families to dig the potatoes and raise their families.

The centerpieces of the black community are the numerous churches along the turnpike, most notably the Baptist Church. Another important institution there is the Bridgehampton Child and Recreation Center, which provides day care and pre-school and post-school services for this hardworking blue-collar community.

You can argue all you want that bigger houses with fancier cars and expensive art and antiques are better than little houses with older cars and hand-me-down furniture.

But the part of the situation you are leaving out is Junior Brown's birthday party, Paul Jeffer's anniversary party, Uncle Bill's barbecue and slide show from his recent trip to New Hampshire, and a whole lot of other things that make up the fabric of a vibrant cultural community here.

To send them off with a few more bucks in their pockets and replace what they have built during the last two centuries here with a few more fancy houses that will only be occupied a few weekends a year and for the rest will just keep a bunch of house watchers, landscapers, electricians and alarm company workers employed, doesn't even come close.

There is plenty of vacant land available for more McMansions everywhere else in the Hamptons other than where a historic community of largely blue-collar workers already exists.

So yes, sound the alarm. And bring it all to the attention of the Town Board. Did Suskind and Co. do this deliberately? Probably not. The land came up for sale because the owner, also a vineyard owner, wanted to cash out. They picked up an option on it. And the outcome will be that they will either let the option drop without losing anything, they will make enough ruckus to cause the Town to buy the property to keep them from developing the land, which in real estate terms is called a "flip," resulting in a smallish multi-million dollar profit for scaring some people into thinking you might do some work, to actually DOING the work, which will largely destroy the black community and bring the developers either great riches or great losses, depending on the market.

So yes, in my opinion, an ethnic community filled with pride is worth sheltering and protecting. The Town is awash in real estate transfer tax money. Buying this property is a good way to use it.