Have you ever driven your RV down Dune Road and wondered, “why can’t I just park this RV right up there, next to that beautiful beach, and stay there for a few weeks?” Well, never fear, because in a year or two, you may see RVs parked on Dune Road all summer long. Southampton Town Councilman Steve Kenny has tentatively suggested using land purchased with money from the Community Preservation Fund to build a “wilderness area,” as he calls it, with up to 20 RV campsites on the “western third” of the Dune Road property, and 20 to 40 tent campsites on the remaining part of the parcel. The rest of the Councilman’s plan sounds perfectly aligned with the purpose of the Community Preservation Fund — he would like to tear out the existing, 700-car parking lot at the former Summers Beach Club, replace it with grass or sand, build hiking trails in the area, and he has alerted the owner of Neptunes Beach Club that when he wants to sell the WWI-era lifeguard station building, the Town is poised to buy and restore it, as it was “one of two Afro-American-manned lifeguard stations prior to WWII.” He would like to see it become a museum.

The Councilman has good reason to try to put these properties to use, because according to his own research, the parking lots around the Summers and Neptune clubs are the site of almost “all of the drug, rowdiness and fight arrests in the hamlet.” However, does restoring a beach to a wilderness area have to involve tents and RVs?

Linda Dietz, an active member of a group of local residents in opposition to the plan, asked, “why can’t it just be open space?” Members of the East Quogue Civic Association have been circulating a petition that poses the same question, albeit a little louder. Their petition includes barring anything to be done with the Hot Dog, Tiana, and Summers Beach Properties, as well as the prohibition of water taxis. Because the Town’s plans for all but the Summers Beach property include nothing more than building bathrooms and re-opening existing food stands on the aptly-named Hot Dog Beach, and utilizing Tiana beach as a place to extend children’s recreational activities, already being held on the bay, to the ocean side of that beach, the petition has been seen by some as misguided and premature.

The mere fact that East Quogue residents feel the need to be up in arms over Councilman Kenny’s idea, however, should be enough to signal to the Town that perhaps building a campsite on Dune Road is not something that residents are willing to pay for with their Community Preservation Fund money. Although our National Parks have RV and tent campgrounds, the context of these two places is incomparable. In a multi-thousand acre National Park, an acre or two of RV and tent camping, covered by dense, mature forests, barely makes a dent in the natural beauty of the park. However, the delicate ecosystem of the East End beaches has no forest cover, and the area in question is already surrounded by development. Therefore, any sort of RV campground on that site would be exactly what residents and Councilman Steve Kenny do not want — an eyesore. Perhaps the Councilman is not aware of the current state of the RV market in the United States. He did say, “I don’t know the RV market. That’s why we need someone to tell us (about it).” While the Councilman is envisioning “middle-class families with their kids (having) a wilderness experience… in VW vans and pop-up tents on the backs of their pickup trucks,” the residents of East Quogue foresee 40-foot luxury liners parked inches from the dunes. And although the Councilman said that “a 40-foot luxury RV is not our target market,” the average middle-class American family rents a motorhome for their vacation, which is the largest of all vehicles considered an RV, most topping out at 13 feet high, eight feet wide, and between 45 and 65 feet long. And because one out of every twelve families that drives owns an RV, and RV rentals skyrocketed 40% last year, Summers Beach could potentially be a very busy place.

Putting aesthetics aside, the purpose of the Community Preservation Fund, which is taken from taxpayer money, is to preserve the East End. Linda Dietz commented that, “When I hear Community Preservation Fund, I think of the government buying and protecting natural land and keeping it undeveloped. To me, that’s what conservation is.” And although Councilman Kenny is trying to garner grant money for the actual building of the site, the land itself was purchased with Preservation Fund money. Hiking trails, parks, a public bathroom and small parking lot are perhaps the only additions that should be made to land purchased with money from that Fund. The Community Preservation Fund should be used to restore architecture and to preserve and restore natural areas. If the town of Southampton desperately needs somewhere to park RVs, then they should have appealed for State or Federal funding, just as the National Parks do. But because they did not use outside funding, and used taxpayer money from a fund that was just recently voted on by Town residents as a necessity to preserve what remains of our natural landscape and historic buildings, using the Summers Beach property for anything other than that is inappropriate. Steve Kenny has not yet made a formal proposal, and explained that until he receives enough grant money to hire a planning and environmental consultant, the plan cannot proceed. Judging by the reaction to the idea’s mere suggestions, when he does procure the funds, it will be quite a surprise if the plan makes it past the Town Meeting House doors, let alone all the way to Dune Road.