Round Swamp Farm Helped Kill an Affordable Housing Project

The Hamptons has had an affordable housing crisis for decades, but in recent years, not only have restaurant workers, landscapers, and firefighters been priced out of the towns where they work, even doctors making $350,000 a year say they can’t find anything in their budget. (The pandemic didn’t help, either.) Even the North Fork, once a more affordable alternative, now has median home prices in the $1 million range. Despite a growing number of town initiatives and widespread support for affordable housing in theory, individual projects often face opposition. Still, it was surprising that mere days after a 79-unit affordable housing project was proposed on a 6.5-acre plot of undeveloped East Hampton land, public uproar led to the project being canceled.

The affordable housing proposal for 152 Three Mile Harbor Road and 33 West Drive was introduced by Kirby Marcantonio, one of the four partners in contract to buy the land for the development, at a town meeting last week, the East Hampton Star reported. (Marcantonio is also the publisher of Hampton Life and Montauk Life magazines.) The discussion grew tense, and in the hallway after the meeting, the Star reported that residents raised their voices at a councilman who’d refused to give the project a hard no. Less than a week later, Marcantonio announced that he was backing out of the deal due to strong local opposition. By the time he’d decided to scrap the plans, a petition against the project, started by the owner of Round Swamp Farm, a neighboring farm that runs a beloved (and famously pricey) farm store, had gathered 2,700 signatures. Arguments against the project include that it would rely on a private condo association to manage a sewage treatment plant, which opponents claim would present an unacceptable risk to local waterways, and that the project and its traffic would be incompatible with the low-density agricultural uses nearby (for example, that traffic leaving onto West Drive would create “a serious safety hazard on a residential roadway.”). It would involve, as well, the demolition of a 175-year-old farmhouse currently on the site and likely some old-growth trees. Opponents also implied that the proceedings have been secretive, because partners other than Marcantonio have not been disclosed. The petition includes a rendering, with a building that looks not unlike a low-security prison at night (there would be 160 parking places, which is both standard for non-urban developments and somewhat excessive). It’s unclear where the rendering is from, although it looks grim for something a real estate developer would put out.

In the town meeting, Marcantonio had suggested that if the rezoning wasn’t approved, he and his partners would go forward with a 60-unit proposal (a bit lower than the proposed 79), which was currently allowed by the zoning code. But it seems that the resolve to build a project on the site no matter the outcome was short-lived. After the decision to withdraw, Round Swamp Farm expressed relief. “It’s given all of us a lot of turmoil in our lives, living there and not knowing exactly what the future holds,” Brian Niggles, speaking on behalf of his family, told the New York Post. “I think that it would give all of us a lot of comfort if this nightmare would be finally put to bed.” Marcantonio currently has another East Hampton affordable housing project in the works, a 47-unit development on Pantigo Road.

While it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why locals were so opposed, both the proposed 79-unit project and the 47-unit one in the works are workforce housing developments, and differ from previous affordable housing built in the town because they’d be for employers, not individuals, to purchase. Those employers could then rent the condos out to workers under a certain income limit. (While there is some employer-owned housing in the area, it’s usually rented, or built and managed directly by employers, like the Atlantic Golf Club in Bridgehampton.) Marcantonio previously said that Southampton hospital was interested in purchasing 20 of the 47 units at the Pantigo Road project and that he’d received interest for more units than there were available. But even though a number of local businesses, including Nick & Toni’s, have come out in support of this type of workforce housing, some locals are critical of the model, arguing that it’s good for business owners but of little benefit to locals. At a summer hearing for the Pantigo Road project, a planning board member said that “the tenant is basically a serf of the business,” adding that he’d rather see more affordable housing for moderate-income year-round residents.