Town Hears First Take On Plan To Relocate East Quogue Mobile Homes

The landowner of East Quogue Mobile Home Park wants to relocate residents from where some have lived since the park opened decades ago on Old Country Road. The distance would not be too far—Garden Homes Management Corp. would move 43 households to a larger swath of land to the north of the railroad tracks that divide the 94.2-acre parcel.

At a Southampton Town Planning Board meeting on August 9, attorney Kimberly A. Judd said the move is an effort by her client, Third Garden Park Limited, to update aged sanitary systems on the entire parcel.

“Right now to keep the density at 43 units ... there isn't enough room to fit an upgraded mobile home and a new septic system,” Ms. Judd said. Right now, most of the units have their own sanitary system, and some others might share a system.

In order to get into the ground and install nitrogen-filtering systems that have less impact on the environment, the 43 single-wide mobile homes need to be torn down. Ms. Judd explained that the mobile homes, that were constructed before 1961, are too old to move by state and county standards. Third Garden Park sees it as an opportunity to install larger units with greater distance between the homes to accommodate advanced septic systems north of the railroad tracks alongside other double-wides.

“From the road, you’ll see grass and not mobile homes anymore,” Ms. Judd said. After all of the homeowners are moved into larger units to the north, the southern portion of the park that runs along Old Country Road would be landscaped and left to whatever condition the Planning Board deems fit. Ms. Judd said ideally the new homes would be accessed from the neighboring community on Malloy Drive West, according to planning documents submitted during the work session.

The installation of each of the double-wides and advanced septic systems will hinge on someone abandoning their home and buying a new one to the north.

Board member Glorian Berk was alarmed that the process could take more than 20 years, and sought a solution by the applicant to move along quicker, to avoid a prolonged “transitional community.”

“This needs to happen in a timely fashion,” Ms. Berk said. “There might be an opportunity for these all to be done at once with some kind of shared septic system.”

Board member John Zuccarelli added that a shared system may be able to save residents a few dollars on their monthly bills.

Ms. Judd said her client had sought grant money from the state and Suffolk County. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is currently reworking its grant program that connects mobile home parks located in the Peconic Estuary with septic system cost relief. Ms. Judd said the East Quogue park is outside the estuary—although it is located in an Aquifer Protection Overlay District.

Relief might be found from Suffolk County’s Reclaim Our Water initiative, which allow homeowners “who decide to replace their cesspool or septic system with the new technologies [to] be eligible for a grant of up to $11,000—inclusive of installing a pressurized shallow drain field—to offset the cost of one of the new systems,” typically valued at $20,000 on average. Grant funding is often prioritized to homes that are in sensitive watersheds, said a county health department spokesperson in an interview Friday.

How to get 43 homeowners to give up their homes and buy a larger mobile home close by is the other problem, Ms. Judd said.

“What my client intends to do is aggressively get people from the front part to units in the back. Anyone who doesn't want to move—they’re going to try to buy out,” she said. “My client intends on keeping it affordable. This is one of the last holdouts for affordable housing in Southampton.”

“There might be some provision—I hate to say forced—to be encouraged by what’s in the lease of the land to move,” board member Philip Keith said. The Planning Board then unanimously but informally agreed that some kind of incentive plan will be needed to quicken the transition.

It’s unclear when the move would start. The mobile home park hasn’t submitted any formal documents to town planners related to the relocation project yet. The first step would be a pre-submission application. It’s also unclear when the relocation is expected to finish. Ultimately, because the residents own or are financing their single-wides but rent the parkland, it would be up to the homeowner to move on their own—and so far, they are largely unaware of the move.

“We haven’t surveyed anyone yet,” Ms. Judd said.

There were no posted notices in and around the mobile home park on Friday.