Latest Express Sessions Event Explores Lake Agawam Expansion Plan

Members of the Southampton Village community gathered at the Southampton Social Club on September 28 for another opportunity to debate and discuss a proposed plan that has activated — and divided — many residents for weeks.

The latest Express Sessions community forum hosted by The Express News Group focused on Lake Agawam, and a plan, unveiled in August by the nonprofit Lake Agawam Conservancy, to create a public/private partnership akin to New York City’s Central Park model and build a world class public garden as well as waterfront access to the lake — which would require the closure of Pond Lane to vehicle traffic, a feature that has emerged as the most controversial part of the plan.

The lunchtime panel discussion, which was moderated by Express News Group Executive Editor Joseph P. Shaw, featured the voices of several key community members and stakeholders, including Southampton Village Mayor Bill Manger, Lake Agawam Conservancy Board member David Bohnett, former Southampton Village Major Michael Irving, Southampton Town Planning Director Janice Scherer, Shannon Willey, the owner of the local business Sea Green Designs, and Dr. Christopher Gobler, a professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.

The panelists and members of the audience in attendance for lunch discussed and debated many of the issues that initially emerged at a Southampton Village Board of Trustees meeting on September 14, which was held at the Southampton Cultural Center on Pond Lane to accommodate the large crowd that came out to weigh in.

At the end of August, the conservancy outlined a plan to make an 11-acre extension of Agawam Park by combining a parcel of land on Pond Lane already set aside by the Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund with two adjoining properties owned by the John Paulson Foundation, which bought the parcels to prevent them from being developed. Paulson has said his foundation plans to donate one parcel to the town and sell the other to the CPF for the same price he paid for it. The sale of those parcels, however, is contingent on closing Pond Lane to vehicular traffic.

The one point that people on both sides of the debate — which centers mainly around the potential closure of Pond Lane — seem to agree on is that Lake Agawam is in need of serious help. It has long had a reputation for being one of the most polluted lakes in the state, and Gobler has outlined, countless times in public forums, the many steps that need to be taken in order to restore the health of the lake.

The creation of a Southampton Village sewer district is at the top of that list, and an effort to do so has been ongoing for years in the village, with the challenge of finding an appropriate site for a sewage treatment plant being the main reason it has not yet come to fruition. The village is also hoping to put a $10 million algae harvester, which it was able to buy with several local and state grants, at nearby Doscher Park. Because Doscher is a CPF property, another piece of land would need to be “swapped” in to allow for the harvester to take up the preserved space at Doscher. The parcels that Paulson wants to sell would satisfy that requirement.

The harvester has been billed by many experts as a key component for cleaning up the polluted lake, because it would remove, on a daily basis, the buildup of nitrogen and phosphorus that feeds the harmful algae blooms that have choked out the lake for years.

Willey shared her thoughts on the proposed plan early on, sharing a sentiment that has been expressed by many people so far.

“To me, this is a wonderful concept, but I think everyone does have legitimate concerns and we need to look at it from all perspectives,” she said. “The community is the client, so we need to hear what the community wants.”

One important community member who weighed in for the first time, at the end of the session, was Brenda Simmons. Simmons is the executive director of the Southampton African American Museum, and the co-founder of the Pyrrhus Concer Action Committee. Pond Lane is also known as Concer’s Way, paying homage to the formerly enslaved Black man who made his home there in the 1800s, and is a key figure in Southampton Village history. The action committee has been, for years, engaged in an effort to restore his homestead, which sat on now vacant land overlooking the lake, and was demolished in 2014.

The Concer Homstead, once it is restored, would be a direct neighbor of the new and improved park, yet Simmons said neither she nor PCAC co-founder Dr. Georgette Grier-Key had been invited to participate in the planning and discussion of the project.

Several residents who are opposed to the plan and the closure of Pond Lane expressed a similar frustration about the way the project has been planned and presented. While representatives from the conservancy have said they want to engage public input and discussion, some residents have felt shut out of the process.

“Why is the conservancy in charge?” queried audience member James Sandnes. “Why is it not a government function?”

Sandnes asked why other, more active park uses, like building pickleball courts or an amphitheater or ice skating rink weren’t being considered, and indicated he believed that the conservancy was “disrepresentative” of the community at large, including only those with homes on or near the lake.

Bohnett said the conservancy is motivated purely by a desire to clean up the lake and provide a public benefit to the community for years to come, and he rejected the idea that there are any ulterior motives that some community members have suggested.

“It’s nothing other than a public/private partnership and the conservancy trying to do something for the good of the community,” he said, adding that the park would benefit all property owners in the village, not just those who live near the lake.