Storage Containers Proposed For Staff Housing At The Bridge Golf Club

It’s an innovative solution — using refurbished shipping containers to provide seasonal workforce housing. It could also be a safer scheme for The Bridge Golf Club, which last spring saw 28 of 30 staff members living in the existing housing facility contract COVID-19.

Reviewing a plan to swap some interior housing units for eight stand alone containers on the Millstone Road, Noyac acreage, Southampton Town Planning Board Chairwoman Jacqui LoFaro called the idea “creative.”

Vice Chairman Dennis Finnerty made note, during a February 11 public hearing on the proposal that the use of refurbished shipping containers is a new trend. “I’m familiar with these shipping container designs, it’s one of the newest trends in affordable workforce housing,” he said.

Board member Phillip Keith was less sold on the notion. “I don’t find these shipping containers to be particularly attractive,” he said.

He wondered why the club doesn’t simply get its staff vaccinated, if the purpose of the change was staff safety.

“We started this proposal,” Jake Watkins of the architectural firm Roger Ferris + Partners explained, “because of the extreme hike in the virus and the uncertainty of who would be able to get vaccinated.”

He said the club doesn’t want to rely on the availability of the vaccine when core staff members begin to arrive in April, with full staff expected by June. Mr. Finnerty suggested discussion of vaccinating staff was outside the purview of the Planning Board.

Because of the timing, he also expressed the hope the project could be expedited.

That might happen, as there were no members of the public looking to weigh in during last week’s hearing.

The club is actually proposing three projects, Mr. Watkins detailed. His client is looking to expand a maintenance facility by about 8,100 square feet and build a road connecting it to an existing internal roadway.

The expansion of the seasonal housing elicited the only comments and questions from the board, however.

The existing living facility is approved by the Suffolk County Health Department to house 47 beds. The club maintains it with 30 beds, and 23 units on two stories. The proposal takes eight units out of the first floor and moves them into separate, refurbished storage containers.

The containers measure about 20 feet by 16 feet. Every unit will have its own HVAC system, as well as doors on either end, with sliding glass at one end and skylights in the roof.

Reporting The Bridge and its staff were “hit extraordinarily hard” by the pandemic last season, Mr. Watkins said a goal is to make sure workers have their main quarters separated from each other, the hope is to spread everybody out. Using the container units, means the opportunity for chance interaction is greatly reduced.

There will be a covered walkway connecting the containers to the main building, which is where bathrooms for the container dwellers will be. An exterior pavilion will allow for outdoor dining.

Ms. LoFaro asked whether individual toilets for the units were considered.

The existing bathroom in the main building is the best option, Mr. Watkins put forth, as health department approvals are already in place and time is of the essence. “We’re trying to create a safer environment, a healthy environment, an environment that will not cause and spread the virus,” he said. “It’s a matter of cost and time,” he added. The proposal essentially displaces beds from inside the building to the individual units, so there’s no expansion of sanitary use anticipated.

The board voted to close the hearing, allowing 30 days for written comment.

The website 24hPlans.com, a site hosted by draftsmen and CGI artists, reported on the trend of shipping container homes, offering that a 160-square-foot space can go for between $1,500 and $3,000. The containers are stackable and movable and can easily fit on oddly shaped lots.

Last fall, CNN reported on shipping container communities in Southern Los Angeles designed as a remedy for the city’s extensive homeless population.