Letters

I am writing to highlight the efforts of the Bridgehampton Civic Association and urge Bridgehampton residents to become members.

In less than three years, the association has established itself as an active advocate for the residents of Bridgehampton, championing initiatives to preserve the reasons why we enjoy living in Bridgehampton and resisting trends which threaten the community. Our focus includes:

• Overdevelopment and land use: Development is a natural progression in a hamlet as appealing as Bridgehampton, but overdevelopment burdens our infrastructure and threatens what we love about our community. We fought for enforcement of the zoning and building code.

• Historic preservation: The association worked with the town to establish the Bridgehampton Main Street Historic District, stretching from Snake Hollow Road to Ocean Road, and we are exploring other options to protect our community.

• Budhampton: Because of unwise decisions made by the previous supervisor and Town Board, unincorporated hamlets like Bridgehampton are seeing a proliferation of proposals for pot shops, including one replacing our beloved Carvel. We are working with the current Town Board to see what relief might be possible.

• Pedestrian and traffic safety/noise: Ever-increasing traffic from continued development is a reality. The association works with the town to improve sidewalks, pedestrian crosswalks, speed limits and stop signs at problematic intersections.

• Code enforcement: Lax code enforcement negates the conditions the town has set for development, including for agricultural reserves and aquifer protection. Variances granted too readily, in effect, rewrite the building code. The association works with the Building Department, Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals and code enforcement to advocate for compliance.

• Environmental advocacy: Our agricultural reserves, wetlands and aquifer protection overlay districts are under attack. We support maintaining the legal covenants between the town and property owners, which dictate the kinds of activities and development that can take place.

• Comprehensive tree planting and maintenance: As a former Citizens Advisory Committee, we successfully advocated for planting new height-appropriate and mostly native variety trees along Bridgehampton Main Street, and we are now advocating to establish a townwide comprehensive tree planting and maintenance program, a project contemplated by the town’s Comprehensive Plan of 1999 that, to date, has not come to fruition.

• Affordable housing: Hamlet office zoning calls for one apartment for each 1,000 square feet in buildings over 3,000 square feet. However, with variances granted, few have materialized. We advocated against those variances to increase the stock of affordable apartments without the need for large developments.

In all these ways and more, the association is working for you. We urge Bridgehampton residents to become members: The more support we enjoy, the more we can do for you. Visit our website, bridgecivic.org.

James S. Olson

Bridgehampton Civic Association