Levy OKs over $2M in East End buys

As part of an ongoing preservation effort, Suffolk County executive Steve Levy has announced the approval of more than $2 million in land acquisitions in the East End.

The county will work with Peconic Land Trust, a nonprofit conservation group, to buy 6.6 acres in Southampton for $850,000.

The parcel between Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor is part of 100 acres of preserved land in the Great Swamp and the Noyack Greenbelt that includes low-lying wetlands and sloping woodlands, said John Halsey, the land trust president. It lies on top of the moraine, an area essential to the collection of fresh drinking water, he said. After the county purchases the land, he said, it will remain open space for aquifer protection.

"It doesn't sound like it's a huge piece," he said, "but you're adding to an assemblage here."

The county also approved the purchase of development rights to more than 20 acres of additional farmland in Riverhead for $1.18 million. The county already owns the development rights of a contiguous 165-acre farmland parcel, a county spokesman said.

The Long Island Pine Barrens Society, an open space advocacy group, is challenging the county's law regulating development-rights policy in state Supreme Court in Riverhead. The society wants the county to stop buying farmland until it can rewrite its preservation law. At issue is that farmers from whom the county buys development rights are allowed to build on up to 25 percent of the land, said Richard Amper, the society's executive director.

"If the public buys a farmer's development rights," Amper said, "they don't expect to see houses or barns or concrete greenhouses or wedding factories on the property."

The county has said the suit is without merit.