Southampton OKs $10-million land purchases

The Southampton Town board has approved spending almost $10 million to purchase three separate tracts of land through its Community Preservation Fund, including seven acres that had been targeted for subdivision development.

The town last week agreed to spend $1.1 million to buy the parcel of a subdivision owned by Oakland Farms Inc. in Quiogue along Aspatuck Creek.

Southampton's largest purchase is for development rights to farmland known as Lands of Corwith in North Sea. The nearly 50-acre property on David White's Lane will be purchased for $7.5 million. Purchasing development rights allows the owners to continue to farm and live on the land, but not sell it for development.

The third property -- 8.2 acres along East Montauk Highway in Hampton Bays -- will be purchased for $1.1 million. The town will use $268,857 from its planned development district fund and pay the rest through the Community Preservation Fund.

Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst has said she wanted to speed up the purchases of the properties while they are still relatively cheap and available, and use some money from the development fund to do so, as other towns have done.

The preservation fund uses money generated by a 2 percent real estate tax that exempts the first $250,000 of the sale of a home. All five East End towns participate in the fund and money raised by taxes in each town is used specifically to purchase land for preservation in that town.

Southampton's large estates produce the most revenue for the fund: $16.7 million this year. The development district fund collects fees from developers.