Miller Farm tract, Accabonac lot are to be preserved
(11/26/2009) Two significant properties in Springs will become public property, not only protecting the environment and aquatic and forest
Private donors will help East Hampton Town buy an acre near Accabonac Harbor to preserve an unobstructed view from the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center and protect the wetlands from development.
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habitats, but also preserving historical aspects of the hamlet.
The acquisition of a large tract of woodland off Old Stone Highway will maintain most of a historic farmstead and add to an extensive trails system over other preserves in the area.
A one-acre site along Accabonac Harbor on which a large house had been proposed will instead remain vacant, allowing the view across the marshy wetlands from the nearby Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center to remain much the same as it was when Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, the famous artists, were living there.
Along with other harborfront parcels owned by the Nature Conservancy, the one-acre Accabonac property, at 824 Fireplace Road, will become part of the extensive public holdings encircling and protecting the harbor.
Both purchases were approved unanimously by the East Hampton Town Board on Friday following public hearings on adding them to the community preservation fund project list, as well as on their purchase.
Almost half of the $1.2 million for the Accabonac property, which is owned by Andrew B. Potter, will come from donations from organizations and individuals. The Nature Conservancy, which is also donating its own money toward the land, will collect the funds as well as cover the initial payment for the sale to go through before being reimbursed.
Contributions totaling $562,000 came from “a real mosaic” of donors, Helen Harrison, the director of the Pollock-Krasner House, said at the hearing. Among the donors were the Helen and Claus Hoie Foundation, the Cape Branch Foundation, the Barbara Slifka Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Communal Fund, the Stony Brook Foundation, and the Accabonac Protection Committee.
Individual donors included Stella McCartney, Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas, Edwina von Gal, Ellen Saltzman Katz, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Steve and Sandy Perlbinder, Guy and Ann Roberts, Ellen Sosnow, Stu and Gloria Jones, Peter and Judith Weis, and Jorie Latham, who handed over a check at last week’s hearing.
The town’s $638,000 share of the cost will come from the community preservation fund.
Randy Parsons, a former town councilman who is now a conservation finance and policy adviser at the Nature Conservancy, outlined the significance of preserving the Potter lot. The site is within a United States Fish and Wildlife Service “critical natural resource area” and is highly ranked by the Peconic Estuary Program as a priority for acquisition because of its environmental attributes and the potential impact to the estuary of its development.
The town has already preserved numerous parcels around Accabonac Harbor, he noted. “Accabonac Harbor is not yet a nitrogen-stressed watershed. But it could be if we continue to put houses and septic systems and lawns on the property around the harbor,” Mr. Parsons said.
“This property is a nice merging of some of the things that make East Hampton a great town,” he said.
Also on Friday, the town board approved the purchase of just over 26 acres of an approximately 31-acre site on Old Stone Highway in Springs. Long owned by the Nivola family, it was originally the home of some of the settlers of the area, which was once known as the East Side.
The $3.1 million cost will come from the community preservation fund.
The acreage adjoins 15 acres already owned by the town, known as the Maplehurst property, with trails running through a long swath of woods from Neck Path to Old Stone Highway. It also abuts the Shaarey Pardes Jewish Cemetery.
The property also contains the 1859 gravesite of Joseph C. Bennett, a member of another early local family.
The joint owners of the land, Pietro Nivola and his sister, Claire, were on hand at the hearing on Friday. Their parents, Ruth Nivola and Constantino Nivola, a well-known sculptor, bought the old Miller family house and farmland in 1948, Mr. Nivola said.
George Miller built the farmhouse about 200 years ago, and Robert Hefner, a historical consultant to the town, has called the house and land “one of the last unprotected historic farmsteads” in the town.
Mr. Nivola, who said he was “honored to be here with members of the community,” said that he and his sister had been making efforts since the 1990s to ensure the property’s preservation. He thanked neighbors and friends for their support.
The acquisition “has been a long time coming,” Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisitions and management, said Friday. The deal, which will occur in phases as portions of the property are subdivided, would have dissolved if the town did not act before the end of the year.
Each sibling will retain a two-acre house lot, one of which will include the existing house. A third lot that will be created under the subdivision plan, of about an acre, is intended to become part of the cemetery, for which more space is desired. The gravesite will also be preserved separately.
In the future, Nancy Kane of the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society told the board, trails through that area will connect with a system that traverses Jacob’s Farm, 165 preserved acres on the other side of Neck Path, and beyond.
On Swamp Road
Another community preservation fund purchase will be the subject of a town board hearing on Friday, Dec. 4. East Hampton Town and Suffolk County are proposing to jointly buy 27 acres along Swamp Road in East Hampton for a total cost of $2.4 million.
The property, Mr. Wilson said, contains pine forest and wetlands, and has “a lot of ecological value.” The low-lying land has “spectacular views,” he said, and is adjacent to hundreds of acres of preserved, county-owned land.
Mr. Wilson said the town board had agreed to set aside now the $4.1 million needed from the preservation fund for next year’s debt payment on money already borrowed against future C.P.F. income. “So,” he said, “we’re only working with capital beyond debt service” to make new land purchases.
At present, he said, the preservation fund has about $10 million. An additional $500,000, from a grant that was awarded some years ago to help with the purchase of the Shadmoor property in Montauk but had not been allocated, will be applied to the debt repayment, he said.
One speaker at Friday’s hearing, John Talmage, protested the purchase of the two Springs properties. The town “should not draw one more dollar from the C.P.F. except to pay off debt,” he said, until annual audits of the fund are current. “Stop spending; you are running in the dark,” he said.
But Mr. Parsons noted at the hearing that 65 percent of voters here had “consistently voted” in favor of establishing and continuing the C.P.F. program.
“Despite everybody’s awareness that there are financial problems in the town as a whole, I don’t believe that they want this board to stop making acquisitions,” he said. “It’s full speed ahead for the C.P.F. The C.P.F. is rather healthy, economically.”