Experts agree that our local real estate market is "hot" with rapidly escalating real estate values. As land gets more expensive, some other interesting demographic factors converge:

1. Baby boomers are reaching their peak income-earning years and are looking for second homes
2. Others are simplifying their lives, as their children leave home for college, by working part time here and part time in their office (out of the area). This will create a peak in real estate demand over the next five to seven years.
3. The average age of a farmer (55) on the East End is well above the average in New York State (low 40s), which means they are increasingly concerned about their impending retirement and financial security. Furthermore, many heirs are no longer interested in agriculture as a way of life. Families are therefore confronted with a dilemma: do they find an alternate way of keeping their land in agricultural production or do they sell to a developer? Sadly, estate planning is often not taken into consideration when confronting these decisions.

Taken together, the increasing demand for second homes, coupled with farmers seeking a way to "cash out," will keep up the intense pressure for more development and provide compelling incentives for land owners to sell. The fact is that the best means of saving land from development is to buy it (it can either be bought outright for open space, or development rights for farmland can be purchased) . This must be done in a competitive open market. Though vital, funds recently authorized by local governments ($16.6 million for the five towns) in referenda are limited and simply can't do the whole job. Additional funding sources and tools are necessary.

For agricultural lands, time is truly of the essence: encouraging farmers to sell their development rights now creates an inventory of land that can be used solely for agricultural purposes. This lower cost land is available to would-be farmers or to those expanding farms. They do not have to compete in the open market for land that developers are trying to buy for housing. Additional public funding can provide families with options other than full development.

Is Development Pressure Really That Robust?

Yes. In fact , nearly 13% of the remaining farmland in Southampton is currently before the Southampton Town Planning board for subdivision approval. Southampton issued more building permits in the spring of 1997 than did all of Brookhaven Town over the same period.

Can't Zoning and Other Land-use Regulations do More?

Yes! These tools can still be useful, but they cannot do the whole job. The vast majority of private vacant land on the East End is in parcels between 10 and 100 acres in size. Clustering future housing and even limiting development through upzoning could still allow buildout that would adversely affect vistas, watersheds , drinking water aquifers and wetlands.

All the East End towns have employed these planning concepts and they will have to continue to do so. One promising new concept would utilize a portion of the Community Preservation Fund (The Land Bank) to capitalize a Development Rights Bank. This would enable towns to develop a transfer of development rights program. This option and other zoning changes will be fully explored as a requirement of the Community Preservation Fund law.

What Support is in Place for a Land Bank?

Support for this concept is extensive. This Land Bank concept is the work of a broad coalition of bankers, farmers, realtors, builders, civic associations and environmental organizations. A recent letter was sent from more than 100 prominent and respected residents of the East End to the Governor in support of this bill. The 140- member East Hampton Business Alliance has endorsed the concept and at a recent meeting, members oft he Long Island Farm Bureau passed a resolution in support of the Land Bank. Newsday and nearly every local newspaper has strongly supported this concept.

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