Southold residents vehemently condemned the proposed Enclaves Hotel and Restaurant at a public hearing last Thursday, criticizing a project that some say could fundamentally change the character of Southold Town.
“To me, this project is an example of the Hamptons creep that is now everywhere in our town, from the outsized homes going up in every hamlet to the roads clogged from the trade parade. Is this really what we want Southold Town to become?” said Anne Murray, an East Marion resident and civic leader.
The proposed 74-seat restaurant and 44-room hotel on Main Road in Southold has been a point of contention for years — and was similarly criticized at a public hearing in 2019, with residents citing concerns about the project’s size and traffic, noise and environmental impacts. The Enclaves, which would be built on a 6.75-acre parcel at the former Hedges bed and breakfast, would include an indoor event space that could accommodate up to 250 people, a basement-level spa for overnight hotel guests and an outdoor swimming pool.
The letter, which featured the heading “Best of the North Fork” above the signatures and the quote “Unify the North Fork Community,” argues that the hotel will benefit the local economy, support local farms and improve local safety by offering visitors to wineries and breweries a place to stay for the night.
“Hotels have been an integral part of our community character for well over a century,” the letter says. “The disappearance of these grand hotels has since given way to more and more suburban sprawl. We would argue suburban sprawl and its substantial noise and traffic has changed the North Fork more than anything else.”
David Altman, an attorney representing the applicant, emphasized that the project is variance-free and the application before the Zoning Board of Appeals is for a special use permit.
“That’s rather important, because it shows careful consideration by the applicant, I believe, in terms of the thoughtfulness and development of this project, particularly in conjunction with comments from this board and, again, comments from the public,” he said, adding that the Final Environmental Impact Statement addresses over 300 community comments.
The impact statement notes that the 250-person indoor event space was added to ease community concerns about noise from outdoor events. Vegetation and fencing were also added along property lines for “visual and noise mitigation purposes,” a consultant said.
Consultants said the project would not significantly increase traffic, even though residents pointed out that the traffic study included in the FEIS was conducted in 2018 and doesn’t account for the influx of people on the North Fork following the outbreak of the pandemic.
Representatives for the project also said there’s no intention to offer a shuttle bus to Founders Landing, something many residents expressed concern about.
“We have not given serious consideration to how Founders Landing may or may not fit into the business … We were under the impression that as taxpayers in the community, the people who came to the hotel had the right to use it, but it is not our intention to make it a feature of the hotel,” said Andrew Giambertone, an architect and partner on the project. “We’ve developed an extensive outdoor entertainment area and the people who come to stay at the hotel will primarily be staying there.”
Leslie Weisman, chairperson of the Zoning Board of Appeals, said the board assumed when they required events to move indoors that they’d be located in the basement.
“Instead, what came back was a proposed addition for a catering facility — or event space, we’ll call it — and an amplified kitchen, and a full spa in the basement, which was an indoor swimming pool, with massage available and so on,” she said, adding that the applicants requested to make it open to the community during the off-season to generate more income. “We determined that would be running yet another business on this property.”
Mr. Altman thanked the ZBA at the meeting’s close and said that it’s “not uncommon to see a visceral reaction from members of the community.
“That’s what we’ve experienced tonight, and I understand that,” he said. “But that being said, I would ask this board to separate the speculation and fiction from the facts.”
The ZBA will accept written comments on the Enclaves project until Nov. 4.
Town attorney Bill Duffy emphasized at the beginning of the hearing that the ZBA is bound by town code. “This is not a popularity contest,” he said.
Town Supervisor Scott Russell, who doesn’t normally comment on pending applications, called the Enclaves application “over the top” in an interview after the hearing.
“I don’t have issues with hotels, things like that, but so many uses in such a small area would have a detrimental impact and undo any effort to suggest that people are making an effort to maintain the character,” he said. “If someone has to assure the public that they’re going to put plantings in to hide the hotel, that should raise real questions about their style of architecture and its consistency with the historic corridor.”
