A plan to rezone farmland for 79 affordable condos ignited a community revolt in tony East Hampton — drawing nearly 3,000 petition signatures and seeing the proposal collapse within a week.
On Dec. 2, developer Kirby Marcantonio, 73, stood before the East Hampton Town Board pitching 79 workforce condominiums across two parcels at 152 Three Mile Harbor Road and 33 West Drive — next to the popular Round Swamp Farm market. He was in contract to buy them for an undisclosed sum after the lots listed for a combined $5.62 million.
The plan required rezoning into the Affordable Housing Overlay District, allowing a density far beyond what is typically permitted.
“The driving force behind this is this idea that the private sector can help provide housing in an area where housing is far beyond the reach for most anybody, especially people who try to live here or people who try to work here,” Marcantonio told The Post.
What happened instead: Community members quickly circulated a fiery online petition — one that lured in thousands of signatures — seeking to squash the development from taking form. Just a week later, on Dec. 8, the proposal was dead in its tracks, and will not proceed.
The fallout is still rippling through a community that says it wants to help its workforce, but is deeply divided on how and where to do it.
“There wasn’t even a public hearing,” said one homeowner who lives within walking distance of the property and requested anonymity for reasons of privacy. “The way it came out just looked like they were trying to do this in the middle of the dead of winter when nobody was around.”
What angered many was the proposed business structure — the condos would be sold to employers, not residents directly, who would then house their workers.
Residents did not argue that East Hampton needs affordable housing. They claimed that this was the wrong model for it.
“[Marcantonio] is full of baloney,” the resident added. “He wants to build these condos to sell it to business people out there for probably $750,000 to $1 million each … That’s not what’s affordable. That’s not how affordable housing works.
(Marcantonio denied that claim.)
And then Round Swamp Farm got involved.
On Dec. 4 its owner, Carolyn Snyder, launched a Change.org petition titled “DENY the Zone Change Request for 79 Condos.” By Dec. 8, more than 2,700 people had signed.
In it, a local woman named Bonny said, “I know housing is short but this is not about affordable housing. This is about overcrowding … Who will want to be in the Hamptons if it looks like Far Rockaway?”
Marcantonio believed the condos could help. Two-thirds of the workforce, he explained, now commutes from up to 50 miles away.
“Half the police force of East Hampton lives in Smithtown because they can’t afford to live here. So they drive every day from Smithtown to police this area, and at the end of the day they drive back. It’s not an easy thing to do.”
The team met with town officials back in April, Marcantonio said, and the planning department encouraged them to explore whether the site could support more than the standard 60-unit cap because the land consisted of two parcels. Over the following months, they brainstormed plans to present in a Dec. 2 meeting at the East Hampton town hall. It was an initial presentation that yielded no outcome — still, the public caught word of the plan, and began circulating the petition.
Due to the uproar, Marcantonio and his partners met privately this week and withdrew the contract to buy the land. Around the same time, an East Hampton official put the kibosh on the development entirely.
“I do not support the Petition for 152 Three Mile Harbor Road and 33 West Drive,” town supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said in a statement on Monday. “The proposed model does not meet our definition of affordable housing … placing 79 units at this location would not reflect the character of the neighborhood. Because a majority of the Town Board does not wish to pursue this Petition, it will not move forward.”
Despite the proposal being turned down, hostilities remained at a weekly town board meeting on Dec. 9, where community members continued to voice their concerns.
“It’s given all of us a lot of turmoil in our lives, living there and not knowing exactly what the future holds,” Brian Niggles, who spoke on behalf of his family, which owns Round Swamp Farm, said. “I think that it would give all of us a lot of comfort if this nightmare would be finally put to bed.”
Another project remains alive — 350 Pantigo Road, the only land in East Hampton already zoned for affordable housing.
“It sat there for 40 years. Nobody wanted to do anything with it,” Marcantonio said. His team bought it two years ago and designed 45 townhouses intended for essential workers — teachers, health care workers, local businesses.
That one, he explained, is moving through planning because it’s “isolated” and doesn’t require a zoning fight.
But for this one, there will be silence — for now.
Even Marcantonio doesn’t claim to have the final answer as to whether his plan will come to fruition.
“If that’s not the spot, maybe we could find something else,” he said. “We’ll try.”
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