Southampton Opens Zoning Door for Affordable Housing

Southampton is trying to rebalance the Hamptons housing map and it’s starting east of the Shinnecock Canal.

The town board this month unanimously approved an affordable housing overlay district designed to push workforce housing into the area’s most expensive enclaves, where sky-high home prices have long priced out the year-round labor force. The move creates a pathway for small- to mid-sized affordable projects in places that have historically been off-limits, Newsday reported.

The overlay allows developments with 10 to 35 affordable units on parcels zoned for business or single-family use, provided they receive subsidies from the town’s Community Housing Fund.

The overlay is discretionary, meaning projects must be approved case by case by the town board, but officials say it is meant to speed along proposals that would otherwise be tangled up in zoning or never built at all.

Several hamlets east of the canal rank among the nation’s most expensive housing markets, while roughly half of Southampton’s homes are seasonal, according to a town housing study. Much of the town’s existing affordable stock has been clustered west of the canal, forcing workers to commute east along already clogged corridors like County Road 39.

Town leaders hope the zoning tweak will shift that pattern. Planning officials cited Sandy Hollow Cove Apartments, a 28-unit complex in Tuckahoe designed to resemble a manor-style residence, as a template for how denser projects can blend into high-end surroundings.

Projects approved under the overlay must sit on parcels as small as 60,000 square feet — a sharp reduction from the prior 220,000-square-foot minimum — though developments along County Road 39 are excluded from overlay consideration.

The zoning change dovetails with Southampton’s CHF, a half-percent real estate transfer tax approved by voters in 2022. Since launching in 2023, the fund has generated $39 million, $27.5 million of which has already been spent or committed, according to the town.

Several projects east of the canal — totaling 58 units across Tuckahoe, Water Mill, Shinnecock Hills and North Sea — are already lined up for funding but still need overlay approval to proceed.

Not everyone is sold: some residents warned that higher density could worsen traffic and erode community character, especially near the canal. Town officials counter that most applicants are existing East End residents or workers who were priced out and want to return.

— Holden Walter-Warner