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Best News! Southampton Town Board voted unanimously last night on a resolution to accept terms with LIPA that results in the burial of 100% of the cables on the powerline route on the back roads.
The terms call for a LIPA surcharge based upon consumption — for the East End of the Town, only (excluding Shinnecock, Tuckahoe, and the Shinnecock Reseration). The surcharge will amount to $3.70 per month for the average electric consumer, i.e., bigger houses will pay more than average, and smaller houses less.
At later date, yet to be set, we must go to LIPA headquarters to impress upon LIPA’s Trustees that we expect them to also ratify this agreement. Again, on that day, CGSF will arrange for chartered Jitneys (free to supporters who come, including lunch aboard the return trip).
In the event that LIPA’s Trustees do not ratify the agreement - the Town’s resolution also calls for establishing a Special Tax Assessment District to support payment for the undergrounding. The boundaries of the STAD are yet to be set, but will include Water Mill, part of Bridgehampton, and perhaps, depending upon their agreement, the Villages of Southampton, Sag Harbor, North Haven, and Sagaponack.
Please take the time to send “Thank You” emails to the Southampton Town Board for their good work to preserve and protect our scenic vistas and hurricane escape route. This was a long and hard negotiation for them. Here are their email addresses:
Supervisor Linda Kabot: LKabot@SouthamptonTownNY.gov
Councilman Chris Nuzzi: CNuzzi@SouthamptonTownNY.gov
Councilwoman Anna Throne-Holst: AThrone-Holst@SouthamptonTown.gov
Councilwoman Nancy Groboski: NGraboski@SouthamptonTownNY.gov
Councilman Dan Russo: DRusso@SouthamptonTownNY.gov
We owe a special debt of gratitude to Assemblyman Fred Thiele, who persisted in bringing both sides to this agreement. Without Assemblyman Thiele’s involvement this deal would never have happened. Please tell Assemblyman Thiele you are grateful: thielef@ assembly.state.ny.us
Steve Abramson, Chair
Committee for a Green South Fork
info@buryLIPAcables.com
It’s not an uncommon scenario. Not to be cynical, but so much of our destiny is controlled by people who don’t live here, but wish they did, but they can’t and are not very happy about it so they feel a little “so there, you fancy-schmancies” is in order.
It’s why many have been trying to create “Peconic County” consisting of the 5 East End Towns. Why should we be ruled by people who have never even been here, some 50 miles away?
The same for the Long Island Board of Realtors. Why should a board from West Islip regulate how listings are handled on the East End, where we have a very different culture and way of doing business. That’s why HANFRA, the Hamptons and North Fork Realtors Association has grown to 1000 members in recent years - local rule!!
We’ll now we have the Long Island Power Authority - LIPA - who says they need to provide more power lines to the East End in order to keep up with demand, and they want to put up these big ugly poles along our roadways. Needless to say, many of us are against it.
Here’s one of the stories:
OK, I admit it. This bull (not just because I’m a Taurus) started growing claws the last few weeks, with the news stories flowing about AHM, IndyMac, First Mangus, Thronburg, Green Point, Countrywide, and countless others. I’m an eternal optimist, with a realist bent, but even my closest business friends were walking about with one raised eyebrow since early August.
As I have heard and repeated many times before “if you do a rain dance long enough, it’s going to rain”.
“Is our rainy day(s) here?”, I asked.
“Just look at the papers and listen to the news”, I was told. Ohhhhhh, of course.
Well, refreshingly, lawyer, writer, actor and economist Ben Stein, as usual, helped put things in perspective for me this morning:
“ FEAR CAN TRUMP FACT Today’s news media will “catastrophize” anything they can. The subprime mess was always much smaller than the media let on. (See my column of two weeks ago.) In a nation of our size, in a world economy on fire with prosperity and liquidity, the losses were not large, but the media endlessly tried to scare us. ” Ben Stein 8/26/07
See the rest of Ben’s NYTimes article here: Avoid the Craziness and No One Gets Hurt
SEE BEN STEINS CBS REPORT HERE
The Long Island Power Authority is looking at ways to strengthen the power grid for the East End and, unfortunately, they are seriously considering installing new 60-foot-high power poles on a route from along David Whites Lane in Southampton through Scuttle Hole Road in Bridgehampton to the Sag Harbor Turnpike.
The power lines we have are currently the single largest focus of complaints about vista interruptions. Adding more and higher poles would be exactly the opposite of what the public wants.
Here’s the link to the LIPA PROJECT REPORT
Let your voices be heard at the public meeting LIPA has scheduled on August 21st at 6 PM at the Water Mill Community House located on the Montauk Highway at the light in Water Mill.
[tags]Hamptons, hamptons power grid, LIPA, Stop LIPA power poles, hamptons real estate, underground power lines[/tags]
Ok, so I get the UNSOLICITED SPAMail this morning and, DUH, open it up:
Well, if they list the “TOP REAL ESTATE AGENTS IN AMERICA” , I’d like to see how they do it and who those “top real estate agents in America” are.
So, I go to their website:
SPAM like this - AGENT QUEST - is getting me increasingly hot under the collar!
Are there really realtors and consumers out there who buy this junk? I guess people are falling for the Ambassador to Guyana needing to invest $22 million emails, so…
Sure, they’ll get you in touch with “TOP AGENTS”. If you agree with their definition of a “TOP AGENT” as being anyone who’s desperate enough to pay AGENT QUEST $59.00 a year! See below:
Insulting, exploitive, immoral - should be illegal!!! md
As we have said before, due to the lack of comprehensive tracking tools and the reliance on the county recording office, tracking sales here is like using an abacus. Good luck! It can take as long as 6 months before all transfers are recorded…by the time the horse ‘n buggy gets there and back with figures, we’re in another market already.
One way to track closings is revenue reported by the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund, which collects a 2% tax for each transaction at the closing table.
According to State Assemblyman Fred Thiele, the five East End towns (Riverhead, Southold, Shelter Island, East Hampton and Southampton) together collected over $53 million for the first 6 months of 2007. That’s compared to $48 million in 2005 and $45 million in 2005.
The CPF also reports the number of transactions as follows:
First 6 months 2007: 4129
First 6 months 2006: 4526
First 6 months 2005: 5133
So, while revenues are up 11% from ‘06 and 17% from ‘05,
the number of transactions are down 9% from ‘06 and nearly 20% from ‘05.
Bigger fish, less of them…md
[tags]Beachamptons, Beach, Michael Daly, Hamptons, hamptons sales figures 2007, Community preservation fund, conservation[/tags]
…that brokerages, here in the Hamptons and the North Fork move into the 21st century.
These tech introductions are still years behind the rest of the country as far as giving true exposure to sellers listings, but that’s been the parochial nature of the East End.
Check out the latest article on the subject by Lauren Elkies
August 2007
Hamptons listings: From Stone Age to E-Age
By Lauren Elkies
Brian Boero from 1000watt Consulting, writes on the “Creepy Factor” of all these new online services keeping tabs on our home and our homes value. Pull the shades!
OREX or Open RealNet Exchange is the long-awaited digital sharing tool that East End brokers can now use to share their exclusive listings electronically, rather than by fax (yes- this is 2007, and I said “fax”).
Lauren Elkies got the word and announced it in The Real Deal.
East End brokerages enter e-age
…is very similar to Manhattan.
Here, in the Hamptons aka “The Wild, Wild East”, it has been common practice for years, for agents and brokers to selectively co-broke their listings, not giving access to some agencies. It’s very similar to how cliques form in junior high While it’s against the Realtor Code of Ethics it might even be considered a “restraint of trade” by the Department of State or the DOJ. It has yet to be tested.
Recently, RealNet Solutions, the local provider of a back of house listing management system that coordinates with Hamptons Real Estate Online (HREO.com), started offering an electronic listings exchange system called OREX (Open Realnet Exchange).
For the first time, instead of faxing listings and co-brokes to each other, agencies who use RealNet can electronically share their listings. The question is: will they?
One step forward…
See this article, by Lauren Elkies about Manhattan co-brokering. Sound familiar?
June 2007
Co-brokerage and commissions in conflict
By Lauren Elkies
