Southold Town moves to buy Mattituck Park District lot
Southold Town has set aside $250,000 to purchase the Pike Street parking lot from the Mattituck Park District, Supervisor Scott Russell said Tuesday.
The purchase would have to go to voters to approve through a referendum.
The park district has been hoping the town would purchase the parking lot since November, when the district discovered it shouldn’t be keeping the lot, citing a post World War II-era provision in its bylaws.
The 1948 referendum states that in order for the district to maintain ownership of the lot, it would need to develop a park around it. But that hasn’t happened in the nearly 70 years the district has owned the property and no plan is in place to do so in the future.
The parking lot, which the district once leased to the town, now serves a number of businesses on Love Lane, Pike Street and a portion of Main Road — and officials in both the town and park district say they’d like to keep it that way, according to a previous Suffolk Times article.
Hoping to ensure the property remains available as parking for shoppers in downtown Mattituck, Mr. Russell said the Town Board agreed during a special meeting Friday to allocate up to $250,000 toward acquiring it.
No deal has been inked yet, as the two sides remain in negotiations.
Park district commissioner Mike Ryan said he is “pleased” with the way negotiations were headed, but declined to go into details about the talks.
