Town, county to split $6.5M cost to preserve 54-acre parcel in Greenport
The joint purchase of a 54-acre tract of Greenport land using nearly $6.5 million in Community Preservation Fund money by Southold Town and Suffolk County received a green light from the Southold Town Board on Tuesday, March 10.
The property, located west of Albertson Lane in Greenport, extends south to County Road 48, north to Colony Road and east to Bayview Avenue. The parcel borders 324.59 acres of open space already owned by Suffolk County and Southold Town.
The two municipalities would split the cost of the purchase — about $120,000 per acre — for open space preservation through the town’s CPF. The price will be adjusted at closing based on the final surveyed acreage.
Reasons for the purchase include creating parks, nature preserves and recreation areas; preserving open space and fresh and saltwater marshes; and establishing wildlife refuges to protect native biodiversity. It is also located in the Long Island Sound watershed and Peconic Estuary and is in a flood zone.
Former town councilman Greg Doroski, who was elected to the County Legislature last November, said the purchase “was not an easy acquisition by any means.”
“I’d like to thank my colleagues on the Legislature for agreeing to preserve this,” Mr. Doroski said. “This is a lot of money, but this is a really important parcel.”
The land was listed in the town’s CPF Project Plan as property to be acquired for open space use and protection. Benefits from the preservation would help protect Greenport Village’s water supply and mitigate noise, light and air pollution, Southold Town land preservation coordinator Lillian McCullough said at the town’s March 10 public hearing.
The county would manage the property long-term, she added.
Louise Harrison, the Long Island project director and senior science advisor at Save the Sound, was also in favor of the deal.
“This protected open space will continue to ensure that the quality of groundwater that flows beneath its surface into Long Island Sound would be unadulterated in the future by septic waste or applications of lawn fertilizers and pesticides from up to 24 single-family homes that might otherwise be built there,” she said at the hearing.
The CPF has been accruing money from a 2% real estate transfer tax since legislation passed in 1998 in Southold, Riverhead, Shelter Island, Southampton and East Hampton. It is governed by state law and town code and can be used for a variety of purposes that preserve community character. In Southold, the CPF collected $11.1 million and preserved 76 acres in 2024.
Mr. Doroski noted that the parcel was “ideal for preservation” and that the location of the project would not be suitable for an affordable housing development, given its proximity to freshwater wetlands.
“Not developing these into single-family homes will directly benefit the village,” Mr. Doroski said.
Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski thanked the county for its partnership in preservation.
“Without them, it would have been a much more difficult task to come up with that whole 500-acre … block of preserved land,” Mr. Krupski said.
