Featured Letter: Riverside revitalization project is just too big

The enormous revitalization project in Riverside will negatively impact not only the hamlet but the surrounding communities. Here are some concerns we must address before the project is passed:

The plan proposes that only 28 students a year will come from the 2,267 apartments to be built. This is a ludicrously low figure and our tax dollars will be needed to build the additional expensive classrooms that will realistically be necessary.

Traffic and parking problems will worsen with the influx of residents and cars. A side road is planned for access to stores, but that still leaves Flanders Road with crippling traffic that can only be dealt with using our tax dollars. Creating a mini-city in our bucolic environment will logically and undeniably tax our infrastructure much more than the proposal states. The outlandish scale of development would never be allowed to take place in the other Southampton hamlets. Wouldn’t a much more scaled-back plan — with adequate policing and tearing down the blight now harming the community — actually have a much more positive effect?

I know rehabilitation of Riverside would be a very good thing, but it should be done in a way that will actually enhance our community and not impact it in the negative ways I have stated.

Email the Southampton town clerk if you want the Dec. 22 date for approval extended so we can ask for at least one more community meeting to voice our concerns.

The author is a Flanders resident.