Sessions Report: Affordable Housing for Essential Volunteers and Professionals on Public Land

There is no easy solution for the South Fork’s affordable housing crisis, which is striking schools, police departments and volunteer emergency corps hardest. A new idea is to use some of those same properties where men and women are employed, or where they volunteer, to build affordable housing and to give them an inside track at a place they can truly call home, in exchange for their employment or volunteering. Sag Harbor Village Mayor Tom Gardella floated the idea as a Village Board member to use the Sag Harbor Firehouse property in that way, and a similar plan has been pitched to East Hampton schools. Is it one possible answer? On October 12 for the latest Express Sessions discussion The Express News Group assembled Tim Fromm, assistant superintendent of East Hampton School District; Tom Gardella, Sag Harbor Village mayor; Curtis Highsmith, executive director, Southampton Town Housing Authority; Kirby Marcantonio, owner of Hampton Life; and Tommy John Schiavoni, Southampton Town councilman; at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor to discuss these innovation solutions.