Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund Reaches Billion Dollar Mark

The Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund (CPF) produced $8.37 million in revenue for January 2015 for the Peconic Bay Region, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. (I-Sag Harbor) announced.

This compares with $7.01 million produced in January 2014, a 19.4% increase over 2014 for the month.

Since it began in 1999, the Peconic Bay Regional Community Preservation Fund has produced a total of $1.00089 billion.

“The Community Preservation Fund, in passing the $1 billion mark, has exceeded all expectations its creators envisioned when it was enacted in 1998,” Thiele said. “The true measure of its success is not the level of
revenue, but the more than 10,000 acres that have been protected across the East End.”

CPF is a conservation program started to preserve open space and farmland in the five East End townships (Southampton, East Hampton, Southold, Riverhead and Shelter Island).

The fund is financed by a 2% tax on real estate sales, which is a one-time tax that the buyer of real estate is required to pay when purchasing a new or used home or vacant property.

The fund has produced over 10,000 acres of land that would have otherwise been lost to development.

Since it began, the Community Preservation Fund:

• helped implement key land protection recommendations from a ten-year study to improve and restore the Peconic Estuary;
• has been used to purchase open space and environmentally sensitive lands as a way to protect the quality of drinking water;
• has been used to protect the water quality in the Peconic Bay and our local harbors and bays;
• enableed towns to continue to purchase developments rights on farmland, thereby preserving the farms that produce fresh fruit and vegetables, and a traditional way of life on the East End.

According to Thiele, by protecting community character, the rural character and historic sense of place in the communitie and the traditional economic basis of farming, fishing, tourism, and second homes, has been secured.

“The East End continues to be an attractive place for people to visit and live because the CPF has insured that conservation could keep place with development,” he said. “The things that make our East End home special, like historic villages, farms, bays, and beaches still exist and thrive. Our economy is our environment.”

To celebrate the milestone for CPF, Thiele announced that there will be a “Billion Dollar Bash” celebration for the CPF at the Suffolk Theater in Riverhead on March 5, at 5 p.m.

Those who worked to create the CPF and administer the fund through the years will join together to celebrate the success of the CPF and reminisce about the battle to create the fund.

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