Laura Brewer loves where she lives. She would prefer lower school taxes, but she believes her children are getting a great education. She wishes she didn't have to warn her 12-year-old son to avoid back roads and stay on the highway when she sends him on his bike to buy milk at the nearby deli, but she is grateful the delis are there. And she hates when garbage fills streets near her house, but clearing it away as a family gives her children a sense of pride.
So when Brewer told a cousin she lived in Flanders, it hurt when the woman looked at Brewer incredulously and said, "I wouldn't even walk the streets in Flanders."
"We've got good schools over here and decent people over here," said Brewer, 33. "We are just dumped on and told by everyone that we're just trash. And we're not."
For years, residents have complained that the hamlets of Flanders, Riverside and Northampton are Southampton town's outcasts. Few people have heard of their communities, they say, or they associate the area with drugs and crime. They pay Hamptons taxes, but have few of its amenities.
But that may change because of a series of town and state initiatives aimed at reviving what even local officials have called neglected areas.
At the heart of the revitalization is a town-commissioned study to identify possible physical improvements in the hamlets, including repair of deteriorating roads and housing, and promote business development there.
Ferrandino & Associates, the Elmsford, N.Y., firm conducting the study, recently held the second of four public meetings to discuss the study's objectives.
"People think of Southampton, they think of the Hamptons. The reality is, there are areas that need basic services," said Donna Giancontieri, executive assistant to Southampton Supervisor Patrick Heaney. For example, she said, residents have to travel several miles for groceries.
Last month, the State Legislature approved a bill that would allow Southampton to create a Community Development Agency, which could apply for state and federal funds to help it buy, revitalize and sell blighted properties. The legislation awaits Gov. George Pataki's signature. Ground also was broken in Riverside for a new State Police barracks, which is being relocated from Hampton Bays.
In August, the state will begin a $20.5-million project to repave seven miles of Route 24 and add a bicycle lane, bus shelters and sidewalks. Town officials are working with the Long Island Power Authority to bring street lights to Riverside, where the median household income was $28,208 in 2000, about half that of the town as a whole.
According to town officials, a top priority is offsetting residents' heavy tax burden. Eighty-five percent of the land on the Southampton side of the Riverhead school district - encompassing Riverside, Flanders, Northampton and the Red Creek section of Hampton Bays - has been removed from the tax rolls for Pine Barrens preservation and county uses. In addition, residents there have been paying a larger share of the school budget because their school tax reflects townwide property values, including tony Hamptons real estate that skews the average higher.
In September, the State Office of Real Property Services will vote on the town's request for a temporary special tax rate, which would be calculated based on property values in just the school district, rather than the whole town.
Laura's husband, Michael Brewer, and his brother, David, have been mobilizing residents and monitoring town progress. Six months ago, the brothers founded the Flanders, Riverside and Northampton Community Association.
At a recent association meeting at the Flanders-Riverside Nutrition Center, Michael Brewer urged the audience to bring their complaints and ideas to Hamlet Study meetings set for 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Sept. 18 at Phillips Avenue School in Riverside.
"With a town government I believe is finally seeing the light in working with us ... everybody should really become part of what's going on," Brewer told the 40-person crowd. "What's going on right now is a key issue in our community."