Location: Southold, NY | Status: Active
Summary: Save the Sound is working with Long Island community organization Save Mattituck Inlet to protect Mattituck Creek and the surrounding area and to oppose a developer’s plan to build a pair of large yacht storage buildings on the banks of the creek.
The original plan would have expanded Strong’s Yacht Center’s existing facility with two massive structures with footprints of more than an acre each to accommodate 88 yachts, requiring the clear-cutting of 630 mature trees and removing 134,000 cubic yards of marketable sand from a steep slope above the creek. The proposed construction also abuts a 27-acre public nature preserve that includes old-field shrubland/grassland and a mature forest, the integrity of which would be threatened by the yacht center expansion.
In March 2023 the Southold Town Planning Board accepted a revised Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the project. In May and June 2023, the Planning Board held public hearings at which Save the Sound staff provided comments. The Town received such a massive outpouring of public comments from community members concerned about the project’s environmental impacts that it hired a consulting firm to complete the Final EIS (FEIS), which was then released in May 2024.
The County Planning Commission disapproved the yacht center proposal during a special meeting on June 20, 2024. At that meeting, however, the project applicant stated their intention to revise the application. In July 2024, the applicant submitted a new site plan application to the Town Planning Board. Save Mattituck Inlet and Group for the East End submitted letters to the Planning Board explaining why a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) is necessary for the revised site plan application.
Latest Step: On September 6, 2024, the Planning Board sent the applicant a letter informing him that the new site plan application was incomplete and requesting additional information, including a Tree Removal Plan and a Landscape Plan. On July 17, 2025 the applicant submitted another revised site plan that reduces the size of the building area by 39%, sand removal by 38%, and tree removal by 25% as compared to the original application, but as compared to the July 2024 revision, reduces the building size by only 4% while increasing sand removal by 20% and tree removal by 7%.
Next Step: Save the Sound continues to oppose this proposal alongside the local community. We will see how the Planning Board proceeds and evaluate next steps from there.
Further Reading:
Action Opportunities:
Last Updated: January 16, 2026