Homeowner Learns a Sewage Treatment Plant Is Going in 444 Feet From His House — Then Sues to Annul the Town’s $3.2 Million Land Purchase

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Michael Hillebrand thought he lived next to the kind of land that stays quiet: big stretches of woods and marsh north of Flanders Road, with town facilities nearby but no real neighborhood to speak of. Then he learned Southampton Town had picked a 31-acre parcel on Old Riverhead Road for something that doesn’t exactly blend into the treeline—a sewage treatment system—and that the cleared edge of it could sit roughly 450 feet from his home.

That’s when the homeowner move turned into the courthouse move. Hillebrand has now sued to try to undo the town’s $3.2 million purchase of the property, arguing the site can’t legally be used for a wastewater treatment facility and that the funding source isn’t meant for what the project is really designed to do. The details come from the source post covering the lawsuit and the town’s plan.

He wasn’t “next door” to a neighborhood—he was the neighbor

The location is part of what makes this feel so personal. The parcel the town bought sits north of Flanders Road and west of the town’s Jackson Avenue complex on Old Riverhead Road, and it’s surrounded by huge swaths of undeveloped land.

But it also directly abuts Hillebrand’s property. The article describes his home as the only residence amid “thousands of acres” of woodlands and tidal marshes in that area—meaning the buffer that makes the site attractive on paper doesn’t feel like a buffer when you’re the one house sitting there.

There are other homes in the general vicinity—two small neighborhoods on the south side of Old Riverhead Road—but the nearest of those homes is said to be a little more than 1,000 feet from the proposed facility. For Hillebrand, it’s not a distant civic project. It’s close enough to picture the tree line changing.

The town found a spot after years of looking—and spent CPF money to get it

Southampton Town’s board unanimously approved buying the property in March. The plan: spend $3.2 million from Community Preservation Fund (CPF) water quality improvement funds to buy most of the land, and use $465,000 from town general funds for a 4.8-acre carved-out piece that would be folded into the Jackson Avenue complex for a future expansion.

The town has been searching for years for a place to put a treatment system to serve a downtown sewer. It identified this site as “most ideal,” largely because it’s separated from residential neighborhoods.

And to be fair, it’s already in a municipal corridor. The parcel abuts the town’s garbage and recycling transfer station, Highway Department barns, the Justice Court, and police headquarters. The town is also drafting a master plan to remake the Jackson Avenue complex with the long-term goal of consolidating many town offices there.

The lawsuit goes after the land deal itself, not just the design

Hillebrand’s lawsuit isn’t framed as “I don’t like it.” It tries to annul the purchase, arguing the property can’t be used for a sewage treatment system under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) guidelines because it sits in an aquifer protection district and in a Central Pine Barrens critical resource area.

He’s also challenging the money trail. The suit claims the facility is intended to support new development, which he argues should disqualify it from being bought with CPF water quality improvement funds.

In the complaint, Hillebrand’s attorney says the town is choosing a wastewater plant “to allow future growth of the downtown commercial area of Hampton Bays,” and argues the design purpose is to allow significant growth “at the expense of” the aquifer where the property is located.

There was an early legal moment that didn’t go his way: the judge overseeing the case, Justice Alison Napolitano, declined to grant an injunction that would have blocked the town from proceeding with the purchase.

Town officials say it’s about nitrogen and failing septic systems

The town’s pitch is the public-health-and-water-quality one. Officials said the system would remove nitrogen from “hundreds of thousands of gallons” of wastewater already being released daily into groundwater through decades-old cesspools and obsolete septic systems.

Advanced treatment systems like the one proposed can reduce nitrogen loading in sewage from more than 60 mg per liter to less than 10 mg, according to the information in the article. That’s a massive difference in the numbers, and it’s the kind of claim that can make a project feel like a fix instead of an imposition.

But the project is also tied to growth. The sewer would allow downtown property owners to add additional commercial and residential development that currently isn’t possible because of sewage flow limits imposed by the Suffolk County Department of Health.

Hillebrand’s lawsuit points to a town report that says downtown areas on Long Island without sewering to enable new development are “flagging,” while downtowns with sewers are “thriving.” That line matters because it feeds the homeowner’s suspicion: this isn’t just about cleaning up today’s wastewater; it’s about unlocking tomorrow’s building permits.

“No odors,” a big building, and six acres of clearing—here’s what’s actually proposed

When people hear “treatment plant,” they tend to picture open-air tanks and a smell you can’t escape. The preliminary designs described here sound more contained, but still substantial.

The facility could require up to 6 acres to be cleared for the treatment plant and buffers. The sewer connection and the treatment systems would sit inside an approximately 20,000-square-foot building, and treated water would be discharged into four open recharge pools, where it would filter back into groundwater.

Town engineers have tried to assure residents that the facility would emit no odors and would be largely out of sight, even from Hillebrand’s property, because of the building design, wide setbacks of densely wooded land, and the property’s topography.

Hillebrand wasn’t buying it. At a public hearing in February, he and his attorney said sewer systems are ineffective at reducing nitrogen and called the plan a “slap in the face” to residents of the area that would mainly benefit business-district property owners. He told the town he would “do anything to stop it.”

The homeowner playbook people keep coming back to: document, measure, and lawyer up

This kind of dispute tends to split people into two camps fast: those who hear “sewage plant” and immediately worry about smell, traffic, noise, and property values—and those who hear “nitrogen reduction” and see a necessary upgrade for an area relying on aging cesspools.

Even without a comment thread attached, the practical reactions in fights like this are pretty consistent. Homeowners focus on distances (450 feet versus 1,000-plus feet matters in real life), what exactly is being cleared, and what “no odors” means in an enforceable way once a facility is running year-round.

And when the project is municipal and already funded, the leverage points become process and paperwork: whether environmental review rules were followed, whether the funding source matches the purpose, and whether the site restrictions (aquifer protection, Pine Barrens designations) actually allow the use being proposed.

For now, the town still has its land deal moving forward, and Hillebrand still has his lawsuit. The unresolved part isn’t just where a building goes—it’s whether one homeowner can force a town to rewind a major purchase when the project is framed as both environmental cleanup and a green light for future development.