The six civic associations active in the Town of Riverhead are asking the town board to enact a moratorium pending completion of the long-delayed comprehensive plan update, citing the number and scope of new development applications being filed while planning continues.
Presidents of the six civic groups signed a letter delivered to the town board and filed with the town clerk on March 7, asking for a measure “temporarily halting all retail, industrial, commercial, and multi-residential housing in the entire footprint of Riverhead until the Comprehensive Plan is completed.”
Impacts of all the new proposed development in the town should be assessed as a whole, “on a cumulative basis,” and “not piecemeal,” the letter states, specifically citing “multiple industrial projects in the application stages.” The letter also cites the various multifamily housing developments currently in the pipeline — at the application stage, in review and under construction.
Since the town board voted in late 2019 to hire AKRF to complete a comprehensive plan update, the board has approved two multistory, multifamily housing developments downtown, providing a total of 73 new rental apartments. New applications have been filed or finalized for 202 rental apartments in three other multistory mixed-use buildings. Other pending applications in the pipeline that predate the hiring of AKRF would provide a total of 198 additional new rental units.
In addition, the town board has moved forward with the acquisition of three buildings on East Main Street and the demolition of two of them for the development of a town square, which may include a future retail and residential component.
The town board has also created an overlay district in the Railroad Avenue area to allow more uses and denser development as incentives for revitalization of the long-blighted area. A master developer for a transit-oriented development project could build up to 200 new rental apartments near the train station.
There are several major industrial projects also in various stages of application and review, including an industrial subdivision on 138 acres next to Splish Splash, a 412,000-square foot warehouse and manufacturing proposal on Route 25 in Calverton, and a 600,000-square-foot logistics center planned for a site on Middle Road near Manor Road in Calverton.
The civic groups also argue that whatever is going to be done at EPCAL, which still remains unknown, should be part of the comprehensive plan and not treated as an individual project.
Work on the town’s transfer of development rights program, which has languished due to a lack of receiving areas and lack of incentive to use the program, should be completed in conjunction with the comprehensive plan, the civic leaders said.
The town adopted a moratorium while the 2003 comprehensive plan was being written. It also adopted a moratorium on new commercial solar facilities in October 2021. The civic leaders’ letter quotes the solar moratorium language, which states a moratorium would “give the Town of Riverhead the time to consider the adoption of the zoning and planning changes necessary to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, as well as the landscape and agricultural heritage of the Town of Riverhead.”
Some of the letter’s signatories attended the town board’s special meeting on March 24 to ask board members for a response to their March 7 letter.
They found no takers among board members on their moratorium request.
“It serves no purpose at this point in time,” Councilman Tim Hubbard said. “We’re in the middle of a comprehensive plan. And things that are deemed, as they are now, such as Industrial A and Industrial C, if those need to be changed, they will be done through the comprehensive plan,” he said. “I would entertain if you have specifics that you want to talk about such as solar — we did put a moratorium on solar, but to put a blanket moratorium, I don’t think that’s a wise decision,” Hubbard said.
“If anybody that has purchased land or has permits in and you want a moratorium on it, the amount of lawsuits that that would generate to the taxpayers would — and the time it would hold up, you know, people have land rights, as you do,” Councilman Bob Kern said. “I don’t know how many permits are in. And we’re just going to stop that process? From a legal perspective, I think it leaves the town open to insurmountable amounts of lawsuits,” Kern said.
“I believe that, you know, commercial landowners are taxpayers too,” Councilman Ken Rothwell said. “And they have a right to develop their land. And it’s not our job to prevent them from developing the land. It’s to make sure that things are done accordingly. And that’s what the comprehensive plan does, it guides us in the future,” Rothwell said. He said “it’s improper”for the town to stop projects that are permitted “under the current town rules and regulations and zoning laws,” he said.
“We cannot just randomly stop progress in Riverhead, immediately shut everything down,” Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said. “There is a process. It is a comprehensive process. We’re in the middle of doing it,” Aguiar said.
“Right now, what takes precedence is the old comprehensive plan. And as long as any development is within those guidelines, we have a fiduciary responsibility to avoid — to ensure that we don’t go outside of our responsibility just for development purposes,” she said.
“People purchase land, they have a right. When they purchased it, they researched it. They knew what it was zoned for. They knew what they had, whether it’s residential, commercial, they knew that they had a vision on it. And we can’t randomly say, ‘Oh, we’re starting a plan that might take a year. And you can’t do anything with that,’” she said.
Wading River Civic Association President Sid Bail reminded the board that the town imposed temporary moratoriums for both the 2003 comprehensive plan and the 1987 Wading River corridor study before that. Both were successful, he said.
Barbara Blass of Jamesport, who was a town board member when the comprehensive plan was completed and adopted in 2003 and before that was chairperson of the planning board, which shepherded the preparation of the 2003 plan, backed up what Bail said. In fact, Blass said, the moratorium adopted at the time was extended to allow for completion of the plan.
Blass told the board that the filing of an application does not make a property owner’s rights “vested” under the existing zoning. “If you are not currently vested in the zone that you’re in, the law says that that zoning can be changed,” Blass said. She noted that the town’s adopted zoning pursuant to the 2003 comprehensive plan, was in fact challenged by a landowner, but the town prevailed.
When running for supervisor in 2019, Aguiar opposed the comprehensive plan, an initiative of the previous incumbent, Laura Jens-Smith. Aguiar said then a comprehensive plan would take too long and cost too much.
The town board in October 2019 awarded a $675,000 contract to planning consultants AKRF. The project timeline called for an 18-month completion. The contract was not finalized before Jens-Smith left office and Aguiar signed the agreement in January 2020.
But the entire planning process was stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The planning consultants held a delayed kickoff meeting with the town board in September 2020.
Public outreach, including online surveys and community meetings, initially scheduled to begin five months after the kickoff, according to the schedule attached to the original contract, did not begin until August 2021, when the town and consultants launched an interactive website for the comprehensive plan. Community meetings began in September 2021.
The town board, meanwhile approved a contract amendment that added some features, such as the website and a social pinpoint map, and removed the preparation of an official map, which was part of the original contract. The consultants’ fee was unchanged. The amendment also included a new project completion timeline, which called for the comprehensive plan and final generic environmental impact statement to be completed by August 2022.
Last month, the town’s chief planner and the planning consultant told the town board the anticipated completion date for the comprehensive plan is now spring of 2023.
Bail said it would be “extremely useful” if the planning department would put together a list of projects that had applications pending now, as he said was done in 2003.
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Civic groups press for moratorium pending completion of comp plan update, find no support on town board - RiverheadLOCAL
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