Riverhead residents oppose 46-lot subdivision on Sound Avenue farm, woodlands

Residents turned out last Thursday to oppose a plan to subdivide 27 acres on the northwest corner of Roanoke and Sound avenues in Riverhead into 46 building lots.

The split-zoned parcel could be developed with 23 homes as of right, according to a 2005 Riverhead Planning Board approval. Gendot Associates is proposing to purchase development rights to provide an additional 23 homes.

The site is one of the few designated development rights “receiving areas” on Sound Avenue, the developer’s attorney, Charles Cuddy told the planning board during its Aug. 7 public hearing on the preliminary map. Under the town’s transfer of development rights program, development rights can be transferred into designated receiving areas from the agriculturally zoned “sending areas.” The site has access to public water, Cuddy said, and the preliminary plat complies with the Riverhead zoning code. He asked that the original record in a 2004-2005 planning board proceeding, in which the board approved the development “sketch plan,” — the first round of approvals for any major subdivision— be incorporated into the record of the current proceeding.

The application got tied up due to litigation between Gendot, as contract vendee, and the owner of the property, Cuddy said. That dispute has finally been resolved in court and Gendot will be purchasing the property in three weeks, Cuddy said.

Planning director Rick Hanley said, “Nothing’s changed on the property. The only hold-up on this was the dispute between the buyer and seller, he said.

Residents of the Rolling Woods subdivision north of the proposed new development told the planning board they’d like to see the site stripped of development rights and continued to be used for farming.

Rolling Woods resident John Andes, speaking on behalf of the Roanoke Landing Civic Association, which he said comprises about 95 houses, said their goal as a neighborhood is to have the land’s development rights should be purchased by the town and or county.

“High-density housing is not in character with that neighborhood,” Andes said. “It’s been 10 years in the works and I feel like there have been a lot of changes in the Town of Riverhead, especially along the Sound Avenue corridor,” Andes said.

“All of the neighbors that I’ve talked to in our association don’t like the idea of the high density development and our goal would be to keep it as farmland and have the development rights sold to whatever entity would be interested in it,” Andes said.

Waterview Court resident Sherry Patterson of Rolling Woods said, “The Schmitts have been farming that parcel for as long as anyone can remember.” She, like Andes, advocated keeping the land in agriculture. “I’d like to see something happen there like on the corner of Park Road and Sound Avenue, where it was preserved by a partnership of the town and county.”

John McCauliffe said his Jean Court home has been his family’s summer home for 20 years. They are now making it their full-time residence. “We were attracted to the farming community,” McCauliffe said.

Reeves Park resident Eric Biegler, who serves as president of the Sound Park Heights Civic Association and is a member of the board of the Riverhead Neighborhood Preservation Coalition, objected to the development of that portion of the site closest to Sound Avenue. Development in the Sound Avenue corridor is required to be set back 450 feet from the state-designated historic road, Biegler said. “This plan doesn’t comply,” Biegler said.

Planning Board member Joseph Baier said he could not support 10,000-square-foot lots. The zoning allows the developer to go to “double density,” which in a 40,000-square-foot zone would allow for 20,000-square-foot lots, Baier said.

“I couldn’t support 10,000-square-foot lots,” he said. “You’re going to the maximum,” Baier told Cuddy. “You don’t have to go to the maximum.”

Planning Board engineering consultant Vinny Guadiello raised the issue of the property’s slopes and difficulty in grading 10,000 square foot lots that were in an area where there are “significant slopes.” He asked the board to refer to a 2005 memorandum he wrote to the board analyzing the proposal.

Baier asked if the board had a slope analysis done at the time. Guadiello said he thought so. On May 5, 2005 the board determined the site’s development yield to be 23 lots, irrespective of slopes.

“There’s a large area of 15 to 35 percent slopes,” Hanley said.

Baier noted that Hanley’s report in the original file did not indicate how much of the property is affected by slopes that steep. “Over 15 percent is not considered to be buildable,” Baier said.

“We don’t subtract from our yield map…slopes,” Hanley said. “But certainly as a function of the preliminary plat, if the baord feels that one should avoid these steep slopes, we have the ability to cluster that to avoid steep slopes. But the yield map is the yield map and it was approved at 23 lots,” Hanley said.

That being said, Hanley told the board the site “might be an ideal parcel to pursue for preservation, given the prime soils in the front, the constraints within the woodlands.” The planning director suggested the board move in that direction and ask the applicant to discuss that with them.

After discussion amongst themselves that was inaudible to the public, the board decided to keep the hearing open, something the applicant requested, according to a statement by planning board attorney Bill Duffy, who told the board the applicant would like to have “an opportnity to revise the plans.”

The board voted 4-0 (with member Lyle Wells absent) to adjourn the hearing to a future date.