L.I. Pine Barrens Society takes complaint about pine barrens commission to state attorney general

The members of the state pine barrens commission need to be reminded of their statutory obligations, according to L.I. Pine Barrens Society executive director Richard Amper.

Amper is worried about three “items of concern” currently before the Central Pine Barrens Joint Planning and Policy Commission, a five-member board consisting of a representative of the governor, the Suffolk County executive and the supervisors of the towns of Brookhaven, Southampton and Riverhead.

The environmental advocate wrote to N.Y. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on June 18, the day after the most recent Central Pine Barrens Commission meeting in Riverhead, to ask him or his “highest-level representatives” to meet with commission members “to remind them of the explicit provisions of the Pine Barrens Act and Plan, their strictly limited discretion in the granting of Core Preservation Area hardship waivers, in particular, and to the dangers of their allowing development where it is not permitted by law and in the public interest.”

One of the three matters of concern is a waiver application by Kent Animal Shelter for the construction of new facilities on River Road. The second is a hardship waiver application by Hampton Hills Associates for construction of a 7,500-square-foot golf storage cart building and two tennis courts at the Hampton Hills Golf and Country Club. The third is the construction, without any commission review, of expanded recreational facilities on Forge Pond by the N.Y. State Department of Environmental Conservation.

All three projects lie in the pine barrens core preservation area, where new private construction is generally prohibited by statute unless the commission grants a waiver for it. There are two kinds of waivers: extreme hardship and compelling public need.

Kent, which first filed an application for an extreme hardship waiver, changed its application to one based on compelling public need — at the suggestion of commission member and Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter. Amper said Walter, as commissioner, began “lawyering for the applicant” after it became clear that Kent could not qualify for the extreme hardship waiver.

Amper contends that the commission should not even be considering a waiver for the shelter rebuild proposed by Kent and accuses “commission politicians” of “pandering to a popular, ‘aren’t the doggies cute’ operation.”

“Kent is using the exemption criteria of ‘public health’ because the facility neuters feral cats preventing toxoplasmosis from transmission to humans. There have been no cases of toxoplasmosis from feral cats anywhere in the area,” Amper wrote.

Granting the Kent waiver, Amper said, would be precedent for the construction of a superstore pharmacy in the core or a 120-bed congregate care facility “using the ‘public health’ gimmick.”

“The only person who doesn’t see the compelling public need for Kent Animal Shelter is Dick Amper,” Walter said in an interview this week. “I’m prepared to vote for it.”

The “compelling public need” waiver, according to the commission’s website, “applies generally only to public agencies such as LIPA, school districts, ambulance districts and municipalities and is only granted in extraordinary circumstances of demonstrated public health and safety or ‘adaptive reuse of an historic resource.’

The commission adjourned the Kent hearing until Aug. 15 to allow time for the submission of additional documents by the applicant and comment on them by the public. The additional documents are due July 15 and will be posted on the Pine Barrens Commission website, commission executive director John Pavacic said. The applicant agreed to extend the deadline for a decision by the commission to Sept. 15.

The Hampton Hills application also sets a dangerous precedent if approved, Amper argues. The project doesn’t qualify for a hardship waiver and was constructed prior to a waiver application being filed, he said.

“If landowners know that they can’t qualify for a hardship waiver but can build their project first, then get a waiver from the commission later, protection of the Pine Barrens Core will be utterly eliminated,” Amper wrote in his letter to the attorney general.

The Pine Barrens Act allows the commissioners “no discretion at all with respect to Core Preservation Area hardship waivers,” Amper wrote.

The recently completed expanded recreation facilities by the state DEC at Forge Pond prompted a plea for a commission investigation last week by a Brookhaven Town environmental official. John Turner, the open space coordinator for Brookhaven Town, told the commission that the DEC cleared about half an acre of pine barrens forest to make way for the expanded parking area, boat launch and docks. The state agency took the action without any commission review. DEC regional director Peter Scully, representing the governor, was chairman of the Pince Barrens Commission until stepping down from his DEC post for a job with Suffolk County. Scully’s former seat remains vacant.

Brookhaven Town Supervisor Edward Romaine said yesterday Amper’s complaints were “somewhat disingenuous.”

The commission hasn’t acted on either application, Romaine said. “They have perfect right to make applications,” he said. It’s unfair to criticize the commission for something it hasn’t done, Romaine said.

As far as the DEC’s Forge Pond recreation facility expansion is concerned, Romaine said, Brookhaven Town “raised the alarm” that the DEC facility expansion was done without the review of the Pine Barrens Commission.

“We have grave concern that this was done in what would appear to be a method that was outside the parameters of the law. We are going to seek a determination regarding this boat ramp in the core pine barrens,” he said.

Romaine also questioned the need for such large boat launch facilities on Forge Pond, an area of the Peconic River, since only electric-powered boats are allowed to operate in the water.

It’s ironic, Romaine said, that the DEC did more development with its boat ramp and parking area than Kent is proposing right across the river.