Senior housing facility planned for farmland on Mill Road with 162 independent and assisted living units

An assisted living facility and independent senior housing is once again being proposed for fallow farmland on Mill Road.

The 162-unit facility would be located on the east side of Mill Road between Middle Road and Route 58. A mix of independent and assisted living units would offer a variety of services, including meal delivery, local transportation, on-site medical care and planned activities and excursions.

But the property where Concordia Senior Communities is proposing to build the facility lies within the agricultural protection zone, limiting it to a very specific set of agricultural uses.

Concordia developers have been trying to convince the town since 2010 to change the zoning to allow the project, but the plan was shot down after the town referred it to the Suffolk County Planning Commission, which rejected the proposal in 2012.

Today, developers sat down once again with the town board with a new site plan they believe addresses all the concerns the town planning board expressed three years ago.

“I think the changes we’ve made satisfy all their recommendations,”  Concordia principal Ronald Devito told the board.

One of those changes includes reducing the number of housing units from 189 to 162. They cut the number of independent living units in half to account for the numerous other independent senior housing projects that already exist in Riverhead, and they increased the number of assisted living units from 89 to 114.

In total, there would be 48 independent and 114 assisted living units. They would be priced affordably, based off Riverhead’s median income instead of Suffolk County’s, according to the proposal, with all-inclusive rates that vary based on the level of care.

Concordia also increased the buffer between the facility and the road. About 37 percent of the property would remain untouched to preserve open space.

But those changes may not be enough for the town to justify changing the property’s zoning from an agricultural protection zone.

“Obviously Riverhead needs these facilities,” agricultural advisory committee member Dave McLarin said at the work session today. “The problem I have with this is the location. When we start chipping away at the agricultural protection zone around town, it sets a precedent.”

Town Supervisor Sean Walter also expressed apprehension about the plan. “I believe this is an incremental approach to taking farmlands with prime soils out of production,” he told Devito.

It was also unclear whether the new plan would need to go again before the Suffolk County Planning Commission, which rejected the project three years ago. Though the town planning department admitted today they had erroneously referred the plan to the county commission in 2012, Walter and Deputy Supervisor Jill Lewis both pointed out that recent changes to the commission’s jurisdiction would still require the new plans to be approved by the county today.

Devito argued that the project’s community benefits would justify the zoning change, especially with the changes that have been made in the new site plan.

“The other senior housing projects are not independent living with services,” he said. “For one check a month, everything is included. Meal delivery. Transportation. No utilities, no real estate tax, no landscape to argue with. People like the idea that they don’t have to worry about the expenses that go with home ownership.”

He pointed out that Riverhead will need more assisted living and independent living facilities as its population gets older.

“We’ve seen the growth in the senior population in Riverhead to be outstanding,” Devito said. “They’re going to need facilities such as this. If it isn’t me, it’s got to be somebody else.”

The board agreed to hold a public hearing on the change of zone application next month.