Twenty-two acres of farmland at the corner of Sound and Roanoke avenues in Riverhead will be preserved by the purchase of development rights by Suffolk County.
The legislature on Tuesday unanimously approved the purchase of development rights at $1,704,948 or $77,147 per acre.
The 22.1 acres are part of a 27-acre parcel that had been slated for development as “Villas at Roanoke” by builders Peter Schembri and Gerald Simone. Five acres in the northeast corner of the property have been reserved by the owners and may be developed in accordance with local zoning. That portion of the site is currently zoned RA-40, which allows development with single-family dwellings at a density of approximately one per acre.
The acquisition will be completed with the county’s Drinking Water Protection Program funds, said First District Legislator Al Krupski.
“It’s one more piece of the puzzle,” Krupski said Wednesday. “The site is currently farmed and we want to keep it in farming. We want to preserve as many viable farm parcels as we can,” he said. “And of course this is in the historic Sound Avenue corridor too,” he said.
Legislators on Tuesday also unanimously approved an updated Farmland Protection Plan, which says preservation efforts in Riverhead and Southold towns are a “highest priority.”
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