Change of venue for part two of EPCAL ‘qualified and eligible’ hearing March 13

The qualified and eligible sponsor public hearing on Calverton Aviation and Technology scheduled for March 13 will have a change of venue.

The town board yesterday changed the location of the hearing from Riverhead Town Hall to the Pulaski Street School.

The school’s auditorium has more seats than the town hall meeting room, Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith said.

The opening session of the qualified and eligible hearing held Feb. 27 at town hall packed the meeting room with a standing room only crowd that overflowed into the corridors. The hearing lasted about four hours.

“It got really unpleasant for people standing all that time,” Jens-Smith said.

The Feb. 27 hearing was adjourned to Tuesday, March 13 at 6 p.m. Pulaski Street School is located at 300 Pulaski Street in Riverhead.

Councilwoman Jodi Giglio cast the lone “no” vote yesterday on the resolution changing the hearing location. “I’m not putting my name on anything to do with this,” Giglio said, referring to the proposed sale. She previously voted against a resolution approving the contract of sale; she was joined by Councilman Tim Hubbard in the Dec. 19 vote.

The hearing next week will open with the applicant’s responses to questions posed by the public during the Feb. 27 session. Then town board members will ask their questions. Another opportunity for public questions will follow.

Because the hearing will take place at the school, the town will not be able to broadcast it live on Channel 22. Town officials are working on live-streaming the hearing on the town’s Facebook page.

What’s the hearing about?

The hearing is for the specific purpose of determining whether the proposed purchaser of a large block of undeveloped land in the Calverton Enterprise Park is a “qualified and eligible sponsor” — a finding that is required by state law before the town can sell or lease property within a designated urban renewal area such as the enterprise park.

Calverton Aviation and Technology is a company formed in December by Triple Five Realty-I and Luminati Aerospace. Triple Five Realty-I, a member of the Triple Five Group of Companies, owns a 75-percent stake in Calverton Aviation and Technology. Luminati Aerospace owns 25 percent of the company. 

The Town of Riverhead has already negotiated a proposed contract of sale to Calverton Aviation and Technology, which, if it consummates the deal, would pay the town $40 million for just under 1,644 acres of vacant land at the enterprise park.

The contract negotiation, which spanned most of 2017, resulted from a letter of intent the town entered into with Luminati Aerospace last April.

Beginning in July, Luminati Aerospace entered negotiations with United Refining Energy Corp. to form a joint venture for the purchase and development of the site. In December, an attorney for Luminati announced that the company had instead entered into an agreement with Triple Five Ventures Co. LLC, an entity owned by the Ghermezian family, owners of a multinational conglomerate of companies who are best known as developers and operators of the two largest shopping malls in North America.

A week after that announcement, the town board — at the last meeting of the year and the last meeting for two of the three town board members that supported the measure — voted 3-2 to approve a proposed contract of sale with Calverton Aviation and Technology.

What are the ‘qualified and eligible’ criteria?

Before property in a designated urban renewal zone can be sold or leased by a municipality, state law requires a “qualified and eligible sponsor” determination, which is to be made in accordance with rules and criteria adopted by the municipality.

The Riverhead Community Development Agency, which holds title to the site pursuant to a 1994 federal law authored by former congressman George Hochbreuckner, has adopted the following criteria for determining whether a prospective purchaser or lessee is a “qualified and eligible sponsor”:

• experience of the individual, firm or corporation with development, construction, management and financing of similar projects in size and scope to the proposed project;
• demonstrated ability to finance the acquisition and development of specific project proposed including the review by the CDA of pro forma financial statements for the proposed project, including sources and uses of funds, certified personal and corporate financial statements of the applicant sponsor, financial commitments of participating lenders, proposed security for the project, business plans and economic analysis of the project and past compliance with municipal laws, rules and regulations.
• demonstrated integrity and responsibility of the applicant sponsor as determined by the CDA based upon appropriate investigation by the town attorney and consistent with case law…
• presentation of the applicant sponsor to the public at the prescribed hearing…providing an opportunity for the applicant sponsor to present its proposal and ability to meet the established criteria for designation by the CDA as a “qualified and eligible” sponsor pursuant to Section 507 (2) (c) of Article 15 of New York State General Municipal Law.”