A proposal aimed at regulating bamboo in the Town of Riverhead is going back to the drawing board after comments and questions at a public hearing Tuesday.
Growers and landscapers asked the board to clarify language used in the draft to clearly exclude “clumping” bamboo from a ban on cultivating the plant.
“This code will hurt growers like myself and retailers,” said Rodney Anderson, who is also a member of the town’s farmland preservation committee.
“When people hear ‘bamboo’ they think of things that are 40 feet long and grows across other people’s property,” Anderson said. “Clumping bamboo don’t move. They grow an inch or two a year. Your ornamental grasses grow faster.”
Anderson pointed out that state law already bans the two types of running bamboos that he said represent “90 percent of what you see out there.”
Even the running bamboos can be contained with barriers and containers, Anderson said.
Homeowners should have the right to control spreading bamboo from encroaching on their property, but it can be done with rules that are less broad than the one proposed, he said.
Carol Isles, president of the Long Island Nursery and Landscape Association said the proposed code is an example of “a horticulturally valuable plant being maligned.”
“The clumping bamboos a very different animal. It’s never been known to be invasive or problematic,” Isles said. She, too, said running bamboo can be contained.
“There’s no such thing as bad bamboo. It’s just bad owners,” Isles said.
Two Wading River residents complained about their neighbors’ bamboo spreading onto their property and damaging irrigation systems and other structures. Both said their requests to their neighbors to do something about the situation have fallen on deaf ears.
“It’s coming up within 10 feet of my house now,” said John Hogan of Dogwood Drive in Wading River.
Beth Peterson of Madison Street in Riverhead said she’s concerned “for those of us who already have bamboo.”
A lot of people have had stands of bamboo on their property for years, she said.
She also requested clarification of the phrase “reasonably be expected to invade” another person’s property. Everyone has a different understanding of what is reasonable, she said.
Board members agreed they would be taking another look at the draft.
“That’s why we have public hearings, to hear comments from the community,” Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith said.
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