Volunteers ‘very frustrated’ by town board’s inaction on farmland preservation recommendations

A committee of volunteers that’s been working for three years on developing recommendations for improving the town’s transfer of development rights program is feeling “very frustrated” by the town board’s inaction on their recommendations.

Committee co-chair Richard Wines expressed the committee members’ frustrations at the Nov. 20 Riverhead Town Board meeting.

The committee — actually a subcommittee of the town’s farmland preservation and agricultural advisory committees — was created three years ago “to enhance our TDR program,” Wines told the town board.

The TDR program’s goal is to preserve farmland and open space by allowing property owners in designated “TDR receiving areas” to purchase development rights off farmland in designated “TDR sending areas.” The idea is to leverage private investment to preserve farmland and open space — without the expenditure of public funds. The program has not produced as many development-rights transfers as officials had hoped for when it was initially passed in 2005. 

“We have spent a lot of time and a lot of volunteer effort and developed a number of proposals that we think — if even modestly successful — could preserve at least another 300 acres of farmland at no cost to the town,” Wines told the board. “It would save $18 million the town would have to spend otherwise to preserve it,” he said. “And if houses aren’t built on it and don’t send kids to our schools, that would save $2 million a year in tax dollars.”

The town board has expressed general support, Wines said.

“But the one thing we need to make [the recommendations] reality is a SEQRA study,” he said, referring to an analysis required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act. The environmental study would cost an estimated $100,000, according to Wines.

“We asked that this be put into the budget last year and somehow it didn’t happen. We’ve asked again this year and as far as I know it hasn’t happened,” Wines said.

“I recognize it may be a little late to be fiddling with the budget at this point but again, on behalf of a very frustrated subcommittee, I want to request that you find a way to find this very minimal funding which could do a whole lot for the town,” he said.

In an interview this week, Wines said the TDR subcommittee’s recommendations involve zoning changes that require an environmental impact study before they can be adopted.

The recommendations include expanding designated TDR sending areas to include farmland south of Route 25 in Laurel, Jamesport and Aquebogue, expanding TDR receiving areas and capacities by creating new uses that would be available only with the purchase of development rights through the TDR program — such as assisted living facilities and housing on Route 58.

Those are uses that “make a lot of sense” for the area surrounding the hospital, Wines said.

It would also address the question of redeveloping the commercial corridor as national retailers succumb to competition from online sellers, leaving huge vacant spaces in their wake. The 2003 master plan envisioned Route 58 as the town’s main commercial corridor and recommended zoning the corridor for “big box” retail; that was accomplished with the adoption of new zoning codes in 2004.

Wines said he went to the town board meeting last week thinking he would comment on the resolution to adopt the 2019 budget. He was surprised to learn there was no such resolution on the agenda. The board did not vote to adopt a budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Absent such a vote on or before the Nov. 20 statutory deadline, state law provides that the preliminary budget — the budget on which the board held the public hearing mandated by state law — becomes the final budget of the town for the upcoming fiscal year.

Wines’ comment about the budget touched off an argument between Councilwoman Jodi Giglio and Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith.

Giglio said she had asked for a budget resolution to be put on the agenda because she wanted to vote against the budget — proposed by the supervisor — which she called “irresponsible.”

Jens-Smith responded that if Giglio wanted to vote on the budget she should have offered a resolution at the meeting. She also said if the councilwoman thought the budget needed to be changed, she had ample opportunity to offer amendments to it but did not.

The meeting was adjourned without anyone on the board responding the Wines’ comments or request.

Councilwoman Catherine Kent, town board liaison to the Agricultural Advisory Committee, said in an interview this week the board is “looking into some other ideas for getting money to do the SEQRA review.” Those ideas include seeking potential state and county grants to help underwrite the cost of the review.

“Our budget is very tight,” Kent said.

Giglio said in an interview the town is anticipating receiving “community benefit money” in connection with certain pending projects and may be able to draw on those funds to pay for the environmental review required for any major zoning changes.

The supervisor’s proposed budget, which became the 2019 final budget on Nov. 20, did not include any anticipated revenues associated with the development of new solar power generation facilities in Calverton or the sale of the town-owned lands at the Enterprise Park at Calverton.