Riverhead Town will hire an acoustic engineer to analyze the results of a noise study done by Stop and Shop in response to complaints by neighboring residents in Glenwood Village.
Councilwoman Jodi Giglio originally advocated for hiring the expert and authorizing the town attorney to bring a legal action against the supermarket but backed off the idea of litigation pending the noise analysis and further negotiation with the company.
Stop and Shop hired VHB Engineering to conduct a noise study, which was completed in October, Giglio said. The town’s consultant will assess the results of that study, according to a resolution approved by the board last week.
Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith opposed Giglio’s push to authorize litigation and the two agreed to move forward with an expert analysis and continued talks with the company.
Glenwood residents have been complaining for years about the noise emanating from the supermarket’s loading dock operations in connection with its PeaPod delivery service warehouse. Brian Stark, principal in the company that owns manufactured home community adjoining the Stop and Shop site, has been complaining to the town and pressing it to take action. Riverhead officials last year issued summonses to the supermarket for noise code violations. Those violations remain pending in Riverhead Justice Court. Giglio’s original resolution would have authorized an action in State Supreme Court to halt the loading dock operations.
Town attorney Robert Kozakiewicz has requested quotes from two acoustical engineers, Giglio said today.
Officials and supermarket representatives have been discussing putting up an “acoustic fence,” Giglio said. It would be a chain-link fence with slats and a fiber cover to absorb noise, the councilwoman said.
“We need to determine how much noise reduction it would provide,” Giglio said. The supermarket’s engineer said the fence will reduce noise by 15 decibels. Noise from the loading dock “sporadically hits 90 decibels,” which is well over the 65-decibel limit set by the town code, according to the councilwoman.
“I think the town board knows we are not going to relent until there is some sort of mitigation” put in place, Stark said last week.
Giglio said the town allowed the building with loading docks to be located too close to the boundary line of the adjoining Glenwood Village, which was built long before the supermarket.
“The homes are only 75 feet away. I don’t know how anyone thought that was a good idea,” Giglio said.
The Stop and Shop site plan was approved in 2007. Giglio said since then the town has “learned a lot” about buffers needed to protect adjoining residential uses from impacts of commercial development. She pushed for expanding required minimum buffer areas and limitations on tree-clearing that were adopted after protests over land-clearing of the Costco site, which adjoins two other manufactured home communities.
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