Though the event was outdoors and there was no significant sign of wildlife at the informational kiosk near Route 25, where Town Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith snipped the red satin ribbon to officially open the EPCAL recreational trail this morning, there was an “elephant in the room,” as the saying goes: the proposed Triple Five development plan.
Civic activist John McAuliff of Riverhead stood silently opposite the podium holding a large vinyl banner depicting the “Proposed Development Plan” prepared for “555 Calverton” and provided by the State Department of Environmental Conservation in response to a citizen’s Freedom of Information Law request.
None of the speakers overtly acknowledged McAuliff’s banner or said much about the site’s impending development.
Jens-Smith in her remarks mentioned the beauty of the site and urged people to take the time to use the trail to develop an appreciation of “just how beautiful this site is.”
Alternative transportation committee member Don Hawkins spoke of the diversity of the areas surrounding the trail: “grasslands, wetlands, forest lands, manmade features and historical features.”
Committee member Steve Kuhl spoke of the committee’s desire “to keep this beautiful vista.”
“We hope that after the property is improved, so much of the beautiful terrain remains,” Kuhl said. “Let’s keep an eye on that to make sure that happens.”
Baiting Hollow resident Christy Hawkins said it is “extremely concerning that an extra 1,000 acres of native grasslands, wetlands and Pine Barrens were not firmly protected within the recent sale to CAT.”
The maps, plans and drawings submitted to the DEC dated April 4 — which Triple Five representatives say do not represent firm development plans but were done as part of the company’s “due diligence review” — show 10 immense buildings with a total of 10 million square feet of development lining the two runways.
Giglio said that plan is preferable to the one advanced by the town before it inked a deal with the buyer.
“I can tell you that the development plan, if that’s the one that actually comes before the town board to get approved, is much better than the subdivision that the town had, which had, I think, 30 lots right along [Route] 25 — where this bike path would go through the backyard of industrial properties,” Giglio said.
“I think it’s a much better plan to keep [the development] on the inside of the property, so the trail can still be utilized and you can still get the bucolic views, as long as the development is occurring around the runways, which you can barely see from the roadways and from the trail,” she said.
McAuliff was skeptical.
“The Town of Riverhead doesn’t know what the Ghermezians have in mind,” he said. “If this is in fact what they plan to do,” he said of the plan he had printed on a vinyl banner, “it has implications for the physical trail as well as for the ambiance of the place.”
According to Jens-Smith, the town’s legal counsel has written to the attorney for the buyer to request that company representatives come to a work session to make a public presentation of their plans to date. The town has not had a presentation from the Triple Five affiliate since the qualified and eligible hearing in February and March of 2018. Last summer, the company submitted a “preliminary concept plan” for phase one of the proposed project prepared by BLD Architecture — which prepared the plans submitted to the DEC.
The buyer’s lawyer, Chris Kent, a former town councilmember and the ex-husband of current councilmember Catherine Kent, has said he is “very excited” about how the plans for the site are shaping up and has promised a public presentation of the plans in the near future.
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