An agreement between Riverhead Town and Triple Five Group, announced by the town two weeks ago as a way to move the $40 million Calverton land deal forward, remains up in the air, Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said in an interview Tuesday.
Aguiar said Triple Five, after agreeing to terms that had been negotiated over a period of months, wanted changes “at the last minute” that the town will not accept.
“They made a full commitment to me personally,” Aguiar said. Based on that commitment, she said, she and the town’s special counsel Frank Isler presented the arrangement to the public at the Feb. 10 work session.
Aguiar said the town board would vote on a resolution authorizing the transaction at its next meeting on the following Tuesday, Feb. 15. But on Tuesday, the supervisor announced the vote was postponed.
This week, Aguiar accused the purchaser of reneging on the commitment they made. She said she directed the town attorney to send Triple Five’s attorney, Christopher Kent, a letter giving the purchaser until March 3 to agree in writing to the terms Aguiar said were previously negotiated and agreed to.
“You can’t renege at the very end,” the supervisor said.
If Triple Five does not agree to move forward as negotiated, she said, “then we move away from that approach.”
As for what comes next, the supervisor said the town will not tie up the land indefinitely and she would personally no longer support the sale to Triple Five.
“You put us through all this. I’m not supporting you anymore,” Aguiar said.
The essence of the agreement described Feb. 10 was for the town to transfer title to the Calverton property it’s been trying to subdivide to the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency. The Triple Five company in contract with the town to buy 1,644 acres at the site would then make an application to the IDA for economic assistance, according to town officials. If the IDA approves the application, it would lease the land to Triple Five, which would pay the town the balance of the purchase price under the 2018 contract and pursue the eight-lot land subdivision whose approval has been eluding the town. (Final approval is hung up at the State Department of Environmental Conservation, which will not issue a permit the town needs until the town clears up Riverhead Water District regulatory issues at the DEC or consents to the site being served by the Suffolk County Water Authority.)
Triple Five attorney Christopher Kent confirmed to RiverheadLOCAL in a Feb. 10 phone interview that the terms outlined by Isler during the work session reflected his negotiations with the town.
“We want to assume that obligation. We’re ready to do it,” Kent said.
The supervisor on Feb. 10 said the town board would vote on a resolution at its Feb. 15 meeting approving the transfer to the IDA under a “lease and project agreement.” The intention of the town to move ahead at the Feb. 15 meeting drew community backlash, with residents submitting some 60 letters demanding a delay of the vote to allow for public review and comment on the proposed new agreement, which had not yet been released.
On the afternoon of Feb. 15, Aguiar announced the resolution would not be on the board’s agenda that evening, citing ongoing negotiations that would not allow the public an opportunity to review details of the agreement prior to a board vote.
Aguiar on Tuesday said Triple Five “at the last minute” wanted to be able to “come back to” the town board if they couldn’t meet the IDA’s requirements.
“The IDA process is very complex. It’s thorough, it really is,” Aguiar said, “and they were going to vet them… and wherever it went it would go, and they would agree to it… And the last component was for them to give us that letter from the attorney indicating that this is the route that they’re gonna go,” she said.
The agreement was that if they couldn’t meet the IDA’s requirements for financial assistance, the deal would be off, the supervisor said.
Triple Five attorney: ‘We are simply trying to work out the details’
Kent said Tuesday his client is not reneging on any commitment it made to the town.
“I would say we are simply trying to work out the details,” Kent said.
Kent declined to elaborate, saying he will continue to speak to the town directly. Once there is agreement, the terms should be clearly explained to the public and the arrangements should be publicly discussed, he said.
Councilman Tim Hubbard this week agreed with Kent’s assessment of the status.
“I think it was just not ready for prime time,” Hubbard said.
The town’s contract of sale with Triple Five affiliate Calverton Aviation & Technology allows either party to cancel the contract if the town is unable to obtain final subdivision approval within one year of the buyer’s “notice to proceed” to closing. That deadline was May 20, 2020.
Triple Five has twice “waived” its right to terminate the contract.
The town board has not expressed an interest in terminating the controversial deal, despite community opposition and calls for the town to pull the plug.
The agreement was approved in December 2017 by a lame duck town board at its last meeting of the year by a 3-2 vote — prior to the seating of a new town supervisor, Laura Jens-Smith and council member, Catherine Kent. Hubbard is the only town board member who was in office at the time. He voted no on the contract, as did former council member Jodi Giglio. Outgoing Supervisor Sean Walter, who lost his reelection bid a month earlier, and outgoing Councilman John Dunleavy, who was term-limited out of office, and then-Councilman James Wooten voted to approve the agreement.
The approval was subject to the purchaser, a joint venture between Triple Five and Luminati Aerospace, being found “qualified and eligible” as required by state law, to buy and develop the site. In another 3-2 vote, with Hubbard this time in support, and Jens-Smith and Kent voting no, the town board determined CAT “qualified and eligible.”
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