Riverhead planners have proposed an amendment to the town’s transfer of development rights code that would create a major new receiving area for development rights transferred from agricultural land in the town.
The proposed amendment would provide the long-languishing transfer of development rights program with the boost it needs to protect a significant amount of farmland, according to Riverhead Town’s top planner, Jefferson Murphree. And that would mitigate the “very large visual impact” of 50-foot-tall massive warehouses currently being planned for vacant industrial land in Calverton, Murphree told the Town Board at a recent work session.
The proposed code amendment would allow developers of warehouses in certain industrial zones to purchase farmland development rights in order to increase the maximum height of their warehouse structures from 30 feet, as is currently allowed as of right, to 50 feet, a height desired for modern warehouses.
“There is a huge market demand for that height because of the increased stacking ability and the technology needed for automation,” Murphree told the board Sept. 1. “They need that height.”
The extra 20 feet in height creates significant additional interior space that’s very valuable to the developer, Murphree said, noting that it’s much less expensive to build up than to increase the building footprint — which would require the purchase of additional acreage and significantly increased construction costs.
With the proposed amendment of the town’s transfer of development rights, (TDR) code, a developer could “buy” the extra height in the form of farmland development rights for one-third the cost of land needed to build the same volume of interior warehouse space with a 30-foot maximum height, Murphree said.
In an Aug. 30 memo to the town’s code committee, Planner Greg Bergman suggested allowing 522,720 cubic feet of increased “building volume” per development right. The maximum permitted cubic footage at a 30-foot building height on one acre is 522,720 cubic feet, Bergman wrote.
The most recent development right purchase brought $67,000 per acre of farmland. Industrial land is selling for an estimated $187,000 per acre, the memo states.
“At this ratio, for example, the Riverhead Logistics Center application, if it were subject to the use of TDRs to facilitate the increased building height, would require approximately 24.5 TDR’s, at an approximate cost to the developer of $1,592,500,” Bergman wrote.
Given the interest in warehouse development in Riverhead Town’s industrial districts — Riverhead Logistics Center is one of several pending warehouse proposals — the amount of cash raised for farmland preservation will make a huge difference, Council Member Frank Beyrodt said.
“Without any mechanism in the code to allow for increased building height, applicants are sent to the Zoning Board of Appeals to seek an area variance,” Bergman wrote.
“Kind of the prevailing attitude amongst some of the applicants has been, ‘Well, we’ll just go to the zoning board and get a variance,’” Murphree told the board. A variance represents a “huge windfall” to the developer, which avoids the cost of additional land and infrastructure, he said.
The proposed TDR code amendment would present “a great opportunity to capture a significant number of TDRs,” Murphree said.
The town’s TDR program has languished since its implementation following the 2003 comprehensive plan. One reason has been lack of receiving areas. Another has been not enough incentive because increased development density has been allowed without the purchase of development rights — for example, in the downtown districts, where high-density multifamily housing is allowed without any farmland preservation required.
A TDR committee has been discussing ways to invigorate the program for about a decade. The committee has been working through three administrations, committee member Richard Wines said at the work session.
“And basically, our approach has been to look for all of the opportunities where we could give property owners something in addition, (that) they don’t have now, in return for purchase of TDRs and preserving farmland, which is a pressing need in the town,” Wines said. “I want to commend Jeff and Greg for seeing this opportunity.”
Murphree said if the board is in agreement, the code amendments would be formalized and brought back to the board at another work session, after which a public hearing would be scheduled.
Not so fast, Barbara Blass, told board members at their next regular meeting Sept. 5.
The state law that authorizes towns to establish a TDR program requires the adoption or amendment of a TDR code to be part of a comprehensive plan, said Blass, a former councilwoman and longtime Planning Board member and that board’s former chairperson. Blass is also a member of the TDR committee. The law requires a proposed TDR code amendment to be evaluated by an environmental impact statement, she said.
“This is not optional,” Blass said.
The authorizing legislation for TDR programs, enacted by the state in 1989, sets requirements for the establishment of and amendment to TDR programs.
New York State Town Law Section 261-a recited the conditions for approval by a town, including, “That transfer of development rights, and the sending and receiving districts, shall be established in accordance with a comprehensive plan.” Riverhead Town’s TDR plan was established in accordance with the 2003 comp plan.
The statute requires the Town Board to determine that every receiving district contains “adequate resources, environmental quality and public facilities, including adequate transportation, water supply, waste disposal and fire protection, and that there will be no significant environmentally damaging consequences…”
It continues: “A generic environmental impact statement pursuant to the provisions of Article Eight of the Environmental Conservation Law shall be prepared by the Town Board for the receiving district before any such district, or any sending district, is designated…” Riverhead completed a GEIS for the 2003 comprehensive plan, which evaluated the impacts of the proposed TDR program.
The statute mandates “such statement shall be amended from time to time by the town board if there are material changes in circumstances.”
Adding new receiving districts comprising hundreds of acres requires an update to the GEIS done 20 years ago, Blass said. The Town Board can’t lawfully adopt the code without fulfilling this mandate, she said.
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