Residents filled the Town Hall meeting room last Thursday evening to weigh on in two controversial proposals before the Riverhead Planning Board: a site plan application for the vacant Elton Street site where an indoor shooting range is planned and a 641,000-square-foot logistics center on Middle Road. (See separate story.)
The indoor shooting range proposed for the former Tru-Tech site on Elton Street continued to draw objections from the public, though the otherwise routine site plan application saw few comments.
The application initially included a retail gun shop, but that aspect of the plan was removed after it drew flak from some community members. The retail sale of guns and gunsmith services is no longer proposed at the site. There will be equipment rentals and sales of ammunition and accessories associated with the use of the facility, according to the revised application.
Anthony Niosi, principal in Niosi Firearms, which plans to operate the shooting range, told RiverheadLOCAL in August he would look to rent a space zoned for retail use somewhere nearby.
| MORE COVERAGE: Elton Street landlord’s revised site plan application eliminates retail gun sales there |
In addition to the shooting range and firearms training facility, which will occupy 21,495 square feet at the 11-acre site, other tenants include a 21,555-square-foot HVAC supply warehousing and distribution operation and 30,050 square feet of office uses. The property is currently owned by Elton Operating LLC. It is located in the Commercial Residential Campus zoning district.
Riverhead attorney Charles Cuddy the applicant’s attorney, told planning board members the building that will house the firearms facility is “constructed with reinforced walls inside and reinforced ceiling and also has a container inside, so it’s a box in a box.” The shooting will take place within the interior container, Cuddy said. “The interior work at this site is going to make it, we believe, completely soundproof. And by that I mean we’ll meet the decibel level of the town, which is 60 during the day 45 at night,” Cuddy said.
Philip Street resident Eva Roberts, whose home abuts the site, said she opposes the shooting range there. If the use is permitted, Roberts asked for a more substantial fence than the chain link fence depicted on the site plan. It should be a solid fence, “something that’s a real barrier,” she said. Roberts also asked that the treed natural buffer area along the boundary of the site be retained.
Salvatore Salvado of Calverton asked whether the environmental assessment performed by the applicant’s engineer had considered the air quality impacts of lead and how filtration systems would handle removal of the substance.
Andrew Weiss of Elton Operating said the there will be “powerful air conditioning equipment that will take all the lead out of the air.” There will also be a bullet containment trap that will be used to collect bullets and fragments, which will be taken out for recycling, Weiss said. The bullets all go into these large cans. And they’re you know, they’re taken out for recycling. “There’s not going to be any pollution associated with this,” he said.
The hearing was closed, but the board took no action on the application that night.
Editor’s note: This article has been amended to correct the spelling of Philip Street, which was misspelled in the original.
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