The Riverhead Planning Board has come out in favor of a moratorium on industrial projects in Calverton while the comprehensive plan update is being completed.
Planning Board Vice Chairperson Ed Densieski, a former Riverhead Town Board member, brought the subject up at the end of today’s Planning Board meeting.
He asked the town’s head planner whether the Town Board has had any discussion about it.
“That is going to be one of the primary discussion items and focus of the comp plan update going forward,” replied Building and Planning Administrator Jefferson Murphree. “And I’ve already had that conversation with the planning consultant about that,” he said.
“I don’t like moratoriums,” Densieski said. “The solar one I think is absolutely foolish. But I almost wonder if the Planning Board should recommend to the Town Board a short timeout to really find out what’s going on and what’s going to really happen in Calverton before it’s too late,” Densieski said.
“There’s some heavy duty projects coming and a lot of traffic and a lot of other things coming with those projects. And we didn’t we didn’t know about those projects back in 2000 and 2003 when the master plan was adopted,” said Densieski, a former town council member who served on the Town Board at that time.
‘We can’t have a do-over’
A six-month moratorium might be a “good idea” to find out “where the master plan is going to go before all these huge projects come in and change the face of the town,” Densieski said.
Members Joe Baier and George Nunnaro added their agreement.
“These projects keep coming in and coming in, and everybody’s up in arms about approving them. But how do we turn them down,” Nunnaro said, referring to proposals that conform to existing zoning.
“Property rights are very important to me,” Densieski said, “but also the future of the town should be important to us,” he said. He asked Planning Board Chairperson Joann Waski if she would be willing to prepare a resolution recommending the Town Board adopt a moratorium.
“The word is planning,” Waski said to Murphree. “And in order to plan, you have to take a pause sometimes and figure out exactly what that plan is and where it’s going,” she said.
“We can’t have a do-over,” Waski said.
Densieski said the town doesn’t know whether it can handle these projects. “The uses just weren’t there in 2002. Battery storage, mega-warehouses, it’s all new to Riverhead, to this area,” he said.
“We’ll have that resolution for you for your next agenda,” Murphree said.
Murphree has not recommended a moratorium to the Town Board, though various residents, civic groups and environmental organizations have advocated putting one in place while the long-delayed comp plan update is completed.
The Town Board terminated its contract with the planning consultants hired in 2019 after the completion date was pushed back and progress on the plan was not meeting the board’s expectations.
It has selected a new consulting firm to complete the work, but a contract with the new firm hasn’t yet been signed and work by the new firm has not yet begun.
The Greater Calverton Civic Association in November 2020 demanded a moratorium on all new industrial projects in the Calverton hamlet, where much of the town’s industrially zoned land is concentrated.
Former Planning Board Chairperson Barbara Blass, who was also on the Town Board with Ed Densieski in the early 2000s while comprehensive plan was being developed, made an impassioned plea for a moratorium at the Oct. 6 Planning Board meeting.
“We never talked about ground-based solar, we didn’t know about battery storage, then we didn’t provide for that. And we certainly didn’t know about ‘class A warehouses’ and things of that nature that, strictly speaking are permitted in the zoning,” Blass said. “But the community of Calverton said, ‘Wait, you guys, please take us seriously. Put a moratorium in Calverton, at the very least just that so that the comprehensive plan can listen to what the community needs and balance what the town needs.’ I mean, we’re not saying everything has to remain the way it is. And we have preservation at the at the expense of of no industry at all. All we’re saying is that, I know you’re not policymakers, but you have an opportunity to make a recommendation to the town board,” Blass said. “This is all really changing g Calverton in a way we never expected.”
Residents renewed the demand for a moratorium at the Town Board meeting on Tuesday evening.
Seven civic and environmental organizations, in a letter delivered today to the Riverhead Town Board, said the nearly 2.6 million square feet of warehouse space — not including the potential additional 8.24 million square feet indicated in the plan unveiled by Calverton Aviation & Technology at the Sept. 21 Riverhead Industrial Development Agency meeting — underscore the urgent need for a moratorium while the comprehensive plan update is completed.
A generic environmental impact statement is required to assess and analyze the cumulative impacts of these proposals, the groups wrote.
“In our view, the undeniable number, significance, magnitude, and similar impacts associated with the multiple proposed warehouse applications now before the Town, call out for a comprehensive and integrated analysis. Absent a fully integrated review that can readily be provided for through a GEIS, we cannot see how the Town Board could make a rational andinformed decision about all of these proposals in the same geographic area,” the letter states.
It was signed by EPCAL Watch, Greater Calverton Civic Association, Group for the East End, Heart of Riverhead Civic Association, North Fork Environmental Council, Riverhead Neighborhood Preservation Coalition and Wading River Civic Association.
The Town Board’s reaction to these demands has been muted at best. There hasn’t been a comprehensive public discussion of a moratorium on industrial development in Calverton. Individual board members have said they do not favor a broad moratorium, and two members — Supervisor Yvette Aguiar and Council Member Tim Hubbard — have said they would consider a moratorium for specific types of development, such as battery energy storage systems, to allow time for the comprehensive planning process to sort these issues out. But no member has brought the matter up for discussion at a work session and there has been no public disclosure of the code committee or any town department working on drafting a moratorium on industrial development in Calverton.
The Town Board on Tuesday approved a 12-month extension of an October 2021 moratorium on commercial solar energy systems but did not address whether a broader moratorium would be considered.
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