Frustration over delays in the comprehensive plan update and inaction on a moratorium for Calverton boiled over in the Riverhead Town Hall meeting room yesterday.
Residents making those demands have become impatient with delays and perceived inaction by the Town Board. During the long and contentious meeting, some residents took the podium to question the motivations and integrity of some board members. Tempers flared. Members of the audience from time to time heckled board members as they spoke and punctuated speakers’ comments with loud applause, shouts and an occasional whistle.
The spark that ignited already-stoked emotions was the appearance of resolutions scheduling Dec. 20 public hearings on zoning code changes that would establish battery energy storage systems and anaerobic digesters as permitted uses, and regulate the locations and manner of the uses.
The battery energy storage code — a version of which was the subject of a prior public hearing — was not in the packet of resolutions brought before the board at last week’s work session, when actions to be taken at the next regular meeting are normally reviewed by the board.
Residents have previously asked that no action be taken to establish battery storage as a use, except as the result of a comprehensive planning process that includes an analysis of its impacts on the community. That process, begun in 2020, was beset by delays and has been completely stalled since June, when Supervisor Yvette Aguiar announced that the Town Board had decided to terminate its contract with the planning consultant hired in 2019 to draft the plan.
| MORE COVERAGE: Dissatisfied with comp plan progress, Riverhead says it will terminate contract with consultant |
Residents have advanced the same argument with respect to amending the zoning code to allow anaerobic digesters — which process food wastes, creating compost and generating energy — as a new use. A resolution scheduling a Dec. 20 public hearing on the anaerobic digester code was also on the Town Board’s agenda.
The proliferation of applications to build “cube” warehouses and logistics centers on industrially zoned properties in Calverton, including a 641,000-square-foot logistics center on Middle Road, led to a renewed demand for a moratorium in Calverton while the comp plan update is completed. Residents made the same argument about the need for a comprehensive study and assessment of cumulative impacts before allowing uses that didn’t even exist when the current comprehensive plan was developed from 1999 to 2003.
The board’s intention to move forward on both public hearings during an afternoon meeting just before Christmas drew criticism from residents who said the timing of the hearing would ensure low turnout and public participation.
“I think it is offensive in the extreme that you are scheduling something as important as a public hearing on the zoning code amendment on battery storage systems on Dec. 20,” said Kathy McGraw of Northville, who joined the meeting on Zoom. “What is the rush?…It’s not a good idea to rush things and do them during the holiday season,” she said. Board members might say they are only scheduling a public hearing, but “it is a procedural hurdle that must be passed before you folks can sit up there and change the zoning code prior to completion of the comp plan update. And it is offensive to the extreme,” McGraw said.
Council Member Tim Hubbard — who opposes moving ahead with the code amendments before the work of the comp plan update is completed and supports a renewable, 12-month “blanket” moratorium in Calverton — motioned to table both resolutions scheduling Dec. 20 public hearings. Council Member Frank Beyrodt seconded and voted to approve the motions to table.
Supervisor Yvette Aguiar, Council Member Bob Kern and Council Member Ken Rothwell all voted against the motion to table, which failed.
“All we’re talking about is a public hearing, to hear from the public, and to have time to do more research and to talk to more — the planners and our planner’s not in, he’s out sick, so — again, it’s just for a public hearing,” Aguiar said after the vote on the motion to table the anaerobic digester resolution.
Hubbard was alone in voting against the resolutions scheduling the public hearings.
“As I’ve stated many times before, anaerobic digesters and battery energy storage systems need to be reviewed and worked on through the comprehensive plan,” Hubbard said, drawing applause and cheers.
“We’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to have the comprehensive plan done. In my mind it’s foolish to move forward with such items that we have not much experience with,” he said. “This needs to be addressed by the comprehensive plan.”
Beyrodt said he is “not against either one of the code changes” but “just didn’t see any reason that we couldn’t table them for another day.”
“That being said, I will vote yes on hearing from the public,” Beyrodt said.
“I will simply say that I think we’ve kind of heard from the public,” Hubbard responded.
“I don’t feel it’s worth the waste of time because we have a comprehensive plan that is very soon to begin and this needs to be addressed through that,” he said.
Aguiar said she supported calling a public hearing. “That’s what a public hearing is all about, to open it up, engage the public…”
Calverton residents turned out in force again at yesterday’s meeting and many stood up to reiterate the community’s demand for a moratorium while the comprehensive plan update is completed — a demand first made by the Greater Calverton Civic Association in 2020.
The Town Board adopted a one-year moratorium on new commercial solar energy production facilities in Calverton in 2021, to allow time for the comprehensive plan to study the subject. Commercial solar facilities have been built on hundreds of acres in Calverton, drawn by undeveloped industrially zoned land and proximity to a LIPA substation, which allows electricity generated by the facilities to be fed into the electric grid. The board exempted pending commercial solar applications from the moratorium, allowing another major facility to gain town approvals. The board extended the solar moratorium for another year in October.
There is no consensus on the Town Board on whether to enact a moratorium on new commercial and industrial development in Calverton. The Planning Board in October came out in favor of a moratorium. At its first meeting in November, the Planning Board unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the Town Board to adopt a moratorium on all development applications in the Industrial A, Industrial B and Industrial C zoning districts in Calverton.
A week after the Planning Board first discussed a moratorium and agreed to recommend it to the Town Board, Hubbard came out in support of it, suggesting the Town Board adopt an 18-month moratorium on new warehouse development in Calverton. His proposal wasn’t embraced by the board.
Aguiar said at that work session she’d be willing to consider a moratorium, but advocated making it apply only to future applications or applications at the very beginning of the review process — “grandfathering” proposals that have already had substantial review at substantial expense on the part of developers for application fees and studies. Three large pending applications — NorthPoint’s Riverhead Logistics Center, HK Ventures, and Ostad’s Calverton Industrial Subdivision would meet that criteria, she said.
Also at that work session, Kern, expressing concern about potential loss of property tax revenue, said any moratorium should include an exemption process that would allow “benign” projects — those that would not have impacts on traffic or residences, he said, citing as examples “agrivoltaics” (integrated solar production and crop cultivation) and battery energy storage systems.
Board members subsequently agreed to hold hearings on two separate moratorium proposals, one with no exemptions and one with exemptions — which the town attorney advised against. There was no agreement during public discussions on how the exemptions would be crafted, however. No moratorium resolution has since been brought forward for discussion at a work session.
| MORE COVERAGE: Hubbard advocates 18-month moratorium on warehouse development in Calverton, but Town Board majority is on the fence |
“We’ve been here for five meetings,” Calverton Civic President Toqui Terchun told the board yesterday. “This room right now is still filled with people from Calverton and Baiting Hollow. My voice quavers and my lips tremble because of the anger that people are feeling. And I’m carrying it to this board,” she said.
As they’ve done at recent meetings, Calverton residents lined up to ask the board for a general moratorium in their hamlet and voice opposition to the various warehouse and logistics plans pending in the area.
Bill Fortunato, a resident of the Foxwood Village senior community on Middle Road in Calverton, said he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps at age 17. “I never got accustomed to being bullied,” he told the board. “To some extent I’m very uncomfortable the way this meeting is being conducted, and the way things are being brushed aside,” he said.
Fortunato referenced the 2013 clear-cutting of the 42-acre wooded site north of Foxwood Village to make way for a shopping center where Costco Wholesale Club would locate. The development “undermined the security, privacy and serenity of our entire retirement community,” he said.
“I’m used to defending the land — the United States of America. I’m not used to defending my homeland in my own backyard and my wife from threat. I perceive what’s going on right now as a genuine threat to our community,” Fortunato said, referring to the NorthPoint proposal to build a massive logistics center on Middle Road.
| MORE COVERAGE: Residents demand closer scrutiny for Riverhead Logistics Center, especially traffic impacts |
“It’s unconscionable,” he said. “We the people — we live there. You folks work for we the people… We the people demand corrective action… We do hold you accountable. Please support this request by stopping the warehouse construction project. We the people are speaking,” he said. “Do you hear us?”
Karen Kemp of Calverton brought large-format Google Earth satellite images of the area of Calverton where the NorthPoint logistics center is proposed. Kemp had superimposed scaled images of the proposed Middle Road logistics center and Costco on the satellite images.
“I was curious what a 600,000-square-foot building looks like,” Kemp said, pointing to the box representing NorthPoint’s logistics warehouse. The average Costco is 200,000 square feet. The proposed logistics center is three times the size of Costco, Kemp said, prompting audible gasps from the audience.
It’s actually more than that in Riverhead, where the wholesale club building is 150,000 square feet.
Reeves Park resident Mike Foley, who frequently speaks out at Town Board meetings, often critically, inquired about the status of the contract with BFJ Planning, the firm chosen by the board to finish the comprehensive plan begun by prior planning consultants AKRF.
Board members interviewed representatives of three three firms picked by Building and Planning Administrator Jefferson Murphree as candidates for the job in August, but the firms said they could not provide quotes for cost of services, because the town had not provided them with access to AKRF’s work product. Murphree said the documents were all on the town’s comprehensive plan update website, which was offline pending transfer from AKRF.
The board invited two of the firms, BFJ Planning and H2M in for a second meeting in September. The firms came in with vastly different proposals. H2M said the job would essentially have to be started from scratch and provided a cost estimate of about $830,000. BFJ said it could finish the plan for about $300,000, a quote which did not include traffic and infrastructure work.
| MORE COVERAGE: Town Board likely to decide next week on hiring firm to finish comprehensive plan update |
Town Board members said they hoped to be able to continue to work with AKRF’s engineering subcontractor, L.K. McLean Associates, which was hired to conduct traffic and infrastructure analysis under the AKRF contract that had been terminated by the board.
LKMA has $123,000 of work left to do “providing nothing changes from their prior scope,” Murphree told RiverheadLOCAL in an interview.
At the board’s Oct. 6 work session, a board majority agreed to hire BFJ Planning.
Since then, residents have been asking about the status of the contract with BFJ, as Foley did again yesterday.
“I believe that a final draft, hopefully, has been circulated to the Town Board,” Town Attorney Erik Howard said.
Foley called out the supervisor over past statements about the town exposing itself to litigation by adopting a moratorium. Foley said the town checks all the boxes for a legal moratorium under New York State rules and no project currently proposed in Calverton is vested.
“The biggest threat to litigation in this town is you,” Foley told the supervisor. Granting moratorium exemptions to some projects will invite litigation from other developers, he said. “Your arbitrary and capricious exceptions, by allowing H.K. Ventures to develop here, when they have the same non-vested status as every other one,” will cause the town to get sued. “There’s no question about it, and it will be your fault,” he said.
“I don’t know anything about H.K. Ventures’ contributions. I’ve never accused anybody on this board of being corrupt. But I can tell you this, if there was an H.K. Ventures contribution to anybody on that board, and they are exempted from this, a contribution can be considered a bribe,” Foley said.
The supervisor told Foley his allegations were “not very respectful.”
“I was elected by the people and a great amount of people elected me and I’m not going to change,” Aguiar said. She said she agreed “there may be some saturation” and said “we’re looking at every angle.” But she took exception to Foley’s comments.
“To come up here, before you even have a public hearing and calling me names and saying I’m corrupt or that I don’t support that —“ Members of the audience spoke up from their seats, yelling, “He didn’t say that,” they said.
“It’s okay,” Aguiar continued. “Your five minutes are up. I’m not going back and forth. You may just say when I made my statement, and again, don’t speak for myself. Let me speak. I am representative of the people that elected me. And I will do everything that I can in my ability as ethically and as honest. And I know it’s that silly season, so stop it,” Aguiar said.
The supervisor said the board is “researching it and making a good collective decision.” The decision hasn’t been made yet, she said. “Don’t accuse me of going in one direction. Thank you. Next.”
“Point of order,” Foley shouted. “Point of order. I didn’t accuse you of being corrupt. Point of order. It’s something you should look up,” he told her.
Hubbard tried to intervene. “All right guys, can we move onto the next speaker please,” he said.
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” Aguiar said. “Let me run the meeting,” she told Hubbard.
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