The Riverhead Town Board will take up a resolution today to cancel the town’s contract to sell more than 1,600 acres of land at the Calverton Enterprise Park for $40 million to Calverton Aviation & Technology.
The Town Board will hold special Town Board and Community Development Agency meetings at 4 p.m. to take up a resolution declaring the 2018 contract between CAT, an affiliate of the Canadian development conglomerate Triple Five, and the town null and void, according to a notice sent by Deputy Supervisor Devon Higgins around 1 p.m.. The Town Board will also hold a special work session meeting beforehand, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct an executive session to discuss the topic behind closed doors, according to a separate notice sent by Higgins.
The special meetings come less than 24 hours after the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency rejected Calverton Aviation & Technology’s financial assistance application for its proposed $245 million, 1 million-square-foot, phase-one of an eventual 10 million square foot project. The rejection by the IDA allows the Town Board to exit its contract pursuant to an agreement signed by both parties last year in an attempt to move the deal forward.
In an interview before the special meetings were noticed, Council Member Tim Hubbard said he talked with fellow Town Board members and decided that they would try to “put the final nail in the coffin” of the deal with Calverton Aviation & Technology if the IDA rejected the application.
The board’s scheduled vote also comes exactly two weeks before the town’s general election, during which voters will elect a new town supervisor and two new town council members. The deal between the town and CAT to purchase the Calverton Enterprise Park, also known as EPCAL, and the potential development of logistics centers and air cargo uses along the runways at the site, have been the most galvanizing issues of the campaign and have brought hundreds of people out to public meetings.
Residents last night were jubilant about the IDA’s decision, expressing relief and, for some people, vindication.
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