Riverhead’s top economic development and planning official and Riverhead Central School District officials raised objections to the Riverside revitalization plan Wednesday during a Southampton Town Board pubic hearing on a proposed sewage treatment facility to serve the Riverside hamlet.
The comments from Riverhead Economic Development, Planning and Building Department Administrator Dawn Thomas came at a hearing on the potential environmental impacts of the sewage treatment facility.
Thomas urged the Southampton Town Board to step back and reopen review of the Riverside Revitalization Action Plan, adopted by Southampton in 2015, and codified in a zoning overlay district that same year.
The overlay district gives owners of eligible properties the right to additional uses and greater development density if the proposed development meets the criteria outlined in the zoning code.
The result, Thomas said, is the potential development of 2,300 residential units in the Riverside hamlet, just across the river from downtown Riverhead. The two hamlets, though located in different towns, “effectively function as one community,” Thomas said.
“Accordingly, it it is critical that Southampton and Riverhead Towns work closely together to ensure the best results in the redevelopment of Riverside, as it will have a substantial impact on Riverhead and the infrastructure [Riverhead Town] provides to Riverside,” Thomas said.
Thomas told the Southampton Town Board that “the underlying assumptions and data contained in the Riverside Revitalization Action Plan have changed dramatically” over the past decade, citing local demographic changes, including “the marked reduction of opportunities for home ownership and the consequential building of wealth, the increase in population due to COVID and migration and the increased need for workforce. In addition,” Thomas noted, “Riverhead Town has supported and been successful in increasing residential development as part of the process of revitalization” of its downtown district.
Downtown Riverhead and Riverside are already very segregated in terms of race and ethnicity and economics, Thomas said. New development must promote diversity, not increase segregation, Thomas said — and increasing segregation may be the inadvertent result if the original underlying assumptions and data are not updated, she said.
“Accordingly, Riverhead Town is hereby officially requesting to work with Southampton Town to review and possibly revise the plans in the RRAP and in the Riverside Overlay Zoning District to evaluate saturation and to ensure that the environmental, socio economic and economic impacts to the Riverside-downtown Riverhead community serve the residents of this community well,” Thomas said.
In an interview Wednesday, Thomas said economic, racial and equity diversity can be advanced by building market-rate rentals and housing that provides ownership opportunities, something the Town of Riverhead is pursuing downtown.
The Southampton Town Board listened to Thomas’ comments without much feedback, but in an interview Friday, Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said the zoning has been in place over eight years. The plan leading up to its adoption and the adoption itself was “a very public process,” he said.
“That was the time to comment on the potential impacts of the increased density in that area,” Schneiderman said. “Right now, we’re not talking about zoning. They want us to revise the zoning? The zoning’s in place. They should have said that nine years ago,” he said.
The build-out of anything in the Riverside overlay district depends on the construction of the sewage treatment plant, Schneiderman said. The treatment plant’s design and its potential environmental impacts were the subject of this week’s hearing, not the overall revitalization plan. Hookup to a treatment plant is required by environmental and health regulations for any moderate and high-density development. Developing the sewage treatment facility has presented difficult logistical challenges, including a heavy lift in terms of funding an estimated $35 million in design and construction costs. To date the town has put together funding of roughly half the estimated cost. Schneiderman said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the town will receive most of the balance in a grant from the State Environmental Facilities Corporation.
Southampton Town completed an extensive environmental review process for the plan and the resulting zoning code prior to the Town Board’s unanimous adoption of each in 2015.
The documents in the public record of environmental review, completed pursuant to the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) do include comments from any Riverhead Town officials in the public hearing transcript or written comments on the draft generic impact statement submitted by Riverhead Town during the SEQRA review.
As for demographic changes in the Downtown Riverhead-Riverside area, Schneiderman said, “They’ve built on the Riverhead side, I want to say, 500 apartments.”
New construction in Riverside, with availability of a sewer hookup, will include commercial development, which will increase tax revenues for the school district to offset costs associated with new students, Schneiderman said.
“It will bring Riverside up and will help downtown Riverhead as well,” he said.
In a letter from the Riverhead Board of Education, signed by its President Colin Palmer, Interim Superintendent Cheryl Pedisich and Riverhead Central Faculty Association President Gregory Wallace, the district said the the Riverside revitalization “plan, as currently proposed, makes no accommodation, nor does it address the serious consequences it will have on the Riverhead Central School District.”
The new housing units will all be in the catchment area of the Phillips Avenue Elementary School, and will likely produce hundreds of school-age children, the letter states. The district asked that Southampton Town “take the necessary steps to ensure any approvals given to the final plan include assurances that the developers accommodate the increased educational space needs of (the) district through new school construction or financial provisions to the school district.”
The district made similar comments and expressed similar requests during the 2015 generic environmental impact statement process for the plan and zoning.
The plan was not amended to incorporate the district’s requests at the time and the adopted zoning does not include any requirements for developer contributions to new school construction or financial assistance to the school district.
“Without such assurances, we respectfully submit that we cannot support the Riverside Revitalization Action Plan…” the district concluded.
As noted by the Southampton Town supervisor, the plan was adopted in 2015 and is not the matter currently before the Southampton Town Board.
Editor’s note: This article was updated after publication to include a paragraph containing Dawn Thomas’ comments regarding housing types. The paragraph was inadvertently deleted during editing and posting.
The survival of local journalism depends on your support.
We are a small family-owned operation. You rely on us to stay informed, and we depend on you to make our work possible. Just a few dollars can help us continue to bring this important service to our community.
Support RiverheadLOCAL today.
