The new Riverhead Town Board had an eventful first meeting of 2024, passing two pieces of legislation on Wednesday that will impact the future of industrial development in Calverton.
The board approved a six-month moratorium on development, suspending the processing of applications for projects located in industrial zoning use districts in Calverton outside the Calverton Enterprise Park.
The Town Board needed four votes to pass the six-month moratorium, because the Suffolk County Planning Commission — which authorizes major land-use actions like moratoriums — gave approval only for a three-month long moratorium. A municipality can only override the commission’s recommendation with a supermajority vote, which for requires four votes on the five-member Town Board.
The moratorium passed 4-1, with Council Member Bob Kern dissenting without comment. Kern and former Supervisor Yvette Aguiar opposed the moratorium at the end of last year, leading to Supervisor Tim Hubbard — then a council member — to postpone the vote until two newly elected members, who supported the moratorium, took their seats in the New Year, providing the necessary supermajority.
The moratorium, which civic groups and vocal residents have been clamoring for over the past few years, gives the town time to amend its industrial zoning codes. Amendments have been under discussion by town officials, planners and volunteers working on the town’s comprehensive plan update. Proposals being discussed would decrease development density, prohibit certain heavy industrial uses, increase maximum height, and increase setback requirements. The amendment would also allow developers to purchase farmland preservation credits in exchange for higher density development, which would generate more money for the town to protect farmland from development.
“As you know, this is something I’ve worked on and I put up quite some time ago. I started with this and didn’t have the support to get it through,” Hubbard said yesterday. “I appreciate my fellow board members for supporting this. To me, it just made perfect sense to wait while we were doing the comprehensive plan to wait for that to be finished until we moved forward and made decisions on big projects, especially in the Calverton area.”
The moratorium will not affect one large industrial project: the 412,000-square-foot light industrial park proposed by HK Ventures on Middle Country Road in Calverton. That exemption sparked the ire of some community members, who worry about the project’s environmental impacts, particularly on local traffic. Although the project has site plan approval, HK Ventures cannot move forward to construction before the New York State Department of Transportation repairs and realigns the intersection of Middle Country Road and Edwards Avenue — a project that is expected to be complete in early 2025. HK Ventures sued the Planning Board in an attempt to remove the requirement. The case was dismissed by a State Supreme Court judge last month. Yesterday, attorneys for HK Ventures filed a notice of appeal.
Greater Calverton Civic Association Toqui Terchun said the moratorium was “a long time coming.”
“Yes, we would have liked to have had it earlier. It would have protected quite a lot of the applications that have already gotten into the pipeline and pose for us in Calverton, Wading River and certainly for the East End and the North Fork, a traffic nightmare,” Terchun said. “I do hope that you keep that in mind as those projects move forward in the pipeline.”
The other legislative action taken yesterday affects the town-owned land at EPCAL. The board passed an amendment of the Planned Development zoning use district — the zoning district created in 2016 that applies to the vacant property, intended to spur development. The amendment prohibits “commercial passenger airport, cargo and freight airport” in the district. The amendment also bans flight instruction, flight training, aircraft rental and aeronautical services, except for fueling, hangaring, tie-down, parking and maintenance “ancillary” to a permitted principal use.
MORE COVERAGE: ‘To plane, or not to plane…’ Public hearing tackles heart of the debate surrounding EPCAL’s future
The amendment passed 4-1, with Council Member Denise Merrifield dissenting. Merrifield said in a statement before casting her vote that, while she supports the language of the amendment, she does not support the exceptions which she said “expressly permit fueling, hiring, tying down parking and maintenance of planes ancillary to a permitted principal use.”
She continued: “In other words, this legislation will expressly permit businesses in the PD zoning district — EPCAL — to utilize the runways as a private airport for their business operations. I fear we do not know how many businesses will be going in there, nor do we know how many flights a day they will be using utilizing those runways. Businesses in EPCAL could use the Gabreski airport and the Brookhaven airports to conduct their ancillary business.”
Photo: Denise Civiletti
“As many of the residents know, this was a key feature in my campaign to run for election. I’ve always stated I wanted no airport in our town and I continue to say that now,” Merrifield said. “And my feeling is that this exception… included in this amendment will expressly allow planes to fly in and out of EPCAL and that, I know, is something that many of the residents of Wading River and Calverton do not want. So that is my reason for voting ‘no.’ But let me be clear, I absolutely want no airport, any flights whatsoever out of there.”
Hubbard responded to Merrifield’s comments before he voted. He said use of the runway at EPCAL has been happening for “decades.” The zoning of the mostly developed “industrial core” of the property — which includes the active 10,000-foot eastern runway — allows several accessory aviation uses, but prohibits “regularly scheduled or unscheduled passenger service, air taxi, air charter or fixed-based operator as currently defined by the FAA.”
“This isn’t going to change that,” Hubbard said. “But it does, in terms of the town… selling the property, it does give us added value to that property to allow an executive to fly in and fly out. This isn’t going to be daily flights. It’s not going to be bombarded by airplanes,” he said.
“I totally agree with what Denise said — and she’s right — but this has been going on and I’m not looking to change that, because it would change the value of the property that we have up there,” Hubbard said. “There will never be a cargo airport. There will never be a freight airport. There will never be a commercial airport on that property.” He said the amendment “solidifies” those prohibitions “that’s what this solidifies, I should say — “so that we can never have those types of airports up there.”
In other action at the first meeting of 2024, the Town Board:
- Set the salaries of town employees for 2024, and approved separate salary increases for 22 employees, separate from contractual increases. including a $5,000 increase for Town Engineer Drew Dillingham, making his annual salary $160,787.
- Reappointed Erik Howard to a two-year term as town attorney. Howard, a graduate of Hofstra School of Law, was a deputy town attorney for several years before being appointed to lead the town’s legal department in February 2022. Hubbard — who is Howard’s father-in-law and abstained when Howard was originally appointed town attorney — did not abstain from the vote, citing legal advice he received from Deputy Town Attorney Annemarie Prudenti. New York State General Municipal Law does not prohibit a town board member from voting on the salary of a family member who is a town official. Riverhead’s ethics code states that elected town officials do not need to recuse themselves from taking action that benefits a relative as long as they disclose their relationship as a part of the public record.
- Approved the appointments of staff in the town supervisor’s office. All three existing full-time employees in the supervisor’s office — Deputy Supervisor Devon Higgins, Chief of Staff Debi Burkowski and Secretary Joann Cannon — will continue in their positions in Hubbard administration. None of the salaries of these employees were changed.
- Approved an agreement with Sports Facilities Advisory LLC for an economic and feasibility study regarding recreational lands at and around Veterans Memorial Park in Calverton.
- Assigned administrative oversight of the town’s Fire Marshal Office to the Town Attorney’s Office. The office was overseen by Police Chief David Hegermiller, but was reassigned by the former-supervisor to the Department of Economic Development and Planning on Dec. 27. The town attorney will see a $4,000 pay increase, and each of the three deputy town attorneys a $1,000 pay increase, for taking on the additional responsibilities of overseeing the office.
- Accepted the resignation of Planning Board special counsel Eileen Powers and appointed Town Attorney Howard and Deputy Town Attorney Danielle Hurley as co-special counsel to the board. Both attorneys will receive $6,000 annually for taking on the job.
- Appointed Deputy Town Attorney Annemarie Prudenti to serve as special counsel to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Prudenti was appointed last year to act as special counsel on a temporary basis, after Community Development Director Dawn Thomas, who was counsel to the zoning board, was given oversight of the town’s planning department. Prudenti will be paid $9,000 annually for the job.
- Appointed Planning Board Vice Chairperson Edward Densieski to serve as chairperson of the Planning Board, a position vacated by Joann Waski, who was elected to the Town Board in November and sworn in as a council member Monday. The Town Board also appointed a new Planning Board member, Ken Zilnicki of Aquebogue, as well as appointed Planning Board member John Hogan to serve as Planning Board vice chairperson.
- Appointed Zoning Board of Appeals Vice Chairperson Otto Wittmeier to serve as chairperson of the ZBA, a position vacated by longtime member Fred McLaughlin, who retired from the board at the end of 2023 after a 28-year tenure. The Town Board also reappointed ZBA member Ralph Gazzillo to another five-year term and designated him vice chairperson of the board. One seat on the ZBA remains vacant.
- Set the 2024 beach sticker and East Creek docking facility fees. Prices for parking-only stickers, and for trailer and boat launch stickers, are increasing $5 this year for both non-senior and senior residents. The price of 4×4 and parking stickers are increasing $10 ($90) for non-seniors and $5 ($70) for seniors.
- Authorized the $122,700 purchase of a nine-unit temporary portable restroom trailer at Veterans Memorial Park.
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