Residents organize against Riverhead Charter School plan for new high school on Sound Avenue

Some residents have started to organize against a plan by the Riverhead Charter School to build a new high school in Northville, which can only happen if the Riverhead Town Board grants a necessary special permit. 

A resident with a home near the 71-acres of open farmland along Sound Avenue being purchased by the charter school has started a Facebook page against its development into a high school. The resident has begun printing lawn signs with messages opposing the high school, which could be as large as 68,000 square feet, according to the charter school’s superintendent.

The page was also shared by the Facebook page of the Riverhead Central Faculty Association (RCFA), the union representing school district teachers, which opposes the charter school’s expansion plans.

Maureen McKay, whose home on Fox Trail Court abuts the farmland being purchased by the charter school, first started a private page with just her neighbors to inform them about the project. She started the public page, No Charter On Sound, after people outside her neighborhood connected with her and expressed their own opposition to the high school, she said.  

“We just really want to get the message out there, how creating something like this in farmland areas, which we have come to love and enjoy, is going to change the North Fork forever,” McKay said. “So we created the page with the hopes that we can reach out to everybody in the town and let them know how this will directly affect all of us.”

Although no plans have been formally submitted, the charter school announced late last year it was purchasing the land to build a new high school and athletic fields. Riverhead Charter School Superintendent Raymond Ankrum said the project was five to seven years away. The new building would allow the charter school to accommodate more than 400 high school students and would be built adjacent to its current high school. 

The charter school moved its high school-aged students into a restored Northville schoolhouse after its charter was renewed and expanded to allow it to teach grades 11 and 12, and increased the school’s enrollment by nearly 400 students.

McKay said the high school would bring heavy traffic to the area and impact the neighborhood’s open space. She said in an interview Friday that she has distributed roughly 130 lawn signs. She hopes to go door-to-door with a petition against the development.

“We’re hoping to get enough people to sign so we can show the Town Board that the community doesn’t want this,” McKay said.

The land being purchased is in the Agricultural Protection zoning use district — the target of Riverhead Town’s farmland and open space preservation efforts. It allows the construction of private educational institutions, but only by a special permit of the Riverhead Town Board. Special permits are granted on a case-by-case basis, and the board may consider a wide range of factors when deciding whether or not it grants a permit, including whether:

• The site is particularly suitable for the location of such use in the community.
• The plot area is sufficient, appropriate and adequate for the use and the reasonably anticipated operation and expansion thereof.
• The characteristics of the proposed use are not such that its proposed location would be unsuitably near to a church, school, theater, recreational area or other place of public assembly.
• Access facilities are adequate for the estimated traffic from public streets and sidewalks, so as to assure the public in relation to the general character of the neighborhood and other existing or permitted uses within it, and to avoid traffic congestion; and further that vehicular entrances and exits shall be clearly visible from the street and not be within 75 feet of the intersection of street lines at a street intersection except under unusual circumstances.
• That the intensity of the proposed specially permitted use is justified in light of similar uses within the zoning district.
• Other items listed under Town Code Section 301-312 and “other matters or factors” deemed material by the board.

The Town Board must also make a determination that the use will not disrupt the properties surrounding the use, or the town as a whole. The town may also include certain conditions and restrictions in the special permit.

Typically, public schools are given special treatment when it comes to local zoning ordinances. But the Riverhead Charter School meets the criteria of a private school in this case, Planner Matt Charters said during the Jan. 3 Town Board meeting. “If it was a public school, a public school is allowed anywhere within any zoning use district,” Charters said. 

Since the Riverhead Charter School was established in 2001, it does not get the benefit of a 2010 state law that treats it as a public school under local zoning, according to Erica Conley Komoroske, a spokesperson for the state education department.

Town Board members have done little to indicate whether they would support or oppose the high school project. Council Member Joann Waski, the former chairperson of the Planning Board, said during a Jan. 3 Town Board meeting she would “be paying close attention” to the subject.

“It’s not going unnoticed how some of the residents are feeling about this,” Waski said.

Waski was not available for an interview on Monday. Supervisor Tim Hubbard did not immediately return a call Monday seeking comment.

Ankrum said in an interview he did not have a reaction to the community organizing against the high school project. 

But on Friday, after Ankrum spoke with a reporter, the charter school’s Facebook page posted a screenshot of the RCFA reposting the No Charter On Sound page with the caption: “We mind our business and educate our kids… Meanwhile…” The Facebook page also posted a press release highlighting the school’s test score achievements, and pledging communication with the community about the new high school project and how the charter school is funded.

MORE COVERAGE: Riverhead Charter School granted expansion to grade 12, with 46% increase in enrollment limit over next five school years

Gregory Wallace, president of the school district’s teacher’s union, would not say whether the union would lobby the Town Board against the special permit required for the high school’s construction. He said the group is against the charter school, which is “taking away resources of our public school.” He also said the charter school lacks financial accountability; the public cannot vote on its budget and it cannot be audited by the state comptroller.

School districts are required to provide money to a charter school based on how many students living in the school district are enrolled in the charter school. The largest contributor to the Riverhead Charter School is the Riverhead Central School District. Roughly $11.5 million of the school district’s current budget goes to the charter school. 

Wallace, who grew up in Greenport and lives in Calverton, has similar concerns as McKay: increased traffic on Sound Avenue and loss of open space. “From a perspective as a town resident, I don’t want to see land that’s zoned agricultural developed. I’d like it to stay within the character of the comprehensive plan that Riverhead passed in 2003,” he said. “I would like the town to keep its rural agriculture character.”

The Greater Jamesport Civic Association will host Ankrum as its guest speaker this Saturday, in part to discuss the proposed expansion. Civic President Laura Jens-Smith said the organization’s membership have been asking questions about the charter school. 

“We’re very happy that the superintendent has agreed to come talk to us and that we can have some information as to what’s going to be built there, so people can formulate their own opinions” whether they are for or against it, she said.