Trouble is brewing between the two towns that straddle the Peconic River.
The bone of contention: Southampton Town’s plan for revitalization of the Riverside hamlet, adopted nearly 10 years ago. Riverside, though located within the Town of Southampton, is just across the river from downtown Riverhead.
Southampton Town is getting close to putting the final piece of the puzzle in place to implement the revitalization plan with the creation of a sewer district in Riverside, allowing the construction of a $35.5 million sewage treatment plant to serve new and existing development there. The sewage treatment plant will open up the Riverside hamlet to the high-density development envisioned in the Riverside revitalization plan. The Southampton Town Board this week finalized an environmental review document required for the creation of the district — over strong and repeated objections from Riverhead Town officials.
Recognizing that possibility, Riverhead Town has retained an attorney for advice on how to proceed — with an eye on possibly bringing a lawsuit to try to stop Southampton in its tracks. The Riverhead Town Board has a resolution on its April 16 agenda ratifying the execution of a retainer agreement with attorney Steven Barshov in Haverstraw, New York, to provide advice to Riverhead Town about possible courses of action.
Riverhead Town officials, including the town supervisor and the planning and economic development director, have recently begun speaking out against the Riverside revitalization plan at hearings on the proposed sewer district held by the Southampton Town Board.
Riverhead Supervisor Tim Hubbard, one of five members of the Central Pine Barrens Joint Planning and Policy Commission, was the only member of that body to vote last month against a necessary approval for the sewer project.
Hubbard made it a point this week to bring up Riverside during his State of the Town speech.
“To date, Southampton Town officials have not cooperated or, in my opinion, shown any good-faith effort to meet and consider our requests,” Hubbard said in the speech. “This leaves us little choice but to pursue legal action designed to protect the interests of our town and taxpayers.”
“Stay tuned,” he added.
In an interview after Hubbard’s speech, Riverhead Town Attorney Erik Howard said the Riverside plan is “wildly inconsistent with the prior studies that were done.” The town’s environmental consultant has highlighted concerns to Southampton, he said, and “although there’s been discussion back and forth, there hasn’t been any positive progress towards addressing those inconsistencies.”
“In the event that those don’t get addressed, we would have to pursue legal action because of the tremendous impact that it will have on the downtown revitalization, as well as our school district,” Howard said.
Riverhead officials, during the public hearing process on the Riverside sewer district, have urged Southampton officials to review the Riverside plan with Riverhead officials — and specifically to make changes to the plan’s housing element, which calls for the construction of affordable rental units.
Riverhead has also asked Southampton to make changes to the Riverside Sewer District boundaries so that it would include the county’s facilities in Riverside — the county center, the criminal court building and the correctional facility — which have been hooked up to the Riverhead Town sewage treatment plant since 1969.
The Southampton Board on Tuesday effectively declined that request when it approved the environmental review document assessing impacts of the district with Southampton’s proposed district boundaries — which do not take in the county facilities.
During a heated public hearing at Tuesday’s meeting, Riverhead Town officials continued raising their objections. Before Dawn Thomas, head of the town’s Department of Economic Development, Planning and Building, could start making her comments, she was interrupted by a Southampton Town Board member, who asked whether Riverhead was suing Southampton.
“I don’t think that’s occurred,” Thomas said.
“I see it on your docket,” Southampton Council Member William Pell said, apparently referring to the Riverhead Town Board’s work session agenda, where possible legal action against Southampton was listed under the heading “litigation” on the board’s executive session agenda.
Southampton Town Board members continued to be combative with Thomas throughout her comments.
“I think it’s important to frame and characterize the initial public statements that were made from the town as actually looking to modify the plan,” Southampton Council Member Michael Iasilli said. “There was no concern about the plan, necessarily, it was more so of an input that was provided by the town. And then when things didn’t go in that direction, then it became a concern, correct?”
“I would disagree with that,” Thomas said. “And I’m happy to characterize our own position for the Town of Riverhead.”
Thomas reiterated points made by the town during previous hearings.
“Our role as government officials is to take care of our communities. Riverside, while located in Southampton Town — based upon an imaginary line drawn centuries ago — is part of the Riverhead community,” Thomas said. “Riverhead and Riverside share the same school district, same zip code, library district, hospitals, shopping, churches, parks and many other facilities,” she said.
“Accordingly, as we have stated before: What happens in Riverside deeply affects Riverhead,” Thomas said. “The only way to make sure that development in Riverside benefits Riverhead residents is to include Riverhead in the planning — not just as an interested party, but rather as a partner.”
Thomas said she received an email from the Southampton Planning Department that said because of Riverhead’s objections to the sewer district, Southampton would not be working on an updated plan for Riverside with Riverhead Town.
The effort to change the Riverside plan should be “viewed as an opportunity, rather than a delay,” Thomas said.
Supervisor Maria Moore said she wasn’t aware that Southampton has declined to work with Riverhead. She said Southampton has a meeting with Riverhead on Friday to discuss Riverhead’s concerns. Moore said Southampton would consider expanding the sewer district to include county facilities in future phases of expansion.
Hubbard said Friday evening that Southampton officials canceled the scheduled meeting “because of my State of the Town address.”
Separately, Riverhead Town has been in court with Suffolk County over sewage treatment rates set by Riverhead for “out-of-district facilities” — currently the only-out-of-district facilities are the county facilities in Riverside.
Riverhead officials say they want to shift responsibility for treating sewage wastes generated at the county facilities in Riverside to the Riverside sewage treatment plan to free up capacity in its own treatment plant in order to serve new development in Riverhead Town. Downtown Riverhead development requires that capacity, Riverhead officials say, so Southampton Town should take care of the county facilities within Southampton Town.
Southampton Council Member Tommy John Schiavoni said Southampton has initiated several plans over the years before adopting the overlay district in 2015 that allows the new development in Riverside.
“This is certainly not new. It is gone back, I don’t know, four town boards here. And I am sure that the Town of Riverhead, and the Riverhead Central School District as interested agencies, have been apprised of all of this,” Schiavoni said.
Thomas said that “regardless of what’s happened in the past, that the community should work together for the betterment of the residents of Riverside.”
“I’ll just say this, I hope you brought these things in 2015 when we were doing the SEQRA review, if you really wanted to have a greater input [as an] involved agency,” Schiavoni said. “That would have been the time to do it, as opposed to now.”
Thomas said it has been 10 years since then and “demographics and constituency in the Riverside area has changed greatly.”
“I am more than…happy to sit down and talk with the Riverhead school district about our plans for Riverside. We’ve already cut the numbers in more than half,” Council Member Cyndi McNamara said, referring to residential units in the plan.
“We aren’t giving tax breaks to market rate apartments,” McNamara said, evidently referring to applications for financial benefits that have been approved by the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency. “So I definitely would like to sit down with you and have a discussion about the implications on the school district. As far as I’m concerned with the Town of Riverhead, we’re going to now deal with Riverside as far as the impacts on the school district,” McNamara said.
Representatives from the school district raised their own concerns again during the hearing Tuesday, particularly with the location of the sewer treatment plant. Current plans call for the plant to be built near Phillips Avenue Elementary School.
Colin Palmer, president of the Riverhead Board of Education, questioned whether Southampton officials are assured of the facility’s safety.
“STPs [sewage treatment plants] by their very nature are prone to create noxious odors. We’re told that a masonry superstructure will enclose the STP those containing the odors, is there any data to suggest that this is the case?“ he asked.
He said an odor control system would be installed “Only should odor become a concern after the STP is in operation.”
“What will determine whether odor has become a concern? If our teachers and students complain of noxious smells, will that be enough? If local community members also complained of noxious smells, will that be sufficient to trigger the establishment of the odor control system? What measure of bad odor are we talking about? This remains unclear and needs to be specified,” Palmer said.
The school district is not opposed to the revitalization plan or the sewage treatment plant, he said, but wants the issues regarding location addressed before Southampton proceeds with its construction.
Riverhead High School faculty member Garrett Moore, who lives in downtown Riverhead, spoke on behalf of the Riverhead Central Faculty Association, the school district’s teacher’s union. He, also asked for a delay to the sewage treatment plan due to concerns about the plant’s location.
Jeremy Rand of Flanders, whose daughter attends Phillips Avenue Elementary School, was not as reserved in his comments as Palmer and Moore.
“This is her classroom. Her classroom,” Rand said, pointing to an aerial map showing the sewage treatment plant’s proposed location, as well as that of the elementary school. “This isn’t a mall. This isn’t a shop. This isn’t Route 58. This is an elementary school. Right here, she has field day. Right here, she plays with her classmates. Right here, she lives her life. Right here, you want to put a sewage treatment plant.”
“I can’t believe I’m standing in front of you guys right now. I’m so pissed off. I’m so mad,” Rand said. “You haven’t even taken into consideration that the fumes and all this crap is going to be floating over to her school.”
Rand said a sewage treatment plant would never be put next to a Southampton High School, but “because it’s Flanders and it’s Riverside you think we can do this? Not on my watch and not at my daughter’s school,” he said.
Janice Scherer, Southampton Town’s planning administrator, told the board that the plant will be more than 900 feet from the school and 575 feet from the property line. The sewage treatment plant will be “heavily buffered” and will be designed to have odor control, she said. The plant is being built on vacant industrially-zoned land, she said.
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