Three-month extension of Calverton industrial moratorium tabled for discussion at work session

A resolution setting a hearing on a three-month extension of the Calverton industrial moratorium was tabled by the Town Board at its meeting this afternoon.

The current six-month moratorium, adopted by the board Jan. 3 and effective Jan. 12, will expire July 12, six months from its effective date.

Council Member Joann Waski made a motion to table a resolution on the board’s agenda today to schedule a June 18 pubic hearing on a measure to extend the moratorium for three months. Council Member Bob Kern seconded the motion. The motion to table passed 3-2, with Supervisor Tim Hubbard and Council Member Denise Merrifield voting no.

The motion and vote to table came before the resolution was moved and seconded, but after a discussion initiated by Council Member Ken Rothwell, when the supervisor said he understood there was an interest in tabling the resolution.

“Honestly, Supervisor, this came across at 4:30 yesterday, and I’d like to be able to sit down with the town attorney’s office to kind of review the implications of it and the timeframe of it,” Rothwell responded.

“This is this is a major step forward. And I think, you know, who does it affect — what landowners? Are we keeping the verbiage the same?” Rothwell asked. He also questioned whether the town has to submit the moratorium extension to the Suffolk County Planning Commission before a vote.

Rothwell misstated the planning commission’s vote on the town’s proposed moratorium last year. “They said that we could do this for six months,” he said. In fact the planning commission rejected the town’s proposed six-month moratorium and approved a three-month term, saying the town should go back to the planning commission for an extension after the three months were up. However, the Town Board voted to override the planning commission, which required a four-vote supermajority. Rothwell joined Hubbard, Waski and Merrifield in favor of the moratorium in January. Kern cast the lone dissenting vote.

The language of the moratorium as adopted refers to the possibility of an extension of the time period beyond six months by a subsequent vote of the Town Board. But Rothwell questioned whether an extension without going back to the planning commission might be a violation of procedure.

“I’d like to be able to have a little time other than putting something forward at 4:30 when all the town offices are closed,” Rothwell said, explaining he was unable to get to Town Hall first thing this morning due to a prior business commitment. “And I could not be here, firstly, this morning, attending a funeral service, I “You’ve got to be able to give us time to properly govern,” he told the supervisor.

“I support that as well. I respect your email like you said that something of this magnitude needs discussion,” Kern said. “And you know, and so I would I would support tabling,” he said.

Hubbard did not push back on the request to table or otherwise offer any comment, except to say he’d put the matter on for discussion at Thursday’s work session. Neither Waski nor Merrifield commented either.

Hubbard advocated for a six-month industrial moratorium for Calverton last year, but after the planning commission’s decision, he delayed offering the measure for a vote until after the new year because he lacked the four votes needed to override until Merrifield and Waski took office in January.

In October 2022, Hubbard had proposed an 18-month moratorium on new industrial development in Calverton, but got no support from fellow council members. His pitch to the board came one week after Planning Board members expressed unanimous support for a moratorium on new industrial development in Calverton and asked the planning department to draft a resolution asking the town board to adopt a moratorium. The Planning Board adopted a resolution on November 3, 2022 recommending the moratorium, though it did not recommend a particular duration.

Hubbard was unable to muster three votes on the Town Board in 2022 to even hold a public hearing on a proposed industrial moratorium, though residents of Calverton packed the Town Hall meeting room several times demanding it.

The Greater Calverton Civic Association in November 2020 began pressing for a moratorium on all new industrial projects in the Calverton hamlet, where much of the town’s industrially zoned land is concentrated. The idea went nowhere until the Planning Board endorsed it and Hubbard proposed it, but even then, it stalled for lack of any support on the Town Board. By November 2022, six civic and environmental organizations joined the Greater Calverton Civic in a letter to the Town Board urging action on the proposed moratorium. The civics argued that the nearly 2.6 million square feet of warehouse space — not including the potential additional 8.24 million square feet indicated in the plan unveiled by Calverton Aviation & Technology at the Sept. 21, 2022 Riverhead Industrial Development Agency meeting — underscored the urgent need for a moratorium while the comprehensive plan update is completed.