A proposal for a café on Edgar Avenue across from Aquebogue Elementary School drew concerns about traffic congestion, pedestrian safety and parking at a Riverhead Planning Board meeting Thursday evening.
The “Atrium Café” site plan by owner Daniel Lysogorski of Riverhead shows a 2,382-square-foot, 42-seat restaurant (including eight outdoor seats) with 20 parking spaces and related site improvements on a 17,311-square-foot parcel south of Main Road.
The proposed use, construction and site layouts conform to all zoning code requirements of the Hamlet Center zoning district.
Lysogorski said he intends for the café to offer “a healthy food option” with a focus on vegan and vegetarian foods that will likely serve breakfast and lunch, operating from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Lou Evers, co-owner with his wife Charlene of Meeting House Deli on the corner of Main Road and Edgar Avenue, directly north of the site of the proposed new café, said they are “not concerned with the café,” but told town planners, “You have to require sidewalks. It’s a very dangerous corner.”
Robert Bocksel, a Main Road, Aquebogue resident, voiced similar concerns, stressing the safety of the children who attend the elementary school.
“Edgar is a secondary road, with no shoulder,” Bocksel said. There’s a lot of traffic congestion at the start and end of every school day. The town should ensure that the site layout makes provision for the safe ingress and egress of vehicles with pedestrians in mind, he said.
Jasmine Corwin of Aquebogue told Planning Board members the elementary school has a parking shortage on site, contributing to traffic congestion on Edgar Avenue near the intersection with Main Road.
“Right now we have teachers parking on Edgar,” she said. The backup of vehicles waiting to enter the school parking and drop-off areas “goes all the way onto 25,” Corwin said, referring to State Route 25/Main Road.
She said she is particularly concerned about the safety of children who walk to school, including her own, who live too close to the school to be eligible for transportation by buses provided by the Riverhead school district.
“Will there be a sidewalk?” Corwin asked.
The site plan that was the subject of last week’s hearing does not depict a sidewalk along Edgar Avenue, but Planning Board Chairperson Ed Densieski said planners are “at the very very beginning of the process.”
“We are also concerned about the children,” Densieski said.
Site plan for conversion of Friendly’s Restaurant
The Planning Board on Thursday also held a public hearing on a site plan application seeking approval to convert an existing 4,268-square-foot restaurant at 949 Old Country Road into two separate restaurants: a QDOBA restaurant with a drive-thru window and an as-yet unspecified sit-down restaurant.
The existing building has been occupied by a Friendly’s Restaurant since it was constructed nearly 40 years ago. Friendly’s lease is expiring at the end of next year, a company spokesperson said last month. See prior story.
The QDOBA restaurant, to be built on the east side of the building, will be 2,203 square feet with 44 indoor seats and eight outdoor seats. The sit-down restaurant, on the building’s west side, will be 2,387 square feet and provide 50 indoor seats, according to the application.
The site plan depicts two small additions (215-square feet and 107 square feet) for cooler boxes and various site improvements, including façade renovations, landscaping, parking lot and paving improvements, lighting and landscaping.
The current site layout has been modified to accommodate the drive-thru lane, which wraps around the building, engineer Jaclyn Peranteau of Key Civil Engineering in Holtsville said.
The plan also proposes a cross-access easement with the adjoining property on the south, she noted.
There was no public comment on the plan and the hearing was closed.
Riverhead Mazda site plan
The addition of a new building for a third dealership on the existing site of the Riverhead Ford and GMC dealerships on Route 58 was on the Planning Board’s agenda for discussion last week.
The proposed two-story building, to be situated between the two existing dealership buildings, though set back further from the road than both, will have a gross floor area (the square footage of the two floors combined) of just under 30,000 square feet.
The property is just shy of 10 acres, stretching from Old Country Road to Pulaski Street. The Planning Board in April 2019 approved the clearing of the southern approximately four acres of wooded land to create parking for storage of vehicle inventory. The site plan approval included an entrance/exit on Pulaski Street.
Riverhead Town Senior Planner Matt Charters told the board that landscaped buffers along Pulaski Street and Old Country Road do not meet current code requirements and recommended the board require the buffers to be upgraded according to current code as a condition of approval of the current site plan application.
The Planning Board approved a resolution classifying the application as a Type I action for purposes of the State Environmental Quality Review Act and directed that the application be circulated to involved agencies for review.
In other action at its Sept. 5 meeting, the Planning Board:
- Granted administrative approval to a site plan application for exterior renovations at the Greenview Inn motel on West Main Street in Riverhead;
- Granted administrative approval to a site plan application for the construction of a 540-square-foot food pantry with electric at Church of the Harvest on Raynor Avenue in Riverhead;
- Approved the subdivision of a 57,150-square-foot improved lot at 196 South Jamesport Avenue into two lots, one having an area of 23,720 square feet, retaining an existing single-family residence and accessory structures, and the second, a vacant lot, having an area of 33,433 square feet.
- Authorized extinguishing a filed covenant previously required for site plan approval to convert an existing retail store at 896 Old Country Road (the former P.C .Richard store) to medical offices. The site owner is currently seeking to convert 3,169 square feet of vacant existing commercial space into additional oncology center space, requiring fewer parking stalls. Extinguishing the previously filed covenant allows the approval of a site plan with a reduced number of parking spaces.
- Approved a policy delegating to Planning Department staff the authority to classify actions for purposes of review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act as Type 1 or Unlisted actions and, if required, initiate coordinated review among involved agencies. The Planning Board retains sole authority for the determination of significance on a particular action. The determination of significance will continue to require a formal resolution of the Planning Board.
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