Councilman says civic groups misinformed residents about resorts on Sound Avenue

Opposition to allowing agri-tourism resorts in Riverhead was caused by misinformation spread by local civic groups, Council Member Ken Rothwell said in an interview last week. 

The councilman, who said he still supports the idea of allowing resorts on residential and agricultural lands north of Sound Avenue, voted with the rest of the Town Board earlier this month to adopt the town’s new comprehensive plan — which will guide the town’s future development — without recommending the resorts. He said the resorts would bring much needed tax revenues into the town and preserve farmland, arguments he and other board members have used to advocate for the legislation in the face of heavy public backlash. 

Despite agri-tourism resorts being taken out of the new comprehensive plan, Alfred Weissman Real Estate, a Westchester-based developer looking to develop a resort next to the Willow Ponds condo complex on Sound Avenue, still hopes to convince town civic groups of the benefits of such a project.

MORE COVERAGE: Are ‘agri-tourism resorts’ in Riverhead dead? Developer seeks compromise with civics

When asked about his opinion of the potential for agri-tourism resorts after the idea was taken out of the comp plan, Rothwell said the question still remains about whether resorts would be allowed using language in the previous comprehensive plan.

Then he accused the civic group that organized opposition to the project of misleading the public about the legislation he supported.

“I believe in this program, because I think that when you have people from the Jamesport Civic Association, people like Joan Cear, that are sending out emails saying that we’re going to build 3,000 hotel rooms along Sound Avenue — that was completely untrue and mathematically never possible or plausible in any way,” Rothwell said. “I think there was a lot of misguided reference. People thought we were going to build five story hotels; my idea was a low lying inn that would never be seen from Sound Avenue, that wouldn’t be seen from the shore lines.”

Want to read more about “agri-tourism resorts?” Click here.

Rothwell said the plan would have brought in an estimated “$250,000 [to] $350,000 of tax benefits” into the town, which would have helped with the fiscal health of the town’s residents. He said the project would bring in “over $4 million” for farmland preservation into the town to get the maximum amount of density through a transfer of development rights program. Rothwell did not explain how he got those estimates; a phone message from RiverheadLOCAL asking him for an explanation was not returned.

“We’re being destroyed by the Riverhead school district’s budget this year. Our budget, meaning the supervisor’s expectations, is going to be a very high [cost] and we’re going to pierce the tax cap this year,” he said. “We’ve got to do things that bring in revenue. Every parcel of land we preserve, we’ve got to balance it out and we’ve got to make up the money someplace else. We can’t just keep passing it off to the taxpayers. Riverhead is getting too expensive to live here.” 

Rothwell said that residents had the wrong idea about the project. The zoning would have only counted towards “about five parcels in a small area,” he said, apparently referring to the number of undeveloped parcels that town staff said would be most likely to be developed as resorts.

The zoning code being considered by the board would have allowed the resorts, by Town Board special permit, within the whole of the RA-80 zoning use district, which takes in most of the lands north of Sound Avenue from Baiting Hollow on the west to the Southold Town line on the east.

“It was completely misconstrued — that everyone thought this massive development complex was coming around, that we were going to turn it into [the] Las Vegas Strip along Sound Avenue. That was never part of it at all,” Rothwell said.

Cear, an executive board member of the Greater Jamesport Civic Association, said in an interview that the town did not take into account other parcels of land that could be purchased and assembled. The actual number of parcels that could be developed into resorts, she said, was roughly 15 — which brings the potential of more than 2,000 hotel rooms.

“The information that we presented was all based in fact,” Cear said. “We calculated land areas. We read the code inside and out multiple times. We consulted with people who know land use and zoning as experts. I think what the Town Board may be seeing is that their interpretation is different than our interpretation of what is in that code.” 

Rothwell said he hasn’t spoken to officials from Alfred Weissman Real Estate since the night the Town Board adopted the comprehensive plan; they were in the audience at Town Hall, he said.

“I spoke to them briefly — a ‘hello’ and ‘how are you?’ and ‘good wishes’ and ‘well’ and ‘thank you for considering Riverhead,’” Rothwell said. “How they go forward is — I don’t know the answer to that.”

Supervisor Tim Hubbard has said that he doesn’t see any way for Alfred Weissman Real Estate to sell the idea of a resort to the community. “I think everybody was crystal clear about what their feelings were about this,” Hubbard said. 

In interviews conducted last week, Council Member Joann Waski and Council Member Denise Merrifield said they oppose agri-tourism resorts because of the negative public opinion about the idea. If, one day, there was public support for the idea, they both said they would reconsider their positions.

“If one day, somehow suddenly the majority of residents are like, ‘Hey, we made a mistake. We want this. This would actually be a good economic generator for our town,’ I would reconsider it,” Waski said. “But at this point, absolutely not.”

While town officials struck down sections of the new comprehensive plan referencing agri-tourism resorts, the language still remains in the document’s Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) — the document that is supposed to analyze the impacts of the plan’s recommendations.

“Leveraging demand for these facilities, provisions would require substantial land preservation and TDR credit redemption, ensuring responsible development,” the GEIS says. “Individual project evaluations would ensure site-specific considerations, mitigating potential adverse impacts on surrounding areas and preserving the agricultural character of the community.” 

The GEIS also falsely claims that agri-tourism resorts were recommended in the 2003 comprehensive plan. The 2003 plan talks about agritourism as a means of supplementing farm income, and defines agritourism as “any agricultural activity that attracts tourists who are interested in seeing, learning about, or participating in that activity, or who want to purchase fresh farm products.” 

The closest the 2003 plan ever gets to mentioning anything related to a resort is mention of the potential for “farm experience” vacations or farm-based bed-and-breakfast facilities. Town staff have used this language to argue that the agri-tourism resort legislation was consistent with the 2003 plan.

Cear said that the Greater Jamesport Civic Association “is very concerned that the Town Board could manipulate the comprehensive plan to” allow agri-tourism resorts. 

Merrifield and Waski said they disagree with Rothwell that agri-tourism resorts might be allowed under the new plan. The most recent plan, both said, should guide the town’s policies, not the 2003 plan.

Council Member Bob Kern declined to comment.