A “gaggle” of public hearings on proposed code revisions to implement portions of the Riverhead Comprehensive Plan Update — as Supervisor Tim Hubbard put it — took place in one shot at Tuesday night’s Town Board meeting.
Senior Planner Matt Charters summarized the proposed code revisions for the public and board members. The topics addressed by the proposed revisions were:
- Amendment of the town’s transfer of development rights map to include the Residence A-80 and Residence B-80 as sending areas.
- Amendment of the zoning map to change certain properties to the Calverton Industrial (CI) Zoning Use District.
- Amendment of the zoning map to change certain properties to the Hamlet Center (HC) Zoning Use District.
- Amendment of the zoning map to change certain properties to Open Space Conservation (OSC) Zoning Use District.
- Amendment of the zoning map to change certain properties to the Residence B-40 (RB40) Zoning Use District.
- Amendment of the zoning map to change certain properties to the Light Industrial (LI) Zoning Use District.
- Amendment of the zoning code to adopt new schedules for classes of districts, tables of use regulations, and schedule of dimensional regulations.
- Amendment of the zoning code to remove the Industrial B (Ind B) Zoning Use District.
- Amendment of the zoning code to remove the Industrial A (Ind A) Zoning Use District.
- Amendment of the zoning code regarding permitted uses in the Planned Industrial Park (PIP) Zoning Use District.
- Amendment of the zoning code regarding the Industrial C (IND C) Zoning Use District.
- Amendment of the zoning code regarding the Transfer of Development Rights.
- Amendment of the zoning code regarding definitions and word usage.
MORE COVERAGE: Riverhead considers ban on logistics centers and truck terminals in most industrial areas
The code revision proposals generally met with affirmation and support by members of the public who spoke during the hearing.
“I want to extend [my thanks] … to the Town Board and to the members of the Planning Department for all the hard work that they’ve done, because clearly they’ve been collecting information from us for months and months, from residents and from other departments, and a lot of work has gone into creating the new zoning,” said Toqui Terchun, president of the Greater Calverton Civic Association, which advocated for changes to the industrial zoning in the Calverton hamlet, where the vast majority of the town’s industrially zoned lands are situated.
Richard Wines, a member of the town’s Farmland Preservation Committee who has worked on a subcommittee tasked with devising ideas for improving the transfer of development rights program, which allows land owners in designated “TDR sending areas” to sell development rights for use in designated “TDR receiving areas” — allowing developers in receiving areas to increase development density while preserving land from development in sending areas — praised the town’s efforts to improve the program.
“I just want to say thank you. All of us who have been working to preserve farmland in Riverhead, and I know it came up as the very top issue when you went out to the public [and asked] ‘What’s the top goal for the town?’ And that’s the issue that came to the very top,” Wines said. “And so we’re all very pleased to see all of these various code amendments that will enlarge the TDR sending area, to change the ratios, to make the TDRs work better, and to add some receiving areas. So my main message is just to say thank you for getting this on the agenda so rapidly. We’ve waited six years for this, but now that the comp plan update is done, I’m pleased to see this is moving.”
Wines said there are “two more things that should be high on our agenda.” The town should implement a proposal in the comprehensive plan update for an assisted living district alongRoute 58, which he said is “another good potential use for TDRs.” He said he understands the Planning Department is working on this and it should be coming before the board soon. The other thing, Wines said, is “a big lift” — setting up a transfer development rights bank.
“This is front and center in the comp plan update,” he said. “It will facilitate the operation of the transfer development rights program and make it easier for buyers to buy and for sellers to sell, which is what you need to make the program successful.”
Jenn Hartnagel of Group for the East End thanked the board and town planners “for fulfilling [their] promise to address some of the issues with the industrial warehouse development within Calverton by composing code amendments that would prevent the development of logistics centers and fulfillment warehouse centers.”
Hartnagel offered two suggestions: Developers should use native plant species for any vegetation and landscaping on development sites. All site plans should be “dark skies” compliant to prevent light pollution.
Mike Sinesi of Calverton asked the Town Board to adopt code changes to limit noise and hours of operation in the industrial zones in Calverton hamlet, “considering the adjacency to residential neighborhoods.”
What about West Main Street?
One resident’s comments led to an extended discussion among board members, town staff and the resident about zoning along West Main Street in Riverhead.
Ray Dickoff of Aquebogue advocated for the town to rezone properties along West Main Street, westward from Raynor Avenue, to Light Industrial, because there are already many industrial uses along that corridor. He said he didn’t understand “why they skipped over the properties that are currently commercial properties — I think they’d be much better for redevelopment reasons if they fell into that Light Industrial zone,” Dickhoff said.
“I agree with you 100% because when I drive down there, there’s so much industrial, number one,” Council Member Bob Kern replied. “Number two, I don’t believe you should keep industrial in just one section of town, which forces everybody who wants industrial to go to that section of town. I believe things should be spread out around the town, and this does that,” Kern said.
“There’s so much commercial and industrial on West Main Street already,” Kern said, adding “and it’s my understanding that Blackman’s has been industrial for 80 years, and now that they’re changing.”
Blackman Plumbing Plumbing Supply built the 40,000-square-foot warehouse and showroom on West Main Street in 2010. It demolished five houses on the property to make way for the construction. See video.
Until 2010, Blackman’s plans had been hung up by the state’s Wild, Scenic and Recreational Rivers Act regulations, which applied to most of the West Main Street corridor after the state in July 1987 designated a portion of the Peconic River, including the section in downtown Riverhead, as a recreational river under the act in the 1980s. That designation brought with it strict rules limiting new development density and mostly limiting new uses to those that were “river related.”
In January 2010, in response to a 2007 petition by Riverhead Town and after a hearing process, the State DEC commissioner issued an order designating a “community” within the recreational river area consisting of 93 parcels “comprised, almost entirely, of a mixture of developed residential, industrial, retail, institutional, and commercial use buildings” nearly all of which existed prior to the state’s designation of that portion of the Peconic River as a recreational river. The community designation stretches along West Main Street from Grangebel Park on the east to Mill Road on the west, excluding seven “wetlands-associated” parcels comprising 64.6 acres in the western portion of the community designation.
The community designation expanded allowed uses in the corridor but state regulations still limit development in the designated community. The state rules allow commercial, industrial and institutional uses but impose minimum lot sizes and setbacks and restrictions on development density, lot coverage and building height. Also commercial, industrial and institutional uses may not exceed water usage equivalent to that of the residential development permitted on the lot under the regulations, limiting them to “dry stores or equivalent facilities.”
The Town Board adopted the Peconic River Community (PRC) zoning district in March 2011, “in direct response to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation designating a portion of West Main Street into a community river designation,” then-Supervisor Sean Walter said, according to Town Board meeting minutes.
The PRC zoning district allows, as-of-right, retail stores and shops, wholesale business, offices, restaurants, agricultural production, parks and playgrounds and nonmotorized open space recreational uses. It allows bed and breakfast establishments and country inns by special permit. The PRC zoning prohibits industrial uses, dry cleaning establishments and motor vehicle sales.
Council Member Joann Waski told Dickhoff and Kern she would not support industrial development along the river on West Main Street.
“The way I see it, this is the gateway to downtown Riverhead. People that are coming through this area, that are coming from out of town, they’re going to be coming down West Main Street. This area has the potential to, one day in the future, be beautiful — to have homes along the riverfront, restaurants along the riverfront,” Waski said. “I don’t want to see a bunch of commercial come into this area. Once we build it out, we lose the integrity of what could be down West Main Street. So I’m not in support of having that changed.”
Dickhoff said the existing commercial properties along the road are not going to be converted to residential uses. The zoning should be changed to allow light industrial uses, he said. They would be better and more attractive than what’s being allowed there, Dickhoff said.
Kern said he only supports changing “the east side of the road, by the way, not the west side along the river, which has a lot of homes.” He seemed to be referring to the south and north sides of the road, which runs east-west.
Kern later said he didn’t mean to say he supports industrial uses in the West Main Street corridor, but meant instead to advocate for other commercial uses there.
Dickhoff, a developer and builder, currently works for the Fisher Organization, which owns a number of properties in town, including the former Blackman site on West Main Street and adjacent commercial properties totaling about six acres. Fisher has a site plan application pending before the Planning Board, seeking to demolish two existing commercial buildings at the location and construct two new buildings , a three-story 153,400-square-foot self storage building and a one-story, 46,700-square-foot commercial building to be rented to “non-nuisance” tenants. The property is located within the Peconic River Community zoning use district. The commercial use of the site is pre-existing, according to the application.
Supervisor Tim Hubbard said he favors a recommendation made by the planning study the town completed a decade ago with a state Brownfield Opportunities Area grant.
“The BOA study recommended losing everything on the south side of Main Street in that area and let development happen on the north side, but residential development and that way would open it up. The beauty of the river would be opened up from the south side. And in doing that, they would get credits for more density on the north side,” Hubbard said. “And I’ve always kind of agreed with that. I thought that was always a nice way to get to create a green belt, because that would be driving into many towns, whether it’s upstate or New Hampshire, Vermont, or wherever, you come in and if you’re coming in alongside a river, it’s just really pretty, really beautiful. What we have right now is absolutely not,” he said.
In response to a question from Council Member Ken Rothwell, Charters said pre-existing nonconforming uses could legally continue.
“This whole section of West Main Street, it’s largely not industrial,” Charters said. “It’s either PRC, but it’s in the Wild and Scenic Rivers overlay area from the DEC. So it’s a very environmentally sensitive area. It’s not an appropriate place for more industrially zoned properties. And like Councilman Waski said, this is the gateway to downtown. There’s so much potential. So a lot of these uses, like the Blackman site, are pre-existing, nonconforming sites, and right now they’re not zoned industrial,” Charters said.
If an owner wants to replace or expand a pre-existing, nonconforming use he must obtain a special exception from the zoning board, Charters told Rothwell. If a property is sold, the pre-existing nonconforming use remains intact.
But, Charters said, “it’s really our goal to phase these pre-existing nonconforming uses out and get conforming uses in.”
The hearing record was left open for written comment until Dec. 2.
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