Public hearing on Scott’s Pointe site plan revision delayed, as town negotiates settlement of lawsuit

The Town Board yesterday delayed scheduling a public hearing on Island Water Park’s application to amend its existing site plan to to legalize changes made at the Calverton amusement park site without town approvals.

A resolution to schedule the public hearing on Jan. 22 was tabled on the advice of the town attorney because the town and the Scott’s Pointe operator are in settlement negotiations to resolve the town’s lawsuit over changes made at the site, including construction of a go-kart track, pickleball courts and the conversion of a storage space into a party room. 

The town is seeking a court order requiring Island Water Park to remove the improvements made without permits, and to impose penalties of not less than $100,000. The action also seeks an injunction to prevent the park from using the premises until the town code violations there are remedied. 

Since the lawsuit was filed July 3, Island Water Park submitted an application to amend its site plan, seeking approval for the already-built changes.

At the board’s Nov. 14 work session, during a discussion of the application with Island Water Park manager Ken Myers, Town Attorney Erik Howard said the town’s pending litigation against the applicant is separate from the Town Board’s review of the application. “The two things aren’t tied to each other,” Howard told the board at the time. “It’s an application that’s filed with the planning department. They’re obliged to process it in a normal course. The planning department is moving it through the normal process, separate and apart from how we proceed with the litigation,” Howard said. It is not clear whether settlement negotiations had already begun at that point.

Yesterday, the board approved the motion to table by a 4-1 vote, with Council Member Joann Waski dissenting. She did not make a statement about her vote. However, during the Nov. 14 work session, Waski said she favored moving forward on the application. “I hear from residents who are kind of saying to me, ‘come on, like, you know, we want to be able to bring our kids there.”

In a second vote at yesterday’s meeting, the Town Board authorized commencing the coordinated review required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

That resolution, which passed in a 4-1 vote, Council Member Denise Merrifield dissenting, classifies the application as an unlisted action under SEQRA, requests lead agency status for the Town Board, identifies involved agencies for notification of the lead agency request and other matters relating to the application review.

Merrifield said she does not support beginning the SEQRA review process and requesting lead agency status for the Town Board because the Town Board voted in July to sue the applicant for violations of town code, including building new features, including a go-kart track, without approvals.

“It’s my position that if we in fact are moving for SEQRA for something that we are actually suing to oppose happening — in fact, in our lawsuit, we’re requesting that the go-kart track and pickleball courts be removed — so I feel this is in contradiction to the lawsuit that we have pending for the very fact of seeking this to be removed,” Merrifield said, And the fact that they have not paid the $70,000 which is still owed for the emergency road, I do not feel I can go forward with this at all. My vote is no,” she said.

Island Water Park must also file an amended application with the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency reflecting the changes that have been made at the site since its financial benefits agreement with the RIDA was approved. The RIDA had a resolution on its Dec. 2 meeting agenda to accept Island Water Park’s amended application for further review.

RIDA Executive Director Tracy Stark said the application is still missing items and she did not determine that it was in “complete enough and satisfactory enough condition to have the board accept it.” Stark-James said she asked company representatives for a meeting so they could “explain where they are and provide an update on why we’re waiting so long for this application.”

Island Water Park’s attorney said her client is still working on pulling together all items required by the RIDA, including a budget. 

“I think it really just comes down to the application that’s not quite ready for prime time,”  Island Water Park attorney Alison LaPointe of Certilman Balin Adler & Hyman told the RIDA board on Dec. 2.  “That said, the applicant is continuing to pull these things together and is looking forward to being able to update this application package to make sure everything that the board needs to be able to consider it and accept it as complete for further consideration is present,” she said. “It is a very complicated business model. It will just take a little bit of time to pull those things together. But again, we’re working on those items,” LaPointe said.