Crowd turns out to support legalizing racetrack, pickleball courts at Scott’s Pointe

A large crowd packed the Riverhead Town Board room last night to support a plan to legalize the go-kart track and pickleball courts built without approval last year at Scott’s Pointe amusement park in Calverton — and to allow the business to operate a catering hall.

The supporters, who primarily identified themselves as living outside of Riverhead Town, encouraged the board to approve the new amenities and spoke highly of the character of Eric Scott, the owner of the park and its businesses. 

Scott’s Pointe’s operator, Island Water Park Corp., is seeking to legalize a 113,470-square-foot racetrack, 13,000-square-foot pickleball courts, and convert a 3,500-square-foot room on the second floor of its building, currently approved for storage, into a 250-seat catering facility. All of the uses the Island Water Park seeks to legalize are permitted in the Planned Recreational Park zoning district, which underlies the property. 

Riverhead Town agreed to proceed with the review of Island Water Park’s application after earlier this month settling the lawsuit it brought against the theme park’s operator. In the settlement, Island Water Park agreed to pay the town $50,000 in penalties, while the town agreed to process Island Water Park’s application to legalize the amenities. The town was originally asking the court to shut down Scott’s Pointe until the property complied with town law, order the removal of the unlawfully built amenities and impose a financial penalty of at least $100,000. 

Read more articles on the subject of Scott’s Pointe here.

Gabrielle Meehan, a teen from Baiting Hollow, said she worked as a lifeguard at Scott’s Pointe last summer. “Scotts Pointe not only provides a safe and affordable environment for families to spend their days out on the East End, but it also provides a place for potential workers in surrounding towns to find jobs,” she said. “This includes my friends and I, the lifeguards from Scott’s Pointe.”

“On our behalf, we would like to encourage the community to help fight for Scott’s Pointe’s opening of all new and staying amenities and attractions,” she said.

Sal Ferrari, the founder of SQ4D, a house 3D printing business in Calverton, said he is going through “the same headaches” as Scott when it comes to getting his business’s facility in the Calverton Enterprise Park open.

“Rules are not meant to be broken, but they are — and they’re broken because people get their backs [put] to the wall and they don’t have a choice,” he said. “You have to survive. We are building businesses.”

He said the town needs to “streamline” the processes involved in constructing and renovating improvements to places like Scott’s Pointe, which has benefits to the community and compared to an orphanage.  

Dominic Scotto, who said he’s known Eric Scott for 40 years, said Scott and his family are going to “be destroyed” if the new amenities at Scott’s Pointe aren’t approved. 

“This poor guy, he’s going to be in the red for years, and it’s a money thing — but this poor guy is going to be… in his 70s before he’s in the black here,” Scotto said. “And I’m confused, because this place — it’s a happy place. It’s a positive place. We’re not talking about a bar. We’re not talking about late night music, drugs, anything like that. This is a positive thing.”

Many supporters of Scott’s Pointe’s expansion plans spoke enthusiastically of the new amenities, particularly the go-kart track. 

“This man’s building a track so we can all go legally and not get in trouble and get kids off the street,” Jeremy Bergan of South Setauket said. “Five different women — wherever they are — are the only ones that are against it. They had their time. They’re older, they don’t care. They don’t have kids. Let them go about their business, sip their tea at home. Don’t waste your time. It’s all about kids now.”

A handful of people raised concerns about how the town was proceeding with the site plan application, focusing particularly on the environmental review process. While those speakers commented, others groaned, spoke under their breath and sometimes heckled them.

Jenn Hartnagel, the director of conservation advocacy at the Group for the East End, a local environmental advocacy group, said the Town Board should require Island Water Park to submit a more detailed environmental review.

“The magnitude of the amended changes in the subject plan alone warrants further analysis and potential mitigation,” Hartnagel said, adding that Island Water Park “has clearly demonstrated a lack of concern, adherence and compliance with the rules, codes and regulations within the Town of Riverhead and other regulatory agencies, which should not be brushed off.”

The State Department of Environmental Conservation issued a notice of violation to Island Water Park Corp in late June. The DEC said in its notice that the asphalt track and parking lot built by the operator violated its mined permit plan. The DEC also ordered the business to cease use of the inflatable aquapark and other public recreation in its groundwater-fed, man-made pond; the business was not allowed to recreate in the pond while the mining permit used to excavate it was still active, the DEC said. 

The DEC issued tickets to Eric Scott and Island Water Park for violating that notice of violation. The charges are being administratively adjudicated by the state agency, a DEC spokesperson told RiverheadLOCAL at the time.

“The need for a transparent public input and a collective impact assessment of the overall action, which is located adjacent to a groundwater resource — our drinking water,” Hartnagel said. The water in the man-made pond at Scott’s Pointe is supplied by the area’s groundwater and is within the capture zone of a Riverhead Water District well. “It could not be any clearer. It has nothing to do with whether you like this facility or not.”

Jamesport resident and former council member and former Planning Board member Barbara Blass noted to the board that the site plan seeking to legalize the expansion to the property lists the go-kart and pickleball courts being built “by others.” 

“Is this a new precedent setting procedure here by accepting and approving site plans with components which are not certified by licensed professionals? I’m not even sure our code permits that, and I don’t know if there’s any additional liability that may be associated with that,” she said. 

Scott’s Pointe intends to use the racetrack at the site for automobile drifting events, not just go-karting, according to a recent comment made by Cody Scott, the son of Eric Scott and an employee of the business, on a Scott’s Pointe social media post. The social media posts that alerted town officials to the racetrack’s presence showed race cars drifting on the track, as well as go-karts.

The use of larger automobiles on the track was a concern raised by Riverhead Senior Planner Greg Bergman when he presented the application to the Town Board at a November work session.

Bergman said in an interview Thursday that the Town Board will still need to decide whether or not to require some type of crash protection to prevent vehicles from entering the man-made pond.

“Obviously, I believe motor vehicles on the track carry different sort of potential impacts than a little go-kart. But there’s nothing formal in the application on the record that says they intend to or don’t intend to. That’s something that’ll have to be addressed as we continue the review of the application,” he said. The property’s underlying zoning district allows racetracks for horses, automobiles or motorcycles.

Bergman said the Town Board will also decide whether or not to require additional environmental review for the project. A “positive declaration” of environmental impact made by the Town Board would require Island Water Park to prepare an environmental impact statement, a lengthier and more detailed environmental review process. 

Eric Scott, Island Water Park’s president, declined to be interviewed for this story at the meeting. Scott did not speak during the hearing.

More than 30 people spoke in favor of the improvements at the hearing. Town Clerk Jim Wooten said he received 78 letters and two petitions in support of Scott’s Pointe’s site plan application. He also said he received three letters with “opposing viewpoints.” Written comments on the public hearing will be accepted until 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 31. 

While Island Water Park pursues approvals from Riverhead Town to legalize new attractions, it has also revised its application to the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency, which in 2021 gave the project mortgage recording and sales tax exemptions, as well as a reduction in its property taxes assessment for its first 10 years of operation.