HK Ventures gains final Planning Board approval

A project planning officials have called one of the largest industrial developments ever proposed in the Town of Riverhead gained final approval last night.

The Riverhead Planning Board voted 4-0, with Vice Chairperson John Hogan absent, to grant final site plan approval to Great Neck developer HK Ventures for a 412,679-square-foot commercial/industrial complex on a vacant 30-acre site on the south side of Middle Country Road, 570 feet east of Fresh Pond Avenue. 

Board members agreed to grant final site plan approval prior to the developer receiving final approval from the Suffolk County health department for the project, one of the conditions of the Planning Board’s preliminary approval granted Sept. 21, 2023. The development requires an on-site sewage treatment plant, which requires the county health department’s approval.  

“They have been making diligent progress with the health department,” town Senior Planner Greg Bergman told board members during last night’s Planning Board meeting.

The Suffolk County Department of Health Services, in a letter dated May 7, advised the Riverhead Planning Department it has been reviewing the application, and that “minor issues remain that prohibit the granting of final approval to construct,” Bergman said. “However, the department had no objection for the town releasing a foundation-only permit.” The health department asked that issuance of a permit for the construction of the buildings be withheld until the health department issued its final approval. 

Board members agreed and a condition to that effect is included in the adopted resolution approved last night.

The size of the development was scaled back by a little over 11,000 square feet from the size proposed by HK Ventures in its original application. But the 412,679-square-foot complex, spread across eight buildings, still required height and impervious surface variances from town code requirements. HK Ventures initially asked the Riverhead Zoning Board of Appeals to allow maximum building heights of 38 feet and maximum impervious surface coverage of 65.51%. Town code allows a maximum building height of 30 feet and a maximum impervious surface area of 60%. 

The developer agreed to reduce its variance requests after being informed that the ZBA was not willing to grant those it was seeking. The ZBA granted permission for buildings on the site to be up to 35 ½ feet tall and for an overall impervious surface coverage of 60.72%.

The height variance granted by the ZBA amounts to approximately 2,250,000 cubic feet of additional building volume than what the code allows. The impervious surface variance equates to an additional 9,409 square feet.

The developer extending the Riverhead Water District boundary to take in its entire site, which was another condition of approval. “The map and plan does require them to pay for a portion of our new ground storage tank to provide the fire protection for the site.  That one time price per gallon is based on the water capacity required by the fire code and the actual cost to build the tank,” Riverhead Water District Superintendent Frank Mancini said today.

The project drew fire from local residents, as well as the Riverhead Charter School Superintendent, because of potential traffic impacts on Middle Country Road. 

Former Planning Board chairperson Barbara Blass in August 2022 criticized the environmental review of the project for not analyzing the cumulative impacts of the HK Ventures project together with other proposed industrial projects then planned for the Calverton hamlet — including 130-acre, 38-lot Calverton Industrial Subdivision on Middle Country Road, a 641,000-square-foot Riverhead Logistics Center on Middle Road, 151,000 square feet of storage facility space on the corner of Manor Road and Middle Country Road in Calverton and a 75,000-square-foot warehouse expansion on Middle Country Road in Calverton, as well the 1 million feet of industrial development called for in phase one of the Calverton Aviation and Technology proposal at the Calverton Enterprise Park. The State Environmental Quality Review Act requires the agency to assess cumulative impacts, Blass said. 

In October 2022, after it had accepted the applicant’s Final Environmental Impact Statement two months prior,  the Planning Board took the unusual step of requiring the developer to prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to analyze the cumulative traffic impacts of the project taken together with the other proposed industrial developments in the hamlet. It did so over the strong objections of the HK Ventures’ attorney, Keith Brown, who said the new requirement was a “devastating” setback that could derail the whole project. By Feb. 2, 2023, the additional review was completed, and the Planning Board accepted a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

On April 20, 2023 SEQRA the Planning Board adopted its SEQRA Findings Statement, which states that the project will not have significant negative environmental impacts, as long as certain conditions are met. Among those conditions is the completion of the intersection reconstruction at Edwards Avenue, before any building permits can be issued by the town. That intersection already has “significant congestion,” according to the New York State Department of Transportation. The State DOT’s intersection improvement project, which was planned but not yet begun in April 2023, is now underway.

HK Ventures sued the Planning Board over that condition. A Suffolk Supreme Court Judge dismissed the suit and HK Ventures filed a notice of appeal. The developer and the Planning Board then settled the suit with an agreement that building permits could be issued prior to completion of the intersection but no certificates of occupancy would be issued until the intersection work is  finished.

While the review of this application continued, the Riverhead Town Board in January 2024 adopted a moratorium suspending review, processing and approval of industrial development applications in the Calverton hamlet. 

The moratorium was intended to allow the town to complete its comprehensive plan update — work that resulted in, among other things, the implementation of a industrial zoning code revisions in Calverton, where much of the town’s industrially zoned land is located. In July 2024, the Town Board extended the moratorium for three months.

HK Ventures was exempted from the moratorium. 

One of the projects that the HK Ventures supplemental environmental impact statement was required to assess is the Calverton Industrial Subdivision, also known as “OSTAD”. That project involves a 131-acre site located immediately to the west of Splish Splash Water Park on Middle Country Road and stretches south to River Road. 

The OSTAD application was caught in the moratorium and that developer was required to prepare a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement to proceed. The SDEIS was accepted by the Planning Board on Sept. 9 and the board has scheduled a combined public hearing on the Supplemental DEIS, the DEIS and the subdivision application for Nov. 6 at 6 p.m. at Town Hall.

Correction: This article was amended after its original publication to correct a misstatement about site plan requirements regarding a Riverhead Water District extension.