Halpin won’t rule out reviving shelved agritourism resorts code

A campaign question Supervisor Jerry Halpin never squarely answered as a candidate still has no clear answer now that he is in office: Would he support reviving Riverhead’s shelved agritourism resorts code proposal?

At an Oct. 16 candidate forum in Calverton, co-hosted by the Greater Calverton and Wading River civic associations, Toqui Terchun, president of the Calverton civic, confronted the issue head-on with both incumbent Supervisor Tim Hubbard and challenger Halpin.

“How is a 100-room luxury hotel with a 300-seat restaurant compatible with the North Fork’s highly cherished rural character?” she asked. “Will you commit to dropping this proposal entirely, or might it resurface after the election?”

Halpin didn’t answer those direct questions, responding that “we need to codify the comp plan,” and pivoting to talking about the traffic congestion caused by traditional agritourism activities. 

“Agritourism has always been something on the East End,” Halpin said.

“We need to make sure, again, that we’re communicating that with our constituents, the taxpayers, helping you to understand what’s going on,” he said. To preserve farmland, he said, “we need to do hamlet studies to see what people want,” he said. “But the biggest drawback to the agritourism is the traffic.”

Halpin was similarly noncommittal during a March 9 sit-down interview in his office.

Pressed to set aside the impacts of traditional agritourism activities and address the code previously advanced in Riverhead that would have allowed sound-front resorts to be developed along the north shore of the town, Halpin said he supports protecting the Sound Avenue scenic corridor. “Triaging things like where that is,” he said, referring to the shelved agritourism resorts code, “it’s way down the line. But  I have been asked about that,  to look at that specific code…Where is it at?”

He said the town should “hold to that comp plan as best as we can.”

Halpin said he wouldn’t outright reject considering support for the code because he considers everything that comes across his desk. “I can’t speak on that yet, because I haven’t given it a full look,” he said. 

Asked if he had been contacted by the Westchester County firm that wanted to develop such a resort on sound-front property in Riverhead or by the owner of the parcels targeted by the developer — and town officials — for the resort, Halpin said a lot of people contact him and pitch proposals to him all the time.

“To be very forthcoming,” he said, “Yeah, people have reached out to me, sat down — I mean, I ran on the campaign of I’m going to listen, so that’s why, you know I’m listening,” he said, without identifying  who had contacted him.

Randal Pratt, the owner of the 105 acres where the Westchester developer was promoting its “North Fork Resort” plan was Halpin’s single largest campaign donor last year, contributing $1,219 to his campaign committee. 

Halpin said he didn’t know him and was surprised by the contribution. Asked if he’d spoken to him, he replied that he did. “I called the person, and I asked who it was first off, because I had no idea who it was,” Halpin said. 

“That money is an interesting dynamic,” he said. 

According to campaign finance data publicly available on the New York State Board of Elections website, Halpin was the only candidate in the state Pratt contributed to in the 2025 election cycle. 

Halpin’s next largest donor was J. Gleason Window and Door Company of Kroemer Avenue, which contributed $750, followed by Condzella Hops in Wading River, which gave a total of $500. The rest of his contributions were under $500.

He raised about $16,953.74 during the 2025 election cycle, according to state Board of Elections filings, after accounting for a $1,000 candidate check that was later canceled. The filings show Halpin himself provided $6,500 actually received by the committee: $1,500 in direct contributions and a $5,000 loan.

Jamesport resident Joan Cear, one of the leading opponents of the agritourism resorts code, called Pratt’s contribution to Halpin’s campaign “concerning.”

“It just goes to show that you really do need to follow the money, because certainly money can be a powerful influence on politicians’ actions,” Cear said.

Former supervisor Tim Hubbard, whom Halpin defeated last year, and the rest of the Town Board, supported the agritourism resorts code, which would have allowed the construction of resort hotels with up to 150 rooms in the RA-80 zoning district, which takes in most of the land north of Sound Avenue from Baiting Hollow to the Southold Town line. 

The resort hotel uses would be allowed only on tracts of land (one or more parcels) of 100 acres of land or more; at least 70% of that land would have to be preserved for agricultural uses, while the other acreage could be built as a resort with a spa, restaurant, conference rooms and other amenities.

The resort use was included in the comprehensive plan update but in the face of heavy backlash from the community, it was removed by the board just before it adopted the plan. 

But board members didn’t back off without warning the residents who packed the Town Hall meeting room that afternoon that the town needed to increase its tax base and rejecting the proposed code was a mistake. All four council members remain on the board today. 

Council Member Ken Rothwell now seeks to unseat Halpin in this year’s election. Rothwell was the most outspoken advocate of the agritourism resorts code, which he said would bring in tax revenues and preserve farmland. 

In September 2024, after the board approved the comp plan update without the resort code, Rothwell accused the civic groups of misleading the public by exaggerating the type of development the code would allow. Rothwell said it might be possible that the use is still allowed under the language of the 2003 comp plan, which the 2024 update modified but did not replace.

“The people in Riverhead need to remain vigilant,” Cear said in a March 12 phone interview. “There’s a very strong force in the community that wants to preserve the rural character of the Sound Avenue corridor and our agricultural heritage,” she said. “We would hope the Town Board would follow through with that decision by not rezoning the areas along Sound Avenue for resort development.”

More coverage of the sound-front resorts topic

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount raised by Jerry Halpin’s campaign committee during the 2025 election cycle and the amount Halpin himself provided to the committee. State Board of Elections filings show the committee reported $17,953.74 in total receipts, but about $16,953.74 was actually received after a $1,000 candidate check was canceled. The filings show Halpin provided $6,500 actually received by the committee: $1,500 in direct contributions and a $5,000 loan.