Riverhead Town Board backs preservation of South Jamesport property

Preservation of a 9.6-acre property adjacent to town-owned marina and beach in South Jamesport was endorsed by the Riverhead Town Board Tuesday afternoon. 

The board unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday supporting Suffolk County’s proposed preservation of the Peconic Farms parcel on Peconic Bay Boulevard.  The resolution contained a qualifier held out by board members as essential to their assent: “as Open Space without improvement or development.”

The vote followed days of public debate and mounting pressure from residents over the future of the property at 1161 Peconic Bay Blvd., which Suffolk County is considering acquiring through its Drinking Water Protection Program. 

As a condition of the acquisition, the county is asking the town to partner in the project by assuming management responsibility for the site, including “passive recreation uses” at the property, such as a walking trail and a gravel parking area. That condition triggered opposition from town officials, who said they feared such uses, if allowed, would lead to use of the site by out-of-town residents to gain beach access for fishing, swimming and other activities, with negative impacts on the character of the surrounding residential community.

As he introduced the resolution, which had not been added to the published meeting agenda, Councilman Ken Rothwell acknowledged the board had received “an overabundance of emails and phone calls” about the proposal.

“We very much want to protect [the property] from development,” Rothwell said.

The site consists of wooded acreage adjoining the town marina property and an open field that had once been active farmland. A significant portion of the property is in the flood plain due to low elevations. The wooded area is largely undevelopable due to wetlands and the southern portion of the field floods. The property owner obtained Riverhead Planning Board approval last year of a four-lot residential subdivision. The subdivision approval created four building lots in the western portion of the site, with homes to be built on the north end of the lots, along Peconic Bay Boulevard. 

During Thursday’s work session, in a meeting with Suffolk County Legis. Greg Doroski, board members expressed support for purchasing the property’s development rights so it could be used for agriculture.  

Doroski on Thursday urged the town to continue discussions with the county, warning that the county’s alternatives may be limited. He explained that the county’s ranking system for open space purchases gave a lot of weight to intermunicipal partnerships and without the town’s agreement to partner with the county, the property in question would not rank high enough to justify the expenditure of Drinking Water Protection Fund monies by the county. 

“My fear is that really we’re at the point now where the choice is either to preserve it as open space, or let it be developed,” Doroski told the board.

Councilwoman Joann Waski pushed back against the idea of public-access improvements.

This is prime farmland, she told Doroski Thursday. “[T]his should be preserved as farmland, not open space, not a parking lot, not walking paths, not public access to everybody that lives in Suffolk County,” Waski said during the work session. She said that was the intention when she approached Doroski’s predecessor in the legislature, former Legis. Catherine Stark of Riverhead, about preserving the site. 

“This is Jamesport, a quaint, unique area, neighborhoods surrounding it. I would rather see this developed with five $1 million homes than see a parking lot and whatever else the intention could turn into down the road,” Waski said Thursday. Preservation as farmland is what she discussed with Stark, Waski said. 

Doroski said the proposal currently before the county was submitted as an open-space acquisition by Stark before he joined the legislature in January. Doroski, a Democrat, defeated Stark, a Republican, in the November election.

Now the proposal was before the legislature’s Environment, Parks and Agriculture Committee, Doroski said. The committee sign-off is “kind of the final stop on the train.” The committee would be taking it up on Monday, he told the Town Board, asking them to indicate they agreed to partner with the county before the meeting took place. As it turned out, the committee did not take up acquisitions at its Monday meeting, so the town and county have another month to work out an agreement.

Doroski attended Tuesday’s Town Board meeting as discussions continued over the proposal.

He urged the board to exercise caution. “You know, how we handle this acquisition sends a signal. if Riverhead pushes back on county funded preservation, we risk telling the county and also property owners that we’re not a good partner,” Doroski said. He reminded board members that Riverhead has “over 6000 acres still in play” and needs more county funding.

“There’s steep competition for these funds, and I believe there’s really a foot race against development across the East End,” he said.

Council Member Bok Kern on Tuesday returned to the issue of how preservation affects property taxes, a point both he and Council Member Ken Rothwell pressed at Thursday’s work session.  “Suffolk County is prepared to spend serious money to preserve this 10 acres of environmentally sensitive and scenic parcel on Peconic Bay Boulevard. What the county needs and what I came to ask for at work session was not a contract, but it was for an agreement to work with the county to negotiate a partnership,” Doroski said.

“We all want to preserve land,” Kern said. “I want the taxpayers to understand something. Every piece of land that we preserve, we get zero taxes. So … you really need to be cognizant of that when you’re screaming for preservation. The land has to be preserved in the proper places. Remember, zero taxes,” Kern said.

Rothwell said the resolution expresses the board’s desire to preserve the parcel “with the least amount of intrusion, whether it be public access and so forth.”

“People deserve clarity when decisions are made,” Waski said. “This is also personal for me, it is right across the street from my home. This is the land that I view from my backyard” Waski said her concerns were “not opposition,” but “caring enough to ask the questions.” She said the town still had no “defined recreational plan” from the county. 

“I would like for it to remain in its natural state with zero potentials of ‘what-ifs’ could happen for this property,” Waski said. “I did listen to all of your emails. I read them. I spoke to people. This has been an ongoing thing for the past five days. I care, and I hope that you realize that,” she said.

Council Member Denise Merrifield said Tuesday the board needed more time before committing taxpayer dollars or management responsibilities.

“Obviously we want to preserve land for our town, but if someone comes in at a work session with no advance notice, no information, and just brings this to us on a Thursday and says we need an answer on this Monday morning, you have to give people more time to figure out what it’s all about,” she said. 

“As a responsible town councilperson, I needed more time to really know what the county’s true intentions are with this property,” Merrifield said.

Supervisor Jerry Halpin described the measure as a step toward balancing preservation goals while protecting farmland.

“Farmland obviously is always something that’s our number one priority, but right behind it is open space when not available,” Halpin said.

Residents who spoke Tuesday largely urged the town to continue negotiating with Suffolk County rather than risk losing the preservation opportunity entirely.

Former Supervisor Laura-Jens Smith, who is the current president of the Jamesport Civic Association and the town Democratic Party leader, said she wanted to “correct the record.” Referring to a joint press release the four council members issued Monday afternoon, she said, “the public is being given a version of this that does not match the facts. The county is not proposing a hamlet park. The county is not proposing active recreation, like ball fails or playgrounds. That narrative is coming from you, the board, and it’s being used to justify stepping away from the project the town itself supports as open space.” 

The application for Peconic Farms was “for preservation, for open space, protecting land, natural resources and community character. A management plan doesn’t change that. It is a tool that defines it and locks it in. It’s where you decide. It enforces terms — what is allowed and what is not,” she said.

“So let’s be clear what’s happening. The public is being told to be concerned about uses that are not being proposed, while the real risk, the loss of preservation altogether, is not being fully acknowledged. That’s not protecting the community, that’s misdirecting it,” Jens-Smith said.

Cindy Clifford of Riverhead, a member of the town Democratic committee and a former aide to Jens-Smith during her administration, suggested that Republican board members’ objections to the proposal had a partisan motive. She said the board members were using “scare tactics” such as telling the public the town would be required to issue a “blank check” for improvements and management costs if it partners with the county.

“Securing this parcel as preserved land should not be a partisan issue,” Clifford said. “It should be a golden opportunity to preserve open space and to support the Suffolk County Drinking Water Protection Program…This could be, and should be a win for all of us,” she said. 

Jamesport resident Joan Cear warned that rejecting the proposal outright could jeopardize future county partnerships.

“I think it would be shameful if the town lost an opportunity for the county to fund preservation of environmentally sensitive land because of one singular, rigid requirement,” Cear said.

Board members emphasized Tuesday’s resolution does not finalize any agreement with Suffolk County but signals willingness to continue discussions over potential management terms.