A proposed overhaul of Riverhead’s site plan review process drew warnings Tuesday from civic and environmental advocates, who said the Town Board should not eliminate preliminary review unless it creates a mandatory, public and recorded opportunity for residents to weigh in earlier in the development review process.
The proposed local law would amend Chapter 301 of the town code, which governs zoning and land development. The changes would revise the town’s site plan review procedure and remove fees for certain land use applications from the town code, allowing the Town Board to set those fees by resolution instead.
The Town Board held a public hearing on the proposed amendment Tuesday night and left the written comment period open until June 26.
Town says current process is atypical
Senior town planner Matt Charters told the board the fee changes are part of an ongoing effort to remove fee schedules from the town code so the board can change them by resolution, rather than by local law after a public hearing.
But he said the Chapter 301 amendment also includes a broader change to the town’s site plan review process.
Riverhead currently has what Charters described as a three-step process: an optional pre-submission conference, preliminary site plan review and final site plan review. He said the current system is “atypical” in New York and in Suffolk County.
When a preliminary site plan application is submitted, Charters said, it involves one application, one fee, one public hearing, one SEQRA review and one referral process. At the end of that review, the reviewing board grants preliminary site plan approval with conditions. Once the conditions are met, the applicant typically returns for final site plan approval, often without additional discussion, he said.
“What we’re doing is really streamlining to what’s more typical for the area,” Charters said.
Charters said he found only one other town with preliminary site plan approval — East Hampton — and said that process is optional there. He said the proposed amendments would also clarify what qualifies for de minimis site plan approval and rename the town’s existing “administrative approval” process as “expedited approval,” because those applications still go before a board.
Speakers seek earlier public comment
Speakers at Tuesday’s hearing said they did not object to efficiency, but warned that eliminating preliminary review could push public input too late in the process.
Kathy McGraw of Northville, speaking by Zoom, said she supported written comments submitted by Group for the East End and said the proposed process would provide “precious little opportunity” for the public to learn about pending development projects.
McGraw said pre-submission conferences under the proposed code would be optional, meaning a developer could bypass that step. Even when held, she said, such conferences have typically taken place at 10 a.m., when many residents cannot attend, and they are not recorded.
“The public hearing on a site plan will not be held until just before the reviewing board rules on the plan, and that seems entirely too late in the process,” McGraw said.
She urged the board, if it eliminates the preliminary site plan step, to make pre-submission conferences mandatory, open to public comment, recorded and posted on the town website.
McGraw also questioned whether the proposed procedure was already being applied to the pending site plan application for the Petrocelli hotel project.
Charters responded that the town’s current process has only one public hearing, at the preliminary site plan stage, and said the proposal would move that hearing rather than eliminate it.
“I think it’s not entirely true. We’re not eliminating a public hearing,” Charters said. “It’s happening at a different phase.”
He also said the Town Board or Planning Board has 62 days to approve or deny a site plan application after the close of a public hearing, so final action would not necessarily occur immediately after the hearing.
Charters rejected the suggestion that the amendment was being advanced for any particular applicant.
“The idea that we’re doing this for a particular applicant is a little disingenuous to me personally, as a civil servant,” Charters said. “I’ve been doing this since 2017. I don’t do this for anybody. I do this for what makes sense and what’s fair.”
Barbara Blass of Jamesport said she supported efforts to improve efficiency and eliminate wasted resources, but said the proposed amendment, as written, could have the opposite effect.
“Eliminating preliminary review from the site plan process is the antithesis of meaningful community engagement,” Blass said.
She said public input is vital early in the planning process, before plans are effectively finalized, because it can minimize conflict, reduce delays, save money on consulting fees and produce more broadly supported projects.
Blass also said early public participation is part of the SEQRA process, because public controversy is one factor a lead agency must evaluate in determining whether an action may have a significant environmental impact.
She said pre-submission conferences should be treated as a meaningful part of the review process, as they are in some neighboring municipalities, where they are mandatory, publicly noticed, open to public comment and televised or otherwise documented.
Toqui Terchun, president of the Greater Calverton Civic Association, read from the Group for the East End letter submitted by Jenn Hartnagel, the organization’s director of conservation advocacy.
The group said it was not opposed to streamlining the site plan review process, but strongly recommended that the town add provisions for public comment earlier in the review process.
“Eliminating ‘Preliminary’ Review Pushes Public Input to the End of the Process,” the letter said.
Group for the East End said the proposed code would provide only one opportunity for public comment, at the end of the process, when major design decisions would likely already be made and a SEQRA determination may already have been issued.
The organization recommended that pre-submission conferences be required, not optional; open to the public and public comment; and televised in the same manner as work sessions and public hearings.
The group said several other East End towns, including Southampton and Southold, provide similar provisions to allow constructive feedback earlier in a transparent process.
Terchun said the issue goes to public trust.
“We in Riverhead have been working towards … a better process,” Terchun said. “If we leave these words off the way that the code is written now, it will degrade what progress we’ve made with public trust.”
Written comments remain open
Town Clerk James Wooten said the Group for the East End letter had been received that day and distributed to board members, but was not included in the posted agenda packet because it came in after the packet was published. He said it would be included in the next packet.
No board vote was taken Tuesday. The public hearing was closed for oral comments, but written comments will be accepted until June 26.
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