Comprehensive plan update

Frustration over delays in the comprehensive plan update and inaction on a moratorium for Calverton boiled over in the Riverhead Town Hall meeting room yesterday.

Failing to adopt a moratorium while at the same time dawdling on the comprehensive plan, allowing new land uses and increased development density without the transfer of development rights — in other words, maintaining the status quo — indicate that the Town Board either doesn't grasp the urgency of these matters or just doesn't care.

Guest column: The Nov. 17 work session was a stark illustration of this Town Board's inability to responsibly govern, writes Kathleen McGraw of Northville. The board’s decisions on a moratorium ignore sound legal advice and set the town up for lawsuits by developers.

The town board is split on whether any moratorium on industrial development should allow exemptions for projects already under review.

The Planning Board has recommended a broad moratorium on new industrial development in Calverton outside the enterprise park. Supervisor Yvette Aguiar made an unusual appearance, addressing the board before the vote to say she was working on the issue before the planning board decided to recommend the moratorium on Oct. 20..

Instead of changing local zoning and building codes to prevent or even just discourage development in vulnerable, flood-prone coastal areas, Riverhead is actually encouraging high-density development along its downtown riverfront, an area overwhelmed by Sandy’s powerful storm surge and regularly inundated when storm systems far less intense than Sandy bear down on our region.

“The industrial area in Calverton seems to be a hot spot for people wanting to come and build warehouses. And it's almost like the floodgates opened up and we got inundated…" Town staff backed him up, but his fellow Town Board members were not so sure.

Guest column: The tens of thousands of trucks that will move to and from the multiple logistics and distribution centers planned in Riverhead, will make our already unsafe air quality much worse.

A Town Board majority has agreed to hire BFJ Planning to finish the comprehensive plan update. The update, started in 2020, has been at a standstill the last three months after the town terminated its contract with a previous consulting firm.

The Riverhead Town Board is expected to choose the firm that will finish the update to the comprehensive plan as soon as next week. The Town Board heard from its two finalists, H2M and BFJ, during a work session on Thursday