Comprehensive plan update

After wasting three years and over $300,000 on its failed effort to update the comprehensive plan, and facing development pressure the town is ill-prepared to handle, the town must adopt a moratorium and get to work planning for our future.

The appointment of a new planning firm to take on Riverhead's long-stalled comprehensive plan project could come as soon as the next town board meeting, officials said, if board members reach a consensus after interviewing two "finalists" at next week's work session.

The Riverhead Town Board received support from residents last night on its plan to extend the moratorium on applications for developing new solar energy production facilities for another year.

Editorial: Some town officials, seemingly eager to do the bidding of developers, are making a mockery of state laws governing how planning and development get done. The AG should step in to stop it.

Riverhead planners have proposed an amendment to the town’s transfer of development rights code that would create a major new receiving area for development rights transferred from agricultural land in the town.

The town must hit the pause button on all development while it finishes the comprehensive plan update begun in January 2020. The delay in its completion has allowed too many massive developments to move forward under outdated land use rules.

Riverhead Town Board members interviewed three planning firms Thursday as the town seeks to select a consulting firm to finish the comprehensive plan update begun by AKRF, the consultants whose contract the town terminated last month.

Riverhead Town formally pulled the plug on the planning consultants hired in 2019 to update the town’s comprehensive plan.

The third round of community meetings on the Riverhead Comprehensive Plan Update is underway and will continue this week at Riverhead Town Hall. Here's a recap of the first two meetings and a preview of what's to come.

Riverhead planning officials could have said “We hear ya” and abandoned the controversial idea of a third lane along the length of Sound Avenue in favor of studying other alternatives. Instead the town's top planner simply denied the recommendation was made. That's gaslighting the public — and it's not going to fly.