Moratorium

Riverhead Town's natural resources and community character are being erased by unplanned development. It's time for our leaders to take action and implement sustainable development practices before it's too late. Opinion column by Bob DeLuca of Group for the East End.

"I don't owe you an explanation," the supervisor barked in response to a constituent's question. The outsized influence of the development crowd and the diminished influence of ordinary citizens in Riverhead were on vivid display at the last Town Board meeting. How did it get this way and why? RiverheadLOCAL editorial.

A split Town Board on Wednesday declined to schedule a public hearing on a proposed moratorium on industrial development in Calverton, with a majority turning their backs on Calverton residents who have turned out in force to press the board to hit the brakes on development in the hamlet.

Though the Riverhead Town Board never scheduled a hearing on the moratorium the community has been demanding for many months, they had one yesterday, whether they liked it or not.

As the Riverhead Town Board remains divided on whether to pursue a moratorium on industrial development in Calverton, more than 100 people rallied in front of Town Hall yesterday to encourage the board to halt development until the town’s comprehensive planning process is complete.

“I just wanted to get this going. I thought I’d get three votes to at least go to a public hearing. But apparently not,” Council Member Tim Hubbard said after last week's work session, when he asked to have the moratorium resolution taken off the agenda for today's Town Board meeting.

The resolution calling a public hearing on a proposed moratorium on industrial development in Calverton has been pulled from the packet of resolutions scheduled to be acted on by the Town Board Tuesday night.

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.