Moratorium

“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.

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..

“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.

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.