Hearings on plans to develop the Enterprise Park at Calverton drew nothing but criticism from members of the public at both the Riverhead Town Board and Riverhead Planning Board meetings this week in Town Hall.
Even the lobbyist hired by the town last year to advocate for the plans joined the chorus of boos from environmental, civic and aviation advocates.
Lobbyist George Hochbrueckner — the former congressman who authored the legislation conveying the 2,900-acre industrial site to the town, and worked for the town last year to get state officials on board with the development plan — criticized Riverhead for including residential uses “inside the fence” and for planning to plant one of the site’s two runways and taxiways with grass.
Plans contemplate the construction of as many as 300 dwelling units as uses “supportive” of the more than 10 million square feet of commercial, industrial, institutional, office and retail uses at the the Calverton Enterprise Park. See prior story.
At the request of the state DEC, the plan’s “preferred alternative” includes planting grasses on the 7,000-foot runway as grassland habitat for the short-eared owl, northern harrier and upland sandpiper, according to town officials.
“Covering that runway is dumb,” the former congressman said during Thursday night’s planning board meeting. “It’s a tremendous waste of a great asset.”
The habitat creation plan will also cost the town $1.1 million — the price tag Hochbrueckner cited for covering the runway with an inch of sand and six inches of soil and planting grasses on it. That which would be a burden to the taxpayers — something the federal government never intended when it gifted the 2,900 acres to the town for economic development purposes, Hochbrueckner said.
He said the town went along with what the DEC wanted because it “just wanted to get something going at EPCAL” after many years of inactivity.
Hochbrueckner, now lobbying for Virginia solar power company Heliosage, beseeched the Town Board on Wednesday night and the Planning Board Thursday night, to grant his client “site control” for the purpose of its application to LIPA to cover the runway with solar panels that would generate 20 MW of power.
‘Andrew will play ball’
Hochbrueckner said he feels certain he’d be successful getting the DEC to agree to allow solar panels on the runway instead of grasslands. The entire 2,900 acres was supposed to be used for economic development, he said, but the town is already agreeing to develop only about a quarter of the remaining 2,324 undeveloped acres inside the old Grumman fence, dedicating large areas to open space, habitat protection and conservation. (The town sold off the 500-acre “industrial core” shortly after it got title to the land from the federal government.)
The former congressman, who was an assemblyman for 10 years prior to his election to the House of Representatives, says he’s confident his argument will be successful on principle. But the lobbyist also boasts of personal connections he says will get the deal done.
“I’ll be happy, at no cost to the town, to work with the DEC. I’ve already talked to the governor’s office. He’s from my party. I’ve known him for 30 years,” Hochbrueckner said,
“Andrew will play ball.”
In an interview after his statement, Hochbrueckner said when he worked as a lobbyist for the town last year, he did not get involved in negotiating the specifics of the subdivision plan with the DEC.
“My role was to soften up the DEC to regarding the 2,900 acres, to get the DEC to blink. They [the town and its planning consultants] worked out the details,” Hochbrueckner said. “I am not happy with the details.”
The former congressman was not alone in that sentiment. Speaker after speaker on both nights panned the idea of residential uses at the EPCAL site.
Densieski: ‘I want to think and dream bigger’
Planning board member Ed Densieski, who blasted the plan at a meeting two weeks ago, voiced his criticism again Thursday night. A former town councilman and a longtime advocate of aviation and motorsports at EPCAL, Densieski is livid that the plan analyzes residential uses at the site, fails to discuss general aviation there and, he said “doesn’t even mention motorsports.”
“It is recommending golf — hotel, conference center and golf,” Densieski said. “Just this year in this town alone three golf courses went out of business. I’m not sure where this market study came from, but I’m not sure it’s addressing the Town of Riverhead.”
Deputy town attorney Ann Marie Prudenti, who helped draft the new revitalization plan, told Densieski two weeks ago that the document he was reading from was not the new plan. Instead, she pointed out, he was reading from the 1998 Calverton Enterprise Park Urban Renewal Plan, which is attached to the current plan as Exhibit A.
But Densieski pressed on with his opposition, reading from the same portion of the 1998 plan.
“I want to think and dream bigger,” Densieski said, from prepared comments.
“I would rename all the current streets in the Burman subdivision because some people think that Burman fleeced the Town of Riverhead and yet all the streets are named after his family. I’d rather come up with names like F14 Lane, Lunar Module Boulevard, Aerospace Way, et cetera, et cetera — but not Residential Row,” Densieski said, drawing applause from the audience.
‘What aviation business would be happy with that?’
In testimony before both boards, Skydive Long Island owner Ray Maynard also objected to residential uses.
“I can’t believe this town board is planning for a subdivision that will compromise my business,” Maynard said.
Skydive Long Island, which moved to EPCAL in 2000, is the only business currently using the runway there. He said construction of housing at EPCAL is “guaranteed to be detrimental to my business.”
He complained that the plan would allow the construction of retail uses at the end of an active runway. “What aviation business would be happy with that?” he asked.
“The focus should be on bringing in more business and creating more jobs, not developing housing. Develop a mixed-use, business-oriented, business-focused plan which incorporates the existing runway,” he said. “Bring in hotels and retail. Open it up to general aviation and maximize the potential that this airport and its existing assets has, rather than, like previous boards, plan for its further demise, chopping off part of the runway and creating housing.”
Edgar Goodale of Riverhead Building Supply, which is currently expanding its existing facilities at EPCAL and plans to relocate its Mill Road, Riverhead warehouse operation to the Calverton site, said his company also opposes residential uses there.
“All of my adult life we have been chased by residential uses,” Goodale said. “We moved from Ostrander Avenue to Pulaski Street and Mill Road and now to EPCAL,” he said.
‘The lastest boondoggle’
Environmentalist Richard Amper, who was the first to speak at the town board hearing Wednesday night, faulted the plan and draft supplemental generic environmental impact statement for being vague and inadequate. The town and its consultants, Amper said, “produced a plan that will never work” and “doomed development at EPCAL once again.”
The plan does not provide specific mitigation measures for impacts to groundwater, traffic or demands for town services, Amper said.
“Instead of protecting existing grasslands as in the 2013 recommendations of the Coalition for Open Space at EPCAL, the EIS plans to create new grasslands by burying a portion of one of the runways and then planting grass on it,” he said.
“For years all the experts have said EPCAL could only be successful if used for commercial and industrial purposes. Now residntial and retail have been thrown into the mix. There’s no justification for it,” Amper said. “Why won’t Riverhead Town stop its addiction to more residential and retail? Where has it ever worked?”
“The DGEIS is legally, environmentally and economically unsupportable and will require wholesale reworking if it is to serve as the blueprint for the long-promised boon to the Town of Riverhead instead of just the lastest boondoggle in the long history of this sorry reuse process,” Amper said.
‘The amenities of Gilligan’s Island’
Anthony Coates, a political advisor to Supervisor Sean Walter, who accompanied Walter and Prudenti on numerous trips to Albany to lobby for legislation authorizing expedited review of development proposals at EPCAL, joined the plan’s detractors Wednesday night, criticizing the idea of housing at the site and its failure to specifically address infrastructure necessary for development.
“EPCAL right now has all the amenities of Gilligan’s Island,” Coates said.
“This plan is not well thought-out. It has to go back to the drawing board.”
The town board kept the hearing record open for written comment until Sept. 30. The planning board hearing was continued to its Oct. 2 meeting.
‘Housing issue is a red herring’
Walter said in an interview today he thought the town got “great comments” and would address all of them in its final environmental impact statement.
“The housing issue is a red herring,” he said. “I don’t support housing there. I never have. It was added as an alternative to study because of the polo proposal at the request of councilmen Dunleavy, Wooten and Giglio,” Walter said. “It will either get written out of the zoning or it will be regulated into oblivion. You don’t need single family residential housing there and nobody’s talking about that. You study the big picture and in the end you funnel it down to the specific things you actually want.”
The DGEIS also studies an alternative to growing grasslands on the 7,000-foot runway, which is a reconfiguration of certain lots to accomplish the same habitat goals. But the DEC wanted the runway as the “preferred alternative,” Walter said.
Overall, Walter said, “there were no insurmountable obstacles” raised at the hearing.
“I am confident that we are going to get this done.”
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