Plans to have the Main Road corridor listed on the national and state registers of historic places may well be dead on arrival.
Four of the five members of the Riverhead Town Board have signed a letter to the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation seeking the immediate withdrawal of Riverhead’s application for the historic district designation.
Councilwoman Jodi Giglio, the town board liaison to the Riverhead Landmarks Preservation Commission, was the only holdout. According to Councilman George Gabrielsen, who drafted the letter, Giglio declined to sign the letter, saying she wished to first speak with members of the commission, which is meeting next on Monday afternoon.
The letter went out Wednesday afternoon, Gabrielsen said.
Riverhead Landmarks Preservation Commission chairman Richard Wines said Wednesday evening he had not yet seen the letter, a copy of which was sent to him, according to Gabrielsen.
“I’m reluctant to comment on something I haven’t seen and know nothing about,” Wines said. “But I’m hoping we can sort this all out.” He later sent an email to say he had in fact received a copy of the letter by email from Gabrielsen late in the day today, but had not seen it.
Gabrielsen drafted the letter after a petition in opposition to the listing was filed Friday with the Riverhead town clerk. The petition cover page states it contains 75 signatures of property owners within the proposed district; though one of the sheets containing several signatures is a duplicate.
“If you look at the names on that petition, it’s just about every business on Main Road, all the old families. They want no part of it,” Gabrielsen said. “I think it’s loud and clear.”
The list of signatories includes former councilman and current Riverhead Zoning Board of Appeals member Otto Wittmeier and his brother John, owners of the Modern Snack Bar in Aquebogue, and fellow Main Road business owners: Cliff Saunders, owner of the Elbow Room restaurants; Matt Kar, owner of Jamesport Country Kitchen; Scott and Bob Gammon, owners of Woodside Orchards; Jeff Grathwohl, owner of Jamesport Automotive; John Anderson, owner of East End Asphalt; Semra Gorgulu, owner of Jamesport Liquors; Ron Goerler, owner of Jamesport Vineyards; Sean O’Neill, owner of O’Neill Power Equipment; and others.
Walter Gabrielsen and Robert Gabrielsen, the councilman’s brother and son, also signed the petition. Robert helped circulate it, the councilman said.
“I had nothing to do with the petition, but I oppose the listing. They own the property and it’s their right,” he said. “If they don’t want it, we should not support it.”
“The further east you go the more opposed property owners are,” Gabrielsen said, noting that there is a great deal of opposition in the Southold portion of the proposed district.
“They want no part of it in Southold,” Gabrielsen said.
“I’d say it’s pretty much time to just call it a day on this issue.”
Wines is hoping that’s not the case.
“Technically the Landmarks Preservation Commission must withdraw the application,” Wines noted, though he admitted the commission would not pursue the listing without the consent of both town boards’ consent.
“What I’m not at all clear on is what the people gathering the signatures told property owners, since some of the people who signed the petition own properties that are already in the Jamesport hamlet historic district,” Wines said. “So they are worried about a district that doesn’t have restrictions but they’re already in a district that does have regulations.” The Jamesport hamlet historic district was adopted under the Riverhead Town Code and subjects properties to use regulations.
Wines and state officials have repeatedly stressed that listing a district on the state and national registers does not impose any new restrictions on land use within the district, nor does it trigger new regulations or additional layers of government review. The only time new restrictions may apply is if a property owner takes advantage of tax credits or accepts grant monies from the state or federal agencies, they said. Listing as a historic district in the registry makes owners of historic properties within the district eligible for substantial tax credits — 20 percent on state income taxes and 20 percent on federal income taxes — for investing in restoration of their properties, Wines said.
Those assurances have not swayed property owners opposed to the listing.
Property owners in Southold and members of the Southold Town Board have been even more skeptical of the designation — and angry that the Southold portion of the proposed district was added by the state after Riverhead’s application was filed. They complained that they did not get enough notice of the application and did not have sufficient opportunity for input.
Southold Town Councilman Jim Dinizio last month accused Wines and the Southold Historic Preservation Commission with hiding “certain facts” from the property owners within the proposed district, including the availability of tax credits to residential property owners.
Southold property owners and town officials were upset that the section of Main Road in Laurel lying within Southold Town was included in the application after the process was underway and at least one public information meeting had already been held. The inclusion of the Southold portion of the corridor in the proposed district was in response to a request by state historic preservation officials after a visit to the area in 2013 and then asked to have all of Laurel included. The hamlet of Laurel lies in part within Riverhead and in part within Southold.
The historic district application grew out of the efforts of the Save Main Road group, which initially formed in response to development proposals along the Main Road. The group conducted a Historic Resources Survey of the Main Road corridor in 2012. See survey here.
“We have identified more than 230 structures and other historic resources in the survey area that are more than 50 years old and that we believe could qualify as contributing resources in a future National Register Historic District. These potential contributing resources constitute approximately 82 percent of the total number of structures in the survey area,” the authors of the survey wrote.
The Save Main Road group and the Riverhead Landmarks Preservation Commission presented the survey to the Riverhead Town Board in September 2012 (see story: “Main Road’s colorful past brought to life, as group conducts survey with eye on historic district.”) The Riverhead Landmarks Preservation Commission submitted its application to the state in February 2013.
“At first blush it didn’t seem like something that would be detrimental to the property owners,” Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter said. “But now I feel we have an obligation to withdraw it, with so many Main Road property owners opposed to it.
Wines said the opposition as reflected in the petition filed with the town last week reflects only a small portion of property owners in the proposed district. Many properties are represented by two signatures on the petition, he noted, estimating that the number of parcels represented in the petition was fewer than 50 — out of about 400 total properties in the proposed district.
Photo caption (top): Magee blacksmith shop on Main Road in Aquebogue, opened by Irish immigrant James Magee, who came to America as a young boy during the Irish potato famine, became a blacksmith and opened a shop on the north side of Main Road in Aquebogue. He was the first in three generations of blacksmiths to operate the shop. His family owned the farm behind the shop until the Great Depression. In the 1930s, with the proliferation of the horseless carriage, his grandson Clarence gave up blacksmithing and took up automobile repair. A garage and gas station are operated there to this day. Below: The gasoline station and auto repair shop that stand on the site of Magee’s blacksmith shop today.
Correction: A previously published version of this article incorrectly stated that Councilman George Gabrielsen’s brother, Walter, helped circulate the petition. Walter Gabrielsen signed it but did not circulate it.
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