Plans to rezone properties along the Route 25A corridor in Wading River will get another public airing on Wednesday, this time at the Riverhead Town Board regular monthly meeting.
BFJ Planning, the Manhattan-based planning consultant hired by Riverhead to analyze commercial zoning along Route 25A in Wading River and suggest zoning changes to limit suburban sprawl in the corridor, presented its initial recommendations at a Town Board work session Jan. 12 and its revised recommendations (see presentation, below) at a public workshop in Wading River on Feb. 4. (See story.)
BFJ will officially present its findings and recommendations to the Town Board at Wednesday's meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. There will be an "open house" in the board meeting room beginning at 6 p.m., when residents will have an opportunity to review drawings and maps and meet with planners in advance of the meeting. Once the meeting begins, Town Board will then hear the planners' presentation as well as residents' comments on the recommendations.
The gist of the planners recommendations is to eliminate 24 acres of existing retail zoning — business C-rural — along Route 25A and replace it with the multifamily residential professional office — MRP — zone.
In the second iteration of the recommendations, presented to the public at the Feb. 4 workshop, single-family residential zoning affecting parts of two vacant parcels and agricultural zoning on another vacant parcel were also changed to MRP.
Wading River civic leaders don't like it.
"It now appears to be a plan for more development,” Riverhead Neighborhood Preservation Coalition president and Wading River resident Dominique Mendez said.
"The change would effectively allow 44 percent more land to be developed within those properties next to and across from the CVS pharmacy," Mendez said. "That translates into approximately 13 additional 10,000-square-foot one-story office buildings or approximately 72 additional multifamily residential units," she said. It would also "bring that development very close to, and within clear sight of, Wading River’s historic district on a very bucolic stretch of North Country Road."
"We felt that it was appropriate to eliminate the split zone after we found out that these parcels were under common ownership from 25A back to the LIPA right-of-way," BFJ senior planner Todd Okolichany said. "In addition to the approximately 100-foot-wide LIPA right-of-way at the rear of these parcels, the Wading River Elementary School is located just to the west. So, the proposed MRP zone would have minimal impacts to the surrounding properties," he said.
Richard Amper, who lives in Ridge and said he's always considered Wading River his hometown hamlet, said the planners are "glossing over the big picture" because they failed to look at the impacts of other projects, such as Venezia Square, in the western portion of the corridor and because they made no recommendation concerning "the currently disputed Knightland tourist mall.”
BFJ recommends leaving the Business CR zoning intact in the area around the intersection of Route 25A and Wading River Road. BFJ principal Frank Fish said the firm left the Knightland parcel out of the study altogether, on the advice of legal counsel, because the property is the subject of litigation. RNPC in December brought suit in State Supreme Court seeking to overturn the Riverhead Planning Board's approval of the Knightland site plan.
“This was not billed as a four-parcel study," Amper said. "It’s supposed to be a study of the entire corridor and right now the planners seem solely focused on a few parcels."
Amper initially recommended BFJ to the Riverhead Town Board, because of the work the firm had recently done for Brookhaven Town, where BFJ did a Route 25A corridor study covering Mount Sinai to the Riverhead Town line.
Mendez also said the planners' recommendation to allow rental units in the MRP zone is "very alarming."
The community's "overwhelming sentiment" is to "preserve the country charm of Wading River" and strictly limit development, Amper said. If the process works as it should, BFJ Planning will significantly revise the proposed plan in response to hearing the community's views.
Supervisor Sean Walter said he supports the changes made by BFJ in its second draft of the recommendations.
"The split zone makes no sense," the supervisor said. "The orignal CR zoning typically went back 500 feet. If you had 500 feet of MRP zoning you would completely eradicate the property's value," because the parcels wouldn't meet the minimum lot area required by the MRP zone, he said.
"It couldn't be developed. That's probably agreeable to Mendez and Amper," the supervisor said. "They want to preserve the property with somebody else's nickel."
"But the law doesn't allow zoning that removes all economic value from somebody's property," Walter said.
Wading River Rt 25A Corridor Study recommendations Feb 4, 2012