Preservation advocate frustrated over failed efforts to get funding from Riverhead board

The co-chairman of a Riverhead Town subcommittee has expressed frustration at lack of funding for land conservation proposals despite repeated requests that, if granted, can save the town millions of dollars, he said. 

Richard Wines told the Riverhead Town Board at its Nov. 20 regular meeting that the Transfer of Development Rights subcommittee, part of the town's Farmland Preservation Committee,  could not move forward with conservation proposals for protecting  about 7,077 acres of farmland without money for the required environmental studies.

Wines requested adding about $100,000 to the 2019 town budget to finance State Environmental Quality Review Act studies required to move those proposals forward. The $59 million town budget — which was adopted Nov. 20 without a vote — did not  include funding for those studies.

Wines said Tuesday that his subcommittee had also requested the funding in 2017 with the previous town board, but that it was not included in the 2018 town budget.

“It’s very frustrating [to the subcommittee] to have that happen two years in a row,” Wines said.

The subcommittee’s proposals focus on redirecting new development along County Route 58. The effort includes encouraging developers to build slightly taller buildings, and more assisted-living and medical offices along the corridor, which is populated mostly by big-box stores.

The proposals, Wines said, would strengthen the town’s Transfer of Development Rights program, used to increase community development or boost home development in residential areas.

Riverhead Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith  said last week that there is no funding for those studies in the current budget, but added that it might be possible to add it to a town budget “in the near future.”

As Riverhead seeks to preserve its rural heritage under its Master Plan, finding additional ways to implement the transfer program would attract developers to other areas while protecting farmland — potentially saving Riverhead millions of dollars to acquire such parcels, Wines said.

“If the town has to pay to preserve farmland, it tends to get pretty expensive very fast,” Wines said. The cost to preserve one acre of farmland would be $68,000, according to Wines, meaning it would cost Riverhead roughly $20.4 million to acquire a 300-acre farmland parcel.

Wines said the subcommittee would approach the board on the topic again another time.