Students present Riverhead plan to town

Much of an ambitious student-created plan to reinvent part of downtown Riverhead as an environmentally friendly mix of green space and commerce will likely never get out of the planning stage.

But even so, town officials said, after the students presented their plan at the Wednesday afternoon town board meeting, some of the ideas might.

The added trees, open vistas and space for a park and a farmers market gave the town board a menu of downtown improvements that could happen down the road, town officials said.

"We're getting a young perspective on this town," said Councilman John Dunleavy. "If you pick up two or three ideas, it's good."

The plan was the work of students from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse under the supervision of Emanuel Carter Jr., an associate professor and curriculum director of the school's department of landscape architecture.

Carter, who grew up in Riverhead, said the town represented a good opportunity for his students to work on the project, which is focused on redevelopment of a riverfront community.

On a three-dimensional model and on dozens of display boards at Town Hall, the plans included a reimagined downtown between East Main Street and the Peconic River, with trees and green space covering half the existing parking lots, a parklike retention pond and wetlands for floodwater mitigation, a farmers market and a greenhouse.

Carter said that while design and engineering work normally solves an immediate problem, this was a chance for students to use those skills to plan for the future.

"You need to be engaged in . . . long-term thinking," he said.