Riverhead plans environmental hearing on Enterprise Park

Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter expects to hold a hearing by March on a massive draft environmental impact statement covering all undeveloped property at town-owned Enterprise Park at Calverton.

That would be a key step toward rezoning and selling what he calls "the biggest undeveloped industrial and commercial site in New York."

The town received the sprawling 2,323-acre former Grumman aircraft manufacturing site from the Navy in 1998 for $1, and, except for selling off its already-developed core and leasing runways, the town has been working on developing about 800 acres since. That effort has been stymied because much of the site is considered environmentally sensitive.

That initial sale and other EPCAL-related revenue gave the town a big enough reserve fund to hold off dramatic tax hikes for a decade.

The town needed to use $3.5 million from that reserve to limit the 2014 tax hike to 2.2 percent, and the reserve fund could be exhausted by 2015.

So, at Tuesday night's town board meeting, Walter predicted the draft environmental review could go to public hearing by March, and be adopted by the fall. He is counting on the sale of at least some of the property at EPCAL to generate substantial immediate income, future tax revenue and to eventually create thousands of jobs.

Walter's prediction came as the town board voted to pay an additional $162,390 to VHB Engineering of Hauppauge -- consultants on the EPCAL subdivision project -- for extra work needed to meet requirements of the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Once accepted, the town's final Environmental Impact Statement will meet all state requirements for subdivision approval, saving developers a year or more in review time.