How Much Land is Developable

Question of developable land at EPCAL remains unanswered: lawyer

By

 Denise Civiletti

 -

 Mar 18, 2019, 11:08 am

A subdivision sketch prepared by the town was marked up by DEC staff in 2012 to show areas that could be developed. Courtesy photo: Town of Riverhead

The portion of 1,643 acres being sold by the town to a Triple Five Group affiliate that’s actually developable won’t be known until long after the deal has closed, Riverhead Town’s special counsel told the town board last week.

Riverhead Town’s decision to sell that much vacant land at the Calverton Enterprise Park for $40 million triggered controversy from the moment it was announced in March 2017.

Until that point, the town was attempting to market less than half that amount of land and had entertained at least two offers for roughly the same amount.

The decision two years ago to pursue a sale of nearly all the town’s remaining vacant acreage to Luminati Aerospace for the same price was defended by former supervisor Sean Walter with the argument that state environmental regulations would not allow for the development of more than 600.

To support his contention, Walter produced a copy of the subdivision map prepared by the town’s engineering consultants that DEC staff had “red-lined” in 2012 to indicate areas they considered developable. Conveying the undevelopable acreage to the buyer would relieve the town of responsibility for the remaining vacant land, Walter said at the time. He said the cost of “mowing the grass” on the vacant land could be as much as $100,000 a year.

The town’s special counsel Frank Isler, who has been working on the deal since the town board unanimously authorized the letter of intent with Luminati Aerospace on April 4, 2017, told board members Thursday the State Department of Environmental Conservation has never given the town any sort of official determination of what areas of the former Grumman site can be developed.

And Isler told board members the town shouldn’t expect the DEC to formally weigh in on that question in the future.

“When can we expect to get a definitive answer from the DEC on how many acres of land is developable?” Councilman Tim Hubbard asked Isler at the board’s Thursday work session.

“You will not get a decision in this process at all from the DEC on that question,” Isler told him.

“The DEC is only going to look at [the state Wild, Scenic and Recreational Rivers Act] permit for the subdivision,” Isler explained, “nothing to do with the development of the property at all.”

The town board, sitting as the board of the Riverhead Community Development Agency, which holds title to the EPCAL site, has amended a prior 50-lot subdivision application it filed with the Riverhead planning board in 2014. The new application seeks to divide the land into just eight lots, three of which would be transferred to Calverton Aviation and Technology pursuant to its purchase agreement with the CDA.

“After we sell the property the applicant will have to come in with a site plan application and will have to show the DEC they’re not proposing to build in sensitive areas regarding habitat,” Isler said.

“They’re going to have to get approval or blessing from the DEC, more likely than not, they’ll have to get a taking permit from the DEC,” he said, referring to a new permit requirement under ‘incidental take’ regulations adopted by the DEC in 2010 aimed at enhancing protection of endangered and threatened species.

Isler said he attended a meeting at the DEC “a year or so ago” with the prospective purchaser.

The DEC told the purchasers development is going to depend on where they want to place their development, Isler said.

“We [the town] had placed it where they knew there was going to be impact, so we had to come up with a plan to preserve areas for habitat,” Isler said. “They have a blank slate right now,” he said.

“So that will drive how much development and where the development will be. Whatever they do in terms of development there and wherever it goes, they’re going to have to go through SEQRA on whatever application they submit,” Isler said, referring to the process of review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

“You won’t know where or how much is being developed until we’re no longer owning the property,” Isler told town board members.

The closing is not contingent on any future approvals, Isler noted.

Purchaser Calverton Aviation and Technology — successor to Luminati Aerospace in the deal — is currently in a second, 90-day “due diligence” period allowed by the contract of sale.

CAT has until May 20 to give the town notice it will proceed with the purchase. If it notifies the town it intends to proceed, the town has one year from the date of notice to file the amended subdivision map. To be able to do so, the town needs approvals of the subdivision from the Riverhead planning board and the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, as well as a permit from the DEC under the Wild, Scenic and Recreational Rivers Act (because a portion of the site is within the WSRR boundary.)

Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith said the town has been been working on the subdivision map revision since before CAT signed the purchase agreement in November. Town planners have been doing a “consistency analysis,” comparing the revised map with the original 50-lot map to determine whether the previous SEQRA environmental analysis is sufficient to cover the new application.

The revised maps were to be submitted to the Riverhead planning board Thursday, Isler said. The application is on the planning board’s March 21 agenda for discussion, he said.

The town will file an application with the Suffolk County health department next month as soon as it concludes SEQRA review, planning administrator Jefferson Murphree told the board.

Meanwhile the town has been moving forward with upgrade and expansion plans for the Calverton sewage treatment plant. The town board has scheduled a March 19 hearing on more than $3 million of additional borrowing required to fund the cost of the upgrade, which has gone up since the town first authorized more than $7 million in bonds 10 years ago to cover a portion of the cost. It has obtained state and county grants to underwrite the project.

The length of time it will take to obtain the required health department approval is unknown and out of the town’s control, officials said.

If the health department grants the town an exemption because of the large size of the eight proposed lots, the application will be expedited, Isler said.

“If we have to go through a full review it’s anybody’s guess,” he cautioned. “It will likely be five months or more. The DEC permit will take five or six months,” Isler said.

Jens-Smith asked if the approvals could be wrapped up by the fall.

“If the stars line up,” Isler answered.

John McAuliff

There is a scandal buried in the previous Republican Town Board's gift of 1,000 additional acres for the same price to Luminati, then to CAT. The Republican majority of the current Board has perpetuated the scandal.

The contract must be voided based on its history and its content. At a minimum, it must be divested of the 1,000 acres.

If the Ghermezians hid from the Board the adjudicated real estate fraud of their principal representative, they clearly did not have the integrity to be qualified and eligible. They should be required to explain what they knew and when they knew it before the deal goes forward.

Luminati and Triple Five were a match made in heaven.

Wake up Riverhead before we become a subsidiary of the Ghermezians.

EPCALwatch@gmail.com

https://riverheadlocal.com/2019/03/18/question-of-developable-land-at-epcal-remains-unanswered-lawyer/

Town attorney outlines next steps in EPCAL sale to Calverton Aviation & Technology

by Tim Gannon |

03/15/2019 6:00 AM

·          

·          

·         Email

Calverton Aviation & Technology faces a May 20 deadline to decide if it will moving forward with the purchase of 1,643 acres of land from Riverhead Town for $40 million. After that, many of the next steps are up to the town, according to Frank Isler, the attorney representing the town on the Enterprise Park at Calverton sale.

Mr. Isler gave an update at Thursday’s Town Board work session on the steps needed for the EPCAL development.

After May 20, the town has one year from to get approval of an eight-lot subdivision of EPCAL, with three of those lots being sold to CAT.

The approval must be received from all the agencies involved, which would be the town Planning Board, town board, county health department and state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The DEC approval is only for permission to build in a section of the state’s Wild, Scenic and Recreational Rivers Act, which limits development near the Peconic River, Mr. Isler said.

Mr. Isler said work on that subdivision has already begun, as papers are being filed with the Planning Board and the amended map will be introduced to the Planning Board at its work session next Thursday, at 3 p.m.

“We’ve been working on this since they signed the contract,” Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith said.

Mr. Isler said the Planning Board plans to vote to schedule a public hearing on the subdivision on its April 4 meeting, and that hearing would take place at the May 2 meeting.

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because the town and the Planning Board already went through subdivision hearing process several years ago when the officials were proposing a 50-lot subdivision, which was prior to CAT being involved.

That subdivision was never approved.

“We feel this should go fairly expeditiously because this is a lesser development plan,” Mr. Isler said of the eight-lot plan.

He said he hopes the Planning Board, on April 4, will also make a finding under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, which will enable the application to go before the county health department as well.

The proposed upgrade and expansion of the Calverton Sewer District and of the Riverhead Water District to the EPCAL land also is needed, and these items will be before the Town Board.

CAT is currently in its second 90-day “due diligence period” on the property. The first once expired Feb. 20 and they requested another one, as permitted under the agreement with the town. In turn, CAT has made two $500,000 down payments on the property, which are being kept in escrow.

“When can we get a definitive answer from the DEC as to how many acres will be developable?” Councilman Tim Hubbard asked.

When the property was proposed for sale to a company called Suffolk County Industrial Development LLC, then-Supervisor Sean Walter said many times that the DEC would only allow about 600 acres of the EPCAL site to be developed.

But when he proposed to sell the land to Luminati Aerospace — which is currently a 20 percent owner of CAT, with Triple Five Group owning the rest — he proposed selling the whole 1,643 acres of undeveloped land that the town still owned.

Ms. Jens-Smith says the town has received no guidance from the state as to how many acres CAT can develop at EPCAL.

“You will not get a decision in this process from the DEC,” Mr. Isler said.

The DEC approval in this application is only to the WSRRA act, Mr. Isler said.

“That’s all they’re looking at,” he said. “It will have nothing to do with development of the property.”

After the property is sold, the applicant will need to go before the town for site plan approval and they will mostly likely have to show the DEC that they are not building in environmentally sensitive areas.

It’s possible they will need a “incidental take permit” from the DEC to allow development in areas where endangered or threatened species are located.

They also will likely need a SEQRA study, although some of it may have already been studied by the town’s SEQRA study, he said.

“You won’t know where or how much is being developed until we are no longer own the property,” Mr. Isler said.

Deputy Town Attorney Anne Marie Prudenti said any site plan approval will involve an analysis of whether the development plans are consistent with the town’s Reuse and Revitalization Plan for EPCAL.

“Even if all the other agencies find that it is consistent, it’s going to be this Town Board that has final say,” she said.

tgannon@timesreview.com

John McAuliff

There is a scandal buried in the previous Republican Town Board's gift of 1,000 additional acres for the same price to Luminati, then to CAT. The Republican majority of the current Board has perpetuated the scandal.

The contract must be voided based on its history and its content. At a minimum, it must be divested of the 1,000 acres that were included under false pretenses as being undevelopable.

If the Ghermezians hid from the Board the adjudicated real estate fraud of their principal representative, they clearly did not have the integrity to be qualified and eligible. They should be required to explain what they knew and when they knew it before the deal goes forward.

Luminati and Triple Five were a match made in heaven.

Wake up Riverhead before we become a subsidiary of the Ghermezians.

EPCALwatch@gmail.com