“YELLOW LIGHT” THE COMP PLAN

We recognize the need to update the 1994 comprehensive plan to serve as a road map for the Island’s next 10-20 years, the hard work that has gone into the current effort, and that there is much good in the draft.  Nevertheless, there are key flaws both in the process that is being pursued and in the substance of the current draft that call out for meaningful further review by the comprehensive plan group and the public. 

FLAWS IN THE PROCESS

1. Lack Of Environmental Review - As we have maintained for well over a year in letters to the editor of the Reporter and e-mails to the comprehensive plan group, a new plan should be informed by a comprehensive environmental review to examine potential adverse impacts to the environment, including how much more development our fragile sole-source aquifer can bear and how much more traffic our ferries and congested roads (like in the Heights and Bridge Street) can bear.  

   In connection with the 1994 comprehensive plan, a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) was conducted.  Now, the town is trying to avoid such a study, which the New York State Division of Governmental Affairs recommends.  The new consultants’ contract expressly contemplates finding that it is not necessary.  Whether or not a GEIS is legally required, it makes no sense to do a long-range plan for our future without a comprehensive environmental review based on current data and analysis.

2. Top Down Process - The current effort has been driven in a top-down matter with limited community involvement. Almost 75 Islanders served as members of either the comprehensive plan task force or advisory committee that generated the 1994 plan.  Today, the task force consists of: two Town Board members and one member of the Planning Board, none with prior experience preparing a comprehensive plan, and an advisory committee that, in light of three recent resignations, has shrunk to 6 members from its original 12.

3. Flawed Hearing - Saturday’s hearing was flawed in many respects: (a) it did not appear to comply with the Town Law requiring that a draft plan be available for the public at least 10 days in advance; (b)  releasing 166 pages of the draft two weeks, and another 36 pages several days, beforehand was not fair to the public; (c) departing from the practice to hold zoom or hybrid meetings shut out many Islanders who were unable to attend because they were ill, infirm, or off-Island; and (d) it was unreasonable to seek input from some 140 attendees before critics had expressed their concerns and to reduce feedback to red or green dots (when yellow would have been more appropriate for the many elements that need more analysis or discussion), Post-Its, and written comments on posterboards.

4. Rush To Enact A Plan -The task force and consultants are rushing to get the plan enacted by the end of the year before the current board leaves office. The consultants’ contract assumes this. The  9/14/23 Reporter editorial “Comp Plan Needs Residents Input” and 9/18/23 Codger column “Comprehensible?” express concerns about the process more eloquently than we can. Today, the Deputy Supervisor followed the lead of her opponent and all other candidates running for Town Board in expressing their concerns in the Reporter.

SUBSTANCE

1. Insufficient Concern About Over-Development - The draft does not recognize the history of proposals that would have destroyed the Island as we know it - a proposed bridge to the North Fork, plans to develop Mashomack, a proposed condominium development in Hay Beach with Venetian-style canals - or the clear and present dangers we see all around us. It lacks any meaningful analysis of what development would further the interests of the Island as a whole, including what jobs would be created for residents, as opposed to what would benefit special interests, particularly deep-pocketed off-Island developers who have been buying up property all around us and, indeed, on the Island.

2. A Municipal Wastewater System For The Center - The plan clings to the notion of a municipal wastewater system in the Center despite the facts that the School, the biggest contributor to the nitrate problem, successfully installed a much less expensive I/A system over the summer and Dr. Gobler, the leading authority on Island water, demonstrated that the system the town proposed is unnecessary and would be a huge waste of taxpayer money.

3. Island-Wide Public Water - This is included in the plan without any consideration of (a) how many neighborhoods need or want public water; (b) residents’ evaluation of Suffolk County Water Authority’s recent takeover of the West Neck system; (c) what  such a system would cost (it only references a  2005 estimate that the total cost would be $28 to $35 million and a capital cost per household of between $8,500 and $16,000);  (d) how much users would pay monthly for public water; or (e) other possible ways to provide good water to those who lack it, like reverse osmosis systems.

4. Limiting House Size - The plan contemplates both imposing limits on the construction of gigantic houses and significantly reducing the size of what can be built on a 1-acre lot. The public needs to discuss (a) how to balance property rights with the need to protect the environment and the character of the island; (b) how best to close loopholes in the Code; and (c) how to change the practice of the Town Board granting special permits to get around the Code. Notably, a judge last month noted that the Town Board had previously granted 38 of 38 applications for special permits to build oversized houses and, without opposition from the Town, ordered it to grant a special permit for construction of over 12,000 square feet of furnished space and another almost 4,000 square feet of unfinished space.

5. Loosening Zoning In The Center -  Despite the identity of who would benefit most from this, the idea deserves full discussion, including whether a zoning change could be used to facilitate affordable housing without inviting other types of housing that would benefit a developer, but not the community.

6. Inadequately Protecting The Near Shore And Peninsular Overlay - The plan resists public pressure to clearly disapprove of any expansion of all so-called non-conforming uses (businesses in residentially zones areas) in this most environmentally sensitive area.

7. Replacing A Strict Noise Ordinance - The plan proposes replacing the objective noise ordinance with an “equitable” approach, rather than better enforcement or strengthening of the current ordinance.