The Riverhead Town Board held a work session Thursday where officials reviewed a draft environmental impact study for a proposed golf course zoning district, heard an update on a planned water system flushing program, and discussed a series of amendments to the 2027 preliminary budget.
Senior planner Bergman presented the draft generic environmental impact statement for a plan to rezone six existing golf courses, currently zoned RB-80 or APC, into a new golf course zoning district. Bergman said the document analyzes water, sanitary and traffic impacts and includes an estimate that the preservation value of the transferable development rights across all six courses would run into the several-million-dollar range if the courses were fully redeveloped.
Bergman said that if the board accepts the study, the earliest a public hearing could be scheduled would fall within a 15- to 60-day window, and suggested Dec. 1 as a target date that would give the public roughly 30 to 40 days to review the document beforehand.
Frank Mancini, the water district superintendent, told the board the district plans to begin an engineered overnight flushing program the night of Oct. 18 in Wading River after rust and discoloration complaints affected a portion of the roughly 35,000 people the district serves. "We serve about 35,000 people and we think a few hundred were impacted," Mancini said, adding that residents may see discolored water during the flushing but that it poses no danger.
One council member asked whether anything could be done to make the system less susceptible to this kind of disturbance in the future. Mancini said the western side of Riverhead has relatively new piping and had never had a formal flushing program, and that crews spent the prior week locating and testing hundreds of valves across the distribution system to prepare for overnight shifts.
Councilwoman Rothwell walked the board through six proposed amendments to the 2027 preliminary budget, saying they would reduce the proposed tax levy increase from 2.79 percent to 1.79 percent, a 35 percent reduction, using roughly $4.8 million in investment returns. She said $1.2 million of that would go toward digitizing the building department, with other amendments covering merit raises for highway clerical staff left out of earlier contracts and $120,000 set aside to help fund potential dental coverage improvements for CSEA union workers, pending negotiation by the supervisor.
Rothwell also said the county had approved a beautification and downtown revitalization grant for the town's duck pond, funded in part using surplus money from an overfunded street-lighting reserve account. "Yesterday afternoon was a great day. The Suffolk County legislator approved our beautification downtown revitalization grant for the duck pond," she said.
The board's agenda packet also listed a local law amending the town code's vehicle, traffic and parking regulations and a resolution addressing police disciplinary charges, both read into the record during the meeting.