To the Editor:
We were surprised and pleased to see that the proposal by Strong’s Marina to dig out the bluff over the Mattituck Inlet to provide yacht storage has become an issue in the Southold Town elections.
Pictured Above: Strong’s Yacht Center, with the hill where the new boat storage buildings are proposed behind the existing buildings, as seen from across Mattituck Inlet.
As members of the community group Save Mattituck Inlet and two of the hundreds of community members who have opposed the project, we’d like to clarify a few points. In short, the issue is not how long the process has taken, but rather how our community balances economic development with environmental destruction.
In this case, the proposed development threatens both surface and groundwater quality and destroys valuable wildlife habitat, increases traffic and public safety issues and will have significant impact on the quality of life of everyone in the Southold community who uses and values Mattituck Inlet and our coastal resources.
On the economic development side of the equation, the benefits are marginal at best. The project will create fewer than 10 seasonal jobs and no significant tax benefits to the town. In addition, the developer has offered no concrete evidence that there is market demand for yacht storage in Mattituck, risking all of that environmental damage to create one of the biggest buildings in the town, only to have it be under-used.
At recent forums, candidates were asked to weigh in on the process, which has taken several years. The duration is not because of bureaucracy, foot dragging or anti-development sentiment. It’s because the proposal is so egregious that it set off a State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA)-mandated Environmental Impact Statement, a legal process that the Southold Town Planning Board has followed to the letter.
Throughout that process, Southold has collected more than a thousand pages of comments from the community, the vast majority of which oppose the project, and the developer has been slow in responding to Planning Board requests for more information, often taking many months and in at least two occasions taking a full year.
To review: the original plan, first submitted in 2018, called for two roughly 50,000-square-foot buildings that would accommodate 88 yachts averaging 60 feet in length. It would also have called for the removal of 135,000 cubic yards of sand and 634 trees from the site.
The Final Environmental Impact Statement condemned the project for its overwhelming environmental and community impact.
Last year’s amended proposal was for one 65,100-square-foot building designed to accommodate 56 yachts. The current proposal reduces the building size to 63,310 square feet and yet increases the amount of sand being removed and the number of trees being cut down from the previous proposal. It is a reduction in the size of the building by 4 percent, but an increase in sand removal of 20 percent and an increase in tree removal of 7 percent. This plan would store 53 yachts.
Despite the changes, the latest proposal does not appear to mitigate any of the environmental, coastal resilience, quality of life or safety issues raised by the community or by the Planning Board over the more than six years of debate.
The most current proposal is being reviewed by the Planning Board, as required by the SEQRA law.
We agree that finding the proper balance between economic development and preservation is a key issue for our community.This project is not an example of inefficiency. Rather, it is a model of the Planning Board following the law to protect the environment, our coastal resilience and our community’s character when that balance is wildly off kilter.
Jeff Pundyk and Anne Sherwood Pundyk
Mattituck
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Who is raising concerns about the proposed development project?