Businesses and lawmakers in Greenport Village are not happy with potential changes to the areas just outside the village boundaries proposed in Southold Town’s Zoning Update.
The Village’s Business Improvement District (BID) is particularly concerned about the town’s recent change of heart allowing restaurants and retail uses in a new Corridor Business Zoning District, and many in village government want the Zoning Update to do more to enable affordable housing near the village.
Pictured above: The Greenport Village Board and its land use and housing board chairs at the Aug. 11 special meeting.
Village board members, and chairs of the village’s Planning and Zoning boards and Affordable & Workforce Housing Committee and the Greenport BID laid out their concerns bluntly in an hour-long special meeting at the village’s Old Schoolhouse Monday evening, Aug. 11.
Southold Town unveiled a first draft of its Zoning Update in April and has been holding workshops and soliciting feedback throughout town in recent months.
After the public comment period closed in mid-July, Southold Town Board members said many business and property owners had asked the town to allow retail businesses and restaurants in a new Corridor Business zoning district that replaces General Business in some areas along the North Fork’s major thoroughfares.
In the original draft of the Zoning Update, restaurants and retail stores were not allowed in Corridor Business, although other typical businesses you might find alongside highways would be allowed — including car dealerships, boat dealerships, garden shops, warehouses, microbreweries, catering halls, food processing facilities and contractor storage yards. (See page 68-73).
At a July 22 work session, Southold Town Board members seemed in agreement that, at the urging of business owners, they should allow retail and restaurant uses in that zone, and Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski has since reiterated that those uses were going to be allowed, at the request of business owners.
“There was a lot of arm-waving by folks in the business community outside of the village, saying ‘oh my gosh, we can’t be restricting at the periphery of the hamlets,’ when our businesses are saying we don’t want to see you expanding the businesses outside of downtown Greenport, because we don’t need a CVS there or a McDonalds or a Starbucks,” said Mayor Kevin Stuessi at the village’s special meeting. “If they increase restaurant and retail uses there, we’re not going to get the housing and it’s going to pull business outside the village.”
Greenport BID President Nancy Kouris agreed.
“We want to strengthen the village’s core, limiting sprawl in favor of revitalizing existing commercial areas,” said Ms. Kouris, a co-owner of the Blue Duck Bakery, which has locations in Southold and in Greenport Village. “We want to encourage uses that bring a clear community benefit, not just additional retail services or retail redundancy. The last thing we need is a CVS or a Panera Bread. Being the business owner of a bakery in Southold, and in Greenport, obviously that is not something I would be happy to see.”
“We want to discourage the over-expansion of chain stores and redundant commercial properties, channeling investment toward existing storefronts and underutilized spaces,” she added. “We do not believe Southold Town’s zoning priorities are ready to be finalized without due consideration for Greenport Village.”
Dinni Gordon, who chairs the village’s new Affordable & Workforce Housing Committee, said that, after examining the town’s proposed zoning changes, she thinks the plan is designed “to accommodate what already exists. There’s currently no community housing in Greenport West and the code doesn’t contemplate it in the future.”
“Greenport West” is Southold Town’s designation for areas outside of the tiny incorporated Village of Greenport that are still in the Greenport zip code. Properties in “Greenport West” are subject to Southold Town zoning and are actually located west, north and east of the village.
The village’s western boundary is generally just west of Sixth Street, its northern boundary is Washington Avenue and its eastern boundary is Stirling Harbor and Greenport Harbor. The marinas along the the east side of Stirling Harbor are mostly outside of the village boundaries.
As an example of the town’s focus on zoning for existing uses, Ms. Gordon said one zoning district just west of the village, Hamlet Residential, allows residential construction on a quarter acre, but “it is designated only for the property on which Driftwood Cove rests.”
Driftwood Cove is a complex of relatively affordable apartments on Route 25 just west of the village.
She added that a new zoning district proposed in the update, “Hamlet Mixed Use,’ is “most supportive of housing, but there is no Hamlet Mixed Use in the draft for Greenport West. It’s in Mattituck and Southold.”
Ms. Gordon also questioned why one property where village residents would like to see affordable housing — the 31-acre former Skyway Drive-In movie theater property just east of Chapel Lane — only allows residential construction on two-acre lots, known as R-80 zoning.
“That seems to me to be a statement about what they want for Greenport West,” she said, adding that “I don’t think that’s really what the town wants,” referring to an affordable housing complex there.
“Half of the kids from Greenport West go to the Greenport School. It’s important for us to be pushing a little on this, and making sure when they come to a final determination that it includes attention to Greenport West, which is not in the draft I was looking at,” said Ms. Gordon.
Chairs of the village’s land use boards agreed.
“I’m not sure they have Greenport Village’s best interests at heart,” said Zoning Board Chairman John Saladino. “The primary need of the village now is a place for people to live and not have to borrow everything their parents own to be able to afford to buy it.”
He added that, while the Skyway Drive-In property is half wetlands, it “has access to village water and village sewers,” and already has a four-building, two-unit multi-family housing complex on it, accessible from Chapel Lane.
Village Trustee Mary Bess Phillips said that property at one time belonged to St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, which is still on an adjacent property. The church had an approved plan to build a 140-unit senior citizen housing complex, similar to Peconic Landing, in the 1970s, as part of the construction of the adjacent San Simeon by the Sound nursing home on Route 48. That project wasn’t built after the developers couldn’t finance it, aside from the four buildings, which were built in the mid-1980s.
The property is currently owned by Greenport Group LLC, which sued Southold Town after it was rezoned from Limited Business and Hamlet Density to R-80 in the year 2000. The New York State Supreme Court ruled in favor of the town’s zoning in 2015, and an appeals court upheld that ruling in 2018, according to an annotation of that case by Justia U.S. Law.
Greenport Village Planning Board Chair Tricia Hammes urged the Village Board to remember that, in addition to Southold Town’s zoning, Greenport’s sewer and water district, which extend outside of the village’s boundaries, also have a role in determining development outside of the village.
“It’s much easier to put restaurants and hotels here than in other parts of Southold if those uses aren’t limited in those districts,” due to the availability of sewer and water hookups, she said.
She added that she believes all the zoning districts outside the village “really should be evaluated for housing. We already have a downtown corridor.”
“Southold should have started with housing,” she said. “Look at what happened on the South Fork. If you don’t allow housing, you can have businesses wherever you want, but you won’t find anybody to work in them. It seems so thoughtless to me.”
She added that, if the town isn’t interested in listening to the village’s needs, the village should “really do some work around defining what the sewer district is.”
“Within the district, we are obligated to provide use (of the sewers), but outside the district we can prioritize,” she said. “The village can say we’ll consider it for housing and not for anything else.”
She urged the village to have its attorneys look into how such priorities could be legally established.
Trustee Mary Bess Phillips added that the village’s sewer study, now underway, should provide guidance on that issue.
“That is the control point — the sewer,” she said. “We also have to protect the Village of Greenport.”
“We’ve fought this battle before, protecting our downtown business district, with the town,” she added. “They need to do something positive, not just something to make the squeaking noise go away.”
Village Trustee Julia Robins agreed that “the key to housing on the North Fork is the sewer. I think the town is not taking us into consideration… I don’t think the town is pro-housing. They don’t get it.”
Village Trustee Lily Dougherty-Johnson added that she believes the town should revisit its decision to take lot coverage restrictions on residential property out of the Zoning Update.
“I think lot coverage is important,” she said. “I don’t want to see McMansions crowding up right on our borders.”
Ms. Hammes added that some of Southold’s proposed districts, including a section of Corridor Business that solely contains The Lin Beach House (Formerly the Shady Lady hotel) on the North Road just northeast of the village, seem to be “spot-zoned.”
Village Trustee Patrick Brennan agreed that the Lin property had been spot zoned, a process by which a small portion of property is placed in its own zoning district, which often benefits just that one property owner.
He added that he wants to make sure the town doesn’t undermine industrial uses in the section of Greenport West along Route 25 near Albertson Lane, which provide stable, year-round employment.
“We, as a village, have to be more deliberate about how we consider expanding the sewer district,” he added. “In the past, it’s been an ad hoc procedure…. this is our opportunity for the village to be more involved.”
“We need to be absolutely clear with the Town of Southold the we don’t want competing retail outside of the village,” he added. “I absolutely agree about protecting our current downtown.”
Ms. Phillips also said she believes the town’s proposed Marine II zoning district should be “more stringent than it is.”
The town zoning district would allow hotels with up to 30 rooms. The village recently eliminated hotel uses in its waterfront zoning districts.
Mr. Brennan said that, while he’s glad the town set a limit on the number of rooms in waterfront hotels, “we should promote further restriction.”
Board members also discussed whether the village could agree to provide sewer access for marinas and restaurants in those districts, which are currently contributing to pollution in Stirling Harbor, but not to provide that access for hotels.
“Why shouldn’t the most populous area, with the most commercial intensity be entitled to the first look” at Southold’s zoning,” asked Mr. Saladino. “Why wasn’t Greenport West first and foremost in what they’re thinking about. The incorporated village is a big economic driver on the North Fork. Why not think about where people are going to live? I don’t understand that. Do they only care about potato farms on Depot Lane (in Cutchogue)?”
“We want to be clear, we’re looking for full-time, year-round, residential housing,” said Ms Hammes. “We’re not looking for R-80 zoning or one new multi-million dollar house after another. If they want to do that up in Mattituck, that’s fine.”
Village Board members agreed to draft a letter to the town airing the concerns they discussed.
The public comment period on the first draft of the Zoning Update is now officially closed. In an email Thursday, Aug.7 to people who signed up for information on the Zoning Update process, the town’s Planning Department said it had “received hundreds of comments on the proposed draft of the zoning update and are compiling all of them now.”
“Our next step is for the Town Board to review the comments and make revisions. A revised draft code and map will then be made public,” according to the email. “There will be at least one public meeting to review the changes made. There will be public hearings on the revised draft, as well as an environmental review. We are currently working on the timing for all of this and will keep you posted as we know more.”
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