The Suffolk County Working Waterfront Committee recommended the Greenport Yacht and Shipbuilding Company for preservation through the county’s new working waterfront preservation program at a special meeting Monday afternoon, July 27.
Committee members present voted unanimously (with one abstention from Greenport Village Trustee Mary Bess Phillips) to send the application to the County Legislature’s Environment, Parks & Agriculture Committee for review at its Aug. 31 executive session, after which the project would advance to the full County Legislature for review.
Ms. Phillips had said when the property was first discussed by the committee June 9 that she planned to abstain on the vote due to the possibility that she will also be called to weigh in on the development of the property in her role as a Village Trustee.
Stephen Clarke has owned and operated the shipyard for a generation, providing space for commercial dockbuilding operations and marine research vessels, as well as the only haul-out location for large boats including the Shelter Island Ferries on the North Fork and fishing boats.
He is currently in contract to sell the property to Nick Voulgaris III, who plans to continue the shipyard operations and provide more public access to the 4.3 acre property. Their contract anticipates a closing in September of this year. Mr. Clarke has declined to talk to the press about the deal.
The Working Waterfront committee first explored Mr. Voulgaris’s proposal at its June 9 meeting, at which he asked for a county working waterfront easement on 3.2 acres of the property. Members of the committee said at the time that the property was a “poster child” for the new program.
Mr. Voulgaris said in a presentation at the June 9 meeting that in addition to continuing to provide services and space for the commercial waterfront businesses, he wants to refurbish a shellfish hatchery as a cooperative for local oyster companies, provide a dinghy dock, kayak rentals and a kayak launch, and welcome tall ships to a long pier on the property, which would be open to the public. He said he would also like to provide space for a boat towing company, harbor tour and fishing excursion businesses and a pedestrian ferry. He added July 27 that he expects there to be a non-profit component to the project, similar to his work preservign the historic Kerber Farm in Huntington.
Committee members asked at that time for more clarity on what he expected to use the property outside of the easement for and whether it would be eligible for inclusion in the easement. Mr. Voulgaris said at the time he anticipated businesses that could complement the shipyard’s work, such as a yacht brokerage and boat insurance provider, would be in the area outside the eaasement.
At the July 27 special meeting, Suffolk County Economic Working Waterfront Administrator Rob Carpenter said .2 acres of property were added into the easement area after members of the committee examined the business plan.
That extra area would be used for boat storage and access to parking for the unique ship haulout area that is a prime feature of this property. Mr. Carpenter added that, while the property initially garnered 21 out of 25 points on the county’s rating sheet for whether to consider property for preservation, the use of the property to haul out commercial fishing boats helped it garner another point before the July 27 vote.
“Over the past month, a lot has happened,” said Mr. Carpenter. “We’ve had many meetings regarding the proposed conceptual site plan.”
Left to Right: Members of the Working Waterfront Committee congratulated Mr. Voulgaris (at right in blue shirt) on the project’s advancement to the county legislature for review, Greenport Mayor Kevin Stuessi, Lillian McCullough (far left) and Mary Bess Phillips (far right) have diverging views about the process of preserving the property.
Greenport Mayor Kevin Stuessi, North Ferry Co. General Manager Bridg Hunt and South Ferry Director of Operations Briton Clark also spoke in support of the application at the July 27 meeting at the Cornell Cooperative Extension building on Griffing Avenue in Riverhead.
Mr. Stuessi called the shipyard “a singular property.”
He said a county easement would provide “protection of the working waterfront and all the work that’s been done there for well over 186 years. The Village of Greenport was founded 188 years ago. This shipyard was a working area then, and even before that it has a great history. When you look at the trajectory of time from then until today, you have seen any number of things that have been done out of there, from work with oystering, to whaling ships to World War I and World War II shipbuilding, to the famous Picket Patrol, where the Coast Guard and the Navy worked together to bring ships out, commissioning them from private individuals, to watch for submarines off of the Atlantic coast.”
He added that the historic railroad track haulout area, which has been in the shipyard “for well over 100 years, is the only one in this region. It protects the ability to haul ships out of the water, whether it’s the ferries or even fishing boats. I cannot express enough to all of you how important this piece of village property is, not just to the Village of Greenport but to all of Suffolk County and the East End.”
Mr. Hunt said the shipyard is “a critical resource for us.”
“If we didn’t have it, we would have to go out of state,” he said of the North Ferry’s need for repairs. “In addition to the extra expense and lack of oversight, the time loss is a more important thing.”
Mr. Hunt said the ferry company has already needed to do emergency maintenance at the shipyard five times this year, and “in each of those cases, if it had gone out of state, it would be at least an extra day of transit” each way.
“That’s three days out of service instead of a couple hours,” he said.
South Ferry Chief Operating Officer Briton Clark agreed.
He said he appreciated what “Steve Clarke has done at the shipyard in Greenport for the past 60 years, at least. He’s a highly respectable and respected man, and he made no plans whatsoever for the continuation of the shipyard until maybe two years ago.”
“I would say two months ago that Greenport had one choice, and that was to watch their shipyard get bought by a billionaire and turned into condos,” he added. “It’s invaluable to us as working waterfront. I met Nick a month ago, and he talked to us for three hours. He’s, I believe, serious about having a place to build and work on ships. I’m a skeptic. But he’s planning on putting up another runway to pull our boats out of the water, and that in itself is going to be a huge job. Our only other option is to take our boats over to Rhode Island and Massachusetts to be serviced, but that would be a great loss to South Ferry. We can do it, but we shouldn’t have to.”
Members of the committee hashed out a few details before the vote. Tom Kehoe of Huntington questioned whether the committee can negotiate with Mr. Voulgaris, since he is a contract vendee and not yet an owner of the property. The committee’s legal counsel, Michael Camacho, said a letter of support for Mr. Voulgaris’s application from Mr. Clarke was enough to get the process started, but the person who signs the final easement documents if the full legislature approves of the project would have to be the owner of the property at the time of the signing.
Southold Town representative Lillian McCullough asked about potential contamination on the site and whether it would require review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) before the county could purchase the easement. She also asked if the language of the easement could be written so that shipyard activities took precedence over public access to the property if the two uses were to come into conflict.
Ms. Phillips insisted that the review would be handled professionally by the village’s land use boards.
“That will be part of the village’s SEQRA process,” she said. “It’s not common to have those questions asked, not as part of this process.”
Mr. Camacho said the county’s process would require a Phase I environmental assessment of the property, and if the Phase I recommended a Phase II, that would also be performed.
“But that happens after we’re in contract, in the due diligence period,” he said.
Mr. Voulgaris said after the vote that he’s happy to undergo environmental review.
“Obviously, we all care about the environment,” he told The Beacon. “We’re all stewards of the sea and the waterfront. Making this location a true asset for the community is my goal, so long after we’re all gone this property will be a working shipyard and provide a resource for the public to have access to the waterfront, in addition to the primary purpose, which is to offload fishing boats, and be of service to the ferries.”
He said he hopes to make the property more useful for finfish and shellfish industries, with an ice house and a pack house for fishermen, and he hopes ultimately that new hydrofoil electric boats could be used to transport fish without any carbon footprint.
“As everyone knows and Briton said, billionaires can buy these properties in the snap of a finger and they’ll be lost forever, turned into condominiums and luxury homes,” he said. “Once the working waterfront is lost, it’s gone. We’re not making any more of it. Many of the large condominium complexes in Southold used to be working waterfront or an oyster factory. Those are gone forever To preserve what’s left is incredible.”
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