Featured Letter: Housing at EPCAL would cost us

To the editor:

The Town Board warming up to mixed uses at the Enterprise Park at Calverton.

Before we embrace mixed-used residential development at EPCAL, let’s remember why we Riverhead taxpayers were promised that there would never be any residential development in that zone: Every home costs the taxpayers more than those homeowners pay in property taxes. Our schools are already overburdened. Why would we add to that burden? Farmland, on the other hand, shows a positive return. And maintaining open space increases the value of already developed land.

We already have a core “mixed-use development” area. I believe it’s called downtown Riverhead.

In the many years I served on the Long Island Regional Planning Board (1994-2006), I witnessed, over and over, persuasively presented plans for “smart growth,” “mixed use,” or whatever else you want to call some fancy plan drawn up by a developer. Often, these served the purpose of gaining zoning changes which allowed the developer to “flip” the property without ever implementing that persuasive plan. So let’s keep in mind how fragile that beautiful property at EPCAL is, and how expensive residential development there will be — not to the developer, but to the town. To us.

Louisa Hargrave, Jamesport