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Riverhead Town Board candidates square off at News-Review debate

Laura Jens-Smith
Laura Jens-Smith

Should there be a moratorium on apartments downtown? Why or why not?

Laura Jens-Smith: “I believe I was the first to utter the word ‘moratorium.’ I believe the point of a moratorium is to take a break and make a check. The town had commissioned a $600,000 study to come in and see what would be the best development for downtown to make it a viable downtown, to make it the heartbeat of this community … I believe we have one shot to get this right, and we need to take a breath and take a chance to look at what we are doing before we start slapping up buildings.”

James Wooten: “No, I’m not in favor of the moratorium. The master plan called for up to 500 apartments on the Main Street area … It’s been proven in Bay Shore and proven in Patchogue how that revitalizes the downtown area with foot traffic … I think we should step lightly and revisit it as projects come. But I would not put a moratorium on it.”

Neil Krupnick: “The word moratorium does not mean let’s put a stop to everything. It’s let’s pause, stop, make sure there’s a plan … Where’s the plan? Where will be the accommodations for parking? How are we going to deal with our sewage? … We can’t keep throwing things out and hoping it will gel. We need to stop and make sure we have a vision.”

Tim Hubbard: “I am against the moratorium on any development downtown for apartments. I think at this point in time, we have to develop as much as we can downtown in terms of getting foot traffic going to help with the revitalization process. I’m not saying we need to have 500 apartments, but if we throw the word ‘moratorium’ up, it sends a flag that Riverhead is not ready to do business.”

Does Riverhead have a traffic problem, and what if anything can you do about it as a town board member?

 James Wooten: “People want to come out to the East End. Everything the East End offers, it comes through Riverhead. We’ve already synchronized the lights … I probably would have made the road a little wider. I did fight for that, but to no avail … I don’t know what we can do to make the traffic patterns any better. That’s what we built ourselves to be, an agro-tourism center. This is what the North Fork is all about.”

Neil Krupnick: “We can’t erase the past … I’ve talked a lot about keeping larger trucks off the roads, especially dangerous trucks that are carrying flammable materials … If we’re competing with those trucks, that creates another problem. We just saw a farmstand bill pass that will allow for a minimum of 97 more farm stands in town, and there was no study done about what that is going to do to our traffic … We have a situation where the roads we use to avoid other roads that are always overcrowded will soon become crowded … We’re pinning ourselves into a corner, and something has to be done about it.”

Tim Hubbard: “We might have to contact DOT to look at the road again and make sure the lights are synchronized. If an ambulance comes by, it can hit a switch that makes all the lights green in an emergency … That’s great for the ambulance, and certainly anybody in medical care, we want them to get to the hospital fast, but it creates problems where the lights won’t re-synchronize after that. So the DOT needs to look at that.”

Laura Jens-Smith: “Traffic is a major issue, especially during the fall season. I think you need to come up with creative solutions. You need to partner up with the wineries and with the farm stands and the hotels to come up with a viable solution that works for everybody … There’s such things as a ‘scoot train’ that would go from Riverhead out to Greenport, and there would be pickup to take passengers to venues within the towns.”

Should the town abolish the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency?

Neil Krupnick: “No. The town shouldn’t abolish the IDA, but the town needs to rein in the IDA … Just this year, the IDA granted the Marriott — the new Marriott that’s going on Route 58, and there were not supposed to be any more tax breaks on Route 58 — a million and a half dollars worth of tax breaks. The owner that came in said, ‘I can’t get this funding from the bank unless you give me these tax breaks,’ but the IDA didn’t even ask for proof. The Marriott’s a $50 billion company. I’m sure he was going to be able to build here no matter what. That’s not a necessity … If the IDA does their job and is bringing in new businesses, especially to downtown, that’s a good thing, but we’re talking about unnecessary tax breaks that are costing the taxpayers.”

Tim Hubbard: “We most certainly should not abolish the IDA. There are 5,000 properties in this town that receive discounts, whether it be through the Star program or veterans’ benefits. Those discounts are out there. There are 17 properties that receive IDA assistance in the Town of Riverhead right now … Many people have misunderstandings about the IDA. Most people feel that Tanger and Home Depot were full IDA properties. They were not … The IDA helps development come to town that wouldn’t necessarily be able to without the financial assistance.”

Laura Jens-Smith: “The IDA should stay, but the job of the IDA should be clearly defined … the point of receiving IDA tax breaks is to benefit the community, so that would be living wage jobs or to provide development in an area that a business would not be likely to go, whether it be blighted or an economic development zone. With the Marriott, giving them an IDA tax break — there was already a hotel there. It was already proven it’s a viable hotel making money. We did not need to incentivize another hotel … And one of the other conditions should be that there’s accountability. If you say you’re going to provide x amount of jobs, you need to prove you provided x amounts of jobs. And if you are not able to fulfill that, then the IDA needs to have a claw back and start taking that money back.”

James Wooten: “I don’t think I would abolish the IDA. I know we changed it a lot over the last few years, we fired some people. As far as the Marriott on Route 58, that’s a franchise. That’s not a corporation, that’s an individual owner that’s putting it in. That being said, you’re right, there is a misnomer with the IDA. You buy a piece of property, that’s $1 in taxes a year. You want to put a hotel on it, you’re assessed at $100 a year. So the IDA comes in and says, ‘Okay, we’re going to give you a 50 percent tax break and we’re going to graduate that over the next five years,’ so now you’re paying $50 a year. The town was going to get a dollar. Now it’s improved to getting $50 … But I agree to some extent. I fought the IDA for extending breaks to Atlantis when Atlantis put the Hyatt in.”

Neil Krupnick: “There has to be a benefit to the town. How many living wage jobs is that Marriott going to create, two? Manager and night manager? The town gave something away and got nothing in return.”

Tim Hubbard: “The town will get its money back in the long run. It takes time with the IDA depending on how many years they grant. That aquarium would not be here without IDA assistance, and that aquarium was built as an economic generator, not as a source of revenue for the Town of Riverhead. That economic generator brings people to this town … The town has changed, and it’s all been for the better. Without the IDA, that would not have happened.”