Recap: Town Board seeks revisions to swimming pool pumpout requirement

The Riverhead Town Board is seeking revisions to a proposed law that would require all new swimming pools to have a pump-out and a minimum storage equal to 20 percent of the pool capacity.

The proposal, discussed at Thursday’s work session, was recommended by the town’s Conservation Advisory Council and initiated by planning and building administrator Jeff Murphree. However, board members said it should be restricted to areas near wetlands and the requirement should be for a drainage ring that is 4 feet by 4 feet. The proposal, which aims to prevent harmful pool chemicals from seeping into groundwater, will be revised and brought back before the Town Board at a future meeting.

The board also sought more information on the effect of potential loopholes in the new reduced parking requirements it recently approved for retail and office buildings. The goal of the amendment was to reduce parking, and therefore clearing of trees, since many of the bigger parking lots along Route 58 are almost never full. But the concern, raised recently by Larry Simms of Save Main Road, was that the amendment, in some cases, will allow developers to build more. There is currently no requirement mandating the area be used for open space.

Board members agreed that this could be a problem in some areas, but asked planning director Rick Hanley to look at specific lots and try to determine the extent of the potential problem.

To read what else was discussed at the work session, click below to read News-Review reporter Tim Gannon’s blog of the meeting.

October_24,_2013_-_Agenda(1).pdf by Riverhead News-Review