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Planning Board seeks public input on 641,000-square-foot warehouse proposed for Calverton

The 641,000 square-foot “Riverhead Logistics Center” proposed for 1743 Middle Road in Calverton will be subject to a public “scoping session” at the Riverhead Planning Board meeting Sept. 1, officials said. 

The public will be asked to suggest what issues it feels should be studied in a draft environmental impact statement on the project.

The proposed logistics center seeks to develop a “Class A” warehousing facility on 39.7 acres of wooded land zoned for Industrial A uses. 

The applicant, Northpoint Development, is based in Riverside, Missouri. 

The draft scoping use is available on the town website. It says the proposal “is in response to a growing market demand for modern commercial warehouse space.”

It says the use, along with the Industrial A zoning and the proximity to the Long Island Expressway will attract prospective tenants “to meet the demand for storage and distribution of goods.”

The proposal would also need site plan approval from the Planning Board, water and sewer district approvals from the Town Board, Zoning Board of Appeals variances, road openings from the Highway Department, Industrial Development Agency incentives and Suffolk County Planning Commission approvals. 

The site has 460 feet of road frontage on Middle Road on its western property boundary and directly abuts the clover leaf entrance ramp to the westbound lane of the Long Island Expressway on the south side, according to the draft report.  

The proposal went before the Suffolk County Planning Commission in July and it recommended approval with a number of comments. Among those, it said the proposed logistics center is located within a New York State Potential Environmental Justice Area. This is defined by the U.S. Census as being: Groups of 250 to 500 households that meet at least one of the following criteria: at least 22.82% of the population had household incomes below the federal poverty level; at least 26.28% of the population of a rural block group report as members of a minority group or at least 52.42% of the population of an urban block group report as members of a minority group. 

The draft scope report only made one mention of the potential environmental justice area.