Full Transcript

Thank you.

Okay. No public hearings today, so we're going to get right into the discussion items. Pulaski Street Storage with Matt Charnas. Good afternoon, everyone. I'll just have the gentleman come on up to the table and just introduce yourself for the record. Just to introduce the application, this is a discussion of a site plan and special permit application entitled Pulaski Street Storage, which proposes to construction an approximately 5.0 megawatt, 20 megawatt hour tier two battery energy storage. Storage system with related site improvements within a 1.03 acre vacant property located within the light industrial zoning use district. Situated at 1281 Pulaski Street, Hamilton Riverhead. More particularly identified as Suffolk County Tax Map number 600-121-1-10. If you guys want to just introduce yourself for the record quickly. And then I will. All right, gentlemen. Good evening, Chairman, members. Andrew Filippazzi of Harris-Bullman Archer, attorney for the application. And with me today, I have Alex Riley of Nexamp, the applicant. And Paul Rogers from Energy Response Safety Group, our fire safety expert. Okay. Welcome. Thank you. So if the board is or isn't aware, this is before the town board also for special permit approval was discussed at a work session. I want to say about a month ago now. With what I will call the original configuration. So if everyone's aware, this is the corner of Pulaski. Street and JT Boulevard. We have Stotsky Park over here. Town Hall West to the northwest. There's a wetlands area in the back. Residential parcel here. And then the opposite side of JT Boulevard is presently vacant. So in the initial configuration, this was the layout. They did require wetlands permits because they were in wetlands jurisdiction. The batteries themselves were not jurisdiction. But the roadway to access was within jurisdiction. So we're going to go ahead and get started. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and get started. So one of the asks in the initial version of the staff report was for a reconfiguration to get everything out of jurisdiction. So this is what it used to look like. And now that the plan you'll see before you looks like this. If Justin can see it. So the 150-foot wetland delineation buffer is here. So this dotted line is about where the clearing line is. Access road here. So access now will come off Pulaski Street. And then all the battery infrastructure. Is right about here. And then moving on just so we can see how it's going to be screened. Landscaping plan. So they'll be screening on the northwest side. Longtown Hall West. And then within the required yards, which is a requirement of the code. In terms of secret, this is an unlisted action. For a special permit, I would say the town board is probably the most appropriate board to take lead agency. We're just waiting on a little bit of additional information. Before we can make a secret determination. But that's been in process. As you can see, we have quite a bit of site plans in front of us. And component plans that go along with this. In terms of the battery code, this does largely comply. There's a couple of outstanding items. Mostly in terms of setbacks, coverage, where it can be, avoidance areas. This is a compliant location. Because it is an industrial zone. Just thumbing through my staff report. I'll just go through some of the notable items. So on page seven. This is what I sort of discussed before. So initially, this still has the initial language. Where wetlands are an avoidance area. We asked for the revision. So now we're out of that wetlands area. We do need an updated equipment specification sheet. Which I believe is pretty easy to get. These are sort of pro forma documents from Tesla. Now going to the bottom of page eight. Fencing requirements initially. The fence around this property was shown as 10 feet. It's not compliant. Maximum height has to be seven. So that's been revised to seven feet. Yes. The plan has been revised to seven feet. So that's compliant at this point. Kind of thumbing through. Most everything else has been met. We'll need more information concerning decommissioning. So the decommissioning fund. That's got to be for the lifetime of the project. Is that a separate report? Decommissioning is a separate report. So then that will have an estimate of the full restoration of the property. To its original size. So that's a separate report. So then that will have an estimate of the full restoration of the property. So then that will have an estimate of the full restoration of the property. To its original condition. So recycling the batteries. Removing them. And restoration. And that's got to be for the lifetime of the facility. So there's costs associated with that. So it's essentially a 30 year cost. Most often. Or however long. The lifetime. Yes. We've submitted a preliminary decommissioning plan. Based on the staff report. There's some additional information. And specification that's needed. That will obviously be provided. In terms of referral comments. Those start on page 13. Engineering has done a look at this. They're asking just for a cross section of the proposed access road. They'll see this revised plan as well. Suffolk County Planning Commission did approve this. Back in July of 2025. The review of this application has been going on for quite some time. They did have a number of comments. It's currently with the town's consulting engineer. Who reviews our decommissioning reports. The fire marshal. We did get updated comments on April 7th. Mostly concerning hazmats. And there's a hazmat. Team that's being established within the town of Riverhead. And there's going to be a hazardous material fee. Which we've assessed it's going to be equal to 1% of the decommissioning cost. Which is not an insubstantial amount of money. But it does contribute. It's going to go into a dedicated fund. To fund training, equipment, and the like for the town. If I could just add while we're on that point. The first time we saw these comments were in the staff report. So we are reviewing them. And our intention is to meet with the fire marshal. The local fire department. To address any of their concerns. And if the board has any questions. Paul Rogers our fire safety expert will be happy to answer those. Are we any closer to establishing that hazmat team? It's very close. So we have staff. Staff has been trained. We're getting equipment. We're pushing this. When these come. We keep pushing this down the road. Understood. But it's. It's going to be. But we're on. We're ready to roll it out. Very, very soon. I'm not going to put like a definite time frame on it. But it's. It would be before this is constructed. Do you see. They'll need either an NJ or wetlands. A wetlands permit. This did go to CAC in its older duration. Based on the new configuration. It probably wouldn't need a permit from. From the CAC. We did get comments from the Riveride Water District. So the board's aware. Down Pulaski Street. There's two supplies wells for the water district. So we're going to have to get that done. And then we're going to have to get that done. So we're going to have to get that done.

an incident here and there's heavy metals or the like that go into the ground they'll be able to pick them up before they get to the water supply wells which are down at the other end of pulaski street and just to further that we're reviewing these comments um you know initial review is that there shouldn't be anything that uh can't be complied with but our intention is to reach out directly to the water district and satisfy their concerns early days on this like i said it's with the town board for a special permit uh we'll need to make a secret determination before that uh before they have a hearing on the special permit then they'd come back to this board for a hearing on the site plan okay notice that there's a comment in here from dec regarding the bat northern long ear bats so they'll be they'll be bound by the clearing window as well uh when they do need to clear this property so it can only occur within that window yeah our engineer labella engineering uh has been in contact with the dec one with respect to uh getting the jurisdictional non-jurisdiction or jurisdictional waiver um as required since we're close to the wetlands and obviously is aware of the clearing restrictions uh and environmental concerns and this will be all done in compliance of those laws yeah what's up

no that that wasn't for me i'm just uh a little concerned about the let it burn approach there's no way to put it out you just got to let it burn out what would you do in a case of like you know high winds yeah yeah and and and generally we uh we like to say manage the incident um let it burn could be part of that managing the incident but you can put water on it if they needed to put water on it the fire pump again and that will all come down with the training itself and how about uh how often does thermal runaway happen where one goes to the next to the next yeah so um that is is dependent i i can't give you an actual answer but i can't give you an actual answer but i can't give you an actual answer but i can tell you that one of the things that the uh performance test that needs to be done ul 1973 inside the module where there's a group of cells um they actually have to put one into thermal runaway and prove and show through a performance test that will not propagate to joining cells in there so a single cell failure is something that the the code automatically bakes into the performance standards so for you on 1973 what is the life cycle of these tesla battery packs they have a use of life of 25 years was it 25 years and how and how long have they been manufactured um they've been manufactured now for no not 25 years um but uh you know lithium-ion batteries have been manufactured for well over 25 years um you know tesla i think has been making these for 10 plus years we've we've had a battery in the field now for i think five or six years it was an always an older generation of of the tesla unit um but you know same same brand and make ultimately failure rate failure rate statistics on failure rates and um so we at next step we've never had a failure a failure occur you know that's caused a fire within within one of our battery sites here we have 35 operating um battery facilities across the country um and but you know from tesla's perspective i think there's only been very few if any um uh fires as a real result of this technology um and you know the the fire that comes to my mind uh was was due to a uh an error in construction and commissioning rather than necessarily like an operations error um where there was you know something that that could have been presented prevented um was that verified was that verified uh the one that's in my head is was one from um victoria australia um and it was yeah it was a commissioning error um which actually then changed the process ultimately for commissioning these projects um making sure that once they're delivered to site that all the safety uh features uh are also installed when it's delivered not just you know sitting there idle uh as you kind of finish the rest of the construction so it's it really it changed ultimately uh a bit of a gap in the in the installation process um and now you know we're seeing good good process because of that paul if one was to ignite what uh how many hours or minutes does it take to burn out yeah tesla has done a lot of scale fire testing on these things um generally they put in a range between four to six hours uh if they were completely consuming itself that's the that's the range that they give so it's not unlimited cycle time because each time you each time you charge and each time you discharge will say the psych that's that cycle that that lifetime i would think would that would have a great effect on the lifetime of the or the life cycle i should say of the battery correct yeah so if you charge and discharge more often they degrade quicker and so ultimately we we view the 25-year life cycle as the system degrading over those 25 years to a point where we can still operate the project if you charge and discharge you know multiple times in a day which you know this project or these types of projects we don't intend to do but the project the the system would degrade fast and the and the life would become shorter um ultimately the life is based on cycles not necessarily years yeah just so the board is aware and the public too uh our code is largely based on fire safety and incident management um as you know there were several incidents throughout new york state was there four four fires that were sort of investigating in the state yeah by the fire safety working group uh so we got a more robust fire code as a result our code is built off of the nicer model code with added uh conditions to it so it's it's pretty pretty robust and safety oriented there's not many stones left i'm trying to wait just the closest residents closest residence is to the west i want to say it's about 400 feet yeah yeah three sounds about right guess we 100 feet about 150 200 feet to our to the property line um of a residential property and then there's a large wooded area between uh the property line and that that residence so the wetlands and wooded area here and then it's on the corner of jt boulevard and industrial that goes around the back uh but minimum separation for a property zoned or used for residential use is 25 feet for one of these units is there a circumference of extreme danger if something's burning or you know yeah yeah fall into that category yeah i can do that i can do that i can do that i can do that i can do that i can tell you what uh the engineers in the city of new york look at they usually do a 100 foot uh and and it really is more just to see if there's any critical infrastructure in there and that um anyone that is putting something in that particular area they want them to visit those people uh to make sure if it's a you know you know a factory something like hey if something's going on wait for further direction for the fire department so they they make them go and visit the people uh to let them know what's going on and if there's an emergency event to be guided by the fire department

on page 16 it says that the fire marshal's report there he asked for uh designing a staging area for equipment with weatherproof box to house emergency contacts uh where is that located so it's not shown on this plan because these are new comments that we just got but it'll be a condition of approval should this get approved on a revision uh to put it where andrew would like it to be so that'll be his decision then as to where that's going to be a knox box or something similar that has all the emergency contact information we'll be reaching out to him to discuss these comments and address all these comments before um you know this is up for approval this is like a heavily wooded area too so um what is the distance trees and things like that have to be kept away is there a certain that's that's spoken to directly in the code so it's on page 10. about 10 feet or so it's item j uh vegetation tree cutting areas within 10 feet each side of the tier 2 battery energy storage system shall be cleared of combustible vegetation another combustible growth single specimens of trees shrubbery or cultivated ground cover such as green grass ivy succulents and similar plants could be used as ground cover but anything that could combust obviously you'd want to clear around and i would assume the canopy in that 10-foot area as it goes up that's what i was getting at to maintain that up to a certain okay we're going to schedule a public hearing anyway right not to the day um it's going to be eventually yes and i i read almost the entire thing and it's very well done and uh i understood most of it some of it was above my pay grade but page 12 compliance with special permits is a my biggest thing and b c and d the hazard or disadvantages to the neighborhood from the location of such use so that i i think only because you have the development in the back to the to the north is uh town employees across the street is uh stotsky's park at any time you can have a possible 200 children yeah and then you have the the car dealership right across the street sees the health safety welfare and the comfort convenience and to the order of the town will not be adversely affected and d such shop use will be in harmony and promote the general purpose and intent of this i don't i don't mind the project i don't mind the business i just don't like this location um and i would ask all of you if you lived in the community in the back would you want this being put you know 400 feet away and be honest or if you worked you know 25 55 feet to the north would you want this project to be put right there i i certainly understand the the question the concern um and it's a newer technology and you've certainly seen and the state has you know established the work working force uh task force to address a lot of these safety concerns um but this is you know essentially uh in addition to the utility there's an existing substation that i believe is less than a mile away that is you know nearby residences this is a supplement to the electric grid to help support it and it's going to benefit you know by reducing energy costs reducing energy demand by increasing the output for the community so there is a benefit it's you know yes worst case scenario and i and i understand that but have you looked into or inquired any other parcels that might be a away, much further away from any type of residential Stotsky's Park athletic fields. Have you looked into it? Some specificness about this location and why it's advantageous is PSEG have identified the feeder that we're connecting into as one of only a handful of feeders across the whole island, across all of Long Island, of needing locational relief because there is a peak demand issue. So this project is, the location of this project is ultimately like a direct response of supporting PSEG and their network in this specific area, not just like generally across kind of the town of Riverhead, but actually where we're connecting into. And so these projects... So we're looking at the Yeah, so that was one thing that we have a memo developed that we'll bring to the town board and we'll make sure that everyone on this board also gets a copy of it. But as part of the project, we are required to sell... 60% of our energy credits to residents in PSEG. So our intent with that is to do targeted outreach for the town of Riverhead community in the initial kind of, as we can gather up residents and also conduct a community meeting or opportunity to introduce the project, talk to people and have people sign up. And then we'll also have a You know, before we look out to the rest of Long Island residents. In addition to the 60% of the offtake, there's another 40% of the offtake that we would need to sell to an investment grade commercial entity, which we've identified as potentially the town of Riverhead themselves, or the water district or another local organisation that would benefit. At a reduced rate or just normal rates? So ultimately the credits work that it's a reduction on their electricity bill, a direct reduction on the electricity bill. Like a solar credit? It's like a solar credit, yeah. But it's a distributed energy credit. I think to try to summarise is this site was identified as one that would be beneficial by PSEG due to the community that it will be servicing and the proximity to the existing substation. To make it as efficient as possible and ultimately will impact and benefit the people in the closest proximity. Is this company, do you guys own the property? We do not own the property. We're long term leasing the property. We have a 25 year lease. Has PSEG ever leased land to these type of projects? Like where it could be right next to the it's right there where the power station is. Yeah, there are a few examples of utilities, PSEG being one of them, leasing their land directly at their substation. Typically they don't do that. They look for developers to go and find land themselves and they point them in the right direction in where they're looking for infrastructure to be deployed. Okay. So are there any other parcels in Riverhead that are available besides this one? I mean this site itself is currently a vacant industrial lot. Well it's been that way for 50 years. It's zoned appropriately for the use and conforms to the town code. I mean I understand it's a specially permitted use and the town board will need to go through that criteria when and if they grant a special permit, but it is permitted in the zone. Oh, thank you. Oh thank you.

to your concern and it's a good concern regards to the park so they're all equipped right by the updated state code that they have to have fire alarm that is an audio and visual they're very loud if you ever heard those alarms go off and usually they will go off way before we see a fire on the exterior itself so it should give people enough time to take any type of shelter if they feel that the smoke is starting to come their way but it is it is allowed audible and again that will get the fire department there too so it and when when these things do if they were to fail and it was to be a catastrophic failure they just don't go all up it's it usually goes into a propagating mode where I go from one to the next to the next and then and that's why it takes so long to actually to burn out from that four to six hours you know it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of would give you any type of relief that these people would be notified by the alarms itself well and if you could speak to a similar size application that's maybe more proximate to residents like if they're in structures and other jurisdictions or how close they could be to where people are living so yeah and uh i'll go back to new york city we have them right adjacent to schools and one right across the street from school and again the new city fire department made them go in to speak to the school and said if there is an event that takes place you know be directed by the by the uh the incident commander at the time on what you what they want you to do and maybe just staying in the school itself but they felt they felt comfortable that they could manage the incident in the event that something took place i'd like to just go back to the uh the training aspect of when we get the board assembled correct it's going to get the the training is there any time is there any idea when this is going to happen so the training has to happen well if there was to be approved it would be a condition of approval that happens prior to a ceo or commissioning so the local fire district which would likely be open to all the fire districts in the area by state code they have to provide training to the the local jurisdictions that's going to include i guess that someone from fire marshal as well as the uh anybody who would want to attend i think would be open yeah but also thinking because i was reading material on on the on what happens if there is a catastrophe or is there some sort of a fire and there's a whole chain of command that has to be followed not including the town i think somewhere or other i get i think they get um advised yeah so i think for something here it would if the incident command would probably be what i was what i think was getting at eventually i think the town has skated and if they could be hooked up to two so that they get it along with the fire department um that would be a good idea that would be a good idea that would be a good idea that would be a good idea that they get an alarm when at the same time the manufacturer gets an alarm and they can start to mobilize um so i i think they can do that through the uh central alarm station um they can make uh simultaneous notifications they do that with us that's what i was hoping yeah yeah um i think i've already seen things always happen on a sunday yeah two o'clock in the morning and you know nobody's awake everybody's sleeping blah blah blah blah and that's what i was hoping yeah yeah when it happens and if we can be in touch with with immediately with everybody else at the same time i should say because that's supposedly there's a whole chain of command that have to be okay if you if you do that i'll give you a word of caution we're dealing with it right now just ask for full alarms no no trouble signals we get trouble signals all out of the night and all trouble signal is is a device may not have communicated to the fire alarm control panel someone needs to go out and look at it you'll get a ton of them and we're dealing with that now so i'd only suggest that you get alarms not trouble signals does that make sense make sense i'm just thinking if there's a direct communication can be through a skater system we're meeting with the fire department and fire marshal based on their comments in the next few weeks so we'll make sure that we raise that with them and talk through them anything else gheader of the training beheading esr gheader help us with the training

just a quick question yeah i see on the print here there's it looks like there's fencing going around the batteries themselves is there any kind of a barrier to stop people from coming in off the street and driving using that road to drive around the back yeah we discussed that uh internally um you know we've got this curb cut coming off pulaski street um so we can we don't have any curb cups coming off the jt boulevard but yeah it ultimately there is it's kind of gravel over there so we're thinking maybe of placing some removable bollards at the end of this road here so that then you know just to really reiterate that's not a an entry at all um i think that's easy to do we can work that out through the site plan either a fence or bollards that can be removed by the fire department to keep people off the property right that's what i'm getting at you know kids playing back there skateboarding you know whatever kids do okay okay any other questions good early days i just have one yeah one question for the board i was raised in your staff report um regarding the landscaping that additional landscaping may be required as appropriate or necessary um so while we're here i obviously the the plan is revised from what you had before um but any comments that or thoughts you may have with respect to that so that we can um one meet that standard and and satisfy this board with respect to landscaping screening so that anybody who's driving by really isn't going to know this thing is here okay i'd say your best bet is probably to deal with heather sorry to give you more work but she's our expert very good so i wanted to raise it while we were in front of you indicated on the plan now gotcha is there any lighting on the site uh i believe there's emergency lighting to pass up generally there's there's there's no lighting there's no light like uh day-to-day so as you you know at the night at night if you were driving past you wouldn't see anything right um if there's crews out there doing work there'll be lights if needed at night um and yeah lights for emergencies so just back to landscaping they do show a double row of green giant arborvitaes that's on the pulaski street side and on the jt boulevard side as well as adjacent to the town parking lot so everyone's familiar with the green giant they are very dense and get very tall quickly so the visual impacts will be minimized okay thank you very much good luck and i guess we'll see you again thank you very much thank you matt thank you okay item number two two bluffs minor subdivision let's drive minus seven with heather

give me too much credit i can recommend plants ghead ghead Okay. So this is just sort of a brief update for the board for the minor subdivision of 2 Bluffs Drive. We had a public hearing on this application I think back in August. The applicant did address a couple of comments the board had with regard to the tanks that were on site and that access easement they were proposing. In the interim, they did address a majority of our consulting engineer's original comments. One of the things I did do was refer this over to Drew Dillingham, the town engineer, because he is our stormwater management officer. And I gave you all a copy of Vinny's most recent memo based upon the most updated plan. And again, he acknowledges that they went through and addressed a majority of that. I gave the comments from his original memo. But for the purposes of this subdivision, so they submitted, it's a sketch plan of a minor subdivision. And in our minor subdivision code, we have two sort of paths for minor subdivisions. One is you submit a minor subdivision plan that complies with the list as recited in the code, or you submit a sketch plan. And at this point, the map, it conforms with zoning in terms of It conforms with zoning in terms of area. They didn't need any ZBA relief for the proposed building envelopes or anything. But this is not in an approvable form to bring to the county, nor is it an approvable form for a final minor subdivision map. So Vinny had recommended granting them sketch plan approval with a laundry list of conditions, things that need to be taken off the map because there's so much on it, things that should stay on. And one of the things that I discussed with Vinny, was the line of limit of disturbance. That's sort of around here. So this is their building envelope. And then they have these lines of limit of disturbance on each lot. And when you total the cumulative amount of limit of disturbance, they come back just shy of an acre, which means they won't need a SWIFT. But that's just for the purposes of the subdivision. When the lots come in to be developed, you have your building area. So those are your setbacks for your structures. But then this is all in. [transcription gap]

where it's not as much review or information that drew needs so i did put that into the conditions of the resolution to approve the sketch along with all the things that need to be taken off the map things that need to be on the map i forwarded it to the applicants haven't received any sort of feedback on it so i don't know if the board had any questions at this point but that's where i'm coming from a planning point and i agree with vinnie we need to go from sketch how do they keep going after sketch essentially they would if you look at the conditions i have in the draft resolution they would have to make a bunch of revisions to the subdivision map remove a lot of that sort of unnecessary information title it minor subdivision plan and get it to a form where they could bring it to the county so they would make all the the revisions i know they said they had reached out to engineering to sort of work on that sediment and erosion control plan drew had also asked for the paving and drainage details for the common driveway that's something else that you know i wanted to see happen before they get final approval um the cut is already there right no so this is this is a cold sack so it terminates here but there's an opening there oh okay there is one where the uh the belgian block actually goes into that property i'm just looking at my pictures from when i this is a very like long long winded one old application so when i was there in 2023 i don't know if the block was there because i did have a picture of the cul-de-sac um in any case mike from highway doesn't have an objection to them making a carpet there he just asked that there only be one because it's you know silly to have multiple driveways accessing a cul-de-sac so they would all share this access it meets town town law 280a in terms of access for each lot obviously they would have to come up with a plan you know where each person what they would be responsible for in terms of maintenance um you know utilities it would have to be in there and that language would come in the final approval along with any other you know covenant restriction language like no further subdivision of any lot um so right now the sketch plan approval is just to sort of get them to complete all the necessary revisions so it's in a form that you guys can approve as a minor subdivision map and that can be filed with the county okay so what do you need us to do now well my question is um do you concur with vinnie's comment that um they should either have a non-disturbance buffer or in the alternative go for the full swift i haven't heard back from the applicant um i mean if there's a preference that the board would have i can communicate that to them i would like to see the natural wooded trees remain that are there currently okay i don't know how you guys feel that sounds good what's the percentage of the of the property that you want to remain that um i mean we don't really have anything like fast and loose in the code that gives us a definitive percentage um i could speak to vinnie about that because i mean their limit of disturbance is this sort of area up here i don't know if we would limit it to their building envelopes and then this would be they would buffer here that's something i could certainly work out with vinnie and the applicant maybe we can meet on it and then discuss prior to final approval but i really just this is to get them to do all the revisions they need to do so the map is a little less busy and again in an approvable form question uh on the original report there were tanks yes yeah and they said i think during the public hearing i'd probably have to go back through the minutes um to their knowledge there was no oil or any sort of like gases stored in them they thought maybe wine at one point not sure if that was a joke or not um they'll be removed obviously but that's something that came up during the public hearing today yes well if there's any type of tanks and it did have any petroleum product in it you think it's worth it to just uh maybe reduce it to a soil sample just to make sure nothing's contaminated we had spoken about that and they said there was no there were no petroleum products stored in there to their knowledge um i could revisit that with them if you want i'm sure they would they would have they would have removed them they've been sitting there for a while for a few decades so they could have been like water storage tanks um for the adjacent ag property because it was all owned i think by the vander wetterings at one point yeah all right good that's good okay thank you heather um number three zidish levy i hope i pronounced that properly residence chapter 219 at 24 beach hill uh with heather again representatives here i'm sure i didn't do your client any favors with that pronunciation but it's not asleep it's good okay that's good so if everybody wants to just take a seat at the table announce uh your name for the record

my name is chris mccall from the contract of record for new image melissa cuddy attorney for the applicant uh doug adams uh engineer and surveyor for the applicant all right um so this is a chapter 219 permit application for 24 beach hill drive in calverton up in woodcliffe park the seasonal community suffolk county tax number 600-40.2-1-15 um just a general overview i mean the board already knows this is a very um tight community um and i think it's a very important thing to know about the community in terms of where the buildings are it's been in existence for a long time um the property itself the house was constructed over a drainage pipe back in the 80s um and at some point i'm assuming it was probably a cmu block foundation as many of the cottages up there are um it got undermined and due to heavy rains um or just general degradation the foundation was undermined they had to start emergency work to raise the house and construct a new foundation there is a provision in the 219 code that allows people to do emergency work emergency activities are typically exempt from permits as long as they notify the town that didn't happen a significant amount of work occurred on the property a lot of fill got pushed over the bluff face new york state dec went out a lot of fill got pushed over the bluff face new york state dec went out code enforcement was out there in Justice Court right now so at this point they settled with the New York State DEC an order of an order on consent was issued and signed they have to do site restoration and remediation including removing some of the fill and regrading here off of the bluff base and also replanting the erosion and sediment control plan that you have lists some plantings that need to be put in I think they have bayberry and some beach grass tells you the spacing of the plantings they're also bringing in 23 cubic yards of clean fill to fill in that void on the western portion of the property you can see from the picture of the staff report it's a pretty significant drop between the top of the foundation and that side property line and I think that picture is from when code enforcement was there I think early 2025 I think early 2025 they got a stock work order so the property's just been sitting at this point and any heavy rain that we had caused some further erosion so they need that fill to bring that back up and stabilize the area so this board does have jurisdiction to grant the chapter 219 permit and the house itself the foundation went in the same exact place as the previous foundation so they are allowed to replace in kind they even just set the old house they're not allowed to replace it so they're not allowed to replace it

I believe it's strapped and secured you know because they didn't want to leave it up on the cribbing so the New York State DEC does have a time clock on when they need to complete all of these site restoration measures and in order to get their building permits to do that and also continue the work on the house this properties you know the proximity to the construction going on I did add some language into the resolution just to add additional protective measures like so extra hay bales still been saying if the building inspector determines that maybe like a temporary retaining wall might be necessary that's not anything I would have a problem with you know as long as it's below the maximum allowable height again just to protect the neighboring properties if they get the work done quick enough hopefully they stabilize the site before we get any additional heavy rain so I don't know if the board had any questions can you John mention that like they threw bricks and debris and stuff down the bluffs yeah that's all gonna have to be removed as part of the order on consent there was stuff there already okay that was pre-existing we actually plan to pull it out sir I don't mean to cut you off miss No um !

I heard under um the condition number four on the last page of the resolution all construction and demolition debris shall be removed completely completely from the site so I can we could just say debris in general which they're already willing to do and again they need to do that in order to replant that area that the DEC wants them to replant like we discussed I had a problem on both east and west side of the house for your neighbor's property if there's gonna be any type of heavy rain if there's gonna be any type of heavy rain um!

today this board was happy to grant us that i'd have it done on monday i'm waiting to you know get the green light go and have them have it on earth the homeowner is willing he was actually willing to re-vegetate prior to being told by dc he had to he wants to save his property he wants to save the house he's in his family neighbor's property doug have you seen that one yeah i think on the on the west side right now it's the exposed uh area for constructing the foundation and nothing's been done in there right right so that needs to be back once that's back filled in there won't be a slope there so that's until that time well in that location i wouldn't put any because you gotta be the first thing we need to do is fill it back in on the west side and then we could put hay bales on top of that because that's going to generate the same you'll we'll make the condition on the west side after filling it the same as it is now on the on the east side and they add the hay bales until they establish you know on the east side maybe put some hay bales on the other you know it's not the other your neighbor's property because i think i think we hesitated to show any any activity on the neighbor property but with you know willing with permission we could run it right up to their hub you know the extra five or six feet you're talking about i think the important part is that the the site work's going to happen first in order to sort of effectuate staging areas so that they can finish the house itself they have to rebuild the decks that were formerly there i had spoken to mr cuddy about the deck you know they have the right to rebuild them um in kind and place i was you know wondering if they would be willing to eliminate the lower deck that was there or at least reduce the size that way you're retreating a little bit from um the top of the bluff it's always a good practice to do that not required but i don't know if the client was amenable to that yeah i think he said he was he would he would reduce the size of the deck okay so that's a plan revision i'd want to see you know the the area of the previous decks and then the area of the decks to be reconstructed i think would be good um so heather if we approve the resolution he's allowed to backfill to they can get their permits and then start all their work i know that you've had the permit paperwork in for a while and it was held up because of gec and um the need for chapter 219 approval so i don't know if you had any outstanding forms you needed to provide the billing permit if not once the resolution gets they can go ahead and get their building permit yeah they might ask for updated insurance which i have i can provide at the end of today or tomorrow morning first thing that's not an issue it just expires as you renew every year like your regular car insurance what's happening to that sauna so that's been there it was actually so where the sauna was in the concrete wall there was a deck over that it was i don't know if it was attached to the house or if you had to walk out of the lower doors of the house and access it there um but i'm assuming it's either going to remain in place or go back up against the house and the deck will go over it um so like i it was existing so i have no objection because it's in front of me yeah i mean i don't have an objection to them keeping it because it was there legally they are allowed to you know maintain things or replace in kind um as long as it meets old building code requirements um when the building inspector just looks at the ends um and there's no sort of separation distance needed to put the deck over it i'm fine with it um you know i'd rather them just leave it where it is and not sort of exacerbate any further ground disturbance on the site well the residence is stable at this point right yes sir okay very much so all right um if you gentlemen want to take a sheet we're going to have a vote in a little while yes sir do i need to i mean was my language in the resolution okay eric in terms of the neighboring property is i kept it pretty general that way if the building inspector you know says hay bales and silt fencing is fine or if they want to do a retaining wall that's fine i tried to keep it general that way it can be determined sort of on site what's needed i didn't see anything okay

thank you thank you gentlemen good luck good job heather

okay discussion item number four elite towers at beating hollow with greg

you're absolutely my name is david kenny i'm an attorney with snyder and snyder i'm here today to represent the applicants elite towers um greg all right so good afternoon everybody uh what we have is a site plan application submitted by elite towers seeking approval to construct a 140 foot tall monopole wireless communications tower with sectors for seven wireless carriers along with a related ground mounted equipment facility within an approximately 1600 square foot fence and a ! 1,400 foot tall monopole wireless communications tower with sectors for seven wireless carriers along with a related ground mounted equipment facility within an approximately 1,600 square foot fence and a [transcription gap] So the plans we've received, we've received the site plan, we've received an antenna site FCC RF compliance assessment report, an RF justification report. They did an analysis for the FAA regulations regarding tower height. They also provided a proposed view shed map prepared by Saratoga Associates, and we've received the full environmental assessment form. So in terms of SICRA, this is a type 1 action under Riverhead Town Code requiring mandatory coordinator review among involved agencies. The only agencies that I can identify as being involved right now are the Riverhead Zoning Board of Appeals and the Suffolk County Planning Commission. They'll get a referral pursuant to GML 239. Regarding the use itself, Town Code Section 301.274A states that no telecommunications tower, satellite, earth station, or power station is allowed to be used in the area. The power station shall hereafter be used, erected, moved, reconstructed, changed, altered, or modified to serve as a telecommunications tower or satellite earth station without the issuance of a special use permit by the Town Board in conformity with the requirements of this article. And then Section 274B states that towers shall be permitted by special permit only in the following zoning use districts. The APZ, the PIP, the PRP, the RFC, DRC, SC, BC, CRC. The RLC, CILI, RLC, and TRC zoning use districts. Based on the fact that the R80 zoning use district is not listed among those, they're going to require a use variance. I will prepare a denial letter to provide to the applicant, and I will also begin the secret coordination among involved agencies. Regarding the visual assessment, so they did not provide the actual visual assessment yet. They provided a proposed view shed map. Justin, can we zoom out just a hair, please? Just a tad. Thank you. So this is the proposed two-mile radius view shed map. The location of the tower is this yellow dot right here. The red dots scattered throughout the map are the suggested photo locations that they have identified as being potentially impacted by the view shed. So you've got one up by the condos up on the north. Up on the north end of the property. Several locations along Sound Avenue, Warner Drive. You've got a location in some of the neighboring subdivisions also to the south. One of the questions I know the applicant had was, being before the board, do you recommend any additional photo assessment locations? And we don't need an answer for that today. We have time. Obviously, this is. It's going to be an application that goes through several meetings. So we have time to add that. What the applicants did already was we took photos last month during the leaf off conditions. So we could at least document the worst case scenario. However, we hadn't met before the board, so we didn't have the opportunity to get your input or the zoning board's input on any additional photo locations. So while we already have some photos of leaf off conditions, we can still take additional photos from other areas. The leaves aren't 100% on the trees yet. So we can still have some. More visibility than full summer conditions. So we just would like to, you know, again, we don't have to have the answer today, but if you have any additional viewpoint locations you think should be included in our analysis, we'd absolutely want to get that information and document that. So essentially, it will be the communications will be inside the tower, so it could be used as a flagpole. Exactly. So right now, it's a nautical pole that we're going because so with the difference between the flagpole or a flagless flagpole, like the nautical pole is sometimes usually the ornamental pole on top. So right now, we're not proposing an ornamental ball on top because we save that space for emergency communications devices. So if police, fire, or other public emergency communication services have a need in this area, we'll be able to support their equipment as well. And we put them at the very top of the tower so they have the best coverage. There's a letter here to the ZBA. Has there been any action on that? No. So I have not provided the ZBA denial. I didn't want them to make an application. I've submitted the application to the ZBA before we commenced the secret coordination. That's been standard process for the board. So they're just holding it? Yeah, correct. So yeah, that was just really a letter to the ZBA that was just submitted with the application. But the actual application to the ZBA will be generated from the denial letter that I provided to the applicant. So in terms of the tower location, the tower is proposed to be approximately 140 feet off of Sound Avenue. I did note that the ZBA is a little bit more than a hundred feet away from the tower. That the, just the scale of the plans and the level of detail make it a little difficult to determine exactly where the tower is going to be. There is a, you know, there is the parking lot for the Bainting Hollow Club. This area, again, without seeing, you know, details on topography or existing vegetation, it sort of makes it a little difficult to ascertain if they need to do any clearing. You know, sort of like a little dip here, a little hollow. So just... How close to the clubhouse? Is it away from the clubhouse? Or... I don't think the plans identify the separation to the clubhouse. I mean, it would be a minimum of 140 feet. The likelihood, though, is that there will be, you know, the 140-foot radius or, you know, the fall zone of the tower would likely overlap with some of the existing parking areas. So, again, just that level of detail I would look for in a revised set that we could really consider the impacts of the application. You know, just show existing vegetation. Some topography. Show the limits of the area. Show the limits of the parking lot. So the Board can really consider any potential safety hazards or, you know, anything of the like. Are you saying it would actually be closer to Sound Avenue than to the building? More than likely, yes. We'll have the updated plan show the location of the clubhouse so you can exactly see it. Is it a falling hazard, the same with the road as it is the building? So the separation or the setback for the tower right now pursuant to our code requires 100 feet. So, you're saying that's the limit? Yes. Okay. [transcription gap] so that one part of the tower is a little bit weaker, so that if the tower were to fall over, it would collapse in on itself, thus reducing the fall zone. We show on there the 140 because that's what was required by the code, but practically it would fall much closer in on itself. And we can have further reviews of that throughout the process. In this type of construction, there's no support wires needed? No, this is not a guide tower.

On page 4 of the staff report, I did, again, I didn't go to every location on that proposed viewshed map, but I did just take a couple of pictures along Sound Avenue to give you just an idea of what you're looking at. Figure 2 is taken from Sound Avenue looking towards the northwest. You can see the clubhouse off in the distance. And then figure 3 was taken just west of the Bainy Hollow Congregational Church. The tower would likely be somewhere in that capture area. And we'll have photo simulations of the tower with our next submission so you can see it. Exactly, see it. And we can discuss, you know, this is already a stealth design where we're concealing the antennas within the pole. But there's other things we can do here, maybe painting part of the tower sometimes to reduce the noticeability. Sometimes you can paint the top half of the tower sky blue, bottom half of the tower below a tree line kind of more brown. There's things we can do to help with color that might limit the noticeability. You don't have structures hanging in the air, so sometimes it's usually just the pole itself you'll see. So if we can maybe color it more like the sky or something to make it less visible. Okay. Or less noticeable, we can absolutely do stuff like that. In my opinion, if it's got an American flag hanging on it, that would work for me. Okay. We can look into that. Again, the difference with the flag would be the ornamental ball because we want to reserve that space for public emergency communications equipment. Is there any way starting a little bit lower with the tower and maybe eventually going higher instead of starting so high? So we can review that. So our carrier right now is AT&T that is part of, decided that they're going to be the first carrier on this. So we have to confirm with them. They're controlling kind of the need of the facility for as far as height because it's a technical reason. But we can review that to them to see if there's any wiggle room. Generally, we propose this as a minimum height for that first carrier. But we also are cognizant of the fact that you don't want to have multiple towers in the area. So we want to build it for co-location. So we're building it right now for what AT&T's needs are. We're also taking into account space for Verizon, space for T-Mobile, so that if this tower was constructed, and approved if T-Mobile had a need in the area or Verizon had a need in the area they could be kind of pushed into our tower for co-location purposes rather than having multiple one-off towers in the same area. But this is something we can review, you know, with our RF engineers to see if there's any wiggle room there. And to your point, our code does encourage co-location, like Mr. Kenney said, rather than, you know, towers popping up all over the place. The purpose is to minimize the overall number of towers. So. Just regarding tower height, and this will need to come into play and be considered with the visual assessment. Our town code, the wireless communications section, essentially allows an existing tower to be modified or rebuilt with no additional separation to a greater height over the tower's existing height in order to accommodate the co-location of a single additional antenna. It's a little wordy and a little verbose, but I've sort of interpreted that to mean they're allowed to essentially increase the number of towers to be built in the same area. So, you know, the actual size of the tower, the height of the tower to allow for the, for one additional carrier. So, that would be done without special permit. That would be done without site plans. So, when considering the visual assessment, you know, coming in with a 140-foot tower right now, the visual assessments really should consider a, what is essentially a permitted build-out, if this tower is constructed, of an additional 10 feet. Because that would, that's something that would not come before any board. Another carrier, I mean, I don't know that there's 8 wireless carriers out there that would go on the tower, but that's something that needs to be considered. We'll take that under advisement. But again, as I stated before, more likely what we're doing right now is reserving that top part for a whip antenna or for an emergency communication. So, that might affect our ability just practically for extending the height of the tower if we're putting emergency communications up there. But we can take that under advisement and see if that's something we can do our visual analysis. The only thing is, is that we're building a tower So, that's something that we're considering. But again, as I stated before, more likely what we're doing right now is reserving that top part for a whip antenna or for an emergency communication. But again, is that something we're considering. And we've kind of engineered it so that carriers can go below AT&T. So, we're not anticipating or proposing to extend the tower. So, right now any kind of height, I understand it's a code requirement, but that's really just speculative right now. We're not proposing anything of that nature. Is there a particular height where you require lighting on? Yes. So, that was the statement earlier that we did an FAA analysis that confirmed that we don't need any light on the tower or any FAA working. That's going to be at about, I think, almost 300 feet AM and we're a little bit below 200 feet AM. So, there's a large difference between we're not going to, by the 10 foot increase, get a light on the tower from that. Okay. So, just going through, so again, I touched on just some of the additional details regarding the actual location of the facility in relation to the existing vegetation, some of the parking areas. The RF analysis that was submitted with the report demonstrated that the maximum permitted exposure level at ground level is 0.273. Okay. So, that's about 38% of the FCC MPE limits, which is pretty much in line with every application we've reviewed. I don't think I've ever seen anything that gets above like 1 or 2%, so that's generally in line. And again, touched on the FAA regulations that they don't need any sort of extended study or lighting pursuant to FAA regulations. So, that's this application at a high level overview. Again, I will, I do have a resolution for the board to classify it as a type 1, commence a secret coordination, and I will, also generate the ZBA denial letter to get to the applicant so that they can proceed with their ZBA application. Very good. Okay. Anything else, gentlemen? Okay. Okay, thank you. Good luck. Thank you. Good job. At this time, we're going to open it up for public comments on any resolution. Okay. Seeing anybody? Resolution 2026-019-2025, minor subdivision. Okay. Thank you. And I vote aye on the motion of the subdivision to granting the sketch plan approval to the subdivision. Second. Moved and seconded, Mr. Zelnicki? Yes. Mr. Hogan? Yes. Mr. Nannero? Yes. Mr. Bayer? Yes. And I vote aye. The motion carries. Resolution 2026-020, Chapter 219, coastal erosion permit for 2026 Beech Hill Drive. Second. Really? You're not going to say that name? Nope. nope did somebody second it okay mr. Zernicki yes mr. Hogan yes mr. Nenaro mr. bear yes and I will either motion carries I'll move resolution number 20 260 to one elite towers Bading Hollow resolution to classify the site plan application to construct a new 140 foot tall wireless communication tower so moved second second mr. Zernicki yes mr. Hogan yes mr. Nenaro mr. bear yes and I vote aye the motion carries at this time we'll take public comments on all matters okay not seeing anybody how about minutes guys minutes March 19 2026 second second mr. Zernicki yes yes mr. Nenaro mr. bear yes and I vote aye the motion carries Greg no secret actions staff other business you guys are efficient correspondence our next meeting date is going to be Thursday May 7th at 6 p.m. have a great weekend everybody motion to close all in favor all opposed thank you very much everybody you