Full Transcript

Thank you. Good morning everybody. Today is October 1st and we are here for a work session. Before we go any further, why don't we stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. And George Bartnik has agreed to lead us in that. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, sir. This morning we have any announcements from our council people? Not yet. You want to go first? Okay, go ahead. so October 10th at 430 is the tract of a poll and that's on Sound Avenue at the attractive museum and then this weekend 10 to 4 both days Saturday and Sunday the Halleckville Museum farm will be open country fair which is if you haven't been there there's a lot of vendors a lot of cool vendors a lot of people who make stuff so I would recommend you go 10 to 4 this Saturday and Sunday in Halleckville. Thank you sir. Ms. Wodwalski? Do you have anything? I believe the Warrior Ranch is on the 4th if people want to go to that and contribute to that. That's a lovely cause. I just don't know the times. Does anybody know the times? The Warrior Ranch is going to be there as a VIP that starts at 1.30 and then I think the General's at 2 o'clock. at a very worthy cost. Yep, ticketed event, good stuff. Did you want me to put those out? I do, please. I have a few.

Working on some good stuff. All right. All right, can we do the... All right, we'll do that one first. Nope, let's go to the one... No, no, no, that's fine. Justin, if you could put this up for me, please. We have... The BIDMA is putting on a haunted walking tour. It's a 1930s true crime experience, which will be Saturdays in October. The good and the bad news is that it's sold out already. So it's the first time that they're putting this forward, and people jumped on it right away. And if all goes well, which we're hoping that it will, they'll be adding possibly other dates and maybe something, you know, change it up just a little bit. So that's that. And then BIDMA is also putting on the Witches and Wizards Battle, which is a battle down on the river this Saturday at three o'clock. You can use a paddleboard or a canoe, kayak, whatever you would like to use that's non-motorized down on on the river. Everyone must have a life vest for safety purposes, but that will be this coming Saturday. And then we have our anti-litter cleanup day by the anti-litter committee. That's going to be November 7th, which is a Saturday from 9 to 11. We will provide vest, pickers, gloves, everything needed. And we will be doing plogging this time around. Something new which is picking up litter while jogging. So we're incorporating a little bit of exercise into it. So looking forward to that. And then BIDMA also has their Merry Market coming back again this year. It was a huge success last year. They already We have so many vendors that have already signed up, and that is going to be on December 5th from 3 to 8 right here at Town Hall. So more information to come on that, but exciting stuff going on. Absolutely awesome. Thank you very much for sharing those things. Anyone else have any other announcements? If not, I just want to remind everybody we have our Halloween costume swap going on right here at Town Hall with our recreation department. 9 30 to 4 every day until october 24th our recreation is also doing a paint a pumpkin or treat bag at stotsky on october 12th at 10 a.m and they're doing their trunk or treat through our rec department same park october 16th and they're doing a drive-in movie our rec department is absolutely doing a lot of events on the 17th so with that said we'll move into homecoming parade I believe that that kicks off at one o'clock it does yeah so yeah more good stuff yeah there's fall on Long Island and Riverhead is just chocked full of great stuff so thank you good catch anybody else understood move on too fast we'll move right into our first work session work session item with open session Julie was now ski Pekani Glam Trust the open space committee asked to come forward Janice has asked just to give us an update if if you would like to come forward Julie just a quick timeline if you guys want to join our open space you're welcome to you asked for this you guys asked to be on today give us a kind of a to give the community and our board an update on what the timeline looks like I know we're we're anxiously awaiting that time absolutely you guys just want to go around and just introduce yourselves George we'll start down here George Barnack I'm a member of the open space committee Janice Leonti I'm the chair of the open space committee Jessica Murphy I'm the director of conservation initiatives for the Peconic Land Trust Julie Wisnowski project manager at the Peconic Land Trust. Nancy Gilbert, member of the Open Space Committee, and in full disclosure, a board member of the Peconic Land Trust. Catherine Stark, former legislator, and I have been working for you for over 20 years. Thanks for joining us. Thank you all. So Julie? Okay, so just to give you a brief update of where we're at with the project, we're moving ahead very well with Suffolk County on their purchase of development rights on the farmland portion of the property. We had a site visit last week, I think, to go over the boundaries for the survey and whatnot, and things are working their way through the county process to get to a closing. They did let us know that in order to get everything they need, the survey, et cetera, meet their legislative calendar they wouldn't be ready to close until the first quarter of 2027. so we have um sort of a prospective closing date with nassau county of around december 2nd but we have a call to set up to speak with them about you know that we're probably not going to December 2nd. Yes we are. Okay well with Catherine's help at the county we're still aiming for December 2nd but realistically for Suffolk County to get their things together it looks like early 2027. They had mentioned to me about February is what they were expecting. Yeah. I'm just cracking the whip. I know you had asked about bringing this on and having an update on timeline, and so we wanted to make sure that everybody in the public was aware and the board was aware. But I knew just letting everybody know that we're thankful for a continuation on this work. And so we'll probably bring you into exec at some point to discuss with the Peconic Land Trust once you guys are finalized and discuss the possibility and what the numbers look like. So really, unless you guys have a question, thank you. Thank you for doing this and coming forward. I don't know if you have a question. I think it's great for the public to know that there's full board support for this land preservation project. So every time we move forward, we're just doing our due diligence and working with the county. and we've met a few times and met with Mr. Halsey. So everybody's excited about the project. We're just kind of doing our due diligence, moving along, but I know together we're all going to get it done. Well, that's good to hear. We have not heard that. Because, you know, of course, as the Open Space Committee, we are particularly concerned with the piece for Riverhead to purchase with the CPF funds. So that's our focus, that we don't lose that piece. The funding is in hand. We're just trying to, you know, we were trying to sharpen the pencil on the numbers or whatever because I think there's a lot of, you know, obviously we want to preserve as much land as we can in Riverhead. So we were having, as we spoke at our last meeting, just communicating with the county if there was any way for them to contribute, you know, any more to its purchasing development rights before we buy it and stuff like that. So they're looking into a few other options if there's any other assistance. But, you know, we do, you know, we expect to move forward. But there's a lot of other great projects. so we just want to buy up as much as we can with the CPF funding. And you're referring specifically to the piece that Riverhead would purchase with the CPF funds? Yes. Okay. See, now, that's where my confusion comes in, because in my long history, this is one big lot. So you have three partners that are all putting towards the purchase. This is very atypical that you would identify a piece of property and pull that out. And then with the appraisals that you got, now a 32-acre parcel is going to appraise much different than 145 pieces of property. The land trust is not out to make money. I don't think anybody said they were, Catherine. No, no. I'm just stating facts. So the land trust becomes whole, and then they roll that money into further preservation projects. But the confusion, so I don't know if it's just me, but identifying one piece of property as opposed to joining with the county and the land trust to buy the whole piece, that's where I'm confused. You just confused me. Catherine, that's where I'm confused as well, because to your point, when the entire property was assessed, it was assessed at roughly $69,000 an acre. And then we did go out and get 30-some-odd acres appraised, and it was $110,000. Right. So why did you get that 30 acres appraised? Because that's the piece that we would be purchasing. yeah the piece they're gonna end up in ownership well because the initial purchases we have to raise any property that we purchase as a whole right exact town um contributing there yeah how is buying it from no you're they're going to buy it that's what i'm saying they'll purchase it subdivided and then sell it to us so that's correct it's an economies of scale issue so because you know i mean you know because if it's all going into preservation right at 69 000 an acre which makes sense to me the entire piece then the town paying 110,000 an acre. You're buying it and reselling it to us. We're not even buying it. You're just selling it to us at 110. I like buying the whole pie not buy it by the slice. Anyway. I do think that there's because you are purchasing all of it together and so the purchase price that you're getting is clearly a better price because you're buying essentially three separate parcels and combining it so I understand that one right now it's going to be subdivided up into right now it's one aware of that and that's why I said when you when you go ahead and you get an appraisal on one the larger piece of land you know then obviously there's an expectation that you're going to get a better price per acre and so yeah the I think when we do subdivide it in the future, the portion that the town owns, depending on where each parcel is, meaning the town's parcel, the county's parcel, what the Connick Land Trust is going to keep, there are different values to that, and it's going to be broken up accordingly. So we understand that. I'm not set that it's a set price, you know, take $10 million and divide it all by acres. You know, some is on the water. It may not be on the water. Some is as accessible use. Some is solid woods. It's all different about how you divide it up and so forth. Some have structures on it, so I think the piece that we're looking at that we take does have at least four structures that will be longstanding that could be put to use. And when I say put to use, meaning very minimal, whether it could be book club meetings, it could be Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, full-range programs, things like that, where they could be very mundane, quiet, soft recreational uses on the property. So those structures are there. It might be a nice garage there for Parks and Recreation to put some of their summer equipment and things like that in there for storage and to hold on to. So that has a value as well. But then simultaneously, there's a lot of structures, as we all know, that have to be removed. And so when we're looking at $400,000 to the cost to remove those structures, we understand that as well. We were just sharpening all of our numbers to do the best we can because we want to preserve a lot of land. You know, this is a great parcel. But this one, I want you to reiterate to you how important this is to us to move forward on this and to preserve this land. That's great. I would also like to add that when Councilman Rothwell and myself met with you and Mr. Halsey, you made an excellent point. You said that for 110 an acre, that for that, we're actually getting this whole piece here in Riverhead. And that's where it's so important that the county, the land trust, and the town come together. And this is a win for Riverhead. That's an excellent point, Joanne, that it's not going to be the preservation of the 35 acres the town ends up with. you know you're helping facilitate the preservation of the 145 acres so and they're contiguous with what we've already preserved the sound avenue preserve so i mean that's just a win that you could park at sound avenue and potentially hike right up to the bluff on the sand and it will make the sound avenue preserve much more appealing and much more usable and the idea of using the buildings to provide some kind of passive programming. This is not just about dollars and cents. This is an investment in the community and in the future of the community. And I think we lose sight of that because we're always sharpening our pencils and thinking dollars and cents. But this is the future. And if this gets developed, it will not be undeveloped. So it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to really think about our connection to the land and how we identify as a community. And I think that that is something we really need to factor in, although it doesn't get written down on paper. But the Sound Avenue Quarter, we know how important it is to people in Riverhead and in Southhold. It is a critical piece of our history. It's critical to all of the state of New York. And what's awesome is that the 4-H will continue doing their activities over the property base because you will hold on to that fossil for them. So I want everybody to know that 4-H isn't going away. The county executive actually declared it with the state a historic agricultural quarter. So it has that designation. Agricultural quarter? Yes, when he was a legislator. from waiting river until laura lane it's an agricultural scenic court we have our parcel rating form here also and just as an aside this property this piece for the town received our highest rating since this the inception of this committee so you know it checked so many boxes and you know we of course did walk the property and then look at all the things it rated much higher than any other property and we've you know we've rated what we used to be the Beagle Club on Edwards Avenue you know all this has surpassed that so rightfully so patients and everyone for coming in and just one quick question why is the town subdividing that portion subdividing they are subdividing why is the town interested in 32 acres we're not purchasing all the property they are because they're an adjacent owner with the existing sound avenue preserve and then it's a nice continuous right they could expand to the way that's hot an extension of their existing preserve maybe you could take your at me shore the map offline and help her to get that so yeah but that would be great yeah no i know you know but like after 20 years i just it's unusual thank you well thank you guys each everyone I really appreciate here yeah thanks for calling and asking to get this on appreciate it our next matter would be matters surrounding our plan for parking management with Councilman Maryfield and Miss Thomas from our CDA and I believe Kevin would come on down to beautiful October morning

How are you guys today? We have your, thank you so much for providing this. Justin, I believe you have the, right? Oh, you have it. You're controlling. Great. Even better. Wow. Great. Fantastic. All right. If I may, just a review. As we're having these work sessions, we've been taking in modules. Last time we met, we talked about enforcement and permitting at length. We built a matrix that's brought us up to our appropriate RFP. We're going to do our meeting with Theresa right after this to see that that is faithfully going out. We had... MS. Just so the public understands what you mean, the RFP and the matrix, that's for looking at all the different vendors for the handhelds and such to go forward with the parking and... a proper way to bring those that we looked at and more, to be very honest. I think you're going to get a very robust reply to that RFP, and I think we should all look forward to that based on some of the feedback I got here as well. Councilman Kern, you had asked about some direct feedback and surveys. I provided that to you this morning just as it sat unedited, and everybody got a copy of that. Thanks. Okay, so review when you like. Today we're here to talk about a concept that most people don't know on the street, pile-up, payment in lieu of parking. And I'll run through some slides, but we'll just talk about it out loud as well. Payment in lieu of parking has historically, first of all, been very valuable to communities in and around Long Island, Port Jefferson, Greenport, and other communities. and it's a little different here in Riverhead in that you have an existing parking district with a long legacy of what 60 years at least right I think it started in the 60s and I want to explain that those two different methods of funding parking are completely different the the parking district provides what I see as funding from taxes that's a fact actually but in our view that should be used for maintenance and furthering what we're doing at these parking lots that I've said our assets in the past as opposed to these one-time pilot payments from future developers I don't think we want to or can go backwards on this which would be instrumental in building a ubiquitous system that we're about to embark on be it the part of the garage obviously that has a grant but other spaces that would be available to the downtown district I have a spreadsheet sheet that is subsequently added of this that's that's real information so the flexibility of understanding how a pileup works is you know if you didn't have a pileup in place which you don't you'd have to ask developers to make parking sometimes that's possible sometimes that's not you have a historic district here many times it was just plainly unless you dug 10 floors underneath the ground which is not plausible or likely it becomes very very challenging so we come up with a concept of developers paying a one-time fee per space to ensure the ubiquity of the system going forward this was recommended in the 2020 study that was completed by Sam Schwartz in his or their strategic parking plan at $12,500 per space. That seems like almost eons ago, right? 2018. It's almost seven years ago. Everything that we have spoken about in life has doubled or tripled since. So just putting that out there but it was 12,500 at the time that recommendation I thought that was looked upon positively I don't know you know I wasn't there in 2020 you know and how that was received maybe you could yeah there was a good amount of public engagement with that study mostly downtown business owners and business organizations and what that study kind of told us that we actually have a lot parking in the red we just hadn't managed it correctly and that when we get to a certain threshold we ought to implement a pileup so at that time we had drafted a pileup and in that study it says when we get to 70% occupancy downtown it's time and so now we are there and the 12,500 was based on an actual private parking lot purchase and development the one in particular that I'm referring to is to the east of Jerry and the Mermaid that was purchased by the owner of that property and developed as a parking lot so we got the land cost the cost of the improvements and the number of spaces and we use that as a benchmark to figure out what it would cost the town and that was on the light side because obviously it would cost us a little bit more than the private sector to build a parking stall but that 12-5 was that number and uh we had drafted um the amory still has in her uh files the drafts of the there's a few pieces of local legislation that need to be adopted to implement it but at that time uh everyone wanted to hold off and um you know we weren't really engaged at that point in the real um on-deck revitalization project yeah we had a lot of plans and strategies that had been developed over the many years of downtown revitalization review it was just an idea then correct it was a lot of ideas that we then you know really started implementing but we felt like there were two really important things that we needed to do in order to implement them one was manage the parking because it was this impression amongst residents that we didn't have enough parking which we didn't really have even any businesses have happening downtown we really didn't have many residential properties downtown and the point of the 2020 study was sort of to show well in fact we do have a lot of public parking which is a blessing to us and then the other issue was the flooding right so people like oh how can you redevelop downtown because it floods and so we address that through the Army Corps study. So those are the threshold studies we did to start implementing the real plans that we wanted to do for revalidation. So that's a long kind of winded discussion of that. I mean, I'll just ask an open-ended question, and it would be at that time maybe it would have been a good idea to enact that because there's been a lot of development since. And you can multiply that out as you see fit, but we think it's a good thing. to the consolidated pileup model we see the fact that you can get a lot of fragmentation again especially downtown Riverhead that's very historic small Lots lots of very complicated plot lines and lot lines and so you're able to control that a lot better with the pileup model and I would just I don't want to interrupt too much but just to say there's two you know complicating factors in our downtown one is high water table so putting parking beneath the grounds practically impossible particularly on the south side of main Street. And the other thing is, when you put parking underground or on the first floor on Main Street, you lose that activation. So the objective of the revitalization was not to have walk past, you know, a screened parking garage on the first floor, but to have actual retail or restaurant kind of things instead. So those were the practical realities of why the town wasn't that excited about requiring everyone to put their full parking requirements on site, and rather to think about the pile-up so sorry complicated as I said core benefits to the river going ahead you know I've talked again about the assets that Riverhead owns you know these parking lots the parking district owns the parking lots but the point is this that as Riverhead develops the people that are coming to downtown Riverhead represent commerce and there's there's a ratio there there's a return on ratio that is related to what a parking lot cost to develop and what that can return in terms of commerce, shopping revenue. I'm not seeing any parking lots being built anywhere for under $40,000 a space anywhere. That's very usual. So if we take a look at the number of what I'll get to on the next slide, we'll see why that matters. Self-sustaining capital pipeline, pile-up revenue shields, local taxpayers by capturing private development dollars directly for public infrastructure. Again, we know that this forthcoming multi-deck, as I like to call them, has a grant behind it, but there is always future need for parking, and hopefully there is, and there's a real reason for that. The Riverhead baseline study talked about $12,500 per space. Municipal benchmark, $18,000 a downstate. I think that's very low. These are lower than I think are reality, but it gives you an idea of the spread between these. This is low, too. 20, 26 surface stall replacement costs, $22,500 per. And then this is probably very accurate, a garage cost space at $35,000. So, again, at that benchmark, that $12,500 was more than reasonable. This is the real reality of what I came upon about nine months ago with talking to the departments here at Riverhead. You have this not on your spreadsheet, but you have it on the one I subsequently handed out, the second sheet I gave you.

These are the five occupied residential projects. They're 100% occupied, right? Yeah. Probably great demand, actually. so you know right right off the bat we have 144 space deficit and what that means is the number of apartments as compared to the space provided under that particular project but we live on Long Island and nothing just about nobody you know walks anywhere we're a very car driven society many of Riverhead don't necessarily work in Riverhead so we start to come out with a real reality of 1.2 to 1.5 cars per unit that I'm give us now a deficit of 190 to 278 as I put in red there and if you know anybody doesn't understand this let me know we start out again with the deficit just per space and then we go to reality of people having more than one car certainly even in apartments and more so with taxes and everything going up we know that there's more people living in a one-bedroom apartment that probably is one person right we know this so then we have another 247 potential units and I don't have the breakdown and I don't know that anybody at this table has to break down the future projects that are under the way and how that may space out in terms of space deficit but that's part of why we're talking about this what does the future look like for residential apartments how many promise are in Heatherwood 65 165 is inclusionary 247 to come so I didn't do that's not occupied yet so I didn't I'm not talking about the occupied product so on the bottom you have it as a is it in the queue yes okay so I'm only addressing in the future like our plan has got to be yeah absolutely I'm getting ahead of you sorry no I just like to stay with the facts that we know we can measure and even that I think is you know I'm giving an estimate there I think we all agree that you know one point two to one point five cards per unit is reasonable it it make sense um but unless we you know knocked on the door and said how many cars do you have uh which we could do but uh we could do that with is it just is it updated to include heatherwood and include parking that's going to be necessary for the pecanic hotel as well as all that we would further update that that spreadsheet so you're just alive it's 247 that's what he's asking is the 247 number have that or not 247 would be the the additional future additional to that 144 space including the 247 though includes heather yes and the hotel and the hotel yes i believe so 165 and 65 165 and how much 165 and 90. yeah i will further break that down for the future i was i was concentrating right on the reality of what we were able to survey and look at um and why this makes sense So we're getting to a legislative line here, right? We at some point want this board or make the advice that this board would make a decision on going forward with a parking program. Here are some of the benefits. Pile up funds, provide a town with a dedicated revenue stream, although that's a one-time revenue stream as opposed to the tax base that the parking district supplies. to construct structured parking garages, install smart parking management, which we've been talking about, and funding downtown shuttle transit, which we've been talking about. In dense downtown areas such as Riverhead, building physical on-site parking is sometimes, in this case, very economically impossible at times. PILOP gives developers a viable legal path, and that's important to note that I think that developers would look upon this fondly, not getting a stopgap to get their product in their development across the line. Again, these are future. What would be the definition of who would be included in future pilot? A project that has not yet been approved yet or a project that hasn't? Something that does not have a site plan approval, yes. Okay. If you have site plan, that's not going to apply. Correct. Pilot's not going to apply. Site plan approval or site plan submittal? Approval.

That's up to the board at the end of the day, but that's what we've recommended. Okay. You notice I put a spread here because the old number was 12,500. We're recommending the 18,000. So I put that spread there on purpose. We talked about the economics of new spaces are between 25 and 40,000 per space. So from a developer standpoint, I don't want to say this is a good deal and speak for them, but you can see that below what it would cost for them to build it. So we feel the town of Riverhead would have a fair compromise by asking developers to cover less than half of the astral replacement construction costs, striking a fair balance between economic feasibility for developers and town taxpayers being left out of bearing that expense. You'd also be incentivizing smart design, which we all are advocates of. fee is significant enough to encourage developers to design parking on a site where feasible yet reasonable enough not to halt high quality downtown redevelopments

again pilot plan with a twelve thousand five hundred to eighteen thousand per space fee isn't a penalty on development it should not be viewed that way it's a modest necessary investment to ensure downtown riverhead grows sustainably without overwhelming our public streets and infrastructure

our direct recommendations for the town board is to update the fee rate to 18 000 per stall get an enterprise fund uh started and block those funds in only that bank account to be you know straightforward uh codify the rules that dawn will be slain meaning that that that those funds should be locked in a place that aren't used for any other reason but to have the parking thing to allocate grant business what's that allocate grant funding or is that what you mean what are you for the pilot the pilot funds itself or pile up would go into like the parking district funds are not going to be rated for parking district in a parking improvements throughout the deck yes okay that's a startup okay part of That's the parking utilization plan that we've been working on, which we'll further on into two more work sessions with you. We'll tie that revenue into that parking utilization plan or that potential revenue plan. I'll leave this for obviously your infrastructure here, but my four points here are draft the law, have a hearing, establish that in a capital account, and apply the pilot defending site plans. I just want to be a little bit more clear. we all do in terms of pending site plans and approved site plans. I think pending is the right word, right, and not approved. Yeah. You know, there's a fairness aspect to changing the rules midstream. So, you know, somebody that's recently made a site plan application versus someone that's received an approval is kind of a good demarcation point. But, you know, something to discuss for sure. There may be developers that have something in with the town now. They're actually struggling to find parking, and this might actually be very good news for them. Right? Yeah. I mean, there's that side, too. I think it is seven years later. And I think we've really studied the parking situation. When we started in 2020, we were at 30,000 feet, and now we're down to 2,500, really kind of figuring out not just how do we make it work, including the parking utilization plan, the enforcement of parking, the implementation of mechanisms to ensure that future parking will be provided for, and all those things really dovetailing nicely with the start of the revitalization construction. Well because we are, there is the amphitheater is coming, there is the Suffolk Theater, there's the Jazz Loft, there's also going to be some type of family venue at 111 East Main. So there's going to be a lot and there's going to be all kinds of public engagement and events in the town square. So this is going to need a lot of parking. And to be used as well as it can be used. That's good stuff. I have a lot of questions. I just want to hear, I want to listen, I want to go back and find some. I just want to hear, I want to listen, I want to go back and find some questions and come back. So I think I have questions, but I want to think about it a little bit. Okay. We will further define that 247 because I think it does matter for the future. You just mentioned more things outside of the 247. Some of my questions, yeah, I just want to give it some thought. I want to hear what you're saying. Because the 247 also includes what's on the ground already. you're not adding to what's on the ground right so it would be good to know you know what how many how many floors are going to cover what's on the ground is it one and a half for the parking garage is it one and a quarter you know what i'm saying because you have infrastructure going up there you know because i mean my sense is just i don't want to i really don't want to jump the gun but this seems like, and I know we don't have the money, but a really low, you know, low number for a parking garage, because your excess spaces that I'm getting is 155 times the rule of three people per vehicle is 265 people. And so when I look at, I'll discuss, I don't want to, you know, i'll go through with my numbers with you at another time i'm real curious what's on the ground how many floors it takes in parking garage to get you know to what's on the ground and then the the the rest of it is additional parking to what's already on the ground is you're just talking about sizing of the structure yeah how many floors that's a t that's a good tbd though yeah i i mean that's something that and then whether or not you know we we in essence are planning for enough parking for the future given all the things that are going to happen downtown that's all right i have questions i have rough questions but again like i said but one of them is like with the pile up and the and the payment and the the the account that will be yeah the funds will be there um you know until we build whatever it is or create these other parking spots will that be able to be you know if i'm an owner a developer and i'm paying into that is that going to help fund the shuttle you know how you know what to make sure that they have the relief now not just when the garage is built or whatever you know is figured out for the future but that they're able to so that i just want to give you an idea of like where i'm thinking but i want to i want to think about those and and articulate those questions a little better so i i think this is very good news for developers and maybe you know the next parking district meeting we could have a developer give his opinion on this but I think when they are a challenge with providing parking specifically residential parking on a residential building or apartment building this provides I'll say you know an easier way to get it across the line and at the same time fund without taxpayer money the expansion of parking and the maintenance of parking in in riverhead so i i think it's a very uh positive thing for developers you know it would be a welcome item i think but we'll hear directly from them as well if you'd like i do think the 247 number is low because you know we are marketing 111 and that is has to be a true activation space downtown that's going to be drawing the tourism we're looking for that anchor down there i think we've We've got a great RFP that's gone out for that location, and that's going to be a necessity for parking. So I do think that I'd like to see the overall picture of what Heatherwood brings in, what the Botanical Hotel is in need for, what 111 is going to drive and get a big long-term picture. So I know these numbers here now, but we need to know what it's going to look like five years from now. Any other questions at all? Well, thank you guys. Thanks for the update. And I think we're going to get our questions together and get them back to you. So let's hear some of these. I'm thinking just how do we begin to get a full update on the cost of the parking garage? So I know that we've kind of allocated so far about $17 million, right, that we have in hand. Correct. Yep. So at what point do we, you know, is it soon to put out an RFP or how do we just get an idea of how close we are to realistic numbers? can the parking garage, one of the things we've talked about over the last few years, can the parking garage be built to expand? We have $17 million, and for argument's sakes, we said, let's build it. And I know it's not an office. Don't get nervous, Bob. You know, if we built it three floors and then it was a start, you know, could it be kind of like a Lego complex where then they come in and they add a fourth floor, then they add the fifth floor at later dates and we continue if necessary so at what point you know and and is there a time frame when any of that 17 million dollars that's allocated for the parking garage is there any expiration date like okay we didn't we didn't get this underway you know do we do we risk losing any funding so kind of get a better idea on the parking garage itself overall costs can it be broken down it can be multi-tiered obviously in other words if i don't want to sit for two years waiting on getting that you know to find out that this you know what was once a 20 million dollar parking garage is now 30 million and then you know two years from now it's 35 million it just keeps going up do we get shovels in the ground do we build a three tier and then then we expand to go to four and maybe five you know the way it's designed The precast gives you that. Yeah, exactly. The difficulty with getting, because we would have loved to have it designed and ready to go for the raise grant capital money. We have $2 million from the County of Suffolk that we could use for design, and it's available, and we have a contract. But because we're using that as a match, the federal government says we can't use it until we get the contract for the raise grant. So the most recent information I have on the RAISE grant was about a week ago we heard that it will be ready to go quarter one of 27. The minute we get that contract, and it will be very quick, so they'll send us, in fact, they were thinking they might even get us the contract in September. Didn't work out. But they'll send it to us, and we'll have just a very short time to turn it over. once the contract is signed and it's you know been two plus years now of negotiating and getting it the the details refined the minute that happens we can hire a consultant to do the design the design process will allow us to do all the costing we'll have what like we did with all the other we have the design firm will have cost estimators they give us ballpark figures on everything and then give you advice on there's multiple different types right modular would be the precast and then there's cast in place so there's benefits and detriments to each different type but you guys will hear from your consultant what they suggest is best and then you can think about sizing and the idea of uh you know correctly sizing that's important so the 504 stall size that we came up with was now four years ago and you're 100 right on the idea that that we wait for these contracts and the costs continue to go up there's just no controlling any of that that's why i'm just thinking that we go ahead and if the 17 million dollars is that we have allocated is for a parking garage but it's not it's not specific to say that it is a three tier or four tier or five whatever it may be, do we go ahead and begin the process to at least build potentially a three-tier with an expansion of four, maybe five? If we do that, begin that process, then does the town negotiate with Pecotic Hotel, Heatherwood, other things to say? if you would like to do a government and private partnership and you want to go ahead and purchase 15 spaces on floor number four and we find out what that addition is for that floor and we divide it and we sell that space, maybe somebody in Heatherwood wants their own reserve parking space on floor number four. So I just want to like, sometimes I feel that if we, it's just going to keep going up. I feel like if we sit and we're stagnant, I don't mean it like that, but I'm just saying. It is the truth. Use the money we have. If it's essentially a prefab structure that's just going to keep growing in time, then is there any hesitation on how soon can we begin the process? Well, I think that just to be fair, the raise grant, you've been waiting two years for that contract. Almost two and a half. Right. yes so that's then we have the award now we're waiting for the contract the contract is the trigger for us to allow us to spend and that's the stuff where 15 of the 17 comes from so that's what you're saying we can't use the 2 million to design until we get that and and not only did it lock up that money that not having a contract it's locked up the other money too the match money so what's What's the match money doing that in this? So the match money is a total. So the award, the total award is like $24 million. So $15,000,000 effectively, is going to the garage. And there's a 20% match. So we've matched the $24 million with other money. It's kind of very complicated. We can go over that another day. But the $2 million from the county was used as a match. And one of the things that they said to us initially was, You know, you could ask for relief to do that because ideally, and I don't really know why they do this, ideally we would have had the garage designed already, right? So we could have used that $2 million because that's active money we have right now to design. And then when we got the raise grant, we could pull the trigger and bid. The contract, you mean? When we get the contract correct, we could use the capital money immediately to implement what we've designed. haven't even been permitted to design because we can't we don't want to lose that match and have to come up with another two million dollars to figure out how to match so it's been very uh trying because if we had known and there are you know multiple government shutdowns and some other stuff in the interim that's really extra you know extended that process but because they told us nine months to a year and a half is what we should expect but we are told also that we are on the low side right now. So in terms of time and time waiting. So there's nothing wrong. It's just they're backed up and delayed. But we are told quarter one and that everything's done. Everything else is done. We've done everything that we needed to do. We're buttoned up. The contract's been ready to get advanced to signing and we're told quarter one. So hopefully that's... I guess just with the contract My fear, I guess, would be if we design it as one full four-story unit and then it's priced too high, then I don't want to have spent an enormous amount of money on a design that's not financially feasible because now the increase. So I just think that before we go ahead and put out an RFP or something for the actual construction design of the project, you know so maybe utilizing your expertise to say you should be designing this to be built within stages so that we're not going back to the drawing board well we can't build the four-story yeah how much we get for three-story and examining other possible locations for structured parking too so that those things are definitely on the agenda to happen we've just been anxiously awaiting this contract and it's just been you know um that's been the the challenge yeah that's the way to put it we also talk about you know you know consultants consultants i understand but wouldn't somebody should we start engaging with people that actually design and build these things as a you know because they these people do the engineering we don't need an engineering company to tell a parking garage company how to do it these this is what they do they have engineers you know i've spoken to a couple of uh parking garage building companies just in the course of just trying to get ballpark ideas and how things work and what the good things are and the bad things i've reset through a couple of presentations on those um you know and the minute we have that funding you can you can either do an RFP for a consultant to do that design for you somebody that can just get the garage company that people that build them I don't think that actually works you could talk to Teresa but that's I don't think that's doable from the purchasing side when these people you know if you know when these people do this that's their livelihood you know so we need a consultant to tell somebody that's their livelihood probably has their own engineer yeah I mean they when they're gonna engineer something that's the case but we still can't retain them to do the work until we have the funding available so it's been a little bit of a handcuff situation honestly and frustrating to be truthful two years to go how to go back yeah no and these are great on the structure these are great questions and as I as I said if we were able to use that two million from the county and we if we knew it was gonna take two and a half years we would have asked because they told us you know can ask for but they discouraged us from doing that they said oh by the time you would get through the ask you'll have a contract and we're like okay fine we're not gonna bother anybody and ask but maybe we should have done that but we didn't know at the time that it was two and a half years to get it done so or you know one small other item the PDAC they didn't have coming into this meeting any formal opinions or comments on pilot parking districts parking ! So, I wanted to say that they may have after, but I will say, from what I understand, that assessed tax amount that happens every year, it's not risen in how long? A while. A long time. So, that would have those actual numbers, but, yeah. A real long time. So, just the fact stating that, however, if PILUP took place, you know, that again, would be a second funding source, all by different, not tax-based, but it would help with the overall plan here that we're speaking about the future is that property with a parking lots on is it the parking district of the town I think the back area is the district so that's a that's a problem which I like to also refer to as a blessing but we just don't have enough information I don't think to even address that question yet so that's a down-the-road conversation okay so I remain you know committed to solving the issues that we now have these assets now garage is great but we're really concentrating what our assets are now what we could do to plan for that okay you know we're discussing things in the future so as I brought up last time right now and that you you've had an opportunity to look over some of the outlines that like Marty sent over in the parking districts like how we how we how we be doing whether it be through the committee or what steps to get stripes painted down there for an interim parking plan during construction activities I don't know if you've weighed in on that at all the the along Heidi bear way ideas Marty had a big idea but It's going to require moving a fire hydrant. And there's a lot. You've got like 37 spaces. 34 additional, which is great. He's very good at squeezing spaces out of nothing. Like, you can get one way in and one way out. And then there was the idea of parallel along the riverfront. And I think Ken kind of was tasked with that. Ken tested about that. And whether we. Just one of the modules I suggested. We've had the enforcement permanent modules. We're having a future parking utilization plan. Today we're talking about pileup. I definitely absolutely recommend it. Marty, the PDAC, can test it. We'll set it at this table at a future work session. That's completely up to you, but I think it's a good idea. Great. I'd like to do that sooner than later. Any spaces we can get now are good spaces, given that we've taken away probably 30 spaces downtown. It can't be done in a vacuum. You have your design team, you have your highway team that has come into this lately. Well, this is not a vacuum. I agree with you 100%. If I would have known this, I would have had him here today. I think it would have been a good idea. No, we were planning for that just at a particular session, not to overwhelm the subject of pileup or technology and what you just spoke about. He's just looking for a season. Thank you all. Thanks, Kevin. We'll move on to resolutions. Deputy Supervisor Higgins. Thank you. Thank you both. Roger Higgins, who's that? As Devin comes up, if I could just add a correction. The time for the parade this Saturday for the homecoming parade is at noon, and the game begins at 1.30. Thank you, Joanne. Thank you for that correction because I was going to show up at 1. I stand corrected. I was set the correct information. Okay, good morning to the board, if everybody's ready.

Resolution number one ratifies budget adjustment for improvements at Two Bears Park, capital project number 72515.

Number two ratifies highway department budget transfer for emergency storm repairs.

Number three, it modifies use of existing budget for street lighting equipment. 4. Accepts donation of resurfacing for South Jamesport Basketball Court.

5. Accepts donation from Riverhead Moose Lodge for PAL. 6. Accepts anonymous donations for the Recreation Department.

7. Ratifies acceptance of donations from various local businesses for Annual Snapper Tournament 2026. Number seven, removes fixed assets. I'm sorry, did I miss one? No. Number eight, removes fixed assets. Number nine, sets fees for Riverhead Sewer District, Calverton Sewer District, and Scavenger Waste.

Number ten, amends fire prevention fees. Number eleven, authorizes the attendance of one police department employee to attend a conference. I want to go to that one. I want to go to . Florida, October 24th. That's a good one. Number 12. So we had a little issue, as you can see in the title there, with some of the words and letters getting a little jumbled in the Civic Plus program. We're not exactly sure why. IT is looking into that, but it doesn't change the substance of the resolution. So it means to say appoints an accountant. 13 appoints an automotive equipment operator to the Highway Department number 14 ratifies the appointment of a maintenance mechanic to to the engineering department number 15 appoints a call in recreation aid to the Recreation Department 16 appoints a call in park attendant to the Recreation department number 17 appoints part-time code enforcement officer points a part-time office assistant 19 again the title is jumbled but it means to say appoints a fire marshal one that puts us up to what for boy marshals because we We have three and this would be the fourth. That's a good question. I'd have to confirm that. This is a replacement of the one that we just lost. Okay, thanks. Yeah, replacement. Number 20, ratifies appointment of a part-time employee.

Number 21, amends terms and conditions for recreation superintendent. Number 22, ratifies the appointment of part-time police officers and places them on a leave of absence. Number 23, ratifies the resignation of an automotive equipment operator. Number 24, establishes standard workday for elected and appointed officials. Number 25, ratifies the authorization for the police department to apply for a grant.

Number 26, ratifies the application of Community Development Division for capital grant funding through New York State Assembly, Assemblywoman Giglio, for a brush fire staging area at Veterans Park at Epcot. So what that is, we've been meeting with Rudy and the county and had meetings with the River Fire Department as well as our Chief of Police, Riverhead Fire Department. And so we are working together to build a brush fire staging area. It's going to be at Veterans Memorial Park. And so our assemblywoman has been wonderful to work with us to allocate the first $100,000 towards that. But as many may be aware, the Asian beetle is destroying large amounts of forestry, and our forests are loaded with what we refer to on fire as like kindling wood. It's just it's dead wood that's in there. And so we are trying to be proactive from the fire perspective of if something is up in the Cowlton area, if it's up on Sound Avenue. We had a brush fire last year just alongside the 4-H camp. One was actually in the 4-H property. And there's really no place that becomes quite a cluster of gathering of many vehicles that come from all over Suffolk County. Huntington arrives, Dix Hill arrives, all their bus trucks, and it's just not an area to organize, to place everybody in a safe haven. We want to keep them off the main road or Sound Avenue, so that's going to become a new emergency staging area. Do we have a map of that, like a drawing, just where it would be? Because this is a staging area, like how it will affect? The county has drawn one up. Oh, yeah. Some county operations. Yeah, can we get just a copy of that for us to see? Okay, yeah, I've not seen it, so that would be great. Thanks. Okay, 27, approves rain date change for Chapter 255 special event application for Waiting River Shore and Chamber Commerce Fall Festival. And that's the shops at Eastwind. That's the fall festival. It should be fantastic. And that's now going to be October 18th. It's the rain date from the monsoon. 28, authorization for an appraisal of 1458 Middle Road, Calverton, New York. Number 29, authorization for professional services agreement between Tanna Riverhead and IntelliShift for automated vehicle location and monitoring.

Number 30, authorize the supervisor to sign a professional services agreement with GovPilot LLC DBA Spatial Data Logic LLC. That's for the online electronic permitting system. Number 31, authorizes the supervisor to execute an extension of license agreement with Residio LLC, formerly known as Ademco. Number 32, authorizes the supervisor to execute an addendum to an agreement with LVF Landscape Architects, PLLC, Town Square, and Streetscapes Improvement. 33. Amends Town Board Resolution 2026-277, LVF Landscape Architects.

34. Ratifies authorization for the supervisor to sign a memorandum of agreement for Eastern Suffolk BOCES interns.

35. Extends agreement, nunc pro tonc, for Young's Avenue Landfill Maintenance and Monitoring. Number 36, awards bid for one new all-tech model AT40G telescopic articulating aerial device with ISO boom on 2028 Ford F-550 chassis or equal. I was going to ask Devin, do you know what that is? I don't really. Number 37, extends bid 2025-08 Nunk Protung for street light and traffic signal maintenance repair parts. Number 38, extends bid 2025-28, replacement of large meters for Riverhead Water District. Number 39, extends bid 2025-31 for Dow Flake Extra 83-87% calcium chloride or equal. Number 40, extends bid 2025-34 for removal of household hazardous waste. 41. Extends bid 2025-39 for general hardware items. Number 42. Authorizes the supervisor to execute easements for Suffolk County tax map number 600-86-2-8.2.

Number 43. Authorizes the town clerk to publish and post request for proposals for redevelopment and operation of a destination attraction at 111 East Main Street, Riverhead, New York. 44. Resolution calling public hearing regarding a capital improvement for the proposed lateral water main extension at 1001 Scott Avenue, District 600, Section 135.1, Block 1, Lot 01, Calverton, New York. 45. Adopts a local law to amend Chapter 115 of the Riverhead Town Code, titled Procurement Policy. 46. Adopts the local law to amend Chapter 289 of the Riverhead Town Code titled Vehicles, Traffic, Parking Regulations, Article 2, Traffic Regulations. 47. Adopts the local law to amend Chapter 231 of the Riverhead Town Code titled Fire Prevention, Article 13, Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Displace. Number 48 adopts local law to amend chapter 255 of the Riverhead Town Code titled Parades, Assemblies, and Block Parties, Article 2 Special Events. Number 49 pays the bills. Okay, thank you, Nevin. Those in red will ask for a first and second to go into executive session where we'll discuss legal matters. Matters surrounding Hawk versus the town of Riverhead with Councillor Howard. contractual matters surrounding contractual agreement between the town of Riverhead and the state of New York with Ms. Thomas. We have a motion please. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. All right thank you. Have a great day.

Thank you.