Greenport Village Board extends development moratorium for six more months 

The Greenport Village Board voted last month to extend a development moratorium in three downtown commercial districts for another six months, according to a recording of the April 20 board meeting.

Last December, the board enacted what village officials have called a “pause” in development, which temporarily restricted any new projects in the village’s commercial zones: the General Commercial, Retail Commercial and Waterfront Commercial districts. 

Last month, the Suffolk County Planning Board voted to give the village two more months of the moratorium, but the Village Board voted unanimously to extend the moratorium for six months, overriding county officials’ main recommendation with a supermajority vote. 

The village did take the county’s recommendation to separate the moratorium from efforts to update its Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan.

“We have not just listened to the community, but we have listened to the Suffolk County Planning Commission,” Greenport Mayor Kevin Stuessi said at the April board meeting.

Prior to campaigning for mayor, Mr. Stuessi spearheaded a successful petition drive to convince the previous board to adopt the moratorium, and later won the election in a landslide.

“Our goal is get the code updates done by the end of the summer before Labor Day, continue to work on the LWRP,” Mr. Stuessi said. “That way, the ability to lift the moratorium will not be tied towards any completion of the LWRP.”

Noting that the moratorium has “galvanized the community and got people focused on our planning and code needs,” village trustee Kevin Brennan said that time is still of the essence. 

“Six months, realistically, would be the shortest period that we could possibly do this thing,” he said. 

Working backward from the six-month endpoint, Mr. Brennan estimated that the Village Board has about a month left to “contemplate these code changes.” 

At the March 1 SCPC meeting, village trustee Julia Robins defended the village’s need for a moratorium as a “unique situation.”

“I want to give a little historical perspective as to why I believe this is a unique situation in Greenport,” Ms. Robins told the planning commissioners. “The village has a business district that is intertwined with the residential districts. This has an impact on parking.” 

Increased use of “even one building has a direct impact on this area,” Ms. Robins added, noting that Greenport’s business district had fallen into decline with the advent of Riverhead’s heavy development along County Road 58. 

“This development forced the decline of most of the small retail on Front and Main street[s] that residents used to purchase most of their clothing, household, hardware and sundry needs,” she said. “With this came the closure of many of those businesses, and the downtown business district had an economically depressed feel to it. The development of Mitchell Park and the marina began a turnaround for the village.”