Southold Town and Greenport Village boards explore new ways to protect the vital village waterfront

Greenport’s new mayor and Village Board members held their first joint meeting with the Southold Town Board Tuesday to discuss how the governing bodies could work cooperatively to address a spectrum of shared challenges and aspirations. Topics ranged from policing and code enforcement to housing, transportation and preservation of Greenport’s commercial waterfront.

Village Trustee Mary Bess Phillips said she’d recently learned that Community Preservation Fund money, normally earmarked for protecting agricultural land, could also be used to purchase development rights along the village waterfront to preserve its historic character.

That working waterfront is one of Greenport’s most prized and threatened assets. Village officials and volunteers have been working diligently on numerous subcommittees in recent months to update village codes and craft a final revision of Greenport’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan. Mayor Kevin Stuessi has said the board aims to submit the updated LWRP to the state by summer’s end

Ms. Phillips said she learned of the availability of CPF funds to protect a commercial waterfront while working with Long Island Farm Bureau president Karen Rivera and Suffolk County Legislator Al Krupski. 

On Tuesday, Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell confirmed that was possible. 

“It was an intriguing conversation,” Ms. Phillips said. Still, she noted, the idea is only in its infancy and cautioned that it might not turn out to be the best solution.“There are a lot of catches to it,” she said in an interview after the meeting. “You have to be careful because when you sell development rights, you have to set what exactly is the [future allowable] usage on a property,” as permitted uses can’t be changed once they’re established. 

Town Board member Sarah Nappa shared Ms. Phillips’ sense of caution. “Our biggest challenge with agriculture … is what’s going to be allowed on those preserved spaces,” she said. “But the idea of preserving the working parts of the waterfront is going to take some serious work to really outline what we want there … That way, we’re not preventing things from happening. We’re promoting what we want.”

Ms. Phillips cautioned that town and village codes would need to be coordinated and uniform so that, as fellow village Trustee Patrick Brennan added, “those updated plans make sense for all of us.” 

POLICING AND HOMELESSNESS

Noting that a second Southold Town police officer has been assigned to foot patrols in the village this summer, Mayor Stuessi said that his board also saw a need to establish a staffed police substation in a central Greenport location. That, he said, would allow residents to find an officer for assistance when needed. 

He added that the Village Board members would also welcome the appointment of a police officer dedicated to Greenport year-round to deal with specific off-season challenges, including homelessness.

“Our village has been hit particularly hard with a small group of these people who have had [housing] challenges, and it’s great to have somebody who is going to be a direct connection from the police department,” Mr. Stuessi said.

He also described a recent effort to condemn and raze dangerous and derelict homes in the village where the homeless individuals had been sleeping during colder months. 

Southold Town Board member Greg Doroski agreed that a village police substation is a good idea , but said it’s ultimately a resources issue. “If the budget is X, would you rather have boots on the ground or running the office?”he asked.

Mr. Russell agreed, saying he felt the homelessness issue was a matter that’s “more humanitarian than policing.” 

TRANSPORTATION AND ROADWAYS

Raising another point of concern, Mr. Brennan told Town Board members that the eastbound “entryways” to Greenport Village — via Route 25 and at the intersection of routes 25 and 48 — are a key focus of the Village Board, but both lie outside its jurisdiction. He said village officials are mindful of “how people arrive” and urged “some sensitivity to the aesthetics of how those areas are developed.” 

Mr. Russell offered to amend the structure of the town’s Architectural Review Commission to allow a dedicated seat for a representative of the village.

Mr. Stuessi also sought to establish a unified front with the town on improving public transportation on the North Fork. Describing his travel to attend a meeting in Riverhead, the mayor said that although he was able to get from Greenport to Riverhead via public transportation, a timely return trip required him to spend “a fortune on an Uber.”

SHORT-TERM RENTALS

Mr. Doroski highlighted the need to crack down on illegal short-term rentals in Southold, saying he was stunned by a consultant’s report estimating that there are more than 700 illegal rentals in the town. 

Eliminating those illegal short-term rentals “would go a huge way towards addressing the [housing] issue,” he said

Mr. Stuessi said the village is already deep into the process of reviewing proposals from tech companies for software that can automatically identify illegal short-term rentals.

The software would “allow us to throw a net out and very quickly determine if someone is in compliance,” he said, promising to share the village’s research with the Town Board. 

CODE ENFORCEMENT

On the issue of code enforcement, Greenport Trustee Lily Dougherty-Johnson sought better coordination between the boards. Town Board member Jill Doherty said she would connect village code enforcement personnel with the town attorney’s office, which oversees enforcement townwide. 

Officials said both municipalities have struggled to attract and retain code enforcement officers, as the salary and benefits packages they can offer just aren’t competitive enough to draw viable applicants.

When Mr. Stuessi said that the village is currently advertising for two code enforcement positions, Ms. Doherty simply smiled and said, “Good luck,” eliciting laughter all around.