Tuckahoe Citizens Advisory Committee Plans Forum on Proposed Supermarket

Fearful the will sign off on a change of zone along County Road 39 in Tuckahoe — allowing for a commercial development that includes a 40,000-square-foot supermarket — the moved Tuesday to hold a public forum on the matter in the spring.

The town board previously shot down developer Robert Morrow’s earlier plan for the parcel, which was on a much grander scale, and the advisory committee is now urging the board to do the same to his new plan. The hope is that residents will speak out at the community forum and their opposition will be clear to the town board.

"The board needs to know they have the backing of the people,” said committee member Susan Van Olst. “Otherwise, they are going to fold and go with Morrow.”

In their opposition, the committee members cited the traffic and congestion the development might create on a major thoroughfare, and the cars coming in and out of a busy parking lot just up the street from the . They were also concerned that there is potential for neighboring properties to eventually be conglomerated with the proposed development.

The proposal is a scaled down version of Morrow’s vision for Tuckahoe Main Street, a retail center on 12.4 acres anchored by a supermarket. The original idea was met with overwhelming opposition from residents, and the town board refused to sign off on Morrow’s Planned Development District application, a necessary approval.

The new plan still includes a King Kullen, but the development will be on fewer acres and will only include two additional buildings, a 15,000-square-foot building with room for multiple storefronts, and an even smaller building designed to house a bank branch.

The parcel Morrow plans to redevelop, where an motel is now located, is zoned “highway business,” and is big enough for four 15,000-square-foot buildings under town zoning law. To implement his new plan, Morrow is seeking town board approval of a zoning change to “shopping center business,” a zoning category established by the town’s 1970 Master Plan.

Committee member Rick Sobrevinas said they should enlist Tom Neely, the town director of transportation and traffic safety, to stand in opposition to the project on the grounds of congestion and safety concerns.

Co-chair Bonnie Goebert agreed, adding that a supermarket would also go against what the town’s calls for.

Morrow and his partner in the project, Lyle Pike, were guests at the committee’s December meeting, where they received an earful from the members and the audience.

"Your profits are depending on getting more and more and more traffic and cars into your parking lot — into your store," said committee member Frances Genovese.

Morrow did not deny his profit motive, but he promised that safety and congestion concerns would be addressed in a traffic study.

Co-chair Bob Schepps saw a glaring danger for motorists headed west. “Left hand turns into this property is suicide,” he said.

The committee was also concerned Morrow’s adjacent property, zoned residential, would eventually becoming part of the King Kullen complex.

Schepps said Tuesday that if the town board does sign off on zoning change to shopping center business, he wants a covenant placed on the deal that would guarantee Morrow could not then apply to change the zoning of the residential property.

At the December meeting, Morrow said he wanted to go on the record saying he has no plans to rezone the residential land to something else.

As part of his pitch, the developer pointed out that while a highway business zone allows for 30 percent lot coverage, shopping center business allows for just 20 percent. The setback from the roadway is also double.

Additionally, building approval in a highway business zone has no public benefit requirement, Morrow noted. As long as the proposal includes conforming building sizes and sufficient parking, it gets built, he said. But he pointed out that to get a change to shopping center business, he must provide a public benefit.

“I always pride myself on having a great product, and I intend to do that same thing here if we get the approval," Morrow said.

Siamak Samii, the chairman of the , who was in attendance at December’s meeting, told Morrow that there is a reason the properties have been zoned highway business. “Highway business is hinged on using no-impact commercial activity, because it is our lifeline in and out of the area," he said.

Schepps said that the public benefit requirement could actually drive up the scale of the development, as the town negotiates greater and greater community benefits from the project.

The committee will likely hold its community forum in March or April, when many second-home owners who were living elsewhere for the winter return, so they can have the chance to weigh in, Schepps said.

The committee also held a community forum in June, on Morrow’s now-defunct Tuckahoe Main Street plan. No residents came to speak in support of the project.

Van Olst said she expects some residents will come out to support the scaled down plan.

"There are people who want this project,” she acknowledged. “They should be heard." Namely, people without jobs who want work, she said. "But the overwhelming number of people who come out will be against this."

Schepps acknowledged Thursday that there is a market for a grocery store in Tuckahoe. He said the closest grocery store for Tuckahoe residents, in Southampton Village, is inadequate and undersized, so many residents opt to travel a further distance to the shopping center in Hampton Bays — which Morrow developed, anchored by a .

“As an American capitalist,” Schepps said he does not find the desire to build to be evil or greedy. He also backed the town’s commitment to uphold the law. “Property rights and as-of rights are king,” he said.

If the town board finds that it does not have the discretion to deny Morrow’s application for a zoning change, but does anyway, “not only would we have a supermarket, we would have a lawsuit we’d need to pay,” Schepps warned.

Morrow is scheduled to present his plans to the on Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the Tuckahoe School library.