A campaign question Supervisor Jerry Halpin never squarely answered as a candidate still has no clear answer now that he is in office: Would he support reviving Riverhead’s shelved agritourism resorts code proposal?

At anOct. 16 candidate forum in Calverton, co-hosted by the Greater Calverton and Wading River civic associations, Toqui Terchun, president of the Calverton civic, confronted the issue head-on with both incumbent Supervisor Tim Hubbard and challenger Halpin.

“How is a 100-room luxury hotel with a 300-seat restaurant compatible with the North Fork’s highly cherished rural character?” she asked. “Will you commit to dropping this proposal entirely, or might it resurface after the election?”

Halpin didn’t answer those direct questions, responding that “we need to codify the comp plan,” and pivoting to talking about the traffic congestion caused by traditional agritourism activities.

“Agritourism has always been something on the East End,” Halpin said.“We need to make sure, again, that we’re communicating that with our constituents, the taxpayers, helping you to understand what’s going on,” he said. To preserve farmland, he said, “we need to do hamlet studies to see what people want,” he said. “But the biggest drawback to the agritourism is the traffic.”

Halpin was similarly noncommittal during a March 9 sit-down interview in his office.Pressed to set aside the impacts of traditional agritourism activities and address the code previously advanced in Riverhead that would have allowed sound-front resorts to be developed along the north shore of the town, Halpin said he supports protecting the Sound Avenue scenic corridor. “Triaging things like where that is,” he said, referring to the shelved agritourism resorts code, “it’s way down the line. But I have been asked about that, to look at that specific code…Where is it at?”

He said the town should “hold to that comp plan as best as we can.”

Halpin said he wouldn’t outright reject considering support for the code because he considers everything that comes across his desk. “I can’t speak on that yet, because I haven’t given it a full look,” he said.

Asked if he had been contacted by the Westchester County firm that wanted to develop such a resort on sound-front property in Riverhead or by the owner of the parcels targeted by the developer — and town officials — for the resort, Halpin said a lot of people contact him and pitch proposals to him all the time.“To be very forthcoming,” he said, “Yeah, people have reached out to me, sat down — I mean, I ran on the campaign of I’m going to listen, so that’s why, you know I’m listening,” he said, without identifying who had contacted him.

Randal Pratt, the owner of the 105 acres where the Westchester developer was promoting its “North Fork Resort” plan was Halpin’s single largest campaign donor last year, contributing $1,219 to his campaign committee.

Source: RiverheadLOCAL