 | ||||||||
 | ||||||||
(Copyrighted and printed with permission of The Suffolk Times) Cross Sound files plan Cross Sound Ferry is seeking permission from Southold Town to build 451 new parking spaces adjacent to its Orient Point terminal site. The new parking lot would be located on two residentially zoned parcels adjacent to and immediately east of the existing ferry terminal parking area, fronting on Gardiners Bay. The ferry company filed a special permit application with the Southold Zoning Board of Appeals Feb. 23. Southold Town Code requires a ZBA special permit for accessory parking spaces in a residential district, and the parcels in question, totaling just under 5.25 acres, are both zoned R-80. In addition to the ZBA special permit, Cross Sound Ferry will need to obtain a permit from the Southold Trustees, a coastal erosion zone permit from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and site plan approval from the town Planning Board, according to the application papers. "There's going to have to be a full SEQRA review done," ZBA chairwoman Ruth Oliva said in an interview Tuesday, referring to the State Environmental Quality Review Act that may require the preparation of a full environmental impact statement. The new parking lot would expand Cross Sound's existing off-street parking spaces 146%, raising the number of spaces from 309 to 760. The application asks the ZBA to condition the special permit on use for off-street parking only, prohibiting the future construction of any ferry terminal structures, including buildings, docks and ramps, "since there has been community speculation that the two parcels will be used for some purpose other than the proposed parking lot" in the future. The purpose of the application is to address safety concerns created by vehicles parking on the shoulder of Route 25, the application states. The new parking lot would make parking on Route 25 unnecessary, according to the application papers. Representatives of Southold Citizens for Safe Roads asked the Town Board Tuesday to make sure the entire Cross Sound Ferry operation is reviewed for site plan approval. "The whole thing has to be considered, not just parking," Freddie Wachsberger of Orient, the group's president, told the Town Board at Tuesday morning's work session. Town Board members were unaware that any new application had been filed by Cross Sound Ferry until informed by Ms. Wachsberger and Orient residents Justin Ockenden and Keri Christ at the meeting. The Orient residents also asked the Town Board to develop and enact legislation, modeled after a statute enacted by the Town of East Hampton, that will limit the ferry's hours of operation, number of cars to be parked and ferried and the number of ferry runs in and out of Orient. "The ferry plans to expand, and keep on expanding, without you guys really taking on a strong role here," Ms. Wachsberger told board members. Traffic impacts of the company's expansion, she said, affect the entire town, not just the Orient community. "It's your responsibility to fix it," she said. Cross Sound attorney William Esseks of Riverhead was out of the office this week and could not be reached for comment. Stan Mickus, marketing director for Cross Sound Ferry Services, also was out of the office until Thursday, according to a receptionist in the company's New London, Conn., headquarters. The application comes even as the town's lawsuit against Cross Sound Ferry Services for not having site plan approval for its overall operation proceeds in State Supreme Court. The town brought suit against Cross Sound in October, alleging that the ferry company lacks the site plan approval required as a result of the intensified use of its site with the inception of passenger-only high-speed ferry service between Orient Point and New London in July 1995. Southold is asking the court to issue a preliminary injunction immediately halting the passenger-only speed ferry service, and a permanent injunction against the passenger-only service until the ferry company obtains site plan approval. Oral arguments on the town's motion for a preliminary injunction are scheduled for May 2, according to assistant town attorney Kiernan Corcoran. After unsuccessfully litigating the town's right to require site plan approval in 1997, Cross Sound Ferry obtained site plan approval from the town Planning Board in February 2002, according to the town's complaint. But the approval expired last February without the ferry company completing the site work. Thereafter, at the applicant's request, the Planning Board extended its site plan approval until August 2005, conditioned upon completion of all site plan improvements by Aug. 1. The extended approval expired without the work being completed, the town argues, so Cross Sound should not be permitted to continue with its "intensification of use" without a new site plan approval. It is unclear what effect, if any, the new application will have on the litigation. Cross Sound Ferry, in its answer to the town's complaint, denies that site plan approval for its entire site is required. It argues that its ferry operations preexist local zoning regulations, noting that "marine shipping and passenger service have existed at the site of CSF's Orient Point, New York terminal since the 1700s." The Town Board agreed Tuesday to move forward with plans to conduct a traffic study this spring and summer in an attempt to measure the impacts of the ferry's operations on local roads. | ||||||||
President's Message
| ||||||||
 | | | | | | | | |
President's Message | Get the Facts | In the News | About Us | Home | ||
| | |
| ||
| | |
copyright 2006 Southold Citizens for Safe Roads | ||
| | |