Parents Start Petition to Keep Sports East Proposal Alive

MATTITUCK, NY — Some parents believe a controversial proposal for the Sports East Fitness facility in Mattituck is a dream that should be realized.

Although developer Paul Pawlowski withdrew his application before the Southold Town planning board in July, one Southold mom launched a petition online Monday to keep the project afloat.

"We Want Sports East," has a Care2 petitions page, and has so far garnered 15 signatures with a goal of 300.

"Sports East will be a fun place for the whole family to enjoy and exercise while being together. It can also be used to hopefully keep kids off drugs and out of gangs if they have something fun and positive to do," the page reads.

The petition was kicked off by Southold resident Jennifer Moore Giovanniello-Becker. "I started it when I saw a friend share a post about asking people to go to the town meeting next week to show support" for the plan, she said.

"Then, another one of my friends commented with an idea that parents that can't make the meeting should write letters of support, so I thought the quickest and easiest thing to do would be to start an online petition so that all those in favor of could sign it."

She added that she is "in total favor" of the project "and was disappointed" when she heard it was not going to happen.

A Southold Town Board of Appeals hearing on the project is scheduled for Thursday, October 6 at 1 p.m., to discuss requests from the Southold Town Planning Board dated May 31 and June 17 for an interpretation as to "whether the proposed uses, as applied for, on a site plan application from Sports East Fitness Club proposing to construct an "annual membership club”, meet the definition of a membership club as defined by the town code, with uses permitted by special exception in a residential district.

According to Joe Slovak, a partner in the project, the ZBA hearing is "crucial." Slovak wrote on his Facebook page that the hearing is "likely to determine the future of Sports East. . . We know we have tremendous community support for this project and we certainly know the need for Sports East. This is about expressing to the ZBA, the voice of the community."

Plan withdrawn

In July, after a heated planning board work session, developer Pawlowski was told that the planning board was considering a positive declaration for the state environmental quality review act determination, meaning that they would be asking for a draft environmental review.

Planner Mark Terry said the recommendation would be for the draft environmental review, based on a number of "large or moderate significant environmental impacts" including 13 potential impacts on transportation, concerns with groundwater and surface water quality, impacts on energy, noise impacts, potential moderate impacts on plants and wildlife due to the size of the proposed structure, impacts on aesthetics, and consistency with community character.

Attorney Charles Cuddy, representing the applicant, took issue with the idea of a draft environmental impact statement, staying that Peconic Landing was allowed to move forward with no environmental impact statement; he also mentioned another project in Cutchogue and said that project was a Type 2 determination.

"To find that this has an impact is remarkable to me," Cuddy said. "I find it difficult to believe that except for traffic, which a study says has no impact, it's hard to believe you could find any impact." The parcel has no wetlands, no farm, no hazardous material, Cuddy said. He added that the proposal took a 20 acre lot and saved 15 acres of it. All around the parcel, he said, are business-zoned parcels. "It's amazing to me that you could find a need for an environmental impact statement that's going to save 15 of 20 acres. I can't believe the board would do that."

He added, "This doesn't make any sense to me. This is pretext, and a delay, to keep them from going forward."

He added that the decision would prevent the project from moving forward with the zoning board of appeals. "That's upsetting."

Planning Board Chair Donald Wilcenski said the board was just doing its due diligence and said he did not believe it was a delay; he said there were concerns about the traffic study, such as the timing of the study and a building across the road not taken into consideration. He said the board agreed to go through the SEQRA process because "you felt we were holding you up." But the board had questions that needed to be answered, he said.

Pawlowski, visibly upset, his voice shaking, said the board has had one question since March, which was immediately addressed.

"I haven't heard one word since then about the traffic study," he said, adding that he and his fellow applicants had mitigated every possible concern "to the letter, better than any other project. To have this happen four months later is outright disgusting. I could not be more upset. This is not normal. To have told us this, this late in the game, $103,000 later, is not normal."

Pawlowski said discussions with planning department staff were leaning toward a negative declaration. "How did that change?" A positive declaration, he said, would mean more than $100,000 and another year or two of time.

"I'm withdrawing the application," he said, standing up abruptly and leaving the room, followed by Cuddy.

"The applicant formally has withdrawn his application," Cuddy said, during the planning board meeting a few minutes later.

Town Attorney Bill Duffy said he did not consider what happened at work session to be a formal withdrawal. However, since Cuddy formally withdrew the application, the board did not act or vote on the SEQRA determination.

Plans for the indoor-outdoor private sport facility, pitched by partners in the project Pawlowski, Joe Slovak, and Steve Marsh included indoor tennis, an indoor swimming pool, multi-sports fields, pickle ball courts, a gym, rock wall, yoga, batting cages, a locker room and an organic juice bar.

The Suffolk County Planning Commission gave the project a 10-0 vote of approval, Pawlowski told Patch.
But then, he received a copy of a memo from Wilcenski to Zoning Board of Appeals Chair Leslie Weisman, dated May 31.

The memo stated that the planning board had been reviewing the site plan hearing. After a public hearing, the memo said "concerns about whether the use, as proposed, is permitted as a special exception on this parcel. The board would like to avoid having the applicant invest any more funds into this application until that question is answered definitively by the Zoning Board of Appeals."

Concerns raised, the memo said, include questions raised by the public "about whether the use, as described by the applicant, is truly a membership club."

Several people, the memo said, questioned "how such an apparently intense commercial use could be allowed in a residential zone, and if the intent of the annual membership club was to allow something like the project being proposed."

Residents also questioned "finer points" of the proposal, the memo said, including whether daycare or childcare was allowed, and whether soccer teams that weren't members would be allowed to play on the fields.

The memo went on to say that the planning board was concerned about "tournaments or special events" that could bring in an influx of people that were non-members or spectators, making the facility public and not an annual membership club, which is eligible under town code for a special exception.

Another question involved if a person paid for less than a year, would it be an annual membership club.

The question of whether the proposed project met the definition of an annual membership club was sent to the ZBA for interpretation, stalling the plan from moving forward.

Public support for the plan

Members of the community showed tremendous support at a ZBA hearing in February. In May, the public came out to speak passionately on both sides of the proposal for the Sports East Fitness Club on Main Road in Mattituck.

A standing room only crowd packed Southold Town Hall for the public hearing on the sports facility.
The meeting was the second in a week on the topic; earlier, partners in the project Pawlowski and Slovak, along with Suffolk County Legislator Al Kruspski, and Bob DeLuca, president of the Group for the East End, were guests at a forum organized by the Mattituck-Laurel Civic Association and held at the Mattituck American Legion.

The plan was Pawlowski’s third for the site, located on Route 25 across from the old Capital One building: First, he pitched a plan for workforce housing on the land. Last year, he proposed a second concept, which would have included stores and affordable apartments on the section of the parcel fronting Main Road, with a goal of preserving 17 of the 21 acres, and a gazebo.

Pawlowski withdrew that application in September after residents turned out to voice fierce opposition to the zone change, citing concerns over traffic, density and quality of life. He has said that the current plan is his last and he would "not doing anything else" on the parcel should the plan not get approved.

Wilcenski said in May the application was also before the ZBA and they were waiting on the planning board's state environmental quality review act, or SEQRA, determination.

Neighbor Denise Geis kicked off May hearing by raising concerns over traffic, as well as with a traffic study that she felt should have been conducted during a more busy time of year than March.

Suffolk County Community College, she added, will be opening its "huge sports complex," including a pool, by spring of 2017. Others agreed services offered would be duplicative.

She referenced Suffolk County Legislator Al Krupski's willingness to consider talks with Pawlowski regarding a county purchase of the parcel for preservation and said that option should be considered.

She mentioned that, at last week's meeting, Pawlowski said he would consider creating a not-for-profit, which could take the parcel off the town's tax roll.

Should that happens, she said, "there would be no long-term benefit for the community," leaving the town with detriments including traffic and noise. "We've heard time and time again that this will address drug use. That's an unrealistic promise," she said. A special exception, she added, "would benefit himself and his other partners."

Resident Julie Amper, also a member of the Mattituck Laurel Civic Association, said she was "very much opposed" to a special exception being granted. "This is just a subterfuge to allow a commercial use in a residential zone," she said.

She added that a "much ballyhooed carrot" is merely just a "small pool for member use." The town already has fields, health clubs, tennis courts and pickleball facilities, as well as dance and Pilates classes and a sporting goods store on Main Road. "Does this one carrot, a private swimming pool, justify the stick?" she asked. Amper said downsides included traffic concerns and the shattering of a vision for Mattituck's quiet residential area, to be replaced by the "thump" of tennis balls from dawn to dusk during summer months when it's light longer.

Meanwhile, parents have pleaded for the facility, stating that sports and physical activity are way to keep kids engaged, away from drugs and active in healthy activities.