Planning Board Votes to Send Oki-do Application Back to Drawing Board

NORTH FORK, NY - It's back to the drawing board for a controversial proposed holistic health center in East Marion.

At Monday's Southold Town planning board meeting, the board voted unamimously "to reject without prejudice" a site plan determination regarding the Shizen/Oki-do Ltd. project.

The plan would require a special exception and site plan to construct a holistic health center with 114 transient motel rooms, consisting of 23 guest lodges, totaling 87 accessory motel units — 14 lodges containing three unit motel rooms and nine guest lodges ontining five unit motel rooms.

The remaining 27 motel units would be located in the main spa building, along with a 185 seat restaurant — including 103 private guest seats and 72 public guest seats — 10 public bar seats, office space, a retail gift shop, 27 personal service suites and accessory uses.

The proposed plans also include a 3,864 square foot private restaurant annex with a 687 square foot deck, a pool, a maintenance and utility building, a sanitary waste treatment facility, three gazebos, manmade water features, replacement of the existing bulkhead, dredging of the 16-slip private marina basin and various outdoor amenities.

The 18.7 are parcel in the marine II zone is located at 2835 Shipyard Lane in East Marion.

The board voted unanimously to reject the site plan "without prejudice" and require the applicant to submit a new site plan.

"This is a victory for the East Marion Community Association," said Anne Murray, vice president of the civic group. She added that huge public opposition to the project was what caused the group to form in the first place.

Attorney Pat Moore said her client has been working with VHB Engineering, Surveying and Landscape Architecture PC on a draft environmental impact statement, having spent over $1 million on work so far; she said she had not even seen the resolution as of Monday and said the decision would "interfere with the process," rather than being "helpful."

Planning board chair Donald Wilcenski said the Oki-do application has not been active since 2008.

Moore disagreed, stating that traffic studies and other work has been going, with data collection significant. She added that the goal was to preserve the property; she argued against the idea of starting the entire process over.

Southold Town Attorney BIll Duffy said he'd defer to the expertise of the town's planning department.

Southold Town Planning Director Heather Lanza said despite Moore's statements that work has been ongoing on the draft environmental impact statement, the scope of the project is 10 years old, and when the planners met with Moore and VHB in 2013, the town asked for a new site plan.

"That never happened. We never saw a thing," Lanza said. "Too much time has passed. What was before you in 2007 and 2008 is now stale, obsolete. New town code has been passed," Lanza said.

She said the determination was just "housekeeping" and the application would be denied without prejudice. When the applicant is ready to come back in, the review process will start again. She added that the DEIS work is not lost, but while information won't be "drastically different," events such as Sandy and new Federal Emergency Management Agency maps must be incorporated.

When Moore protested, Wilcenski said, "Pat, this project has been silent for so long. I've been on the board for eight years and I think we've talked about it once."

Last month, residents concerned about the environmental impacts of the proposed East Marion project turned out at Southold Town Hall to make their voices heard.

The Southold Town Board of Trustees held a public hearing on a request by David Kennedy of VHB on behalf of Oki-Do Ltd. for a wetlands permit and coastal erosion permit for the restoration of the property's shoreline through replacement of 1,323 linear feet of "existing, largely non-functioning bulkheading," as well as installation of a 505 linear foot rock revetment along Gardiners Bay, and dredging the channel. In addition, the request calls for replacing the "existing dilapidated 8 x 70 linear foot dock located within the boat basin with a 5' x 30' ramp leading to an 8' x 60' floating dock in a new location and re-vegetating with Spartina alterniflora.

The plans for the "holistic health center" on the 18.7 parcel located in the MII zone would require a special exception permit from the zoning board of appeals, a site plan, still pending, before the Southold planning board, and wetland and coastal erosion permits from Southold Town.

Board of Trustees President John Bredemeyer began by saying that the discussion would focus solely on the marine aspects of the project; the board felt the project is a segmentation under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act.

In addition, he said, the trustees had found certain "deficiencies" and had concerns dealing with marine-related construction and coastal erosion. To that end, the board would not be able to act Wednesday night, he said; the item was tabled a future public hearing will be scheduled.

Trustee concerns, he said, include where the 4,000 cubic yards of dredge material that will be stored in an open containment site; Bredemeyer said the sand and gravel should stay in the public domain and in front of structures that may get approval. Other concerns centered on proposed shortening of the groin on both sides of the basin entrance, something that might cause coastal erosion concerns; other concerns centered on potential use of treated sheathing on the bulkhead and inside the basin. The trustees suggested plans include non-toxic solutions such as fiberglass, vinyl or tropical hardwood.

Moore said the main reason for the project is to protect the property from storms; that's the reason the project was not considered segmentation, she said. Preservation and restoration of the parcel was the prime reason for the plans, she added.

If dock replacement was an issue for the trustees, Moore said the plans did not have to include a floating dock, something that was not a priority, she said.

Moore said the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation had found that dredging would allow flushing of the basin and wetlands restoration. She added that 10 years ago, the DEC was adverse to bulkheads and only approved revetment plans but now, because of storms and rising sea levels, the DEC is "more amenable to protections that a bulkhead provides."

Residents stood up to voice their fears over the project. Howard Weisler, president of the Cleaves Point Village Condominium Association, and representing 62 homeowners to the west of the property, said residents were concerned about environmental issues, including revetment, rock removal, bulkhead replacement, dredging, and treated lumber on the bulkhead. Another issue, he said, was potential flooding on Shipyard Lane, as well as safety concerns over lack of fencing on the parcel, something that's been a source of contention for years.

In addition, Weisler said, "A project of this magnitude requires heavy duty machinery," including cranes. Shipyard Lane, he said, is a small hamlet road, "not constructed for this kind of abuse" and not meant for such intense use.

Mark Solomon, past president of the Cleaves Point Village Condominium Association, said residents are "extremely concerned because in the past, the DEC "did admit that there is contaminated soil" on the parcel.

If the work proposed involves more than five of the 18 acres, or more than 30 percent of the parcel, "How do they know what soil is contaminated, and what are they going to do if they put good soil on top of contaminated soil? This is a major issue."

Solomon also said when the new boat basin is open for use, concerns centered on a deteriorated property where blowing material coming off the building is a a danger to visitors. "I believe this is an accident waiting to happen," he said.

East Marion resident Linda Goldsmith said when she came before the town board 10 years ago to ask about the town potentially purchasing the waterfront parcel, Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell said it "was not the purchase price that was prohibitive, it was the cost of the environmental cleanup."

Attorney David Dubin of Twomey Latham, and representing the homeowners said a site plan application had been before the planning board but the applicant had been asked to return with revisions ad instead, came to the town trustees. In July 2006, the planning board said the proposal was a Type 1 acton and declared lead agency, as well as the need for a draft environmental impact study.

In 2008, the applicant, he said, filed a DEIS and the planning board requested revisions to the site plan; nothing happened for five years, he said. In 2013, a letter was sent from the planning board to the applicant's attorney asking for an updated site plan application and stating that the applications would run concurrently to "avoid segmentation of the SEQRA process," he said.

The crowd applauded.

In June, 2015, Dubin added, the planning board said because the applicant had failed to address concerns and since nine years had elapsed since a revised site plan was last requested, the applicant was directed to begin SEQRA anew; instead, the applicant, he said, went to the United States Army Corp of Engineers and trustees with a "broken down application, broken down into small points, because then the next step is to go to the planning board and say, 'We have a trustees permit, not it's time to move. It's a textbook case of improper segmentation."

Also, Dubin questioned the applicant's assertion that the project was to preserve the parcel, which is in a deteriorated state. "Where have they been for the last 16 years? What do a new floating dock and large scale dredging have to do with preserving the property?"

Neighbor Brian Wills said he has concerns regarding pollution and runoff; about the fact that the project is new construction, not a rehabilitation, and that the plan calls for dredging a new channel; and finally, he is concerned about cutoff of public access.

John Kent, who lives on Shipyard Lane, said he and others are "worried about what we don't know," including environmental impacts of dredging. "We don't know what is in the bottom of the former boat basin." He presented the board with a list of signatures on a petition.

Anne Murray, vice president of the East Marion Community Association, said her civic group has a long history with the project and thanked the board for tabling the application. "If there was ever a property that needs to be environmentally reviewd, it's this one," she said.

Cynthia Goldsmith Agosta of Shipyard Lane said without the bulkhead, the beach has come back, a resource for residents.

Benja Schwartz of Cutchogue also raised concerns about the density proposed for the parcel and said it could set a precedent for the North Fork.

The matter was tabled.