Residents Concerned About Noyac Golf Club Proposal To Add Maintenance Area To Grounds

When Diana Frizell moved into her home at the end of Wildwood Road in Noyac more than 25 years ago, it seemed she had the quietest neighbor possible: the Noyac Golf Club and its open fairways.

But for the last seven or eight years, Ms. Frizell said, workers at the club have been using a half acre of land on the northeast portion of the grounds—less than 50 feet from her property line—as a storage area for lumber, wood chips and other materials. And with that, she said, come large, 18-wheel transport trucks backing in and out of the area, using a narrow, winding dirt path, and making loud noises at nearly all hours.

Traffic on Wildwood Road from the trucks is also a concern for her and her neighbors, she said, because many children live on the street and play outside when the weather is warm.

“There are trucks down there that are so big that when the back door or something drops, my whole house shakes,” Ms. Frizell said at her home on Tuesday. “It’s very noisy.”

Ms. Frizell was initially hesitant to speak on the record about her concerns, as she has had a civil relationship with the golf club over the years. She said she decided to speak up in light of a site plan modification currently before the Southampton Town Planning Board that would make the maintenance area a permanent fixture.

According to the application, the Noyac Golf Club wants to add the maintenance area to use for the storage of aeration cores—which are plugs of soil or grass, pulled up as part of regular maintenance—plus wood chips, lumber, topsoil, sand, sod, gravel and asphalt, as well as for a place to park equipment.

Steve Latham, the Riverhead attorney representing the club, said that while that portion of the grounds has been used for maintenance work for years, the site plan modification is necessary because the organization received a ticket from town code enforcement officers last April, presumably in response to a resident’s complaint about the work there. Code enforcement officers were not available to comment this week.

“There’s nothing new that we’re doing here,” Mr. Latham said of the club. “This is an area we’ve been utilizing in the same matter for years. At the end of the day, it’s a simple site plan issue, and we’re just going to make sure that the Planning Board is happy with what we’re doing over there.”

The Noyac Golf Club’s application was scheduled for a public hearing last Thursday, March 12, but it was postponed literally minutes before that night’s Planning Board meeting began, because no representatives were present. Mr. Latham said this week that he, along with the club’s general manager, Jesse Smith, were both out of town and could not attend.

Now, the Noyac Golf Club will have to notify residents of Wildwood Road about the rescheduling of the public hearing, which Mr. Latham said will likely be in April. In the meantime, Planning Board Chairman Dennis Finnerty said that while he has not given the club’s application a thorough look yet, the board will ask that the organization withdraw the application and submit it again if the next public hearing turns out the way last week’s did.

“A lot of people, they come out to be heard, and it’s frustrating that we couldn’t open the hearing,” Mr. Finnerty said of the dozen or so residents who showed up last Thursday. “I hope that wasn’t a tactic on behalf of the applicant.”

Ms. Frizell said she has asked the golf club to install some kind of buffer, like a berm, to at least mitigate the view of the maintenance area from her back porch. The club has since planted a few trees, but Ms. Frizell said they won’t do much until they fully grow, and added that they won’t minimize the noise from wood chippers and trucks.

She said she and her neighbors would like to hear more about the golf club’s proposal, as they all hope there is nothing more planned beyond using the area for storage.

“If they get approval to do this, then I don’t know what they’ll do next,” Ms. Frizell said as she stood on her back porch and looked out at the area, which is still visible through the patch of trees that the golf club planted. “It’s about the quality of life. I’d like to be able to enjoy the area. But it’s not just about me. It’s also about the safety of the road.

“Ultimately, I hope they have to move it,” she continued. “And move it where it won’t adversely affect somebody else’s life.”