The Southampton Town Trustees agreed on Monday to conduct an environmental review of an application for new boat docks at Dockers Waterside in East Quogue based on their own standards, rather than the exhaustive requirements of an environmental impact statement via the State Environmental Quality Review Act.
Four members of the Trustees voted unanimously on Monday to issue a negative declaration for the application, saying they found that the proposed expansion of the facilities would not have a significant impact on the surrounding environment. The proposal would add floating docks to the restaurant’s bulkhead but allow for only one more boat to be docked at the property than is currently allowed.
The fifth member of the board, Bill Pell, had recused himself from consideration of the Dockers application because of statements he made about the project and Dockers owner Larry Hoffman when he was a candidate for Trustee in 2007 and 2009.
“The Town Trustees find that after reviewing said application, and due to the nature of the proposed action and the existing site conditions, the proposed activities would not result in significant adverse impacts,” Trustee Jon Semlear read from the resolution adopted on Monday. “The proposed marina expansion will take place in a man-made lagoon that is and has historically been used for boating activities. It is unlikely that any significant eelgrass beds or wildlife habitat exists in the man-made lagoon … It is not anticipated that there will be a significant impact to fisheries or shellfish outside the dug lagoon.”
The Trustees will now open their own review of the application, possibly as early as next month. The Trustees review will include a public hearing on the proposal, at a date yet to be determined.
The Trustees decision brings an end to just the latest phase of the Dockers saga, which started nearly a decade ago. Mr. Hoffman originally proposed building a full-fledged marina at the property, adding more than 50 boat slips on several docks, along with gas pumps and a newly dredged channel leading from the man-made boat basin in front of the restaurant out into the main navigation channel of western Shinnecock Bay. He withdrew the application after more than a year of public outcry about the potential negative environmental effects of the more intensive boat usage of the basin on the surrounding estuary.
He then issued a revised proposal, identical to the one currently being considered. It calls for 16 boat slips on a pier extending from the bulkhead and tipped with a broad floating platform for landing smaller watercraft.
The Trustees approved the proposal in 2008 but were sued by the Peconic Baykeeper organization, which claimed that the Trustees had not followed the SEQRA guidelines in their consideration of the application. The Trustees, whose authority to control and regulate town waters dates to the colonial era, had previously refused to recognize the SEQRA requirements because they said state regulations do not apply to Trustees-owned bottomlands. A judge disagreed and ordered the board to reconsider the Dockers application in light of SEQRA’s guidelines.
If the Trustees had determined that the Dockers project had the potential for significant impacts on the surrounding environment, they would have had to order that Mr. Hoffman’s representatives prepare an environmental impact statement, a detailed, time-consuming and expensive analysis of every possible impact the project might have on its surroundings that likely would have taken months to prepare.
Along with the impacts on the environment, the Trustees noted in their approval that the project will not be claiming significant portion of public bay bottom and is not expected to increase boat traffic in that section of the bay. Dockers has permission to dock 15 boats along its bulkhead now.
on Jun 19, 2012