The North Fork United Methodist Church, formed by the merger of four Methodist congregations on the North Fork since 2014, is looking to build a new church home on County Road 48 in Southold.
The 2.5-acre parcel on the corner of Horton Lane is the perfect location for the new church, providing easy access via a major thoroughfare and plenty of room to build the proposed 7,100-square-foot building with 50 parking spaces, Southold attorney Bill Moore told zoning board members at their meeting yesterday morning.
Moore spoke at a ZBA hearing on the church’s application for a special exception use to build a house of worship on the site. No variances are necessary. The hearing was adjourned pending a determination by the Southold Planning Board under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, but ZBA members reacted favorably to the plan.
Planning board members, with the exception of James Rich, also reacted favorably to the plan when it was presented to them at their March 21 meeting.
“We’re very excited to build a new church in this town,” said Moore, who also serves as chairman of the board of trustees of the North Fork United Methodist Church.
Moore acknowledged the concern about what happens to the church buildings being left by the four congregations.
Planning board member Rich raised that issue last month.
“My concern is we’ve seen four Methodist churches fold on the North Fork,” Rich said “What’s to say this one won’t fold in 10 years? Then we’ll have another site designed as a church,” he said. Rich noted that 20 years, ago all four were viable.”
Moore said yesterday the merger of the four churches — Southold and Cutchogue in 2014, Greenport in 2015 and Orient last month — has created new energy in the combined congregation. “It’s more than quadrupled the regular attendance,” he said. About 60 people regularly attend services now in the former Cutchogue United Methodist Church, which is the temporary home of the new combined congregations.
“I have complete faith that this church will thrive and grow,” Moore said yesterday after the ZBA meeting.
Change happens, Moore said. All over the country, old churches are being repurposed. He noted that the North Fork United Methodist Church sold the Southold church last year to an opera company, which is converting it into an opera house. The Cutchogue church is on the market.
The new church would seat up to 150 people in its sanctuary. Its design is traditional and aesthetically contextual in keeping with the architecture of North Fork churches, Moore said. The site is surrounded by protected farmland.
The church runs a small preschool and operates a food pantry. Both activities will continue at the new location.
“I support it. I don’t see anything missing in this application at all,” ZBA chairwoman Leslie Weisman said.
Weisman noted that because the site is on a scenic byway, the planning board might require a setback greater than the 100-foot minimum. Should that be the case, it could require changes to the parking configuration on the site. That may trigger the need for setback variances, and the church would then need to make a new application to the ZBA for those variances.
