As Riverhead’s plans progress to get the Main Road historic corridor from Aquebogue to Laurel listed in the state and national registers of historic places, state officials have set a public information meeting for Thursday, Aug. 14 at the Jamesport Meeting House — the second-oldest building in the proposed district.
If listed, properties within the 6-mile-long historic district will be eligible for substantial tax credits — 20 percent on state income taxes and 20 percent on federal income taxes — for investing in restoration of their properties. There are 312 parcels within the Town of Riverhead portion of the district and 42 within Southold. See “Main Road Historic Resource Survey” with photos, completed February 2013.
Listing as a historic district in the registry makes owners of historic properties within the district eligible for substantial tax credits — 20 percent on state income taxes and 20 percent on federal income taxes — for investing in restoration of their properties, according to Riverhead Landmarks Preservation Commission chairman Richard Wines.
While the listing creates ample monetary incentives for property owners to opt-in, opting in is voluntary and property owners who do not opt in are not subject to any new land-use regulations, Wines stressed.
“This is the carrot approach to historic preservation,” Wines said. “Listing brings no restrictions for private owners of registered properties.”
Wines met with the Riverhead Town Board last Thursday and he is meeting with the Southold Town Board on Tuesday.
State officials last year asked that the Main Road historic district proposed by Riverhead be expanded across the Southold Town line to include the entire hamlet of Laurel, which is split between the two towns.
While the Southold Town Board was supportive of the concept last year, Southold Supervisor Scott Russell recently expressed concern that the interests of Southold property owners would not be adequately represented, Wines told the Riverhead board. Russell would like to see Southold property owners within the proposed district have “a separate vote” on the district, Wines said at last Thursday’s Riverhead Town Board work session.
Wines met with Russell and Southold Landmarks Preservation Commission chairman Jim Grathwohl on Friday and said this morning they discussed having a meeting specifically for Southold property owners within the proposed district. Southold officials are working on that, Wines said.
State officials told Russell and Grathwohl during a conference call Friday that the supervisor can always elect to delay the application by one cycle; if Russell chooses to do so, it would not be submitted until the following quarter.
“I think he felt more comfortable,” Wines said. Russell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The listing effort was launched by Riverhead’s Landmarks Preservation Commission in May 2012, when it initiated a survey of historic resources in the Main Road corridor. The group submitted the survey to the state Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation in February 2013 and after a visit by state officials that April, the state agency asked that the district be expanded to include the surrounding “cultural landscape” (i.e. farmland) and the portion of Laurel lying within the Town of Southold.
The extension across municipal boundaries created a bit of a “hiccup” for the effort, because the group had to request and negotiate a license agreement with Suffolk County to gain the right to access the Southold Town geographic information system database, Wines said. Once accomplished, the group was able to survey the Southold properties in the corridor and include them in the application.
The nomination application was submitted to the state Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation in June, Wines said.
The state agency last week sent letters to all property owners inside the proposed district last week. The letters are starting to arrive in the mail now and Wines anticipates questions will follow.
Owners of properties within the proposed district have an opportunity to “concur in or object to the listing,” N.Y. state deputy commissioner for historic preservation Ruth L. Pierpont wrote in the letter to property owners.
If a majority of property owners file objections to the listing, the listing will be prevented. Any property owner who files an objection will prevent his or her property from being listed in the national register.
The deadline for comments and objections is Sept. 10. The nomination will be considered by the state review board at its Sept. 11 meeting.
The Aug. 14 public information meeting at the Jamesport Meeting House is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
NY State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation letter
