Argentines Plan to Return After Easter With Detailed Polo Plan; Supe Still Not Interested

The son in the father and son team from Argentina – who on April 7 met with Councilwoman Jodi Giglio, Councilman John Dunleavy and County Legislator Ed Romaine, R-Center Moriches, to discuss  – said Friday that he and his father intend to return to Riverhead sometime after Easter to make a formal, detailed proposal.

Speaking from Buenos Aires, German Neuss said the business plan he and his father, Jorge Justo Neuss, would present will include an all-cash offering price for 755 acres at EPCAL – the same parcel that Riverhead Resorts had been in contract to buy for a major resort complex before difficulties in obtaining financing .

The lack of a formal written proposal was the reason Supervisor Sean Walter gave for refusing to meet with the Neusses when they were at Town Hall earlier this month. But Walter said on Saturday that even if they were to bring with them the kind of detailed proposal he had been requesting, he would still refuse to meet with them.

“No pun intended," he said, "but I see this as just another dog and pony show. This seems to be just another one of those bad ideas that come to die at EPCAL.”

Walter said he wouldn’t reject their proposal outright, but would forward it to the - for a cost of $450,000 - to conduct a comprehensive study at EPCAL. The point of the study is to determine the appropriate mix of zoning to attract investments to EPCAL, which would ideally spur economic development and bring in new tax revenues for the town.

In announcing VHB's contract, Walter said that current zoning on the 755 acres, reserving the parcel for planned recreation, made no sense in the current economic environment, which was one of the reasons he had convinced the town board to hire the consultants to look at all of EPCAL.

“We need to concentrate on getting the VHB study done, getting an environmental impact statement completed and getting the property subdivided,” Walter said.

In addition to its land-use study, VHB would be involved in preparing the environmental impact statement and orchestrating the the subdivision process, which is where the bulk of the $450,000 fee will be spent. 

Walter said he didn’t need to look at a detailed proposal to conclude that polo at EPCAL has many things going against it.

Not the least of the negatives, he said, is that polo fields and stables are considered farms and are therefore exempt from full property taxes under provisions of the state’s Department of Agriculture and Markets.

Walter said he also doesn’t think the rest of the town board would look favorably on the housing component of the proposal the Neusses discussed with Dunleavy and Giglio.

The plan they outlined called for eight polo fields, one having a 10,000-seat grandstand. But it also proposed subdividing the property into at least 400 lots adjacent to the fields to be sold to polo sponsors for stables as well as living quarters for grooms and trainers. The plan also called for eventually building other types of residences as vacation homes.

“Nobody wants to see houses at EPCAL,” Walter said, and Dunleavy, after his meeting with the Neusses, said he agreed.

“I think the only possible thing that could happen – and this is remote – is that maybe the town would allow some housing as sort of a side and very small accessory use to an industrial complex,” Walter said.

The younger Neuss said Saturday that the company he, his father and other members of his family own – known as the Neuss Fund – is a multinational conglomerate with major holdings in communications, oil and real estate, including several office buildings in mid-town Manhattan, where the Neuss Fund has offices.

Asked Friday about reports accessible online that his father had been charged in connection with fraud in Argentina six years ago, the younger Neuss insisted that the charges had been dropped and that no fines were levied.

He described the charges as “politically motivated” by Argentina’s president at the time, Nestor Kirchner, whom Neuss described as “extremely left wing, a kind of Hugo Chavez type,” a reference to Venuezuela’s current president.

He added, however, that TSA Spectrum de Argentina, the Neuss Fund subsidiary involved in the transaction in question, had later been nationalized by the Argentine government. He said the issue is now before the country’s supreme court and expects a favorable ruling soon, returning the company to Neuss ownership.