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Politics & Government

With CPF Revenues Still Down, Land Acquisitions Face a Bleak Future

Walter says $3.4 million a year required just to stay even; town may "have to seek support from more affluent towns."

Supervisor Sean Walter said Thursday that the town has no more than $4 million available to make new acquisitions of open space and farmland development rights and that he doesn’t expect the situation to change in the foreseeable future.

As a participant in the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund, established in 1999, Riverhead is paid a real estate transfer tax of two percent of any amount above $150,000 whenever a property exchange hands through a sale.

But in recent years, with market values declining and less property being sold, Riverhead has taken a big hit in the CPF revenues it had been receiving during the boom years of 2004 through 2007.

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In addition, Walter said, the town hasn’t been receiving sufficient revenues to fully service the 20-year bonds that were issued during the good years and that it may one day face the need to dip into general town reserves to cover the debt.

According to Walter, the town now has a balance in its CPF reserve of $19 million that can be used to pay interest and principal. But, he said, Riverhead needs to take in at least $3.4 million a year in CPF revenue to supplement the reserve in fully servicing the bonds through the life of the loans – and in recent years, he said, that magic number hasn’t been reached.

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Community Preservation Fund Revenues, *in millions 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Riverhead $5.55 $6.1 $4.33 $2.77 $1.62 $2.29 East Hampton $25.5 $19.58 $30.06 $14.5 $10.18 $17.72 Southampton $51.06 $49.98 $53.53 $32.97 $24.77 $33.8 Southold $6.94 $5.67 $5.86 $5.14 $2.88 $3.62 Shelter Island $2.02 $2.18 $2.24 $1.24 $0.84 $1.36

CPF revenues began declining in 2008, when the town received $2.7 million compared with $4.3 million the year before. In 2009, CPF revenue dropped to $1.62 million, and last year, the total take was on its way back up to $2.3 million.

Borrowing against future CPF revenues to preserve is a path that has been strongly supported by environmentalists, including Dick Amper, executive director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Association. Amper has praised the town for taking this route as land prices have remained down. But now, Walter said, the town may need help.

“Riverhead has done everything it can do to preserve farmland and open space," he aid. "But we as a municipality may have to seek support from the more affluent towns on the East End that are just receiving a windfall of money.”

Last year, for example, the Town of Southampton received $33.8 million. But with Riverhead having the most farmland still to be acquired, ways must be found, Walter said, to share the cost of acquisition with neighboring communities.

In a related development,  the chairmen of the separate committees that oversee the purchase of open space and farmland development rights in Riverhead met with the town board Thursday to discuss whether their committees should be combined again into a single body, as they had been until five years ago.

The consensus was that they should remain separate because, despite CPF funds being low, each committee has a distinct new mission to fulfill.

In the case of the Open Space Committee, the role now is the stewardship of open space already purchased, including examining ways the land acquired can be made available for public use, mostly in the form of passive recreation.

For the Farmland Select Committee, the task is to monitor covenants governing the use of farmland after a farmer has sold his or her development rights to the town. As an example, the committee is charged with reviewing plans whenever a land owner proposes to erect a new structure on property from which development rights have been stripped.

Of the $4 million the town still has available to spend, Walter said that planned acquisitions include a partnership with the county to purchase the North Fork Preserve and the acquisition of land on Horton Avenue, where homes were destroyed by a flood.

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