Southold Town considers 6-month building moratorium along Route 25

Southold Town officials are studying a proposal to institute a 6-month moratorium on development on Main Road, the busy state road that stretches through commerical areas in the town.

The town board is considering freezing building applications or site plan reviews between Bay Avenue and Pike Street along Main Road, also known as Route 25, Town Supervisor Scott Russell said. The board wants to see the results of a traffic study in the area before any new development proceeds, Russell said.

That traffic study examines the area from New Suffolk Avenue east through Love Lane in Mattituck. The board wants the study's scope extended westward to Bay Avenue.

Part of the desire to expand the study was to look at the impacts of having eight roads funnel into Route 25 between Bay Avenue and Pike Street, Russell said. None of those intersections is controlled by traffic lights or other traffic-calming measures, he said.

“Anything that gets done at Love Lane is bound to have impacts far beyond what the reach of the study is,” Russell said. “So we thought, let’s broaden the scope of the study and let’s look at everything.”

A moratorium while the study is underway makes sense, Southold Councilman Robert Ghosio said.

 “It’s a good time to take a step back, particularly in Love Lane, which is the main retail area for the [Mattituck] hamlet, and say ‘Let’s get a grip on this now, let’s wait for the traffic study and see where this goes,’ ” he said.

The moratorium, if enacted, would last six months, but Russell said the board “reserves the right to expand it to however long as we may need to.”

One application that would be affected is a 20,000-square-foot store with 80 parking spaces on 1.7 acres on Main Road in Mattituck proposed by Brinkmann’s Hardware. The proposal's site plan review would be stopped until until the moratorium is lifted, Russell said.

Brinkmann’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

The board scheduled a public hearing on the proposed moratorium for its next regular meeting on. Feb. 26.