A public hearing concerning the vacant 7th street property in Northport will be held within the next two months to get more feedback from the public about the proposed land use options. An exact date for the hearing has yet to be determined.
The Northport Village Council unanimously voted in favor of having the hearing scheduled by village manager Jim Dyer within the next two months. The council heard a summary presentation Thursday from planning commission members Nicole Arbury and Jane Gale regarding the property and what comes next.
Four proposed uses for village- owned vacant lots on 7th Street were presented about a year ago, however, the council and committees have been discussing possible future uses for this parcel since 2017. Three of the four proposals were finalized in December and prepared for this month’s presentation to the village council.
Located at the former Northport Public Works site on the corner of East 7th Street and North Shore Drive, the 5.96 acres of land has generated a number of documents and reports on the site which were used to review the options on the table. The documents include pages and pages of environmental studies, wetland delineation reports, surveys and deeds, geotechnical reports, legal opinions/interpretations on uses, and committee reports summarizing information gathered.
Also discussed at Thursday’s meeting was the planning commission’s effort in October of 2023 to compile all of the written and public correspondence about the matter, which included 55 pages of comments from multiple village residents who made their voices heard at village council or planning commission meetings last year.
“We looked at it from a more legal standpoint… we approached this (project) as objectively as possible as a group,” said planning commission chair Arbury at last week’s village council’s meeting.
“The planning commission members represent the land of the village, and the trustees represent the citizens, so we are sharing information with the trustees to make a decision based on factors that Nicole pointed out, like the finances and other implications,” Gale said.
Village council trustee and planning commission board member Laura Cavendish said at the meeting around 90-95% of people (according to public feedback) are against development in the area, adding that of that final 5-10%, some of those people preferred option number four, which was to divide the property into four lots for single- family residences. While the fourth land use option was removed and taken off the list, Cavendish said many of those people came to the meetings and changed their preference to option number one to naturalize the property. The proposed land uses are preserving the land in its current state; using 7th Street portion for village for development at the discretion of the village and the rest remains in a natural state; and using 7th Street portion for development at the discretion of the village and selling the remaining buildable lots.
When evaluating each of the proposed uses, planning commission members took into consideration that it aligned with a number of criteria including the master and recreational plan, zoning implications, state and federal regulations, and the environmental impact.
Some of the listed “unresolved concerns” from the planning commission’s summary last week included interest in an additional environmental study, interest in having the planning commission make a single recommendation or to rank order options, and change in time for a public hearing.
