Greenport residents demand bold action on zoning, vacancies and dock issues

Greenport residents and business owners turned out last week at a Village Board meeting to express mounting concerns over what they describe as zoning gridlock, a faltering business district and growing safety and access issues tied to the Bay Avenue dock — the unofficial replacement for the now-defunct visitors dock.

The public comment section of the meeting surfaced a cross-section of frustrations, including urgent calls for the Village Board to reform the zoning code, simplify development procedures and take more decisive action to sustain year-round commerce and community life in Greenport.

In comment after comment, a unified message emerged: the time for incremental tweaks is over. If Greenport is to maintain its character and momentum — the speakers argued — bold, urgent action is needed to clear bureaucratic roadblocks and renew the village’s spirit of growth.

Zoning under fire

The most sustained criticism of the night came over 2023 zoning code changes, which several speakers contended were rushed and are overly restrictive and harmful to small businesses and affordable housing.

Dave Kapell, a former village mayor who has operated a business on Front Street since 1981, accused the board of pushing through a “massive rezoning … without any formal planning basis” and failing to follow it up with promised housing initiatives.

“Two years later … we are experiencing the highest commercial vacancy rate in at least 25 years,” Kapell said. “Several important proposals for redevelopment of key sites are either dead or mired in delay resulting from mismanagement of the building department and confusion over how complicated new zoning requirements … should be applied.”

Kapell pointed to the stalled $30 million expansion of Greenporter Hotel as a prime example of missed opportunity.

“Just last week, the owners … withdrew an application they had filed to add a third floor, after waiting a year for the village simply to decide which board to refer them to,” he said. “This would have been the single largest capital investment in Greenport in decades.”

A manager at the hotel did not respond to a request for comment.

Kapell also spotlighted local restaurateur Matt Michael’s years-long effort to redevelop the old Desiderio’s Pizza site, which closed in 2016, into a restaurant and apartment complex.

“These failures can be directly attributed to the onerous new parking requirements in the new zoning,” he said, adding that the rules impose an “impossibility of performance for the vast majority” of downtown commercial properties.

“In the alternative,” he continued, “the code sets out astronomical payment-in-lieu-of-parking fees and requires costly parking studies … barriers that are literally impossible to overcome for the average new business startup in Greenport.”

The crowd applauded when Kapell asked pointedly: “What’s more important for the people and future of Greenport — a place to live and raise a family, or a place to park your car?”

The former mayor’s frustration was palpable. His comments last week were the first time he has spoken out publicly at a Village Board meeting since his 2007 retirement from public office.

“I can’t stand idly by and watch my village decline as it is now,” he said in a text over the weekend.

Michael, who owns 1943 Pizza Bar, shares Kappel’s frustrations.

“I hardly ever come to the village anymore — not because I don’t want to, but because I’m very discouraged by the process,” he told trustees at last week’s meeting.

Michael said that despite widespread support for his plan — which includes a modestly larger restaurant and several housing units — his efforts have stalled due to code requirements that are “financially infeasible and not economically viable.”

“I hate it just as much as everyone else,” he said of his boarded-up property. “But without substantial changes to the code, proceeding with construction or selling my property are not viable — leaving me with only one option: to leave it vacant and wait.”

Brent Pelton, owner of Stirling Square, called for renewed focus on encouraging investment. “We can’t become a village of ‘No,’” he said. “We have way too many empty storefronts.”

“We need to be encouraging businesses to invest in this area,” he said. “We have a sewer plant. We have a power plant. We have wonderful access to the train, the buses, to the water. We need to utilize these assets to power the growth of Greenport for the future. I don’t know if it’s the zoning law changes … that are driving the vacancies, but I think it may be time … to get a consultant in to see if they really are working in the community’s best interest.”

As a practice, village trustees generally do not respond in depth to public comments at board meetings, so the North Fork Sun submitted a written request last week to Stuessi and Deputy Mayor Patrick Brennan, inviting them to respond directly to the various complaints lodged during the two-hour meeting. While Stuessi did not reply, Brennan provided an extensive response to concerns about the village’s docks (below).

At Thursday’s meeting, however, the mayor did address Pelton’s comments — saying the original parking restrictions have already been loosened, and that oftentimes an empty storefront is the result of economic pressures, not zoning issues.

“Anecdotally, I’ll tell you, I spent some time with a bicycle shop operator from up island who very much wanted to open something here,” the mayor said. “Introduced him to a number of different folks. I think he toured a total of seven different vacant properties, and not one of them — none — had parking required for it whatsoever. That was one thing that the committee [which trustee] Mary Bess [Phillips] chaired spent a lot of time working on, and ultimately the village board worked on, and we loosened the parking restrictions in a number of ways.

“Ultimately it was a rent issue,” he said of his tour with the bike shop operator, “and it was surprising: you couldn’t even get these [landlords] to agree to do a summer pop up for a number that made business sense for him.”

‘Worst case scenarios’

Realtor Bridget Elkin delivered a history lesson on Greenport’s past two decades of commercial vibrancy — and an insistent call to rethink the current zoning code before it chokes off the next wave of innovation.

“If you had moved to Greenport 10 years ago … you would have found a downtown alive with an inspired business community,” she said, naming numerous local entrepreneurs who helped build the modern Greenport brand.

“We are coding and legislating for the worst-case scenarios,” she warned. “Our current code’s definition of a large, significant business … makes it extremely challenging to open a café even the size of Aldo’s.”

Elkin cited a $40,000 parking study that she said showed ample space even on peak summer weekends and argued that the real issue was perception. “We should not be giving up valuable land to house cars when you can find multiple parking spots 325 days a year.”

“Let’s proactively take the opportunity to revisit and modernize our zoning code to attract the next generation of talented entrepreneurs,” she said, “and build a more sustainable Greenport for year-round living.”

Her husband, Eric Elkin, also addressed the board.

“Walking and biking should be the core of Greenport’s lifestyle,” he said. “Our current parking requirements … place unrealistic burdens on small businesses.” He encouraged the board to stop “legislating for national trends” and instead focus on practical, local solutions. “We need a pragmatic, honest conversation about how to make Greenport a thriving, attractive year-round community.”

Dock issues

Central Avenue resident Lorraine Kreahling expressed concerns about accessibility and safety at the Bay Avenue dock, which has become a de facto drop-off point for swimmers and boaters.

“I don’t understand the whole way that this amount of land was ceded to North Ferry,” she said. “Passengers no longer have an easy access to the walkway from a car.”

Kreahling also warned about the mix of swimmers and speeding boats at the Bay Avenue dock, where “boats continue to tie up — and also come in quickly — and swimmers are very hard to see.”

She floated the idea of charging minimal fees at the marina to help fund reconstruction of the shuttered visitor’s dock.

Bay Avenue resident Willa Appel amplified the dock concerns, saying that boaters continue to use the dock under the mistaken belief it is the designated spot for drop-offs and pickups. “Unless something is done pretty quickly, it’s going to become kind of an established usage,” Appel warned.

Her solution: a new sign that reads “NOT the visitor’s dock,” with the word “NOT” printed much larger than the rest.

Stuessi said that the village was working with the Business Improvement District (BID) on potential dock solutions.

 Brennan said in his written statement that “I am in agreement with many folks within, and without, the village that view the visitors dock as an important village amenity … a valuable aspect of our harbor infrastructure.”

“Greenport’s harbor provides critical access for many commercial and light-industrial water-dependent businesses, including fishing, aquaculture, recreational boating and marine technical trades. In this role, the village bears the responsibility and financial burden of providing and maintaining an extensive and comprehensive array of marine infrastructure; docks, bulkheads, moorings, channels, navigational aids, waste pump-out, etc…

“It is also important to remember that the village operates a substantial commercial marina enterprise, dedicated to transient stays only, designed to accommodate recreational boating visitors while supporting our local tourism economy.”

The deputy mayor said he would recommend that the Village Board consider relocating the visitor’s dock to within the village’s marina, charging a “reasonable fee” for short-term stays and no fees for brief passenger drop-offs and pickups.

Brennan also urged the community to “consider how we might re-imagine the opportunities at the current visitors dock location to best serve additional docking needs, such as creating a facility for first-responder, law enforcement and village marina service vessels; creating a facility for the brief and transient docking needs of commercial operators, like marine contractors and small commercial fishing enterprises,” or “creating docking facilities for small commercial transportation enterprises, such as site-seeing launches, water taxis, passenger ferries, etc.

“Implementing any of the above will require timely and thoughtful discussion by the Village Board, solicitation of public input, decisive action by our village administration and securing of adequate funding.”

Reached on Monday morning, Phillips said she concurs with and has also championed the ideas Brennan outlined.

“This is an opportunity,” she said Monday. “As we are updating the [Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan], we’re looking at the waterfront, and we’re looking at the cost of repairing things that have not been maintained for years. It is in the best interest of this board to take a look at all options, opportunities, thoughts and ideas, and come up with a situation there that benefits the village community.”

Moving the visitors dock to Mitchell Park marina, she said, would provide “direct access to the downtown business community.”

Responding to the complaints about zoning, Phillips said she reached out to Pelton and Bridget Elkin after last week’s meeting and hopes to sit down with each of them this week.

Speeding concerns, rundown park

Several residents raised day-to-day quality-of-life issues. Kevin Quillin, a Fifth Street resident, said he recently witnessed a car blowing through stop signs at 60 mph near his home. “Somebody’s gonna get killed,” he warned. “I’m getting tired of yelling off the porch.”

He also described overgrown weeds and garbage at the Fifth Street Park, poor lighting on the boardwalk and leftover debris after brush pickups.

Stuessi acknowledged the village’s limited resources but said repairs were on the schedule.

“The team is stretched in a lot of different things,” he said, adding that the village has posted signs and is considering a different type of fencing at the park.

At times, the village’s challenges seem endless.

On Saturday night, an elderly woman tripped on a broken piece of sidewalk on Front St. and broke her nose, according to a Greenport business owner, prompting a petition to be circulated on social media Monday, urging village officials to fix the sidewalks in the business district.