As Greenport Village continues pressing Southold Town to allow Community Preservation Fund (CPF) dollars to be used for water-quality projects in the village, town officials on Tuesday laid out the next steps for adapting to recent changes in the state statute that governs how CPF funds are used.

Lillian McCullough, the Southold planning department’s executive assistant and the staff member who handles much of the town’s CPF administration, updated the Town Board on the new state-mandated structure for CPF oversight and the process now underway to evaluate Greenport’s requests.

Greenport officials, led by Mayor Kevin Stuessi, have repeatedly urged Southold to adopt a 2016 water quality amendment that would let the town spend a portion of its CPF revenue on projects like stormwater upgrades, sewer work and other water-infrastructure needs. Village officials argue that Greenport pays into the CPF with every real estate sale but see few benefits because the one-square-mile village has little open land left to preserve, while town leaders have so far insisted the limited fund should remain focused on land preservation.

Town Councilwoman Anne Smith reported that she and Greenport Trustee Lily Dougherty-Johnson have spent the last several weeks refining a joint chart that identifies the village’s needs, including a broader list of water-quality and natural-resources priorities. That list, reviewed by McCullough and town staff, is ready for more formal analysis, Smith said.

McCullough told the board that one major state-level change is the recent creation of a Peconic Bay Region Advisory Committee, a body that each CPF town must now help form. The committee will include representatives from all CPF towns, one representative for all incorporated villages in the region and five subject-matter experts in areas including land preservation, farming and water quality.

“It mirrors a committee that actually already existed several years ago, and then they just kind of stopped meeting,” McCullough said. “But the statute that created and governed CPF was amended last year to require the towns to form this committee.”

She said that the committee does not direct projects, but serves as a shared technical resource. “It’s meant to basically bring heads together to answer questions that towns have about administering the fund. It’s not guiding what projects are done.”

Supervisor Al Krupski was critical of the mandate, calling it “a classic example of state overreach,” given that all five East End towns have run separate CPF programs for more than two decades. He said it has been a challenge to form the committee and write bylaws and procedures, and argued that the requirement has “muddied the water” more than it has helped.

McCullough acknowledged the administrative complexity but noted that many towns already rely on each other informally for guidance. “It’s helpful to have all of those heads in the room together,” she said.

She said the newly refined chart from the village is an important step forward. The next phase is to match each need to potential funding sources and to determine which, if any, would be eligible for CPF funding.

If the town chooses to consider CPF funding for Greenport projects, she said, Southold would need to examine water-quality needs across the entire town. The village “has its own specific needs, but the village is part of the town and surrounded by waters that are more directly controlled outside the village, but impact the village. So there’s no way to just single out the village.”

McCullough recommended a structured series of meetings between town staff, village representatives and Town Board members. The first sessions would focus on “CPF 101,” open-space priorities and water-quality improvement projects “so that all these people are in the same room talking about these things, and essentially use that as an opportunity for an information exchange.

“I wouldn’t say that out of these meetings there should be some collective work product, because I think the respective boards have to make their own decisions and recommendations and requests. But I think these meetings should be very focused for each one, so that we can really get into the issues.”

Smith proposed asking village officials to designate representatives so scheduling can begin. After three work sessions, the two boards would reconvene jointly to assess the findings.

Recycling

Southold waste management coordinator Nick Krupski briefed the Town Board on new developments in the town’s composting, recycling and food-waste programs.

Krupski said the town continues exploring better outlets for hard-to-process materials, including mattresses and glass. While Southold’s volume is small, he said private companies are developing profitable recycling models and that Southampton’s planned glass-processing system may offer a template.

“If we can model their experience after they’ve developed their plant, it might be worth running the numbers to see … how long does it take to pay for itself?” he said.

Glass remains difficult to handle on Long Island, he explained, because it is “so heavy,” making transport costly. Southampton is looking to turn processed glass into aggregate for drainage and erosion-control work — a direction Krupski said Southold may consider.

Krupski also reported on a recent project with the town’s Tree Committee to replace dying pear trees at Town Hall. After discovering the soil was “horrible,” crews used town-produced compost and topsoil to replant 11 hardier trees. “There was no budget for the planting,” he said, so the solid-waste staff did the planting themselves. The trees “look beautiful,” he said.

He also reported that the town’s state Department of Environmental Conservation–required groundwater wells around the compost facility have now been tested for more than a year, and results show “there’s no contaminants coming from our compost facility.” The state has agreed to reduce testing from quarterly to annual, saving about $10,000 per year, he said.

Krupski said the town’s food-waste program will continue as its grant period ends. Public enthusiasm remains strong. “The outreach on that topic is essential,” he said, and continued partnerships with Long Island Organics and civic groups are helping keep residents engaged.

ADUs

Southold’s housing officials and zoning leaders are moving to streamline how homeowners create accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, particularly detached backyard apartments. Community Development Project Supervisor Andrea Menjivar outlined a proposal under which applications for detached ADUs that meet all basic zoning standards, including square footage, setbacks, lot coverage and height, would go first to the Housing and Community Development Department, not the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Her office would track affordability, tenant eligibility and ongoing compliance on a two-year cycle and then send conforming projects to the building department for permits, with the ZBA only involved if a variance is needed. ZBA Chair Leslie Weisman told the board the goal is to “make it less expensive, less onerous, less levels of government” while still knowing where ADUs are located and who is living in them.

The draft code changes would also modestly loosen design rules to make ADUs more practical. The town is keeping the existing 220-square-foot minimum size so owners can convert single detached garages without costly additions, but is considering allowing accessory apartments to occupy up to 40% of the primary house, capped at 750 square feet, and to be built on two floors in a detached structure, such as an apartment above a garage.