After the Southold City Planning Board ruled in July that a planned expansion of the Gulf gas station on Main Road to Mattituck required a comprehensive environmental review, the station owners are preparing a scaled-down plan.
Emre Ilgin, son of business owner Sukru Ilgin, told attendees at a July 29 Mattituck-Laurel Civic Association forum on the project that his family had already prepared a detailed environmental impact statement (EIA) for the Gulf gas station it recently built at the corner of Young’s Avenue and Route 48 in Southold and that it would like to avoid preparing an EIA for this project.
The property at the intersection of Main Road, Old Main Road and Bray Avenue in Mattituck currently houses a 1,600-square-foot convenience store and a 9-pump gas station.
In 2022, the applicants proposed merging the property with a 1.12-acre vacant lot immediately east of the current site, demolishing the existing gas station and pumps, constructing a new two-story, 5,000-square-foot office and convenience store and 12 gas pumps on the vacant lot, and leaving the fuel storage tanks on the existing gas station site, which will subsequently be landscaped.
The project, as currently designed, also includes a 335 square meter canopy over the gas pumps and lowered curbs to better control traffic flow at this dangerous intersection.
“Since the last meeting, we’ve gone back to the drawing board,” Emre Ilgin told attendees at the civic association meeting, referring to the July 8 meeting of the Southold City Planning Board, where the board issued a “positive declaration” for the project under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), meaning the project requires an environmental impact statement.
“SEQRA is doable – we did that with the station in Southold on Young’s Avenue, but if we can redo it by reducing the size and pumping stations, there are alternatives too. The roof is long – we could remove the roof, but everyone would get wet.”
Mr Ilgin said the project engineer is working on possibly relocating the building and gas pumps on the site to make it more compliant.
He said his family owns 12 gas stations on Long Island, but this is his father’s first gas station and he wants to move the company headquarters there. The expanded mini-mart, he said, is part of the reality of trying to operate a gas station business during these times.
“It used to be that you could make a profit on gas,” he says. “Now companies like Costco and BJ’s sell gas at cost – they make their money from memberships. In order for me to stay in business, I have to focus on the convenience store side.”
In addition to being reviewed by the Planning Committee, the project in its current form must also be submitted to the City’s Land Use Planning Appeals Committee for several reasons.
“Gas station” is a special use in the commercial area, explained city planner Brian Cummings to the participants of the MLCA meeting. “From the city’s perspective, this means that it is a permitted use that requires additional review to ensure that the proposed use does not have an unreasonable impact on the surrounding area.”
Additionally, several variances would be required, in part because the property is on a corner and has two front yards as required by the zoning code and cannot maintain the required setback from Old Main Road. Additionally, the frontage is slightly wider than the maximum linear width of 60 feet.
Cummings said the Planning Board decided the project required an environmental impact statement for three main reasons. First, the city’s 2020 Comprehensive Plan update calls for retail stores to remain in town centers to prevent urban sprawl.
Route 25 is also a designated scenic route, he said, adding that the area is “a valuable gateway to Southold Town and Mattituck.”
The third concern is that the project could lead to more noise, smell and light in the area, which “could have negative impacts on the environment”.
“It’s our job and the planning board’s job to figure out how we can contain this and address it in the future,” he said. “SEQRA is our tool.”
The applicant’s attorney, Charles Cuddy, took a different view in a letter to the Planning Board on July 22.
“It is clear from reading the report that this is not an environmental issue as the conclusion is that the application cannot proceed as it is inconsistent with the overall plan,” he wrote. “This is an absolute issue that cannot be mitigated. It goes to the heart of the application, which is whether an extension of an existing business is permissible.”
“This amounts to a moratorium through the back door,” he added. “It ignores the zoning and is an important decision – one that only the City Council can make – that the master plan overrides the zoning. The planning staff, whether innocently or intentionally, and the Planning Board inadvertently overstepped their authority.”
Mr. Cuddy asked the Planning Board to overturn the July 8 SEQRA decision and “make it clear that a business can expand as long as it meets the city’s zoning criteria.”
Although the city’s comprehensive plan was adopted in 2020, the zoning changes recommended in the plan have not yet been implemented. Recommendations for those changes are expected this fall, and the City Council has declined to issue a development moratorium while those changes are considered.
