Southold debates exemption for Mattituck hotel during moratorium

As Southold considers extending its moratorium on new hotels and inns for another year, the developer of a proposed hotel in Mattituck is asking the town to make an exception with the pitch it will improve a long blighted area. 

Developer D'Wayne Prieto is seeking to build an 81-room hotel at 9025 Main Rd., a 77,000-square-foot property that formerly housed a bank headquarters. It's been vacant since 2011. The application was frozen by a yearlong moratorium on hotels that took effect last June.

With that moratorium set to expire on June 18, the town set a May 28 hearing to continue the pause for another year.

Southold enacted the moratorium in response to an influx of hotel proposals while the town launched plans for a sweeping overhaul of its zoning code, which was last updated in 1989.

Now, the town must weigh the reuse of the vacant building against its long-range planning goals. The developer’s request has sparked a divide as residents urge town officials to heed their warnings that an exception could jeopardize the town’s zoning plan. 

Southold Supervisor Al Krupski said the town is under pressure from developers to build hotels, which drive tourism but can strain municipal resources and worsen traffic.

He didn't say whether he favors granting a waiver for the Mattituck hotel, but said it would be good to get "some use" out of the site.

“It’s zoned for business and it’s a big, built-out structure and big paved parking lot,” he said. “As far as redevelopment goes, it does fit that planning box quite well.”

Southold currently has 337 hotel and motel rooms, with another 142 in the Village of Greenport. There are five proposed new hotels. If all of them are approved, that would bring the total number of rooms to 515, according to a Suffolk County Planning Commission report.

The town must first decide whether the application can proceed through the review process, not whether the hotel is approved. The board has not made a decision and will continue the public hearing on May 28.

Exemption clash

Christopher Kent, an attorney for the developer from Farrell Fritz PC, advocated for a waiver during a May 13 hearing.

Kent said the abandoned property has “for many years cast a negative image at the gateway” to Southold on the western edge of town. The hotel would be built within the existing footprint of the building using sustainable materials and would generate tax revenue.

Redeveloping the site has been a goal for several years but the owners have struggled to find tenants to operate it, Kent said. He added that it’s too large to serve as office space again.

“Allowing this property to stand vacant and unutilized rather than occupied and operational as a hotel is a lost revenue source to the town and an underutilized job creator for the community,” he said.

But several residents said they opposed an exemption during the meeting, urging the town to focus on implementing new zoning that could restrict hotel development by room counts and other factors.

Jennifer Hartnagel, director of conservation advocacy for Group for the East End, an environmental nonprofit with offices in Southold, said it would be “counterproductive” to approve a new hotel before the code update is finished.

“There is a high demand, but these uses will have some level of impact on the infrastructure, the traffic, the quality of life, water resources, environmental quality that hasn’t been fleshed out yet with the zoning code,” she said.

Others said they don’t mind the site staying empty.

“This building’s vacancy is really much preferred to the prospect of what I feel is going to be a real detriment to my community,” said Catherine Harper, of Mattituck.