Riverhead Town will ban parking and idling on a portion of Youngs Avenue near Crown Recycling, following complaints from residents about large trucks obstructing the roadway.
“In recent months, we have been getting some complaints about the parking situation between East Meadow Road and Osborn Avenue, on Youngs Avenue,” Deputy Town Attorney Victoria Ceru said. “The main issue is that vehicles are parking on both the northerly and the southerly side [of the road], so it’s creating a bit of a hazard when buses come through, but really any car, because there’s no visibility on either side.”
“I believe there is some kind of signage there already, but it’s not reflected in the code,” she added.
Residents in the area have long complained to town and state officials about traffic on Youngs Avenue, particularly large tractor-trailers that come and go from Crown Recycling. The area is primarily residential and agricultural businesses, though part of the area closest to Osborn Avenue is zoned Light Industrial. That includes a portion of the Crown Recycling property, the former town landfill and the town’s yard waste disposal facility.
Town Attorney Erik Howard said the town will allow parking to continue in an area currently used by Crown employees. “Right now we need to confirm which portion of it is the roadway and which portion is their property. Obviously, they can park on their property,” he said.
The legislation may ultimately prohibit trucks specifically from parking and idling on the north side of Youngs Avenue, Howard added.
The Greater Calverton Civic Association sent a letter last month to the state Department of Environmental Conservation complaining about traffic from the site and heavy trucks regularly idling in the roadway. Civic leaders presented those concerns at a recent Traffic Safety Committee meeting. That was before Crown’s facility was destroyed by a massive fire last Wednesday.
The proposed parking ban requires an amendment to the Town Code, which regulates parking restrictions on town roads and makes violations subject to fines. Town Board members said they want the legislation passed as soon as possible.
The Town Board could hold a public hearing and adopt the parking ban as soon as July 1, Howard said.
“I hope that we can get it done on [July 1], only because I’ve been getting complaints for the last six and a half weeks, and I think we owe it to the residents,” Council Member Bob Kern said.
Council Member Ken Rothwell said the videos and pictures presented at the Traffic Safety Committee by the Calverton Civic showed “a sudden uptick of like heavy, heavy tractor trailers and so forth lining up on there, and you can’t see beyond them.”
“So it is a very dangerous situation,” he added.
Supervisor Tim Hubbard said he is working with the police chief to enforce the weight limits in the area. Hubbard said some trucks “are coming out of Crown and going west on Youngs Avenue, which they’re not allowed to do.”
According to Crown’s facility manual filed with the DEC in 2022, “Vehicles arriving and departing the project site will utilize Youngs Avenue to access Osborne [sic] Avenue… No truck traffic, other than garbage trucks that collect residential waste along Youngs Avenue will be permitted to utilize Youngs Avenue.”
The large trucks are going down residential roads that are “not load-rated for those trucks,” Hubbard said. The fines for trucks violating weight limits carry “very steep” fines,” he said. The Town Code prohibits any vehicle weighing more than eight tons from traveling on Youngs Avenue more than 1,350 feet from the intersection of Osborn Avenue.
“We’re going to try to come up with a location that we can do it — and do it safely,” Hubbard said of weighing the large trucks.
“But once that gets out, then we start doing that a couple times, you’re going to see a big difference in these trucks, and they’ll go back to doing it the right way,” Hubbard said. “So there needs to be enforcement — and we got to hit them where it hurts.”
According to the Town Code, violations of the town’s weight limit law carry a fine up to $100 and/or imprisonment for up to 15 days on the first conviction; up to $250 and/or imprisonment for up to 20 days for a second conviction; and up to $500 and/or imprisonment for up to 30 days for third and subsequent convictions. Parking violations carry a $50 fine.
“I’m happy that there is going to be enforcement,” Greater Calverton Civic Association President Toqui Terchun said in an interview. However, she added, the town should have acted sooner. The civic group made its presentation to the Traffic Safety Committee on May 29, she noted.
Terchun said fines for parking violations should be increased and penalties added for repeat offenders.
Howard said he would send notification to both Crown and another company trucking in material nearby, Patriot Recycling, about the weight limit requirements. Residents have also complained about trucks from Patriot Recycling, which purchased a nearby agricultural property and is using it for mulching, according to Terchun.
“We’ll need to figure out where Patriot is bringing their trucks in and where that weight limit starts, and they may have to figure out something else to access their site,” Howard said.
Town Engineer and Sanitation Supervisor Drew Dillingham spoke with Crown Recycling’s owner about tractor-trailers lining up along Youngs Avenue while waiting to enter Crown, according to a press release Friday from the supervisor’s office. The release said Dillingham has arranged for inbound trucks to call Crown prior to their arrival and be directed to either enter or queue-up in the rear of the Crown property — not on Youngs Ave.
The town’s outreach to the owner was a result of “multiple complaints” from residents, according to the press release.
As of Wednesday, the cause of the fire at Crown Recycling remains under investigation. The DEC has directed Crown to remove outdoor stockpiles of construction and demolition debris and municipal solid waste from the site within two weeks and properly dispose of those materials, according to a statement from the agency.
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