Southold may halt Mattituck development for 6 months over traffic study review

The Southold Town Board is weighing whether to ban all development along Mattituck’s Main Road for six months to review a study of traffic through the area, according to Newsday. If the board goes through with the plan, officials would freeze all building applications and site plan reviews for properties between Bay Avenue and Pike Street. The moratorium would halt a site plan review for a proposed 20,000-square-foot Brinkmann Hardware store in Mattituck. The family-owned chain has already drawn the ire of locals worried about traffic problems, according to Patch. Under the current plan, the board would lift the development moratorium after six months, but officials said they could extend it if they felt the need to. “It’s a good time to take a step back, particularly in Love Lane, which is the main retail area for the [Mattituck] hamlet, and say, ‘Let’s get a grip on this now, let’s wait for the traffic study and see where this goes,’” said Southold Councilman Robert Ghosio. [Newsday]