Riverhead revises golf cottages plan, creates new zoning district

Riverhead has hit reset on its golf cottages plan again, this time abandoning the idea of simply rezoning golf courses to RA-80 and writing a new district from scratch. The latest version would still open the door to transient lodging at golf courses, but only after a generic environmental impact statement and a more detailed review of what the change could mean for density, traffic, open space and future land use.

The shift marks a sharp turn from the town’s first draft in September 2025, when golf cottages were confined to two privately owned courses in the RA-80 zone, a setup that would have limited the idea to Friars Head and Baiting Hollow Club. By January, the town was weighing a much bigger proposal, with cottages allowed up to 1,200 square feet and as many as one per hole. That version drew strong pushback from residents and civic leaders who said the plan could drift toward luxury resort-style development.

At a January hearing, Greater Jamesport Civic Association president Laura Jens-Smith warned that attached units could amount to a hotel or motel-like structure of almost 21,000 square feet. In response, the Town Board narrowed the concept again by March, bringing the maximum cottage size back to 600 square feet, limiting construction to one cottage per golf hole, or 18 on a standard course, and capping attached cottages at no more than two units connected by a common wall. Town officials have said the units are meant as transient lodging for golfers or visitors, not as residences.

The June 12 rewrite goes further by dropping the RA-80 plan altogether. Senior Planner Greg Bergman said rezoning golf courses into RA-80 could create broader residential-density rights if a course later closed, a problem the town’s 2024 Comprehensive Plan Update does not contemplate. Bergman also said adding new TDR-receiving parcels would require exact mapping and a study of growth-inducing impacts, including the possibility of several hundred housing units if golf properties were ever converted to residential use.

That is the central tradeoff now before Riverhead. Supporters of the cottages idea still have a path to accessory lodging at golf courses, and the town’s transfer of development rights system would continue to require one farmland preservation credit per cottage, preserving an acre of farmland for each unit built. But nearby residents have reason to keep watching closely: the new zoning district may keep the concept alive while making it harder for golf-course lodging to become a backdoor to much denser housing later. For Riverhead, the question is no longer just whether golf cottages are allowed, but who gets the benefit, and how much the town is willing to change the rules for eight privately owned courses along the way.