The Clock Is Ticking For Prisco Realty/ Reliable Tree Service

The clock is ticking on Prisco Realty LLC/Reliable Tree Service in Smithtown. Many homeowners in the area feel the business, located at 927 West Jericho Turnpike, has been before the Smithtown Town Board too many times and for too long without resolution. How long is too long?  Ten years plus, according to residents living behind Prisco on Amsterdam and Jennifer Roads. 

At its February 11 Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) meeting the board, minus  Chairwoman Adrienne Giannadeo who has recused herself, granted property owner Frank Prisco a sixty-day conditional extension to submit a completed site plan to the town. According to Blaise Donadio, a planner for Smithtown, the architect for Prisco is working on the site plan and is aware of the conditions placed on the property. Mr. Donadio acknowledged that non-compliance with the conditions, including the rapidly approaching 15-day requirement to delineate the buffers, could result in the nullification of the Prisco application. 

Google Earth 3/6/12Google Earth 4/1/04Google Earth 2001Prisco had requested a 180-day extension which was reduced to sixty days by the BZA with the following conditions: 1. A completed site plan must be filed with the Smithtown Planning Department within sixty days. 2.  Within 15 days of the BZA’s approval of the conditional extension buffers must be delineated and all outdoor storage must be removed from the delineated buffer area. 3. Prisco must respond to comments on site plan to Town departments within 15 days of receiving request. 4. Buffer fencing and plantings must be in place within 30 days of receiving site plan approval from the Board of Site Plan Review (Town Board).

Over the years Smithtown has responded to site plan violations issuing summonses to Prisco in 2003, 2008 and 2010. The case went to Suffolk County District Court and in 2011 a conditional discharge agreement was reached requiring Prisco to file a site plan within a year. Most recently in November of 2013 the BZA granted Prisco the approval to operate a trucking station on the site allowing for outdoor storage of vehicles.  Other variances were granted at the time, but so were restrictions that included a plan to buffer residents. 

Over the past ten years residents have complained  of noise, odors and the intense use of the property with encroachment on and removal of natural buffers. Aerial photos (provided by local resident) show the changes in the property. Additionally many residents have a new worry - traffic.  Some residents express concern that the trucks delivering cars to the site obstruct driver’s vision and traffic patterns. 

What do the residents want? Although there is no individual spokesperson for the homeowners, a common philosophy has emerged: residents want protection of their quality of life, a fair and reasonable resolution and enforcement that is swift and meaningful.  

The sixty-day extension gives Prisco until mid April to submit a completed site plan. 

Update on Saturday, March 1, 2014 at 12:07AM by .

According to sources at Town Hall Prisco/Reliable Tree has complied with item two of the conditional approval received on February 11.

Of Feb. 11, 2014 owner Frank Prisco was directed within 15 days of the BZA’s approval of the conditional extension to delinieate buffers and to remove all outdoor storage from the delineated buffer area. 

Mr. Prisco has 49 days left on his 60 day conditional approval to submit a completed site plan to the Planning Department.