Smithtown's Master Plan Moving Forward Despite Setbacks

By Stacey Altherr

Despite Covid-19 and other setbacks, public commenting is still ongoing while the Town of Smithtown continues the process of creating a new Master Plan for its hamlets.

The town has not had a comprehensive master plan adopted in more than 50 years. The town board, under the new administration of Edward Wehrheim as supervisor, funded $700,000 for studies to come up with a plan.  H2M of New Jersey was given the contract to work with the town planners and put it together.

While the town says the response has been better than it expected, some in the town felt it could have been more widely advertised.

Last fall, before the pandemic locked down of the town and country, the town officials held “scoping” meetings in each of the hamlets – Smithtown, Kings Park, Nesconset, St. James, Hauppauge, and Commack – to find out what residents saw in their community’s future. The town also took comments and questions on its website, and asked residents to fill out a 15-page survey on issues of traffic, environment, open space, and other land use issues. Some questions targeted specific communities, according to town spokeswoman Nicole Garguilo.

After that first set of meetings, H2M compiled the information, and using it, came up with a draft. 

The plan was to deal with outdated business zones and land use issues, said Wehrheim. Because the residents have vested interests in what happens in their towns, he said, the town advertised and held online Zoom meetings with the major town planners. Residents could comment there or send in comments after watching it live or on youtube.com.

“We took the basic parts of opposition to it in each hamlet so we can work on those issues,” he said. “It was 12 or so issues. So now we are working with our planning officials to work on those.”

The town supervisor pointed to Northport Road as an example. H2M suggested that the light use area be changed to heavy use since many of the businesses are heavy industrial use, even if done so illegally for decades. But civic groups and other residents complained, so the town is working with each of the owners to “clean up” environmental issues and revert new and some existing businesses to comply with light use, and encouraging less hard use. New applicants include a new soccer field complex by Agape Inc., a solar farm, a medical facility, and a new daycare center.

“We may just keep [most if it] light industry,” Wehrheim said. “We think the residents’ concerns had some validity… We are going to each one [of the businesses] to have them clean up. We’ve been successful. That being said, there will be some we may need to zone heavy industry.”

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Most important to residents, according to survey results, were downtown revitalization, traffic, and overdevelopment of certain business use areas.

Town officials say they used many different avenues to announce meetings; social media, press coverage, its own website homepage, and GTV ads. Residents say that it should have considered a mailing to each home, but Garguilo said the cost would be prohibitive; about $50,000 for printing and mailing.

Instead, it piggybacked on annual tax mailings and recycling calendars with an informational insert, mailings were given to schools to bring home to parents, flyers put in the town’s libraries, and large posters were taped in businesses across town. About 100 residents have called to ask for a copy of the survey to be sent to their homes, and the town obliged.

According to the town’s count, 577 residents went to one of the six town meetings in 2019 pre-Covid for the scoping meetings; 921 watched the zoom meetings, 1,259 participants filled out the online survey, and 77,278 residents did not fill out the full survey but used the link to answer the some of the questions (usually the area concerning their town) and an additional 2,034 comments were sent via the link who did not fill out part or all of the survey.

When the next public input meeting is yet to be determined. The sudden death of H2M project leader, Jeffrey Janota, last month will stall the project until a new project manager is put in place, Garguilo said.  Next will come the Environmental Impact Plan which addresses traffic, water usage, and other environmental issues, which will mandate another round of public input and meetings, and then the final draft of the plan. Wehrheim says he believes it can still get done by the end of the year.

Residents still have time to voice their opinions, questions, and concerns she said, on the town website; smithtownny.gov (look halfway down on the right and click on “Smithtown Draft Master Plan” to read the plan and comment). 

“It’s fluid,” Wehrheim said. “We want to hear how they want their town to move into the future.”