Speaking Out Against Smithtown's Master Plan "A Love Letter To Density"

By Stacey Altherr

*Updated March 5th

While the Town of Smithtown is forging ahead with its master plan, some in the community are concerned with what they see as a future of overdevelopment and a loss of the town’s unique historical and suburban character.

Especially worrisome is the development of sites such as the Gyrodyne property and the Hauppauge Industrial Park, which have been thorny issues for years.

The master plan is a forward-looking document that looks at zoning regulations and future development of the town. Smithtown has not updated its plan since 1960. It hopes to have it finished by the end of the year.

James Bouklas, President of the We Are Smithtown organization, called the master plan as it is drafted now  “a love letter to density.”

“The plan is dedicated to apartments and large, tall buildings that are completely out of character for the town,” he said. 

Bouklas says the town doesn’t need apartments, because those would be priced around $2,000, out of the range of entry-level jobs anyway. He also says the idea of walkable areas, where people don’t use cars as often because people will shop and run errands within walking distance is “parochial.”

“Route 25a is already highly trafficked,” he said. “Add 200 units here and 300 there… We live in suburbia. We are being sold a pipe dream.”

Instead, members of We Are Smithtown would like to see smaller more affordable single-family homes built for starter homes, something Bouklas said is under-stocked in the town, and have downtown support small consumer-driven shops.

THE GYRODYNE PLANS

The Gyrodyne property, located on the Brookhaven town line and currently zoned light industry, is under consideration to be divided into seven different lots. Bouklas and others would like to see that property reverted back to residential, as it was in 1960s, and made into half or one-acre properties.

Judy Ogden, head of the St. James/Head of the Harbor Neighborhood Coalition and a trustee in the Head of the Harbor village board, says her members would like something similar.

“One of the other elephants in the room is the sewer treatment plan has been used to sell Gyrodyne as a savoir of Lake Avenue,” Ogden said. The Mills Pond Historic District is on the edge of the 5-acre defunct plant, and Head of the Harbor residents worry the wrong type of development there would change it. (Lake Avenue Smithtown’s 8.2 Million Dollar Road Part III Gyrodyne Problem)

“It is part of the last vestige of farmland, it’s historic… Once the change is made, there will be no turning back.”

Town officials say that reverting back to residential after decades, and with a current owner in place, would not be feasible, and would most likely trigger lawsuits. Instead, said Nicole Garguilo, town spokeswoman, the town is working with the Gyrodyne board to work within the zoning guidelines. The one thing the town wants there is a sewer treatment plant, which would allow St. James’ business district to hook up to it. 

“Something with a residential component is not off the table,” Garguilo said. “They may want to do something like Jefferson Ferry (a senior citizen assisted living facility in Port Jefferson), but single-family homes on one-acre lots? Not going to do that.”

Residents against the project site worry about the treatment plan emissions into the bay, but the town says single family homes have more issues because they have their own septic system which leaches into the ground, a heavier impact than a newly constructed treatment plant.

WAIT ON BIG PROJECTS, THEY SAY

Until these issues can be fleshed out, Odgen says a moratorium on all large developments should be in place until the town residents can digest the comprehensive plan. Then, she said, “you can look back at the projects and see if they fit what they are putting in the plan.”

But Garguilo says that could cause a spike in developers filing plans before the time it would take to put a moratorium in place, which could cement plans too early in the process. Instead, town officials say they are working each case individually and personally.

Ogden says that is “hogwash.” “Town governments doing comprehensive plans use moratoriums all the time to make sure projects don’t move forward that conflict with their comprehensive plans and have absolute authority to make sure bad projects don’t sneak through,” she said.

MORE MEETINGS NEEDED

Residents are hoping the town hold more meetings- as well as with the individual stakeholder groups -to listen to all concerns. Many residents did not know about last month’s Zoom meetings. Garguilo said the town is still in the process of listening to concerns. “The town is 100 percent dedicated to keeping Smithtown as Smithtown.”

A Lot To Think About In Smithtown's Revamped Master Plan

SMITHTOWN GETS A FIRST LOOK AT REVAMPED MASTER PLAN

December 18, 2020

By Richard Murdocco

A summary of findings from the Town of Smithtown’s latest draft comprehensive plan were first offered to elected officials and the public during a December 15^th virtual town board session. 

The presentation given by Jeff Janota, a planning representative from Melville-based H2M architects+engineers, served as the first time both policymakers and residents heard of the newest plan’s recommendations for the future of housing, transportation, land use, recreation and more. 

According to local officials, the presentation was the first step of a lengthy formal approval process that includes an environmental review, the scheduling of additional public hearings, targeted community meetings, potential revisions, and an eventual vote of final adoption by the town.

The $490,000 effort first launched back in December 2018, when the Town of Smithtown contracted with H2M to craft the plan. Since then, the engineering firm conducted numerous resident surveys, meetings, and community outreach charettes in an effort to take the public’s temperature on issues such as the revitalization of Smithtown’s downtown areas and hamlet centers, as well as allowing additional residential development in key areas. 

This isn’t the first time Smithtown has tried to update its current master plan, which has been in use since 1961. 

A previous planning effort in 2015 was received coolly by the region’s business groups and real estate developers, who felt that the resulting developmental roadmap was uninspiring.  At the time, builders argued that the 2015 plan fell “woefully short of properly addressing downtown development and the area’s increasing exodus of young people.”

As a result, the massive draft went nowhere because the town board declined to formally adopt it. However, parts of the previous plan did find a second life in providing data for the 2020 effort’s land use analysis and community inventory.

Chief among the recommendations of this latest iteration include amending the town’s zoning regulations to bring them more aligned with current land usage, as well as allowing developers greater flexibility in changing permitted uses as appropriate. The plan also stresses the need for more transit-oriented development near area Long Island Rail Road stations, enhanced improvements to recreational facilities town-wide, as well as preserving the integrity of Smithtown’s existing single-family neighborhoods, which make up 51% of Smithtown’s overall land usage.

A key recommendation being made is that policymakers create a new zoning designation called a Multi-Family Zone that allows for low to mid-rise residential development in hamlets with underutilized lots, including areas located along West Jericho Turnpike in Commack or various vacant wooded parcels in Nesconset. 

“The Town of Smithtown should encourage, where appropriate, the construction of a diverse housing stock beyond the single-family home to meet the needs of all ages and abilities,” the document states. “Housing types could include townhome, apartment, assisted living, senior living, or traditional mixed-use,” it continues, adding that smaller-scale housing options should also be integrated into areas surrounding transit hubs and designated town centers.

In addition, the draft charted recent growth trends and key demographic metrics throughout Smithtown.

According to the document, traffic growth was relatively modest throughout the township from the period between 2015 to 2018, with the data showing that the number of total vehicle trips on town roads increased by 6%. In addition, the plan identified an 18% decline in overall school district enrollment town-wide, a figure averaged across the Smithtown, Kings Park, Hauppauge, and Commack school districts.

For the 75-acre Gyrodyne property, one of the last large tracts of developable land in western Suffolk County, the plan suggests that Smithtown residents are supportive of recent efforts to redevelop the former industrial parcel. “When asked how they’d like to see Gyrodyne redeveloped, comprehensive plan survey commenters believed the current proposed plans for a hotel, assisted living, and medical office was appropriate, and they additionally desired a sewage treatment plant, walking trails, green space, and in some instances, residential,” the draft writes. The plan goes on to recommend a buffer of parkland on the site, and suggests that elected officials keep a watchful eye on developmental happenings on the Brookhaven side of the property. 

At public hearings on Gyrodyne’s redevelopment earlier this year, Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine argued against the latest projects being proposed on the Town of Smithtown portion of the Gyrodyne property due to their potential negative impacts to the environment and quality-of-life.

Concerning recreation, H2M said that the town should work to create new neighborhood parks in areas such as Half Hollow Road in Commack; Donald Drive and Hillside-Gramercy Gardens in Kings Park and at 3rd Street and Astor Avenue in St. James. The document found that surveyed local residents strongly favor additional investment being made in Smithtown’s recreational facilities, and were supportive of additional parks being built. In total, the plan reports that there were 1,159 survey responses from residents, who left over 2,000 comments.

According to Allyson Murray, Smithtown’s project manager for the comprehensive plan update, the next steps will be the scheduling of additional public workshops to solicit feedback and dedicated hearings as the plan’s environmental impact statements are being authored. “There is a considerable amount of public outreach that is to occur,” Murray said, who noted that the level of resident participation in the planning process reflects local civic pride. “We have a large and stable residential community of people who care about where they live.” 

Murray says that the public is welcome to comment on the draft plan anytime between now and February, when official hearings on the document will likely be scheduled. If the public is generally supportive of the draft recommendations, the town is aiming to formally adopt the 2020 comprehensive plan sometime in late spring or early summer next year.

Richard Murdocco is an award-winning columnist and adjunct professor in Stony Brook University’s public policy graduate program. He regularly writes and speaks about Long Island’s real estate development issues. You can email Murdocco at Rich@TheFoggiestIdea.org.