Locals On Mission To Restore The Residential Nature Of The Neighborhood Surrounding Stony Brook Southampton Hospital

Aug 10, 2018 11:29 AM

About 40 Southampton Village residents who live on the streets surrounding Stony Brook Southampton Hospital have joined forces, with a goal of eventually restoring the residential nature of the hospital’s current Meeting House Lane site when the facility eventually moves to the Stony Brook Southampton campus, where a new $250 million hospital is planned.

Walter Deane, a longtime resident of Southampton Village, is among the neighbors who formed the Southampton Hospital Neighborhood Association. He said the fear is that the site of the current hospital will be auctioned off and used to build a dense development, like townhouses and attached apartments, similar to the Southampton Pointe and Bishops Pond condos nearby.

Last week, the group sent letters voicing their concerns, signed by 26 of the association’s members, to Bob Chaloner, the hospital’s chief administrative officer, Southampton Village Mayor Michael Irving, and the Village Planning Board.

“We hope that the next step will be a commitment from the hospital and the village—and the town, and the county, and the state—that the neighbors will be listened to and be a part of the decision process, because it’s going to involve all of those entities,” Mr. Deane said, standing in front of the Southampton Point development on Tuckahoe Lane.

“We have always been committed to being a good neighbor,” Mr. Chaloner said in a statement this week in response to questions about the association’s concerns. “We have met with the Southampton Hospital Neighborhood Association and will do so again as we move forward in the planning process.”

According to Richard Lisman, another longtime Southampton Village resident, the group met with Mr. Chaloner for an informational meeting last fall, where Mr. Chaloner said the hospital could have plans to continue using the property instead of selling it. “They did tell us, whether it’s still true or not, that their highest priority was a managed care facility, like Peconic Landing on the North Fork,” he said.

If a nursing home is still one of the proposals for the current hospital site, the group members said that they would want the hospital to conduct a study to determine if there was a genuine need for such a facility in Southampton.

Mr. Deane noted that a number of nearby residences have been purchased by the hospital over the past 50 years to create additional parking and building space, and, as a result, the neighborhood is less residential. Neighbors also are concerned about noise and environmental issues.

“We hope that the impending move will result in these houses and parking lots, and the roads that surround the hospital, which have been widened and made into virtual parking lots, to be returned to their original state, as the current zoning requires, as they will no longer be needed for the hospital,” he said. “We will not accept the option of the properties being sold to the highest bidders without consideration of the resulting impact on the neighborhood and village.”

The group members noted that they will continue to meet on a regular basis, and welcome any concerned residents living in the immediate area of the hospital or elsewhere in the village or town, to join them on their mission to conserve the neighborhood.

“This is wider than the neighborhood—it’s the village in general,” Mr. Lisman said. “What would you like to see there for the next generation?”