Residents air concerns about proposed Eastport development

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Dozens of Eastport and East Moriches residents waited anxiously for several hours to speak before the Brookhaven Town Planning Board on Monday night, hoping to compel board members to look at the cumulative effects of several proposed developments in their hamlets.

During a public hearing on an application to build a 70-home subdivision on 97 acres off County Road 51 in Eastport, a project dubbed Eastport Meadows, residents asked the board to keep other projects in the area in mind when considering the proposal.

Jim Gleason, a member of the East Moriches Property Owners Association Board of Directors, presented the board with a petition containing the signatures of 1,500 residents of Eastport and East Moriches, calling for a generic environmental impact study to be performed under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act. “This is a very serious number of residents,” Mr. Gleason told the board.

The residents are asking for the study to include the overall effects of several projects, including Eastport Meadows.

The Planning Board held off on voting to approve Eastport Meadows and will continue the public hearing on December 21.

Under the terms of the proposal, 45 acres of the property would be preserved as open space, and about 8 acres would be given to the town for the construction of ballfields. The project has been in the works for about five years, according to David Sloane, an attorney for Miller Realty, the developer of the project.

Other projects also proposed in the area include the Eastport Hamlet Centre proposal, which calls for a mix of office and retail buildings, including 78 townhouses and 75,000 square feet of commercial space on about 13 acres on Eastport Manor Road across from the King Kullen shopping center. It would require the Town Board to change the zoning of the parcel to a planned development district, a special kind of zoning that is created for an individual project.

The Town Board is also considering a change of zone application for the Hamptons Club, which calls for 119 townhouses to be built on a 79-acre parcel on County Road 111 in Manorville. Originally granted approval to build 64 single-family homes in 2007, the developer filed a new application in September asking for the increased density.

Developments that have already been approved in the area include Heritage Square, a 408-unit senior housing development on County Road 51 in East Moriches, and The Oaks, also on County Road 51, where the developer has been granted permission to build 62 homes. The town and county are in negotiations to preserve The Oaks property as open space. Another project, also called Eastport Meadows, is expected to create 50 senior units on Seatuck Avenue in Eastport.

The residents on Monday stressed that, combined, the developments would create nearly 800 homes in the East Moriches and Eastport hamlets.

But Mr. Sloane objected to lumping the other projects—most notably, the Eastport Hamlet Centre and The Hamptons Club— together with Eastport Meadows. “The other projects all increase density,” he said. “This doesn’t. I don’t think the town would be justified in trying to stop it or delay it further.”

Residents on Monday night outlined several concerns about how the projects would impact the community, including increased enrollment in the Eastport South Manor School District, increased traffic and stresses on the environment.

Eastport resident John Keck delivered an impassioned plea to board members to reconsider the density of the project, which he said would affect the character of his neighborhood.

“That’s my life,” Mr. Keck said. “It’s the only reason I’m in New York State … Don’t flood me. Don’t wash everything out.”

The town’s Planning Division is still tweaking the site plan, and at the hearing officials suggested fencing off the 45 acres of open space and possibly creating an additional emergency exit on the site.

Mr. Sloane, however, argued that the open space was too expansive to fence and would require at least a mile of fencing. He also balked at the suggestion to create an emergency exit, which, if imposed, would result in the forfeiture of one of the homes in the plan, Mr. Sloane said.

Mr. Gleason also suggested amending the current proposal, calling for the developer to move a planned recharge basin from along Montauk Highway to a less conspicuous part of the property. But doing so would interrupt the approximately 45 acres of contiguous open space, an environmental requirement put in place by the Central Pine Barrens Commission, said Mr. Sloane.

In response to the call for a generic environmental impact study, Theresa Elkowitz, a principal of VHB Engineering, Surveying and Landscape Architecture of Hauppauge, who represented the developer at the hearing, said the project’s impacts on the community have been studied since 1993, when it was first proposed as a 240-bed nursing home. She said the project would not produce any adverse environmental impacts and wouldn’t benefit from another study.