Developer Pitches 86-Unit 55-And-Over Rental Community In Eastport

A developer is pitching an 86-unit 55-and-older community in Eastport on 13 acres where a proposal for a mixed-used development was rejected several years ago.

The area is on the Brookhaven Town side of Eastport, a hamlet that straddles Brookhaven and Southampton towns, and the plan can only move forward if the Brookhaven Town Board grants a change of zone to “planned retirement community.”

The proposal submitted last month, named Hamptons Gateway, is for 11 two-story buildings plus a clubhouse, two recreational areas and 142 parking spaces. All 86 units would be rentals under the proposal, and 10 percent of the units, under Brookhaven Town code, must be set aside for affordable or workforce housing.

The developer, Minas Michaelian, said this week that he wants to help Eastport, which he described as a little town that has become “depressed.” He said the development will help the school district by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes annually while not adding any children to school enrollment, and the tenants will stimulate business by shopping locally.

The project would span two lots that are on the north side of Montauk Highway and on either side of Seatuck Avenue. The east lot is 9.25 acres that are zoned residential and business, and it reaches north all the way to Old Country Road/Old Montauk Highway and east to Eastport Manor Road. The west lot is 3.86 acres that are zoned residential, and it is where the sewage treatment plant that would serve the development is proposed, though the majority of the lot would remain wooded.

The rental units and parking would all be located on the east lot, and entrances are proposed on Seatuck Avenue on either side of a group of four existing single-family homes that are unaffiliated with the proposed development. On the north end of the development, units will back up to Old Country Road/Old Montauk Highway and the Triangle Pub. On the south end, a water recharge basin fronting Montauk Highway will remain. The east side of the development would back up to the rear of the Eastport Post Office, a Dunkin’/Baskin-Robbins and Island Bead & Trading.

Three areas fronting Eastport Manor Road would remain zoned for business district, enabling future commercial development between the existing buildings there.

The 11 residential buildings will have between 6 and 10 units each, and Mr. Michaelian said nearly all of the 1,000-square-foot units will be two-bedrooms and the remainder will be one-bedrooms.

The application notes that 142 parking spaces are proposed while the town code requires just 129.

According to the application, the project will be completed over the course of 18 months in just one phase and the estimated cost of construction is $15 million. It is expected to generate 50 to 75 jobs during construction and three permanent jobs. The project site presently generates $12,000 in property tax annually and after completion may generate between $500,000 and $600,000 in tax revenue, the application states.

Mr. Michaelian has developed two 55-and-older communities on Long Island, The Waterfalls in Lake Ronkonkoma and Kings Park Manor in Kings Park, and he built the Moriches Industrial Park in Center Moriches.

Those retirement communities are also rental based and he continues to own and manage both.

He added that the proposed sewage treatment plant for the Eastport project is “the best of the best” and charcoal filtered so there will never be a smell.

According to the East Moriches Property Owners Association, a group of Eastport residents and the civic association’s board members met with the developer in February. Mr. Michaelian presented a plan at that meeting for 96 units, and days later shared a revised plan for 86 units and asked for another meeting. After that, the group felt that another meeting with the developer would be futile, according to EMPOA.

“I never got a response as to what they want us to do on the property,” Mr. Michaelian said.

In an email to its newsletter subscribers, EMPOA pointed to the results of its late 2018 community survey regarding the property. The survey found that most respondents favored no development of the parcel, while a few favored a senior living facility.

Under the zoning that is currently in place, the developer could build 12 single-family homes as of right on the land that is already zoned residential, and that would leave some property zoned for business.

In 2011, the Brookhaven Town Board rejected a plan for the property called the Eastport Hamlet Centre, a 75,000-square-foot commercial and office complex. Brookhaven Town Councilman Dan Panico said at the time of that vote, “It was simply a case of being too significant an impact to such a small hamlet like Eastport.”

That plan was pared down from an earlier proposal that included 74 multifamily units plus 12 residential lofts that would have been built over 65,000 square feet of commercial space.

The land is currently undeveloped, but the east lot has billboards in three locations: next to Dunkin’ across from the King Kullen shopping center, next to the Triangle Pub, and at the recharge basin at the northeast corner of the Montauk Highway and Seatuck Avenue intersection.