Help stop the destruction of our community.
Email planning officials by end of business, Tuesday, May 4.
Dear Resident:
Let your voice be heard. As you know, we hope to block Gyrodyne’s proposed mega-development on the Flowerfield property (Route 25A near Stony Brook Road) from being approved by the Town of Smithtown. The mega-development is the size of Smith Haven Mall and includes 175,000’ of medical office space, assisted living facility, meeting rooms, hotel and over 2000 parking spaces. If built, it will put thousands of cars on already over capacity historic 25A and Stony Brook Rd., pour waste into Stony Brook Harbor and forever change our community's sense of place. While Smithtown’s Planning Board voted to approve Gyrodyne Final Environmental Impact Statement, the document they approved is both inaccurate and incomplete. It is now at the Suffolk County Planning Commission and awaits a vote on Wednesday, May 5.
You can help us Stop Gyrodyne today. Please review the text below, starting with “Dear Suffolk County Planner”; cut and paste text into an email; sign email; and send to each member of the Planning Commission by end of business Tuesday, May 4. A list of all members’ email addresses follows the text. You can also cc Edward Wehrheim, Town of Smithtown supervisor.
Please review the letter below and email it to county planners and Supervisor Wehrheim TODAY. A full list of email addresses is at bottom of this letter.
TEXT OF LETTER TO PLANNERS:
Dear Suffolk County Planner:
I contact you regarding the Gyrodyne Subdivision Application’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). Please be aware that the FEIS you now review is inaccurate, incomplete, and entirely unsuitable as a planning document. The FEIS is non-compliant with the requirements of the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act, as it omits substantial alterations made by Gyrodyne since its formulation and is otherwise inadequate in terms of engineering, planning, and environmental impact. I urge you to postpone FEIS evaluation and instead require Gyrodyne to prepare a Statement that is fully compliant with State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) requirements as well as reflective of intended use and space allocations.
Please consider:
- Gyrodyne has added 45,000 square feet of office and medical space to their plan, expanding square footage by more than one third. This huge addition is unmentioned in the FEIS.
- Gyrodyne’s engineers have neglected to carefully review (“take a hard look at”) traffic conditions on surrounding and feeder roads. New York State Department of Transportation has not held substantive conversations with Gyrodyne engineers concerning traffic and potential infrastructure, according to DOT itself.
- Adjacent communities have been excluded from planning. Senior officials from Town of Brookhaven, Village of Head of the Harbor and other jurisdictions, as well as infrastructure administrators and environmental watchdogs, have asked to participate and been ignored. Communicating with neighboring jurisdictions over shared infrastructure is the basis of sound planning. It has not happened here.
- Projects planned for the perimeters of Flowerfield have been utterly overlooked. Two such projects are 1) Stony Brook University’s addition of 1 million square feet of office space and 2) Major housing development underway at the next-door Baptist Church. These and other traffic generating major projects are not even mentioned in the FEIS.
- Historical designations restrict land-use options and infrastructure upgrades. Road expansions and additions of egresses and entrances are not optional because of 3 separate historical designations. Route 25A itself is a Historic State Highway; Flowerfield is located in the Mills Pond Historic District. The project itself is near the center of the historic Long Island North Shore Area.
- Route 25A is currently 40% over capacity. Stony Brook Road, the major north-south road serving this area, is 60% over capacity, according to Brookhaven traffic studies. Actual road usage data sets are omitted from FEIS.
- Inadequate sewage treatment plant (STP) plans. DEIS mentions no advanced water filtration technologies despite anticipated production of medical and nuclear wastes. It also fails to mention how it would restrict nitrogen discharges into the harbor, as required by Suffolk County’s clean-water policies. Additionally, research compiled by Suffolk County watershed researchers reveals effluent discharges will pollute Stony Brook Harbor and interconnected waterways within 2-5 years, ending recreational and commercial uses for fishing, boating and swimming. FEIS ignores this crucial research.
- Siting this development on a two-lane historic roadway completely contradicts the planning philosophy of Smithtown’s own draft Master Plan, which calls for Assisted Living facilities to be constructed near population centers with adequate mass transit options, is in conflict with its plans for the hamlet of St. James. Astonishingly, the Draft Master Plan does not mention this project at all.
- Scientific study of historic pesticide use. Gyrodyne’s FEIS failed to find evidence of in-ground toxins, used by prior agricultural operations, despite prior positive findings by New York State engineers. Research conducted by local civic groups also found evidence of prior toxin use, evidence of which was documented to Smithtown planners – and ignored.
Constructing this mega-development on this historically important and environmentally vulnerable area of Long Island would perpetuate a travesty of planning. As a resident who cares greatly about our quality of life, I implore you to require Gyrodyne to submit a FEIS worthy of serious review.
Thank you.
(Signed)
Planning commission member emails:
Andrew Freleng, chief planner: andrew.freleng@suffolkcountyny.gov
Jennifer Casey - Chairperson - jencasey130@gmail.com
Michael Kaufman - mkaufmanscpc@gmail.com
Adrienne Espositio aespositio@citizenscampaign.org
Kevin Gershowitz - kevin@gershow.com
John Finn- jfinn@drgrealty.com
Matthew Chartrand - mchartrand@local1361.com
Sammy Chu - contact@sammychu.me
Errol Kitt - ekitt@geiconsultants.com
Mike Kelly - kellydevgroup@aol.com
Tom McCarthy - tmccarthy@gmail.com
John Condzella - condzellasfarm@gmail.com
Rodney Anderson - unclepipsqueak@aol.com
Smithtown Supervisor: supervisior@smithtownny.gov