Developers of the Gyrodyne complex in St. James are moving forward with plans to subdivide and potentially develop the 75-acre site known as Flowerfield. The Town of Smithtown Planning Board will consider a nine-lot subdivision for the complex at its Dec. 11 meeting.

“The Town Environmental has found the Draft Environmental Impact Statement to be complete and is preparing a resolution for the Planning Board to accept the DEIS as complete at their next meeting on Dec. 11,” said Peter Hans, director of the town planning department. 

The 2,900 page statement is not yet publicly available. Once the Planning Board accepts the report as complete, likely at the Dec. 11 meeting, the document will be posted online and the public comment period will begin. 

Subdivision plans obtained from the Town  indicate that the proposed development is extensive. The 75-acre complex currently includes a catering hall, existing light industrial buildings and open space. The proposal subdivides the lot into nine parcels that include one for the existing catering hall, one for the industrial building and a third for open space.  Six of the nine proposed sublots would be for new development. Development plans include a 150-room hotel with a restaurant and conference hall, two large-scale medical office parks, one at 75,000 square feet and another at 55,000 square feet, plus two separate 110-unit assisted living centers and a 7-acre sewer treatment facility.

If approved, the project will become one of the largest commercial transformations in an otherwise residential and agricultural setting along Route 25A in the St. James hamlet.

New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) said the project, if approved, is a real threat to the quality of life in this area of the North Shore, with traffic being the more immediate concern and water quality threatened over time.

“This project is a real threat to the water chemistry of Stony Brook Harbor,” he said.  

He estimates that the treated sewage from the site would upwell into the harbor within two to five years. Aside from the environmental and water quality concerns, Englebright said that the project is a classic case of proposed overdevelopment. 

“The whole thing is a complete traffic nightmare,” he said. “Roadways are oversubscribed. Route 25A is already crowded and by extension, we find that Stony Brook Road just can’t handle any more traffic.”

The area, the assemblyman said, is not really a heavy development zone. 

The property is zoned light industrial, or LI. It does not require a zone change, town officials said, since the identified uses are conceptual at this time. If the developers decide to move forward with a hotel or assisted living facility, those uses would require Special Exception approvals from the Town Board and site plan approval. Office buildings would require only site plan approval. 

Englebright encourages people to express their concerns and appeal to the decision-makers in Smithtown.

The subdivision process began when the Smithtown Planning Board adopted May 9, 2018, a State Environmental Quality Review Act Positive Declaration. The declaration, which is simply a determination that the project has the potential to result in a significant environmental impact, establishes that an Environmental Impact Statement would be required. The applicant has now completed a Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The Planning Board is expected to accept the report as complete at its next meeting. The Town will then file with New York State Department of Environmental Conservation a Notice of Completion of a DEIS. The filing of the Notice of Completion opens the public comment period, which has to run at least 30 days. The Town anticipates that the Planning Board will hold a public hearing on the Gyrodyne DEIS in January.  

Following the close of the public comment period, a final DEIS will have to be prepared that responds to the comments received, and then the Planning Board would have to adopt a findings statement. The Planning Board will not be able to act on the pending subdivision until the FEIS and Findings Statement have been adopted. The process, though, is months away.

Representatives from Gyrodyne did not respond to telephone messages before going to print.

Photo by Heidi Sutton