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Port Jefferson Station/Terryville

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Open space across the LIRR railroad tracks in Port Jeff Station for proposed 48-unit housing development. Photo by Lynn Hallarman

By Lynn Hallarman

Monday night, Jan. 8, members of three civic associations — Port Jefferson, Port Jefferson Station/Terryville and Three Village — gathered to hear the case for a proposed residential housing complex adjacent to the Long Island Rail Road tracks in Port Jefferson Station. 

Hauppauge developer Jim Tsunis, managing member of Northwind Group, in front of a crowded room at the Port Jefferson Free Library, reviewed the architectural plans and concept renderings for a 48-unit multifamily development to be located on 5.6 acres of fallow farmland at 16 Baylis Ave. known as Brook Meadows. The site plan includes a clubhouse, outdoor recreational areas, a playground, barbecue pits and parking. All the units are to be two-bedroom rental apartments with eight units set aside for affordable housing. 

Ana Hozyainova, president of the Port Jefferson Civic Association, moderated the discussion. Approximately 20 audience members spoke for and against the proposed development. Present at the meeting as observers were Brookhaven Town District 1 Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich (D-Stony Brook), Suffolk County Legislator Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) and the recently appointed chairman of the Village of Port Jefferson Planning Board, Ray DiBiase. 

Tsunis’ site application, reviewed by the Suffolk County Planning Commission, requesting a zoning change from light industrial to residential was disapproved in October. The Brookhaven Town Planning Board will then consider the commission’s recommendation in their deliberation about the zoning change. No final decision has been made to this point in time. 

The overarching concern noted by the commission in their report was the placement of a dense residential community among several industrial properties, including proximity to the former Lawrence Aviation Industries site. The Monday night civic meeting focused on allowing community members to voice their concerns and review those cited by the commission directly with Tsunis. 

Lively discussion

Comments from the audience were predominantly about the big-picture impacts of the project on the surrounding communities, with traffic issues as the number one concern. Several residents pointed to already glutted roadways around the proposed development and intolerable spillage into neighboring residential streets of commuters, trying to find a way around a backup.

“In the last five years, you can wait through three lights if you were on Sheep Pasture Road before you get through,” Port Jeff village resident Suzette Smookler said. 

Another longtime Port Jeff resident, Mary Negra, received loud applause for her statement about the cumulative impacts of multiple housing projects over the past few years on the overall quality of life in the village. 

“Every development adds another burden, and the layer of burdening has become untenable,” she said.

A flash point for Port Jeff civic members has been the exit and entry route to the proposed development. The access, which crosses the railroad tracks, is the only way out — this single access worries civic members about how residents would escape under emergency conditions. Tsunis responded to this concern by informing the group that he is revising the plan to include a “gated emergency route” for fire trucks and ambulances. 

According to the Suffolk County Planning Commission report, this one access point flows into a residential area in Port Jefferson village, adding more stress to the intersection of Sheep Pasture Road and Route 112. The report predicts several hundred more vehicle trips per day would pose “added public inconvenience to existing and new residents.” 

Several residents voiced opinions in favor of the development. Some people viewed residential housing as a better option than using the land for light industry. Other residents expressed their desire to see the Upper Port shopping district revitalized and perceived more residential development supporting that goal. Others wanted more affordable local housing so their children can live in the area. 

Still, several residents pushed back on the notion that more housing leads to community revitalization, pointing out the incremental loss of supermarkets, hardware stores, post offices and other services as commercial areas are turned into housing. 

“Port Jefferson has lost most of its shopping. All this traffic on 112 is being pushed through to Route 347 for people [to find what they need],” another resident said. 

Kornreich told TBR News Media that the vast majority of the calls that come into his office are opposed to the addition of any new residential properties.

“Residents feel it’s hard to justify using residential units as a tool to revitalize an area which is going to just add more population and more stress to our infrastructure,” he said.

The meeting closed with a vote limited to Port Jefferson civic members to express the association’s agreement or not with the recommendation of the Suffolk County Planning Commission report  to disapprove of the zoning change. The vote came in at 14 in agreement with the disapproval of the zoning change from light industry to residential. Five votes disagreed with the decision to deny the zoning change application. One person was undecided. 

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Friends of Port Jefferson village resident, Ana Hozyainova, reflect on her work as a local change agent

Photo by Lynn Hallarman

By Lynn Hallarman

Ana Hozyainova’s house in Port Jefferson village sits nestled among the native garden she has been coaxing into maturity. The garden reimagines a former suburban lawn, once jammed with ornamental flowers and bushes meant for show. She points to a thicket along the perimeter. “You see that shrub, it doesn’t belong here, and its berries are junk food for birds — they have no nutrition,” she tells me on a walk around her property.

I met Hozyainova about two years ago, shortly after her failed bid to become a Port Jefferson Village trustee. After hearing her speak at a campaign debate, I was impressed with her approach to village issues and wanted to get to know her. We met for coffee and talked. As it turned out, this first meeting began a series of conversations between us about her vision of the village as part of, not instead of, the surrounding natural world. “When you talk with people about the natural landscape, it is difficult to turn the thinking away from the land as a commodity from which wealth is to be extracted,” she said. She wants to help people get out of their heads to connect with others and nature.

Her campaign platform for village trustee translated this vision into a practical plan — she wanted sidewalks, lots of them, in smartly configured networks. She wanted to redesign village roads to heal a long-standing safety problem with speeding vehicles. She wanted, in other words, for the village to slow down.    

Hozyainova, 43, seems taller than her 5-foot-6-inch frame, with lanky arms and legs and shoulder-length blond hair, almost always tied with a scrunchy. She is the kind of person who prefers to walk barefoot. She has, it seems, an encyclopedic knowledge of local flora and fauna. Ask her about her choice of plantings for her garden, and she will tell you it is designed to be undisturbed and native, producing some food but “mainly functioning as a sanctuary for insects, birds and small mammals.” She offered me a starter planting for my garden.

Hozyainova emigrated to the United States 20 years ago to attend the Columbia School of Social Work, where she graduated with a master’s degree. Sometime after, she met her now-spouse, and they moved to Port Jefferson for her to pursue a career as a clinical social worker. She is fluent in five languages: English, Russian, Farsi, Uzbek and Kyrgyz — the native language of Kyrgyzstan, where she was born. Some describe her vocal cadence as a calming balm when speaking at contentious village meetings. She never voices an opinion without doing her homework and brings data into any discussion to back up her arguments.

This quality of critical thinking impressed her neighbors. So much so that Michael Mart and Myrna Gordon, longtime residents and regular village government gadflies, volunteered to help her with her trustee campaign. They were drawn to her ability to think beyond the immediate issue to see a solution in a broader context. “She can think forward and not accept, without questioning, unexplained government actions,” Mart said.

Hozyainova, about a year ago, brought the long-dormant Port Jefferson Civic Association back to life. I asked her, on another walk, why she wanted to restart the group. She paused momentarily to pull out an invasive weed, seemingly contemplative. The civic association, she tells me, is her attempt to do what other actions have failed to produce for resident engagement — consensus building around local issues of concern. 

“I wanted people in the village to believe again that they have a say in how the government conducts itself,” she said.

The group is growing, even attracting younger people and recent village transplants. Almost everyone showing up will tell you Hozyainova is bringing them. “We shall see if the civic takes hold,” she tells me. The group, she muses, still needs its walking legs.

For her dedicated work in building the Port Jefferson Civic Association and for environmental preservation, TBR News Media makes Ana Hozyainova a 2023 Person of the Year.

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Representatives of Bicycle Path Group LLC present redevelopment plans for the property at 507 North Bicycle Path. Photo by Raymond Janis

Members of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association went back and forth Tuesday night, Dec. 19, wrestling over conditions for land development within the hamlet.

During its December meeting, the body heard presentations from two separate applicants before the Town of Brookhaven. In a show of local oversight, the civic opted to submit letters for both applicants with conditions.

Representatives of Bicycle Path Group LLC, owner of the property at 507 North Bicycle Path, presented plans to renovate a 4,000-square-foot commercial building into a medical office and construct a separate 20,000-square-foot medical office on the 2 1/2-acre parcel.

Members posed various questions surrounding architectural design, landscaping, parking and proliferation of medical office space locally.

Also before the civic Tuesday, representatives of Riverhead Building Supply explained the setbacks involved with its proposed special-use permit for a masonry showroom at the company’s newly-acquired Hallock Avenue property, seeking to bring the current facilities on-site up to code.

Civic member Jen Dzvonar, also president of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Chamber of Commerce, introduced a resolution to write a letter of no objection for the proposed renovations for the masonry showroom.

Lou Antoniello modified Dzvonar’s resolution, offering to issue a letter of no objection, subject to improvements to the landscaping at the entrance of the property.

Countering, Dzvonar suggested the conditional letter would place unnecessary impediments upon the local business owner: “I think to try to request exactly what plants, what trees and what flowers they’re going to be putting on their property — I mean, you don’t ask that of your neighbor,” the chamber president said.

Antoniello, however, referred to the modification as a “simple request to see somebody’s landscaping plan,” adding that it establishes a precedent for future development.

“It doesn’t mean they’re not going to come to our community and build — it doesn’t mean we’re discouraging” the property owner, he said. “Precedent is the word we should use here. So when people drive by existing businesses, they say, ‘This is what the community expects.’”

Following these deliberations, the members approved Antoniello’s conditional letter of no objection.

Returning to the proposed medical office, the body again opted to exercise its land use oversight function. The members agreed to issue a letter to the property owner, requesting tweaks to the site plan to accommodate resident concerns over architectural style and parking.

The civic will meet again on Jan. 23.

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Brookhaven Town Hall. File photo

By Carolyn Sackstein

The Brookhaven Town Board meeting last Thursday, Nov. 30, began at 5 p.m. and didn’t close until after 11. Many residents who attended stayed for the long haul.

The board heard public comments on the application of Hauppauge-based Staller Associates, owner of the Jefferson Plaza shopping center at the intersection of Route 112 and Terryville Road. Staller is seeking a change of zone for the 10-acre parcel from a J-2 Business District to a CRD Commercial Redevelopment District.

The CRD is a new zoning category within the town Code. Jefferson Plaza will be the first property to receive this classification if the board greenlights the application.

A town official indicated that under the conditions of the CRD code, the development would qualify for 280 residential units. The proposal includes demolishing the existing shopping center to accommodate mixed-use development.

Anthony Guardino, partner at the Hauppauge-based Farrell Fritz law firm, represents the applicant. In a presentation, he traced the property’s historical developments, contributing to “an unsustainably high vacancy rate” with today’s blighted conditions.

The CRD code “creates the planning tool which the Stallers are using to redevelop their blighted shopping center into a destination development with a dynamic mix of residential and commercial uses,” he said. “And after many years of planning and design and input from the town and the community and numerous plan revisions, the Stallers believe it is time to put pencils down. It is time to move this project forward.”

He added that the current plan accommodates 280 apartments — 224 of which will be “market rate,” with the remaining 56 units set aside as affordable housing for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. The attorney projected that approximately 50,000 square feet of commercial space would be occupied by a restaurant, food hall, retail, office space and health club.

Public comments primarily revolved around building height, density, traffic and emergency services. Ira Costell, president of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association, stressed the importance of proper planning in weighing these factors.

“There is appetite and willingness to see investment in this parcel,” he said. “While this presents an opportunity, it is incumbent on us to address and mitigate the negative impacts that could follow from the intensive use on that parcel.”

Suffolk County Legislator-elect Steve Englebright (D-Setauket), whose 5th Legislative District includes Port Jeff Station, discussed the possible environmental impact of redevelopment. 

Skyler Johnson (D-Port Jefferson Station) — currently pursuing the Democratic nomination for New York’s 4th Assembly District— placed the proposed redevelopment in the context of ongoing affordability concerns.

“If we continue on this path, we will see not only young people not be able to afford to live here, but older people not be able to retire and downsize as their kids continue to need to stay in their homes,” he said.

Some spoke in favor of the redevelopment project. “I am in favor of the zone change,” Port Jeff village resident Brian Harty said. 

Bob LoNigro, whose family-owned business, Plaza Sports, was formerly in the shopping center for decades, said, “I think it is important for the community to understand who they’re dealing with. We dealt with [the Staller family], who were honorable, honest and caring about my family. They cared about our success,” adding, “I was sitting there thinking this was going to be a war, and it’s not a war. We’ve just got to tweak it and make some concessions and get to the finish line. I would love nothing more than to see that place flourish again.”

The board made no decisions on the application. Residents can continue submitting written comments up to 30 days after the meeting.

To watch the full public hearing, please visit brookhavenny.gov/meetings.

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In an exclusive conversation, Town of Brookhaven Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich discusses the futures of Jefferson Plaza in Port Jeff Station and Cablevision townwide. Then, the Three Village Central School District keeps Regents exam scores in students’ grades. Plus, a light-hearted chat about a recent afternoon filled with talk of love.

Dive into this week’s news on The Pressroom Afterhour: Keeping it Local with TBR. Visit tbrnewsmedia.com to read these stories and more. Follow us on:

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In this episode, we offer live updates from Brookhaven Town Hall as the future of Jefferson Plaza in Port Jeff Station hangs in the balance. Plus, a shocking turn as a fire engulfs the Tesla Science Center in Shoreham — we unpack the latest details and discuss restoration plans. Winter sports season previews and valuable insights on managing your investments are all in one episode.

Join us for a dive into local news on The Pressroom Afterhour: Keeping it Local with TBR.

Visit tbrnewsmedia.com to read these stories and more. Follow us on:

 

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Town of Brookhaven Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich presents a new architectural rendering for the proposed redevelopment of Jefferson Plaza during a Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association meeting Tuesday, Nov. 28. Photo by Joan Nickeson

The Brookhaven Town Board will hear public comments on the Jefferson Plaza shopping center in Port Jefferson Station, a proposed redevelopment project with the potential to reshape the face of the hamlet and reorient its long-term trajectory.

The board will hold a public hearing Thursday, Nov. 30, to consider rezoning the 10-acre parcel, owned by Hauppauge-based Staller Associates, to a Commercial Redevelopment District, a new classification within the Zoning Code crafted “to stimulate the revitalization of abandoned, vacant or underutilized commercial shopping center, bowling alley and health club properties.” [See story, “First of its kind: Brookhaven Town Board to review new zoning category for Jefferson Plaza in Port Jeff Station,” Nov. 16, TBR News Media.]

In the runup to the public hearing, the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association held its general meeting Tuesday night, Nov. 28, to establish a set of priorities for overseeing the proposed redevelopment.

Town of Brookhaven Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich (D-Stony Brook) attended the meeting, identifying four primary areas of concern based on feedback he has heard from the community: traffic, density, height and architecture.

Kornreich said several of those concerns could be addressed through a 35-foot cap on building height. “What I’m going to be looking for is not four stories but a maximum height of 35 feet, which is the same maximum height that you can get in any residential area,” he said.

Leaders and members of the civic association generally favored the 35-foot cap.

The councilmember stated his intention for the developer to adhere to the conditions outlined under the Zoning Code instead of pursuing variances and other relaxations of use.

Regarding architecture, Kornreich said he had consulted with the developer, advocating for “a little bit less of New Hyde Park and a little bit more of New England.” He then presented an architectural rendering of the new proposal that was received favorably by the civic.

Much of the meeting was opened up to members, who offered ideas and raised concerns. Among the issues deliberated were the potential relocation of the post office on-site, availability and diversity of retail options at the property, possible tax increases and related traffic and environmental impact.

Jennifer Dzvonar, president of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Chamber of Commerce, endorsed the redevelopment initiative. “It’s very blighted,” she said. “A lot of local stores are leaving there,” adding, “We want to keep expanding and revitalizing the area.”

Charlie McAteer, corresponding secretary of PJSTCA, discussed the possible community givebacks that could be offered through such redevelopment.

“We have to work on … a purchase of some open space in our hub area that’s forever wild,” he said. He added that this form of local giveback would cushion the deal for surrounding neighbors “because they’re giving us, the community, something that we would like.”

Following discussion, the body authorized PJSTCA president Ira Costell to deliver a statement Thursday night to the Town Board representing the collective views of the organization.

The public hearing is scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 30, at Brookhaven Town Hall, 1 Independence Hill, Farmingville.

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Photo courtesy Moloney’s Port Jefferson Station Funeral Home

Hazel Louise (Kanzler) Cardillo was a light so bright that her glow forever warms those blessed to know her.

As the sun rose on Monday, Nov. 6, Hazel succumbed to a valiant fight with ALS. She was 73.

Haze, as she liked to be called, was born on May 23, 1950, in Irvington, New Jersey, to the late John and Hazel (Hendry) Kanzler and stepfather Ernst Velle.

She spent her childhood in Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey, and graduated from Jefferson Township High School. At 15, she met Michael, her beloved husband of 54 years, while vacationing at Jones Beach. They made their home in the village of Port Jefferson, where they raised their two daughters, Nicole and Cherie, and welcomed four grandchildren to the world.

Haze was selfless, and her joyful, giving nature touched the lives of many, including the countless students she taught as an ESL teacher at Comsewogue School District and adjunct professor at Stony Brook University. Haze filled the world with song, playing piano and singing in the local United Methodist Church choir for many years. 

She lived a life of simple pleasures: strong cups of coffee in the morning, birds at her kitchen window, warm showers, beach walks, drives to the North Fork, wood-burning fires, cozy pajamas, old movies, brisk fall days, peaceful snowfalls and the sound of the ferry’s foghorn pulling into the harbor. Much like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” she believed there was no place like home.

Haze was predeceased by her eldest brother, John, and is survived by her loving husband, Michael Joseph Cardillo; their children Nicole (Christopher) Barisic and Cherie (Jonathan) Totillo; grandchildren Claire, Mabel, Ada and Isaac; sisters Carolyn and Jean; many nieces and nephews; and their adored rescue dog, Mindy.

A memorial service was held Monday, Nov. 13, at Moloney Funeral Home in Port Jefferson Station, with a private burial following at Cedar Hill Cemetery.

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Town of Brookhaven Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich, right photo, speaks to a crowd of residents assembled at the Jefferson Plaza shopping center in Port Jefferson Station on Sunday, Nov. 12. Photos by Carolyn Sackstein

By Carolyn Sackstein

On the first cold day of the season on Sunday, Nov. 12, locals gathered in the parking lot of Jefferson Plaza along Route 112 in Port Jeff Station to discuss the proposed revitalization of the plaza.

In the days before the gathering, Paul Sagliocca and members of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association canvassed the neighborhoods surrounding the shopping center. This preparation brought out roughly 80 residents.

Sagliocca was joined by fellow civic members Lou Antoniello and Jerry Maxim. Town of Brookhaven Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich (D-Stony Brook) spoke to the crowd and Suffolk County Legislator-elect Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) — both representing PJS/T in their respective districts — listened to the concerns of attendees.

The speakers called for residents to attend PJSTCA’s upcoming meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 28, at 7 p.m. at Comsewogue Library. They especially urged residents to speak up during an upcoming meeting of the Brookhaven Town Board to consider a proposed change of zone to a new Commercial Redevelopment District classification on Thursday, Nov. 30.

Questions raised

Owned by Staller Associates, Jefferson Plaza is currently zoned for commercial use. Staller must seek zoning changes from Brookhaven Town for mixed-use development of the property. The proposed revitalization calls for 263 residential units in a four-story structure.

Sagliocca suggested that residents to the west were anxious that the new apartments would have sightlines into their yards and windows. Critics also expressed concerns over increased traffic and possibly rerouting traffic with one-way streets, making accessing their homes inconvenient. 

Others raised concern over the impact of potentially many new residents on the environment, especially the aquifer. They questioned how much more stress the local environment could bear.

Another concern was the blocking of the sun by the height of the new structure. Maxim called for a “shade study” to determine how far the shade would extend into the neighborhood. Sagliocca spoke of the impact on Mather and St. Charles hospitals in Port Jefferson, which serve Coram, Selden and the greater Port Jefferson area. Kornreich emphasized the need for a traffic study to be conducted independently and objectively.

Maxim highlighted the potential impact of the proposed units on the Comsewogue School District. 

Antoniello explained, “I’m not saying we don’t need multifamily housing, but you can’t have it dictated by the people up in Albany. Right now, the development they want for this area is really land abuse, not land use. They are looking for a density that is three times the allowable density that the Town of Brookhaven allows. This will set a precedent for every multifamily project that occurs in Port Jeff Station, Terryville and Port Jefferson village.”

He added, “As per our hamlet and [commercial] hub study, over 80% of the people questioned said they didn’t want multifamily units. We’re now taking studies which cost combined over a hundred thousand dollars. We are throwing them in the trash. Those are our bibles. We have to do it right, we don’t have a choice.”

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The Brookhaven Town Board will consider a proposed change of zone for the Jefferson Plaza property on Thursday, Nov. 30, at 5 p.m. File photo by Raymond Janis

Port Jefferson Station/Terryville is approaching a potentially community-defining transformation as the Brookhaven Town Board weighs the future redevelopment of the Jefferson Plaza shopping center, owned by Islandia-based Staller Associates.

Later this month, the board will consider rezoning the 10-acre parcel at the intersection of state Route 112 and Terryville Road to a Commercial Redevelopment District, or CRD, a new classification within the town’s Zoning Code. Jefferson Plaza would be the first property in town history to receive this designation if approved.

Enacted in 2020, the CRD enables mixed-use development along parcels of over 5 acres in size. According to the code, the CRD aims “to create the type of planning and zoning flexibility which is necessary to stimulate the revitalization of abandoned, vacant or underutilized commercial shopping center, bowling alley and health club properties.”

Town of Brookhaven Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich (D-Stony Brook) represents Port Jefferson Station on the Town Board. In an exclusive interview, he summarized the CRD’s purpose as “more housing, less commercial space, generally.”

“The local government has created an incentive to spur redevelopment,“ he said. “But it hasn’t been used yet, so we’re trying to use it now.”

Commercial decline

Kornreich said this new approach to commercial revitalization is guided by a sequence of “extinction events” occurring within the local retail market.

Since the establishment of these local downtowns in the previous century and even earlier, Kornreich identified the emergence of automobile culture and the growth of large box stores as the first threat to traditional mom-and-pop storefronts and downtown economies. In the wake of this first extinction event, “retail took a hit that it never really recovered from,” Kornreich said.

Retail’s downward trajectory was further exacerbated by e-commerce, which began to put even the big box stores and large retailers out of business. “And then, of course, COVID came, and that hit commercial real estate and retail,” the councilmember noted.

Confronting the many changes reshaping the commercial landscape, Kornreich said the CRD would help spur commercial redevelopment.

“This is our existential challenge: How do we help guide the redevelopment of our community so it can be healthy, so that it can thrive, and so that people can afford to live here and have a good quality of life,” he said.

Richard Murdocco is an adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University, specializing in land use, real estate markets, economic development and environmental policy. Given the current pressures upon the commercial sector, Murdocco concluded that “these antiquated shopping centers need a redo.”

While redevelopment has traditionally elicited local opposition from nearby residents, Murdocco suggests that various projects throughout the region have gained traction among locals.

“It seems to me that a lot of these redevelopment projects are starting to gain momentum because the property and the blight are so large,” he said. “These are significant pieces of property,” adding, “Government responded to the need for adaptive reuse, and now there’s a legal mechanism through the zoning district on which to do that.”

Questions raised

The push for commercial redevelopment has met with scrutiny from some.

Ira Costell, president of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association, raised several questions about the Jefferson Plaza proposal.

The CRD “hasn’t been used previously, and this does seem to be the test case,” he said. “In my estimation, it’s the lynchpin for further development in our community, so that’s why it’s essential that we get this right and not rush to judgment.”

“To address those things, I think we need better community input,” he added. To generate such input, he has asked residents to attend the civic’s upcoming meeting at Comsewogue Public Library on Tuesday, Nov. 28, at 7 p.m.

Local civic members are ringing the alarm over the CRD in the neighboring Three Village community. Herb Mones, land use chair of the Three Village Civic Association, highlighted the need to remediate commercial blight but suggested the CRD code is too developer-centric.

“On every level, the intention of redeveloping neglected or failing shopping centers is an admirable goal,” he said. “But the way that the code is written allows for really unprecedented development that has a tremendous negative effect on communities that are impacted by the density that results.”

Mones said the language of the CRD code is “so vague, so arbitrary and so capricious that it could be applied to virtually any shopping center in the Town of Brookhaven.”

Based on the statute, which incentivizes redevelopment of blighted properties through relaxed land use standards, Mones said the CRD code “encourages landowners to purposely neglect their properties in order to promote this eventual redevelopment.”

George Hoffman, also a member of TVCA, concurred with Mones, referring to the CRD code as “a very vague law that I think was done in haste.”

“It was really a code change that was done when we didn’t know what was going to happen with COVID,” Hoffman said. “I think it really has to be reevaluated, and I don’t think it works in this situation here” at Jefferson Plaza. 

Given that Jefferson Plaza would be the first parcel listed as a CRD, he added that this matter has implications for residents townwide.

“If they use this code to the maximum allowable density, I think it’s going to set the standard of a new suburban model for development,” he said.

The Town Board will consider the proposed change of zone for the Jefferson Plaza property on Thursday, Nov. 30, at 5 p.m.

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