Town board aims to cut red tape and enhance transparency in development processes
By Mallie Jane Kim
Two months into his term as town supervisor, Dan Panico (R) is shaking things up in Brookhaven, removing a layer of bureaucracy from those seeking development permits or looking to add legal accessory apartments to their homes.
Panico promoted the changes at a March 4 meeting of the Three Village Civic Association, where he repeated his campaign position that government should be efficient and perform the functions it is supposed to perform. “We all know on Long Island, everything takes too long to do,” he said. “We have layer after layer of government.”
Under the new changes, the appointed planning board and accessory apartment review board will be dissolved. Town board members will deal with planning requests directly, and the building department will process accessory apartment applications administratively.
Civic association member George Hoffman praised the changes, saying they should lead to more transparency and accountability in town planning because residents can express concerns to their elected councilmembers, who will have more control in the process. He called Panico an expert on land use and a defender of low-density suburban communities.
“That’s exciting also because we’re a civic association that puts a lot of effort into trying to keep our quality of life like it is,” Hoffman said.
Shoreline, wind energy and lithium batteries
Panico also got a warm welcome from Suffolk County Legislator Steve Englebright (D-Setauket), who called Panico “on top of the game” on the issues, and said his openness to working together “reinforced the sense of optimism for our town.”
Englebright followed up on New York State’s Environmental Bond Act, which Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced in December would provide $479 million in climate change mitigation projects including shoreline restoration and water quality improvement. He asked Panico if he’d welcome involvement from the civic association as well as residents who live within the Setauket Harbor watershed to identify priorities for preservation.
“Absolutely,” Panico told him, touting his record of preserving open space during his years as a town councilman representing part of Brookhaven’s South Shore. “I’d love to work with you to get as much of that money down into Brookhaven for worthwhile properties as we can,” he said.
Panico also addressed lithium battery storage for upcoming wind energy projects that are part of the state’s climate goals — other Long Island towns have put moratoriums on licensing and construction of battery storage systems, but Brookhaven has not. Panico said the town board sees wind energy as a wave of the future, but also a matter of consistency in position.
“You can’t support wind energy without supporting batteries,” he said. “You need the storage somewhere.”
Setauket resident Janet Sklar raised concerns at the meeting about a proposed location of the battery storage — near North Bellport. She related it to the existing landfill not far from there, which is nearing its capacity and scheduled to wind down to closure over the next few years.
“These are things that are necessary,” she acknowledged. “But they’re showing up in areas that are poorer than their surrounding neighborhoods” and in communities of color, she added.
Panico said he is working to serve people in that area of town and pointed to his recent success securing a $4.5 million grant from the state for downtown revitalization of North Bellport.
“Whatever your background is doesn’t mean that you should bear the ills that are associated with anything, whether it be traffic or whether it be a landfill,” Panico said. “I care about the people of North Bellport.”
Brookhaven landfill
The landfill, which has been in its location since 1974, stopped accepting solid waste in the late ‘80s and is scheduled to stop accepting construction and demolition waste by the end of 2024. It will, however, continue to accept ash from burned trash for another few years, which has caught some communities off guard as the site was expected to be closed completely by this year.
At the civic meeting, Panico said that the plan to continue accepting ash from incinerated household garbage until the landfill reaches capacity is not new. “It’s the same course that’s been in place when Ed Romaine (R) was the supervisor, for almost two years,” he explained, adding that the plan “gives this region time to deal with the looming issue of what we’re going to do with our waste.”
Panico suggested more rail is necessary as a solution to ship garbage off Long Island, but also acknowledged electrification of the Port Jefferson Branch line is not likely anytime soon. “The town has been supporting electrification for as long as my memory,” he said, explaining that a meeting with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last year left him with the impression that any such changes will be slow in coming due to other pressing financial priorities closer to the city.
“New York State has climate action goals, right?” Panico said. “Yet we’re still rolling around on diesel trains. That’s sort of ironic.”
