Rogers Avenue Residents Continue Objections To Housing Plan In Westhampton Beach

Residents of the Rogers Avenue neighborhood in Westhampton Beach at a board meeting last Thursday, April 7, continued to implore Village Board members to reject plans to build a 52-unit housing development in their neighborhood.

They will have to wait for a work session meeting next week to hear a final judgment from the board.

After closing a public hearing on the proposal — which was continued from March 3 — board members, on the advice of Village Attorney Stephen R. Angel, decided to hold off on offering any opinions on the project until they could gather their thoughts and address the issue at a work session meeting on Wednesday, April 20, at 5 p.m. at Village Hall.

Also at last week’s board meeting, the board held a short public hearing on a proposal to build a 4,000-square-foot 7-Eleven convenience store and 16-pump canopied gas station on Old Riverhead Road in the village, south of the Long Island Rail Road tracks and north of Metro Storage.

Following a presentation by Westhampton Beach attorney James Hulme, the board closed the hearing and seemed poised to permit the plan to move forward. Other than Hulme, who is representing the developer, there were no speakers at the hearing. Since a convenience store is a special exception use under village zoning, the board would need to issue a special exception permit.

“Well done,” Mayor Maria Moore told Hulme. “It looks great.”

As for the Rogers Avenue plan, the Planning Board has been reviewing the application for about two years, but in order to move forward, it also requires a special exception permit from the Village Board.

Throughout the planning process, residents of the single-family residential community surrounding the development — on the site of a former asphalt plant — have raised concerns about increased traffic as a result of the complex and the scope of the project, claiming it would forever alter the suburban character of the neighborhood.

Plans call for a 52-unit condominium complex on 9.4 acres north of Rogers Avenue and south of the Long Island Rail Road tracks. The proposal includes 13 buildings, a community center, a pool and a tennis court.

Eight of the condominiums would be three-bedroom units, 36 would be two bedrooms, and eight would be one-bedroom affordable housing units. An on site sewage treatment plant would serve the entire complex.

Deputy Mayor Ralph Urban at a hearing on March 9 and again last week, asked if the developer would be willing to make some of the affordable housing units two- or three-bedrooms instead.

Riverhead attorney Frank Isler, representing the developer, said there would be a “willingness” to make some of the units two-bedrooms, but it would mean revisiting the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals.

“Send us back to the Planning Board,” he said. “We’d apply to the ZBA for variances to add bedrooms.” He noted that the change could be made without altering the project’s site plan. “We’d be happy to do it,” he said, “but let us go back to the Planning Board.”

As for the density of the project, board members noted to the residents that their hands were tied.

In an effort to shut down the asphalt plant in 2005 following neighbors’ concerns about traffic from the plant and potential health concerns, the property was re-zoned from industrial use to multi-family housing, board member Stephen A. Frano noted. The project — and the proposed number of units — falls within that zone as a right.

“It’s allowable to put 27 single-family or 56 multi-family units there,” Moore agreed. “It’s not an application to change the zoning.”

Also at issue is an existing scenic easement left over from the industrial zoning of the property that surrounds a portion of the parcel, which Isler has requested the board extinguish. He said that the easement, if left in tact, would prevent certain landscaping and sidewalk work surrounding the complex to be completed.

“I think it’s really an obsolete easement that never really took effect,” he said, noting that when the property was industrially zoned, the easement was meant to protect nearby residential properties. “It’s an obsolete concept — this was going to be an industrial development.”

Neighbors have objected to the removal of the easement, saying it would also screen their homes from the large development.

Rogers Avenue resident Jenny Czachur offered a lengthy list of objections to the proposal, noting that she hadn’t been able to participate in previous hearings due to health concerns.

While she noted that she had been one of the residents opposed to the asphalt plant 15 years ago, and thanked the board and its predecessors for helping to shut it down, she asked for the same consideration with the current proposal.

“Village officials did the right thing and protected our neighborhood,” she said, asking that the current board do the same now. “I’m very passionate about protecting this neighborhood.”

She noted that at 52 units, that would account for at least 104 cars going into and out of the complex regularly.

“It destroys the character of this neighborhood,” she said. “The biggest thing is the traffic.”

Rogers Avenue resident Jeff Mcarthur agreed that traffic would be an issue.

“If this project goes through,” he said, “it’s going to be a horror show.”