N. Country Road Property Won’t Be Re-Zoned, Town Says

The Brookhaven town board has voted down a proposal to commercialize the zoning of a piece of residential land on North Country Road in an historic district.

Developers had proposed two office buildings for a total of 33,000 square feet and about 220 parking spaces for the property, which sits adjacent to Village Automotive Center and the Detmer Farm, and touches Route 25A at certain points. Most of the property would have needed a zoning change from A1-residential to J2-business in order to move forward with the project, but the town board killed the project following a public hearing on May 21.

Town councilman Steve Fiore-Rosenfeld, D-Setauket, told Patch on Monday that he opposed the project, but that he did support opening a public hearing on the issue based on hearing support from the town planning board and the Civic Association of the Setaukets and Stony Brook. Fiore-Rosenfeld voted “no” to the actual zoning change along with the rest of the town board.

“I made the motion to deny the change of zone based upon the testimony I had heard,” he said. “Other than the applicant representatives, I didn’t hear anyone else supportive of it.”

Resident Bob DeZafra, historian for the Civic Association of the Setaukets and Stony Brook, said he had supported the project but he said it got caught in political crossfire at the May 21 town board meeting.

“It was described as an enormous office complex, whereas it is not,” DeZafra said in a recent phone interview. He said the project’s architect made efforts to work with the Civic Association on the appearance of the buildings and would have likely worked to scale down the project where appropriate if the zoning change was granted.

“These would have looked more like New England farm houses,” DeZafra said.

State Assemb. Steve Englebright opposed the project, and sent a letter to the Town Board to be read at the public hearing. The letter read, in part: “There is no obvious need for new office space, adjacent residences will be severely impacted, and the overall intensity of proposed use is excessive. The highest best use of this parcel if it is improved would be residential and any change of zone that is contemplated should harmonize and reconcile only residential use.”

Nearby residents Kathleen and John Bowen, who said the change of zoning would have decimated their quality of life, said they were happy to see the proposed change voted down.

“I think we were certainly heard,” Kathleen Bowen said.

The property owner, S.R. Realty, could not be reached for comment.