Levy seeks support for Yaphank development project

By RICK BRAND  

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy on Tuesday launched his campaign to gain support for his 1,000-unit affordable “Legacy Village” project in Yaphank, trying to pre-empt critics with an impassioned defense of his plan.

“When it comes to creating more workforce housing for young people, everyone talks the good talk,” said Levy, testifying before the Long Island Regional Planning Council. “But you have to take action and you have to deal with the ‘Not in my backyard’ folks.”

Levy’s appearance comes only days before the County Legislature holds a public hearing Tuesday on a resolution to declare the 250-acre county tract surplus and authorize Levy to negotiate a contract with developers.

Levy touted the project as good for the environment because the complex would have sewers and because public works buildings, including a salt dome, would be relocated and upgraded. Levy also maintained the site is not a pristine pine barrens area, noting there is a town landfill and a Grucci fireworks factory nearby.

He said his proposal would create a “destination” downtown with indoor and outdoor 5,000-seat arenas, shops, restaurants, offices and apartments as well as an alternate agency industrial park powered by solar energy.

“Instead of a golf course or needless strip malls, let’s do something that leaves the legacy,” said Levy, adding it will increase property values and that foes’ environmental concerns are “not legitimate.”

However, critics - some wearing T-shirts saying, “What has Steve Levy got against Yaphank?” - said the Legislature should keep the land for future county needs. They worried that development could impact the nearby Carmans River and that the project will ruin the rural Yaphank.

“To tell me it will improve my quality of life is just laughable,” said one resident, John Palasek, adding that the legacy Levy wants to leave “is a monument to himself.”

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From North Shore Sun
October 16, 2009

Legacy Village bill upsets Suffolk County legislators
Browning, Losquadro 'very concerned' over county executive's resolution
 

BY GRANT PARPAN |EDITOR   
 

A protester shouts his concerns to a driver leaving Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy's Legacy Village announcement. The project, which would bring 1,000 new housing units to Yaphank, a community with 1,500 households as of the 2000 census has been met with opposition from other elected officials as well as environmentalists, civic leaders and school officials.  GRANT PARPAN PHOTO

The Yaphank parcel County Executive Steve Levy wants the county to sell to pave the way for the proposed $400 million Legacy Village community should be declared surplus property, according to a resolution submitted Tuesday by Mr. Levy.

But county legislators cautioned that Mr. Levy's bill also would approve the request for proposal process to pick the developer and essentially authorize the sale of the 250 acres to Katter Development Co. and The Beechwood Organization.

The office of Legis. Kate Browning (WF-Shirley) sent an e-mail to residents Wednesday urging them to voice their concern over the project, which, she told The North Shore Sun, she "strongly opposes."

"Legislator Browning needs your support in stopping this resolution from getting the support in the legislature," reads the note, signed by an aide to Ms. Browning. "Please contact all 18 legislators to express your concerns about selling this property before all information has been looked at, and prior to the public deciding whether the land should be sold."

Ms. Browning called the resolution vague, saying it appeared to her the bill does much more than designate the land as surplus -- that it also approves the RFP selection process. Legis. Dan Losquadro (R-Shoreham) agreed.

Mr. Levy, however, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that the resolution is simply to designate the land as surplus.

Mr. Losquadro and Mr. Levy also offered different views on the path the county has taken to get to this point. Mr. Losquadro said he believes the appropriate move would have been for the county to first declare the land surplus, then seek out developers. Mr. Levy, meanwhile, said he believes the county is doing things the right way by making sure a deal is in place before declaring the land surplus.

But Ms. Browning alleged Wednesday that certain details of that deal, including the sale price, have been kept from the legislature.

"It looks like a blank check to me," Ms. Browning said. "He wants us to hand the developers a blank check. I, for one, won't approve a blank check."

Mr. Levy called Ms. Browning's take "a bit of revisionist history," saying he has disclosed the sale price in public before and that he's not trying to keep anything from the legislature. He said Wednesday that the developers would pay a minimum of $15 million for the parcel, pending approval of the necessary zone changes from the Town of Brookhaven.

The proposal includes 1,000 one- and two-bedroom housing units -- 785 affordable units and 215 market-rate units with accessory apartments -- that Mr. Levy hopes will help keep young Long Islanders in Suffolk County. The affordable units will be priced between $190,000 and $215,000, Mr. Levy said, and first crack would be given to emergency first responders and current residents of the Longwood and South Country school districts.

The project would also feature a 5,500-seat multipurpose arena; a 5,000-seat outdoor football/lacrosse stadium; an outdoor skating rink; 30 acres of public soccer, softball and baseball fields; and a 50,000-square-foot wellness center. Mr. Levy said he envisions the outdoor stadium hosting future county championship games and also serving as the future home of the Long Island Lizards professional lacrosse team. Also proposed for the property are four free-standing restaurants, a 90-room hotel, 25,000 square feet of retail space, 50,000 square feet of office space and a 95-acre light technology and light industry park.

The project, which would be built along both sides of Yaphank Road between the Long Island Expressway and Sunrise Highway, would be designed to be somewhat self-contained, Mr. Levy said. Residents could work, shop and entertain themselves without leaving the community, he said.

The proposed development would be powered by a solar plant on the property, Mr. Levy said, making the development a net-zero energy user.

But the project has had its detractors from the outset.

Longwood School District officials have voiced concern over potential tax impacts of the project. Mr. Levy is estimating the plan would generate about $3 million in property tax revenue for the district. But school officials fear the developers have been conservative in their estimates that the project -- with its 1,000 residential units -- would result in only about 100 additional students.

The district has also raised concerns about the layout of the project, with housing to the north and the bulk of the industrial and commercial part of the project to the south, within the boundaries of the South Country School District, which they estimate could exacerbate the potential tax problem.

The project, which includes a 90-room hotel, a 5,500-seat indoor arena and a 5,000-seat outdoor stadium, has also been opposed by civic groups associated with Longwood schools.

"A lot of people have genuine concerns about this project," Mr. Losquadro said.

gparpan@northshoresun.com

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From the Long Island Advance
September 17, 2009

Concerns about a river and other Yaphank issues
Development troubling to some, others may need to prepare

By LINDA LEUZZI

About a half-mile into Park Street off Yaphank Avenue, past a few homes and an open field, the county land starts. A sign declares its jurisdiction, a hiker’s heaven with numerous trails and a treat here and there of wildlife sightings. A seven-minute walk north of the sign takes you to an access road that runs parallel to the Long Island Railroad tracks and ends at a DEC no-kill fishing spot by the Carmans River, about 50 feet wide, in all its running, clean glory.  Plans are underway that may challenge that.

About a mile up the road north of the Board of Elections maintenance yard, county land to the Long Island Expressway, is where the proposed Legacy Village is planned; a 5,500-seat indoor arena, a 5,000-seat outdoor arena and track, a 90-room hotel, four restaurants and a wellness center. The culvert sign for the Carmans River is on the expressway service road and a nearby Potters Field cemetery is also on the property.  On the west side of Yaphank Avenue, a 1,000-unit affordable housing development is proposed in back of the Mastic Soccer Club and Suffolk County Police headquarters.

“The biggest problem is that we have just prioritized the preservation of the Carmans River and there are scores of organizations and government at every level working on a plan to preserve it in ways we did not protect the Forge River,” said Pine Barrens Executive Director Richard Amper of the initiatives with Citizens Campaign for the Environment and the South Shore Estuary Reserve to protect the river. “So the plan would be to limit development, not to concentrate it in the corridor. All you have to do is do a Google Earth search to see its proximity.”

A Carmans River Watershed Study, in fact, was approved last November by Brookhaven Town, and included federal, state, county and civic leaders who took part in a number of meetings thus far, but according to John Turner, Brookhaven’s director of Environmental Protection, the town is waiting for Suffolk County Department of Health to assess the watershed boundaries. “We had hoped to get that by now,” he said. “I think the town is waiting on the boundaries, on how big it is, and then the rest of the work will follow.”

Suffolk County Commissioner of Environment and Energy Carrie Meek Gallagher said the town should have results by the end of the year or a month sooner. “The contract with that consultant is over by the end of the year and we would have to have the results in by then,” she said. “What they’re looking for specifically is the delineation of the groundwater contributing system, how far out do we think the area is that contributes groundwater into the Carmans water system.”

Even though the Carmans was recognized by New York state as a Wild, Scenic and Recreational river, Meek Gallagher said that at one of the meetings discussing what the participants thought where the watershed was, there were rough ideas, but no one map delineating it.

According to the Carmans River Environmental Assessment Report by the county issued in March 2002 and prepared by Cashin Associates, the Carmans River flows approximately 11 miles from its source near Route 25 in Middle Island to its mouth in Bellport Bay. The stream is almost entirely fed by groundwater from the uppermost of Long Island’s aquifers and the river falls approximately 50 feet in elevation along its course.

“We’re hearing the county model does not include anything north of Route 25 and that doesn’t make sense to us,” said Tom Williams, a member of the Carmans River Partnership, which is having its annual meeting next month.  “The project is clearly in the watershed.  The question of the impact is that there is a sewage treatment plant that will address that issue. Our concerns are the standards of nitrogen discharge and that they might be too high for the river.” Attorneys for the Katter and Beechwood developers were upfront at the recent South Yaphank Civic Association meeting regarding the installation of sewers and a SEQRA process that would address road and storm water runoff and their affect on the river. But Williams emphasized that the nitrogen discharge level allowed in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, their ideal, was .17 parts per million. “We’ve looked at that as something that should be established for the Carmans River,” he emphasized.  According to Amper, the state standard is 10 parts per million and the Pine Barrens Commission has the authority to limit the nitrogen discharge level to 2 parts per million.

Others like John Strickland, chairman of the board for the Brookhaven Fire District and former chief, who sat in on the recent South Yaphank Civic Association meeting as did Greg Miglino Jr., chief and president of the South Country Ambulance Company, talked about how they would have to prepare their lifesaving units for coverage.

The northern boundary lines for the Brookhaven Fire District run from the Suffolk Police Property section across Yaphank Avenue to Park Street. “We could get 50 calls to Crescent Street off Park, we get calls to the infirmary and police headquarters,” Strickland said.  “We average in the 600 call range annually for the whole district, this is fire related calls. “To say we get maybe 9 percent in this northern Yaphank greater area would be fairly accurate.” The calls vary from automatic alarms to MVA rescues and helicopter assists, he said.

“The response to the area now, candidly, doesn’t pose an overall threat because we’re responding to the same area and the access road is Glover Drive,” Strickland explained. “We are aware that if necessary, we may have to build a substation more geographically located to take on the additional exposure. If someone said, ‘We’re going to do this tomorrow,’ we won’t opt to go much forward than to see what happens because things have to be done that way. There’s land, appropriation of funds, public outcry. But unfortunately in the not-quite-18 miles we protect, a great deal is non-taxable land owned by Brookhaven Town or the county and the federal government. Not counting Post-Morrow, there are others that make their lands tax-exempt and schools, so the industry and residential properties are the ones that support the entire district. But if we do get a substation, where do we get the manpower?”

Miglino’s ambulance company tackles 2,700 to 3,000 calls a year; about 300 originate in the South Yaphank area, he said. “We would clearly have to look at the potential of putting a substation in the area to handle the increased call volume in that sector of the community,” he said of the project. “It’s not that we’d have to put it there tomorrow. There are standards for response time and it would be the far north section of our community. This development isn’t happening in a vacuum. The community has been expanding for the last 10 years. The county is expanding with a larger jail; we have 800 to 900 inmates with the current one and the new jail will increase that number substantially.”

The ambulance company is a private not-for-profit, therefore a referendum wouldn’t be needed. “It would just be a matter of finding land,” he said. “Our board would have to allocate resources to construct a substation. We do have paid staff that maintains the building and equipment but otherwise, it’s all volunteers.”

Miglino said the ambulance company has 100 active members. “We’re in a very fortunate position in that we’re not in need of volunteers. But just because you’re strong today in 2009, you can have a couple of members move and others who have children. If it goes through, we need to be prepared.” ■

A talk at the table with developers
Yaphank Development players meet with civic group

By LINDA LEUZZI

John McConnell of Gerard Road questioned the wisdom of supporting an amateur hockey league to the Katter Development representatives Tuesday night. He echoed the sentiments of John Palasek, who stood outside the German American League Settlement Community’s clubhouse waiting for the executive session to end. He had friends; hockey fans who said the Rangers and Islanders games were far from sold out. Joanne Steigerwald was concerned about Gerard Road. She lived there along with other homeowners, a one-lane road in each direction that was now being used as a cut-through. Would there be an increase in traffic? Would it be widened?

The South Yaphank Civic Association executive meeting with Kent Katter, the developer for the proposed Legacy Village, with its two 5,000-seat arenas, 90-room hotel, restaurants and wellness center off the Long Island Expressway and Yaphank Avenue, and Michael Dubb, who represented the Beechwood Organization in charge of the workforce housing planned in back of Suffolk County Police headquarters, county farmland and the Mastic Soccer Club, was the official firing shot of this ambitious plan in an area known for its bucolic settings. “Kent Katter called a month ago for a meeting,” explained Johan McConnell, president of the South Yaphank Civic Association. “The Beechwood representatives didn’t want a large group (to address questions). We agreed to meet with the executive session and then I would make the presentation to the public afterwards.” But during the executive session, one was made clear. And that was that this project would not materialize overnight.

The plan would involve community input, town scrutiny, and perhaps a Yaphank Development Task Force, which county Legislator Kate Browning introduced yesterday to study the feasibility for its success. And no contracts had been signed. A major step yet to take place is declaring the 250 acres of county land as surplus by the legislature before it can be sold to developers. The town of Brookhaven must determine change of zoning and increase in density, especially the 120 acres of housing that ups the challenge by 10 units per acre. A SEQRA is required. Environmental and traffic studies must be produced. The land is all located within the Carmans River Watershed and a sewage treatment plant must be installed.

“There’s a long road involved,” admitted Michael Dubb, whose Beechwood units are tallied at 1,000 on 123 acres. “The way it’s laid out here is by the county. When I come to meetings with you I’ll have tracing paper to think as I go along. I’ll listen. I’m not the person who controls county land. My job is to find a happy medium.” When questions were raised regarding more studies, Dubb cut in and commented, “I do often spend money investigating projects.”

As it stands now, 784 units will be put aside for workforce housing. Eighty percent of median income buyers would qualify with incomes of $52,550, for a family of four it would be $75,000; 100 percent of the median income would qualify with $65,000, for a family of four it would be $93,800; 120 percent of the median income would qualify with $78,000, for a family of four it would be $112,550. When the Carmans River proximity came up, there were assurances that sewers, paid for by the developers, would be installed and that road and stormwater drainage would be assessed via a SEQRA. “The challenge here is the economic drive behind this,” said Eric Alexander of Vision Long Island. Alexander pointed out the prodigious amount of foreclosures in the area and the question of the stadium. “How much is the county subsidizing?” “I’ve built 55 communities and never had them impacted economically by those around them,” Dubb said. “I’d never go into a community if I thought I’d negatively hurt them.” “The county is subsidizing part of this and the stadium is such a heavy lift,” Alexander emphasized.

“The county is looking to make money out of this,” Dubb answered. “The major thing is that the county executive believes it will create jobs and be good for the county. From the point of economics, I’ve built a lot of affordable housing in my time and I can recall years ago a young person thanking me with tears in his eyes. (The housing units) look as good now as they did 20 years ago because people care for them.”

The meeting afterward when McConnell presented the plan was lively but respectful. The environmental impact on Yaphank’s Main Street was questioned and the reflecting pool got a laugh. Mike Mercuri asked what the county executive thought this project would alleviate. “The reason people are leaving is that the taxes are crippling, you can’t drive up and down the high- ways without traffic and you can’t get off the island,” he said. “And the county legislators themselves don’t know about it.” Five members of the Economic Development, Higher Education & Energy Committee received a presentation by county planning director Tom Isles yesterday before voting on Browning’s Yaphank Development Task Force. The development that seems most imminent was the one proposed by J. Timothy Shea Jr. of Certilman Balin Adler & Hyman, LLP, and the attorney for the planned 11-acre office and industrial parcel now zoned A1 on Yaphank Avenue that will be presented to Brookhaven Town and separate from the Legacy Village concept. Shea presented the plan after the executive meeting. There would be three phases. Phase 1 would be a two-story, 30,000-square-foot building along Yaphank Avenue. Phase 2 and 3 would also include single 30,000 square feet two-story office buildings.

Shea emphasized that significant buffers would be included in the plan, in some cases double, to shield nearby homes. But the key to the plan is that the developer would only build one phase at a time. “Phase 1 would come in,” he said after town approvals. “But you don’t do Phase 2 and 3. That remains wooded that is, while one phase was underway.”

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From Newsday
July 29, 2009

Critics: Levy's 1,000-unit community will ruin Yaphank

By RICK BRAND

As labor and housing advocates backed Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy's plan for a 1,000-unit "next-generation" community Tuesday, local opponents and environmentalists protested, saying it would ruin Yaphank.

Two dozen local protesters gathered at the former Suffolk Infirmary in Yaphank where Levy spoke, many carrying signs that said "Levy Land" surrounded by a circle with a slash through it. They said they were against the massive $400-million project.

But Roger Clayman, executive director of the Long Island Federation of Labor, which represents 250,000 local union workers, called Levy's plan a "significant project for all of Long Island" for the "badly needed jobs" and the affordable housing it will create.

Backers say the project - which includes not only housing but a destination sports and entertainment center and an alternative energy research park - will create 900 to 1,000 construction jobs and a permanent workforce of 3,000.

Kent Katter, one of the developers, said, "We can stop the brain drain and allow our future professional workforce . . . to put down roots here on Long Island."

But critics disagree. "It is going to ruin the rural character of Yaphank," said Johan McConnell, president of the South Yaphank Civic Association.

"It's the wrong place, the wrong time," said Maryann Johnston, president of Associated Brookhaven Civic Organizations. She said the project will intrude on the Carmans River watershed and thousands of cars will be drawn to the new housing and arenas.

The losing competitor, Matthew Whalen, president of Avalon Bay, issued a statement saying the plan, which makes 80 percent of the units affordable without mixed use or mixed income, "is not based on sound planning principles."

Levy discounted the claim, saying, "What's unsustainable is the status quo. We're losing thousands of our young who are being forced off the Island."

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