New housing units, 'walkable downtown' plan for Melville gets town board approval

The Huntington Town Board approved a plan on Tuesday that will allow the creation of a "walkable downtown" in Melville, south of the Long Island Expressway, with up to 1,500 housing units.

The Melville Town Center Overlay District was approved 3-1-1.

The district will allow mixed-used development in certain light-industrial areas of Melville. Developers will be able to submit plans to the town board for buildings up to four stories tall that otherwise would not have been considered.

The town board will review each application, with a pause after 400, Supervisor Ed Smyth said. The expectation is that it would be seven to 10 years before a transformation of the area, which is mostly office complexes, would be in place.

Smyth said he is pleased to be moving forward after five public hearings that began in April, as well as numerous smaller and private meetings with civic groups and residents.

Most of the public meetings were filled with accusations from residents who opposed the idea, saying that the board was moving too fast and not being transparent.

“I think the town board voted to enact the community’s desire for a walkable downtown in Melville,” Smyth said after the meeting.

Smyth and town board members Dave Bennardo and Theresa Mari voted in favor of the resolution.

Board member Sal Ferro, who had been the subject of a Newsday report that he had a business relationship with a developer who owns a stake in an office building near the overlay district, abstained. 

Board member Brooke Lupinacci said after the meeting that she was standing by her opposition she first voiced in the spring when the measure was first presented.

“Let’s be visionaries, but let’s get it right,” Lupinacci said. “If you want to realize this vision, and I do think it’s a wonderful opportunity, it’s got to be done with a plan and with experts.” 

Residents who opposed the development have cited the lack of a plan to reference; no extensive environmental study; increased traffic; and an influx of students they worry will overwhelm the school district.

Kat Hankinson, of West Hills, who helped organize those who wanted more research on the impact of the development, said she was proud of those who gave respectful reasons for their opposition.

“It’s still a little disturbing that people were making counter arguments that we didn’t want the development or the downtown,” she said. “That’s not where we were coming from; we’re coming from a place [that] a project of this size needs to be planned by a professional planning firm.”