Planners' vote a severe blow to bakery bid

A Lindenhurst-based bakery products distributor is crying foul after Islip's planning board voted against its bid to move a round-the-clock trucking operation into an increasingly residential neighborhood in Central Islip.

Cheers and jeers marked a hearing Thursday at which the board voted 6-1 to recommend denying Inter-County Bakers' application for the change of zone it needs to purchase a vacant, state-owned warehouse and distribution center at the intersection of Eastview and Courthouse drives.

The bid now awaits final determination by the town board, which rarely overrules a planning board recommendation.

The decision is a blow for Inter-County and for the state, which has tried three times to sell the 13-acre site.

Inter-County attorney Christopher Modelewski presented a petition with the signatures of 1,738 Central Islip residents the company gathered in the two days before the hearing that he said showed widespread support for the project.

One board member noted none of the signatures appeared to come from residents in the immediate vicinity of the project, who would be most affected by its late-night trucking operations.

Modelewski also asked the planning board to defer its recommendation until his client could complete a noise survey sought by the department and fully respond to an engineering report filed July 19 by a group of neighbors opposed to the project.

The town deputy planning director effectively killed the project in a letter dated the next day, he said.

The planning board ratified that position without permitting Inter-County to respond, said Modelewski, calling the outcome "a clear procedural due-process violation."

He hinted legal action could follow.

Town officials say that since change-of-zone decisions are clearly within the town's jurisdiction, the chances of such action appear slim.

Company president Ted Heim Jr. said he was surprised the board focused on truck traffic instead of jobs and economic development in Central Islip and was "amazed" that resident support was considered irrelevant because town officials believed those supporters weren't immediately affected.

"We are all affected by unemployment and our community tax base. This is a vacant building in a mixed-use community.

"The impact of our operations on the immediate neighbors is being grossly exaggerated," he said.

"We need town officials to have the guts to make a tough decision."

Nancy Manfredonia of the Central Islip Civic Council said the community is "in a real crisis time and . . . wants jobs and economic development and needs it now."

Inter-County was the lone bidder in the state's latest attempt to sell the property and pledged to create 150 construction jobs and spend $6 million on renovations.

The state says it will re-market the site. The town has no say over what occurs at the site if it remains in legitimate state use. Still, immediate residents were delighted for now.

"We're relieved," said Earl Eaton, a resident of the Courthouse Commons condominium development, the closest housing.

"At least it looks like we won't be getting a caravan of diesel trucks passing my bedroom window at 4:30 in the morning."