Drug, alcohol rehab facility planned in Ft. Salonga sparks resident concerns

A proposal for a drug and alcohol treatment facility in Fort Salonga faces rising opposition from neighbors and a local civic group.

More than two dozen residents have written letters of protest to town officials ahead of a Jan. 25 Smithtown Board of Zoning Appeals hearing, some warning that the facility’s patients could endanger students at an elementary school about a third of a mile away.

At issue is a two-and-a-half story building and accessory structures on a 5.6-acre site at 20 Sunken Meadow Rd. that for much of the last century housed a rehabilitation facility, Charlie Murphy’s Residence, until a 2016 fire.

The new facility would serve up to 50 clients by housing them two or three to a room, according to drawings filed with the town planning department, which also show that that is twice the number of beds the original facility housed.

The Fort Salonga Association, a local civic group, is encouraging its members to "keep the pressure on." In a letter to the board last month, Keith Macartney, the group’s president, called plans for 50 beds "an assault on a residentially zoned neighborhood."

John Bonlarron and William Alvaro, members of the limited liability company making the application, would take over the site from another company whose principals are William Murphy and Marie Adams, according to the documents. None of the four could be reached for comment.

Michael Murphy, president of Douglas Elliman Real Estate's commercial division, is the broker on the deal, which he said he expects to close soon. He declined to give the purchase price, but a Dec. 27 listing on a real estate website put the asking price at $1.2 million.

"With the opioid crisis we have today, anybody can get drugs and get hooked on them," said Vincent Trimarco, the land use lawyer representing the applicants. Those planning the facility are "experts in the field" of addiction treatment, he said, and would operate a secure facility with supervision "around the clock."

Trimarco and Eliot Bloom, who described himself as a "zoning expediter" for the applicants, said they did not know how many staffers would work at the site. Bloom, a lawyer who was suspended from practicing law for three years in 2019, said he was working on the rehabilitation facility matter as a consultant, not as a lawyer.

In their letters, residents say they fear those seeking treatment at the facility would bring violence and syringes with them; one describes the prospective clients as "dregs of society."

Macartney and others also make a technical argument against the applicants’ request for a certificate of existing use. That approval, needed since the site is in a neighborhood now zoned residential, would allow the applicants to continue to use the property for rehabilitation. They point to a section of town code that says any use that has been "abandoned" for more than 12 consecutive months can’t be resumed, a time limit they say has been exceeded by years. In an interview, Macartney said his group would prefer to see the site used as a private home or "even apartments."

Trimarco said he may argue the original use was never abandoned. Bloom warned that, should the zoning application fail, his clients could seek to operate the site as a halfway house or as community housing for people with substance abuse problems. The town would have limited power to enforce zoning rules over facilities of that type, he said.

Timothy Eagen, superintendent for Kings Park school district, which operates the Fort Salonga Elementary School, said the district was aware of the application but would not take a position on the issue.

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.