Sayville assisted living facility plan OKd
Architectural rendering of proposed Bristal Assisted Living facility planned for Lakeland Avenue in Sayville. Credit: Handout
An assisted living facility in Sayville is a step closer after Islip Town's planning board recommended a zoning change on a 5.5-acre parcel on Lakeland Avenue.
The developer, Garden City-based Engel Burman, faced opposition to the 144-bed, 96,000-square-foot Bristal Assisted Living project from immediate neighbors when it was proposed more than a year ago. A revised proposal now goes to the town board for consideration.
Opposition was triggered in part because the site consists of five parcels, just one of which had been zoned to allow such a facility. A second was zoned to permit a 30,000-square-foot retail center. But the largest of the five was zoned for single-family homes. Many surrounding residents, hoping that private homes would be built, feared the proposed facility would bring an increase in traffic, particularly from service trucks.
Deputy town Planning Commissioner Jeanmarie Buffet said traffic modeling showed a retail center half the size of the one permitted by current zoning would generate five times more traffic on a Saturday at peak time -- typically the busiest time of the week -- than the proposed assisted-living center would.
Planning department staff also learned from Suffolk County Health Department officials that a nearby sewage treatment plant could accommodate an assisted-living facility, avoiding the need to build a new one on-site. Use of the existing plant would require separate county approval.
In response to concerns by the Community Ambulance Company in Sayville that such a facility would generate an increase in calls, the developer has agreed to pay a $1,000 "impact fee" per call when they exceed two a month, Buffet said. She noted Bristal facilities on Long Island typically have a contract with a private EMS service.
Engel Burman manages a chain of seven Bristal facilities across Long Island, the most recent of which opened in March in East Northport.
The developer is reducing the structure's footprint by rearranging the total square footage into three levels instead of the original two, with one to be built below grade. As a result, the building can be set farther back on the property to minimize its overall visual impact, Buffet said.
The planning board approval also specified that the facility will have to maintain a state license as an assisted-living facility to ensure it cannot be used as a hotel, single-room boardinghouse or apartments.
Planning board chairman Joe DeVincent described the revised plan as "a very good compromise."
"We've spent a fair bit of time over the past 18 months going back and forth with the community and trying to create something the town and community can feel proud of and which will give the project more of a residential feel," Engel Burman partner Scott Burman said.
'We have to do better' Newsday high school sports editor Gregg Sarra talks about a bench-clearing, parent-involved incident at a Half Hollow Hills West basketball game.
'We have to do better' Newsday high school sports editor Gregg Sarra talks about a bench-clearing, parent-involved incident at a Half Hollow Hills West basketball game.
