Smithtown fire district drops property bid

Smithtown fire commissioners are shopping for real estate after dropping plans for a property-rights purchase that would allow construction of a new firehouse.

Commissioner Matthew Kondenar Jr. said Friday the Smithtown Fire District pulled a $70,000 offer to buy rights to an Osgood Street property because commissioners believed the deal would not be approved by the Town of Smithtown or Suffolk County health officials. The fire district wants to build a two-story substation on Plymouth Boulevard, which would replace a one-story firehouse on that property.

Transfer of the Osgood Street parcel's development, or "flow," rights to the fire district was necessary because the Plymouth Boulevard property is too small to expand sewage capacity for the new substation. The transfer required approval by the Suffolk County Department of Health Services and a town building permit.

"It just doesn't look like the town is ever going to approve it," Kondenar said. "We're right now in the process of looking around at different places."

Town planning director Frank DeRubeis, who opposed the transfer, said last week the county Health Department would not approve it. The Health Department had not announced a decision.

The proposed transfer caused a rift between DeRubeis and the town planning board, which approved the transfer, 4-1, last month.

Peter Micciche, 80, who owns the Osgood Street parcel with his wife, Dorothy, 79, said the deal would have helped the couple pay bills, including legal expenses from their attempt to sell the rights.

"We lost all our money in the stock market," said Micciche, a retired fuel oil business owner. The Osgood Street lot is adjacent to the Micciches' Harvard Avenue home.

Micciche, a former volunteer Smithtown firefighter, blamed DeRubeis for the deal's collapse. "It cost the fire district and it's going to cost me, and it's going to cost the fire district more because they have to start all over again," he said. "It's just a travesty of justice."

DeRubeis defended his position, saying rights to the Micciches' lot could not be transferred because it is too small under the town zoning code.

DeRubeis said the substation could be built without a second lot, if fire officials dropped plans to expand a meeting room in the new building.

Kondenar said the meeting area must be enlarged because membership at the substation, currently 27, is expected to grow. "Ten or 15 years from now, it might be up to 50 members," he said.