Smithtown Town Board to hear plan for defunct gas station

The Smithtown Town Board plans to hold a public hearing on Feb. 25 on a change of zone request to permit a gas station and convenience store at the site of a defunct gas station and home in Smithtown.

JF DiAndrea Corp. and John Jones Lane Corp. want to change zones from wholesale and service industry to neighborhood business zoning at a site comprised of two taxable lots, at the corner of Middle Country Road and John Jones Lane in Smithtown.

The .78-acre site includes one corner lot that contains an existing 1,316 square-foot filling station with repair bays and another lot that has a 1,000 square-foot home on it, according to a town planning department memo.

The two applicants want to raze the existing filling station and dwelling in order to construct a new gas station with a 1,231 square-foot retail building and 2,520-square foot canopy, the memo shows.

In November, Smithtown Planning Board members voted 5-0 to recommend that the town board approve the zone change with three conditions. The conditions include limiting the use to a filling station with accessory convenience store; limiting the size of the building to 1,231 square feet; and requiring the property owner to maintain a 50-foot natural and landscaped buffer adjacent to the nearest single-family residences.

Planning board members did not heed the recommendation by town planning director David Flynn, who advised board members to deny the request in an October memo because the application was not consistent with the town’s comprehensive plan, nor the prevailing zoning in the Middle Country Road corridor.

He also wrote that there is an excess of land zoned neighborhood business and for retail in general, and that rezoning would cause the loss of a single-family residence.

The public hearing is scheduled for the 7 p.m. board meeting, which will be held at the Eugene A. Cannataro Senior Center, 420 Middle Country Rd., in Smithtown.