Heartland Town Square project: Lawsuit seeking to halt plan can proceed, judge rules
Joseph Fritz, left, with his attorney, Joshua Douglass, at the site of the proposed Heartland Town Square project last week. Credit: Barry Sloan
A lawsuit seeking to kill the massive 452-acre Heartland Town Square project in Brentwood can move forward after a court rejected the developer’s request to end the suit.
It wasn’t a total victory for Heartland’s opponents, however. The court on Wednesday rejected claims by the largest plaintiff, the Brentwood school district, and allowed only the 4 Towns Civic Association to remain in the fight against the multibillion-dollar project.
“We’re not going anywhere,” said civic association president Christine Schultz, who represents more than 300 nearby residents. “[Heartland] would be as dense as Queens … do we really want a city right at Exit 52 of the LIE?” she said, a reference to the Long Island Expressway.
The Heartland project would be one of the largest ever on Long Island. It aims to create a community hub at Brentwood’s former Pilgrim State Psychiatric Center. In July 2017, Islip Town approved the first of the project's three construction phases, which called for 3,504 apartments and 1.2 million square feet of commercial space on 113 acres.
The civic association, school district and resident Joseph Fritz filed the lawsuit to stop the project in November 2017. They cited concerns ranging from thousands of new students sapping school resources to the project depleting water resources and its traffic impact.
Wednesday marked the first hearing, nearly eight years after the initial filing.
State Supreme Court Justice David T. Reilly rejected Fritz and the school district’s claims. He ruled their economic arguments didn’t pass legal muster and said the two plaintiffs wouldn’t be uniquely impacted by the project.
The lawsuit relies on the State Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA, which allows someone to sue only if they would be more severely harmed by a project than the general public. Arguments that are strictly economic also aren't covered under SEQRA, according to Reilly.
Brentwood schools Superintendent Wanda Ortiz-Rivera wrote in a statement “[The district] remains dedicated to protecting the interests of our students, the taxpayers and the community. We are considering our options and we will do what is best for our stakeholders.”
Joshua Douglass, Fritz’s attorney and a self-described environmental activist, told Newsday via text "despite this unfortunate decision, the fight to protect Long Island's environment must continue. I call on like-minded individuals to triple down on those efforts."
The 4 Towns Civic Association was the sole survivor of Wednesday’s hearing because it “represents residents who live near the Heartland project and their interests are impacted by it,” Reilly ruled.
Heartland attorney John Wagner and developer David Wolkoff declined to comment.
Schultz, the civic association president, said she hopes the ruling might bring Heartland’s developers to the negotiating table.
“Now with this news, are they going to … reach out to us to speak about it?” she said. “Maybe they would change their minds and not build it up like in their original plan.”
It’s not clear when the next hearing will take place. Attorneys on both sides are expected to meet in the coming weeks to discuss next steps.
Sam Kmack covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and previously worked as a city watchdog reporter in the Phoenix metro area, as well as an investigative journalist at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.
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