Brookhaven Town OKs Muslim cemetery in Bellport, one of first on Long Island

A New Hyde Park mosque received permission Thursday from Brookhaven Town to develop a cemetery with up to 12,000 burial plots on a rural road in Bellport — one of the first on Long Island reserved exclusively for Muslims.

The graveyard was approved Tuesday by the Suffolk County Legislature. The county legislature last month approved another Muslim cemetery in Calverton that is expected to open within a few months.

The Brookhaven Town Board, acting as the planning board, voted 7-0 Thursday to approve a site plan and special permit for the Bellport cemetery on a 13.78 -acre parcel on Beaver Dam Road.

"Thank God," Abdul Aziz Bhuiyan, chairman of the Hillside Islamic Center mosque in New Hyde Park, said in a text message following the vote. "It is well deserved and [we are] grateful to our county and town leadership."

The Bellport cemetery's construction schedule was uncertain as officials must first obtain building permits.

Bhuiyan had told Newsday he spent several years looking for a suitable site for the cemetery before finding the Bellport property, about an 80-minute drive from New Hyde Park.

Long Island Muslims have said they struggle to find burial plots. Muslim burial sections at Long Island cemeteries are running out of plots, and the nearest Muslim cemeteries are in Port Jervis upstate and in New Jersey.

Bellport residents at an April 30 public hearing at Brookhaven Town Hall were split on the plan for the cemetery. Supporters said Muslims deserve to have their own cemetery, while opponents cited concerns that their drinking water wells would be despoiled by embalming fluids and decomposing corpses.

Town and mosque officials said Muslims do not use fluids to embalm bodies.

Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico said Thursday that the town and mosque officials reached an agreement after the hearing to create larger buffer zones between the cemetery and nearby homes. The buffers would help mitigate the impact of contamination, he said.

"All of the buffer will remain natural and undisturbed," Panico told the board before the vote Thursday. In total, about 4.23 acres, or 31.2% of the cemetery property, will not be developed and "will remain naturally vegetated," the supervisor said.

Mosque officials have said the Bellport cemetery would have a prayer chapel with seating for up to about 100 people, a storage shed and parking for about 42 vehicles. Bodies would be washed and wrapped in cloth in accordance with Muslim burial traditions before being brought to the cemetery, mosque representatives said.

The county legislature voted 17-0 to approve the Bellport cemetery Tuesday. Lawmakers had said last week the vote would be postponed to next month because of "flaws" in the project's application. Among the flaws cited were incorrect building lot locations in the neighborhood where the graveyard would be located.

But the postponement was waived Tuesday because the Bellport cemetery vote was deemed to be "time sensitive," Legis. Dominick Thorne (R-Patchogue) told Newsday, citing what he said was Brookhaven's need to vote on it this week.

By Carl MacGowan

carl.macgowan@newsday.comCarlMacGowan

Carl MacGowan is a Long Island native who covers Brookhaven Town after having previously covered Smithtown, Suffolk County courts and numerous spot news and feature stories over his 20-plus year career at Newsday.