Developer of Sayville housing plan scales back pitch for vacant golf club land

The developer vying to turn a defunct Sayville golf club into a residential neighborhood has offered a new plan that slashes the number of homes by more than 300, and shifts offerings from mostly rentals to for-sale homes.

Rechler Equity Partners bought Island Hills Golf Club, a 114-acre property, in 2014 and has struggled to win approvals to develop the property into housing. The club closed in 2015, Newsday has reported.

The project’s size shrank each pitch, going from nearly 1,400 units in 2021, to 890 last year. 

The new proposal, South Bay Village, comprises 568 units. About 80% will be for sale, or 455 units, and the vast majority of the housing will be single-family homes. The latest plan calls for 113 rental units.

About 35%, or 314, of the previous proposal's units were for sale. That proposal included 576 rental units.

The past three versions of the project met resistance from the public and local officials, driven by concerns ranging from the project’s size to its compatibility with nearby neighborhoods of single-family homes.

Islip’s Town Board rejected the first proposal in 2021, Rechler Equity withdrew its 2023 pitch following public backlash, and a 2025 proposal died on the vine after a contentious five-hour planning board meeting.

The new pitch, submitted in July, factors in feedback from last year, the developer told Newsday.

“I think that it really encompasses so much of what we heard at the planning board hearing," said Gregg Rechler, who’s overseeing the project, about the new proposal. "What was really said very loudly is we need for-sale housing."

Islip Town staffers and contractors are reviewing the proposal, according to town spokeswoman Caroline Smith. She said the planning board will decide whether to recommend approval at a future meeting, although a date has not been set. The five-member town board will then have final say.

When asked whether this pitch will be the company's last if it gets rejected, Rechler said,  "We are committed to seeing it through and will never abandon our plan to make [the property] a productive part of the community.” 

South Bay Village, under the current proposal, is expected to bring 1,458 new residents to the area. That’s down from 1,889 under the previous plan, a roughly 23% reduction.

The single-family homes would consist of two-bedroom townhouses ranging in size from 1,350 to 2,100 square feet as well as three-bedroom cottages ranging from 1,650 to 2,600 square feet.

The 65 multifamily units will include one- and two-bedroom flats in captain’s house-style buildings, which will range in size from 600 to 1,000 square feet. All of the multifamily units will be for rent, as will 48 of the single-family townhouses.

Rechler told Newsday arguments that “we need diversified housing” from opponents last year spurred the shift in housing type under the new proposal. It's not clear how much the proposed homes will cost to purchase.

“As much as I want to build just rental housing, I know from every experience I have on Long Island that we need housing at all different levels,” he told Newsday.

By Sam Kmack

sam.kmack@newsday.com

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.