Reaching for 'Yes' in Sayville
A rendering of the South Bay Village project in Sayville. Credit: Rechler Equity Partners
In 2015, Sayville’s Island Hills golf course closed.
Since then, the 114-acre property has been dormant.
Developers Gregg and Mitchell Rechler have tried again and again to bring it back to life, presenting plans for vibrant housing developments, complete with attractive renderings and promises of tax revenue and community benefits.
Still, no shovel has ever entered ground. Instead, words have filled the air. Residents have filled raucous town hall meetings, posted on angry social media forums and crowded civic association meetings. County, town and planning officials have stood alongside them, rejecting or ignoring every proposal.
The years of tumult culminated in a 5 ½ hour Islip Town Planning Board meeting last July.
“How many versions of ‘No’ do all of you need to hear before you start to listen to us?” one resident asked that night. “I would respectfully ask that you vacate this plot and let it remain what it always was meant to be since the Teddy Roosevelt administration — green space in perpetuity.”
For the last year, however, it’s been quiet in Sayville. Residents could be forgiven if they thought they had successfully chased the Rechlers out of town.
Not quite.
Instead, the Rechlers, who are cousins, have spent the last 12 months talking with planning officials, council members and residents to determine what stakeholders want. Then they prepared a 200-plus-page document that answers every question and presents yet another alternative.
Previous proposals morphed from Greybarn Sayville with 1,365 luxury rental apartments, to South Bay Village, with 890 units, 576 of which would be for rent. Now, it’s just 568 units, including 113 for rent.
That means a 92% reduction in the number of rental units.
It’s not “green space in perpetuity.” But it does check many of the boxes and shows a willingness to compromise that’s often lacking in such development conversations.
Less density? Check. Fewer rental units? Check. More single-family detached homes? Check. Age-restricted units? Check. A promise to avoid tax breaks? Check. A green belt buffer separating the development from other housing? Check. Nothing above 35 feet? Check.
Community benefits and tax revenue for the town and school districts? Check. In the form of a staggering $8.7 million a year in tax dollars — compared with the $336,934 the developers paid last year for the vacant lot.
So what could go wrong?
Anyone who has watched development stall on Long Island can answer that question. Too often, even when there’s some give, residents’ goalposts move. There are those who won’t want any rental units or who will think it’s still too dense. There are those with darker concerns, who last year called tenants “transients” and said the housing would become “little dumps.”
So, in response to that resident who asked Gregg Rechler to listen, the developer now says he has. The question, therefore, is now a different one.
How many different versions of Island Hills’ future will residents need to see before they finally say “Yes”?
Rechler told me “This is it” — his last real compromise. But he also promises that he’s “never” walking away from the property.
This land is unlikely to become a 100-acre park or playground or even another golf course; none of those would bring in enough money to make the land viable. So, the land could remain as it is — a vacuous monument to endless versions of “No,” while the Rechlers keep battling.
Or, it could become a vivid neighborhood — a community that revitalizes Sayville, a symbol of what happens when developers, residents and town officials embrace concessions and compromises — and finally say “Yes.”
Columnist Randi F. Marshall’s opinions are her own.
Randi Marshall is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
