Town Board Holds Off Setting Date for Carlson Public Hearing

Smithtown officials have postponed setting a date for a controversial public hearing on a Kings Park industrial company's plans for its Old Northport Road property. 

Smithtown Town Board voted Thursday to table a resolution that would have set a public hearing date of Nov. 21 for West Development Partners LLC - the formal partnership name of Carlson Associates - requests for special exceptions for industrial uses including rock crushing and concrete product manufacturing. 

Supervisor Patrick Vecchio said the town board acted at the request of Smithtown Planning Director Frank DeRubeis, who expressed concerns about scheduling a public hearing for the special exception when Carlson Associates also has other pending applications. 

"Because there have been several issues with this site and because the issues have changed over time, I thought that it might be useful to summarize all of the actions so that the Board could see how all of these elements fit together," DeRubeis wrote in a letter dated Sept. 26. 

DeRubeis highlights that Carlson Associates has three separate applications - one for a zoning change and two for special exceptions - pending with the town in addition to making a new proposal.  

Carlson Associate's nearly 50-acre property off Old Northport Road has three different zoning categories: heavy industrial, light industrial and residential housing for one-acre lots. The property owners have received multiple summonses for violating the town's zoning codes over the years. 

In effort to correct this, Carlson Associates has a pending application before Smithtown Board of Zoning Appeals for a change of zone from a mix of residential and light industrial to heavy industrial, which would bring their current businesses practices into compliance with town code. 

Earlier this year, Smithtown officials took Carlson Associates into court over the town's summonses. The property owners pled guilty to four town summonses of property maintenance in March and paid a $1,000 fine. As part of the court settlement, Carlson was to file a site plan for his 45-acre site on Old Northport Road by June 19 and obtain the necessary approvals by November. 

However, town officials rejected the plans submitted on June 19, saying they were ambiguous and lacked necessary detail. 

Carlson Associates came back by filing new plans for asphalt plant and trucking station on 25 acres, a mix of heavy industrial and light industrial, along Old Northport Road. 

The proposed asphalt production plant is a permitted use within heavy industrial zoning, according to Smithtown's Planning Department. This plan, however, will require a special exception approval from Smithtown Town Board to carry out processes such as concrete manufacturing and sand/gravel mining and processing. 

Carlson Associates also filed for a special exception permit from the Board of Zoning Appeals in order to go forward with the trucking station.

So far, that adds up to 3 separate hearings that need to be scheduled for the Kings Park property. 

However, Toby Carlson recently wrote a letter on Aug. 6 to town board expressing that Carlson Associate has a "strong desire to remain in the organic recycling business... rather than fully convert to asphalt operations." 

DeRubeis has said the proposed indoor organic recycling facility "has merit," and asked town officials for two months to consider it at the Sept. 10 board meeting. 

It's unclear at this time when, or if, the town board will move forward in the future with scheduling public hearings on each individual application or push to combine them.