The Town of Oyster Bay voted to adjourn without date the hearing pertaining to the application of Plainview Properties and Beechwood POB LLC during a town board meeting last Tuesday, which was originally scheduled for April 29.
The proposed project has drawn both strong opposition and support over the past few years. Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto explained that the hearing was adjourned because “there was concern among a significant part of the community that they didn’t have enough time to prepare – the one thing I never want to hear is ‘I didn’t have a full and fair amount of time to be heard.’”
The application requires zoning changes that would permit the developers to construction multifamily residences. The potential development is 143 acres of property off Old Country Road and Round Swamp Road, the site of the former Plainview Sanitarium.
The current plan is for 890 housing units, 114,330 square feet of commercial space, and, according to the Town of Oyster Bay, an estimated 44 acres of land for the Town’s recreation use.
No details were provided on the rescheduling of the hearing, however Venditto said he expects it to be “quite lively, with a number of different points of view expressed.”
The hearing had been set to take place at the Mattlin Middle School, in anticipation of a large crowd.
The town board room was nearly filled with residents prepared to speak on the application, Venditto held off any discussions until the hearing, however the town board did hear Trustee for the Plainview-Old Bethpage Soccer Club Matthew Sack, who utilizes the field on the site for soccer purposes.
Sack spoke in favor of the application, saying: “We have 1,437 kids playing on those fields, and we support the redevelopment.”
Leading into his second point, Sack expressed opposition to “negative flyers and negative press,” which he said are being placed on resident’s cars and on the baseball fields, citing the Concerned Citizens of Plainview as the source of the flyers.
“They don’t speak on the behalf of our soccer club,” Sack said, and expressed a desire to have “further conversations” with the Concerned Citizens of Plainview.
