Carlson Associates: Town Unresponsive to Requests For Site Plan Meeting

A Kings Park business owner is claiming Town of Smithtown officials ignored multiple requests to meet before rejecting his business plans. 

Carlson Associates said they requested three meetings with Smithtown Planning Director Frank DeRubeis and Deputy Town Attorney Matthew Jakubowski before town officials rejected their proposed sites plans for Old Northport Road property. 

Vincent Trimarco, an attorney representing Carlson Associates, says he sent letters dated April 5, April 18 and May 10 to DeRubeis and Jakubowski to zoning issues related to the property before submitting site plans by the court-mandated deadline of June 10. 

"After receiving no reply to its three requests for a pre-submission meeting, Carlson Associates submitted three site plans to initiate dialogue with Planning," Carlson Associates wrote to Patch in a letter dated July 2. 
Carlson Associates 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.

Three site plans were submitted to Smithtown's Planning Department on June 19, but they have come under fire. 

Supervisor Patrick Vecchio told Newsday it ""appears to be . . . a stall tactic, with a submission that has no basis in reality . . . The submission does not meet the definition of a site plan."
 
Carlson Associates says the issues stem from a lack of clarity on how the town intends to resolve zoning issues in the area.

"Over the last few years, Carlson has held back on its applications several times in hopes that the town would provide some clarity, direction and resolution to the Kings Park industrial corridor," Carlson Associates said. 

The town has discussed various options to resolving conflict in the area including creating an overlay zoning district and spending $20,000 to hire Baldassano Architecture to do the Lawrence Road Study that recommended a new zoning code, Industrial Outdoor Storage, for the entire area. 

While the Lawrence Road Study was at first blasted by town board members, they have asked DeRubeis to re-examine it. He has drafted a "medium industrial"  zoning category, but details are not public yet. 

Area residents have voiced strong objection to any zoning changes in the area. 

Carlson Associates said they continue to wait for meeting with the town's planning department and attorneys "as soon as possible."