Civics Call for Continued Remediation at Stony Brook Village Center

In the latest step over controversy which has raged for over a decade surrounding the expansion of the Stony Brook Post Office and Ward Melville Heritage Organization's Education and Cultural Center, the Brookhaven Town Planning Board held a public hearing on Monday afternoon on the project's site plan application and decided to keep the hearing open until next month.

While Thomas Cramer - environmental consultant for Eagle Realty, a subsidiary holding WHMO's income-producing properties - told the board that demands calling for further environmental remediation at the Stony Brook Village Center site were "much of the same rhetoric we've heard for the past 13 or 14 years," more than a handful of individuals attended the meeting to press for further clean-up on the project - which was completed before an environmental review was adopted.

"Had the proper environmental review taken place prior to construction, many of the adverse environmental impacts we have suffered might never have occurred," said Cynthia Barnes, chair of the Coalition for the Future of Stony Brook.

About a year ago, the planning board adopted findings (attached as a .pdf) from an environmental impact statement on the project despite the fact that construction had already concluded. Months later, WMHO and the town reached a court settlement amending two of them.

The court agreement reads: "The Planning Board acknowledges that existing species on the slope have not all been installed by the Petitioner and have colonized as a result of the adjacent invasive species located upon Suffolk County property."

Cramer said on Monday that the order in which the review was done would not change the fact that many of the invasive plants on the property are there due to no fault of Eagle Realty/WMHO.

"We did not install any invasive species," Cramer said. "They are, by nature, invasive. They came in and were already on site prior to construction."

Cramer said that per last year's settlement, Eagle Realty/WMHO isn't required to remove any invasive species at all, however the group agreed to remove seven Euonymus alatus (burning bushes).

Former co-chair of the CFSBV, Louise Harrison, said a cursory look of the property would warrant far more clean-up.

"The slope that was created from the excavation has been planted with many exotics, some of which are invasive," she said. "The ancient, native soils were lost."

Harrison, a conservation biologist, listed the following invasive species that should be removed: Black locust, tree-of-heaven, Norway maple, Japanese honeysuckle, porcelainberry, mugwort, Japanese knotweed, Asiatic bittersweet, and money plant.

Barnes asked the planning board to reconsider its settlement.

"Your Stipulation of Settlement with the applicant goes too far and does not clarify your Findings Statement," she said. "Rather, it eviscerates, leaving only a mere fraction of remediation for the actual adverse impacts on the environment."

After hearing testimony for roughly an hour, Planning Board Member Joseph Betz requested leaving the hearing open until the July 17 meeting. Betz said he wanted to review testimony from the Historical District Advisory Committee, and next month's hearing would only be focused on that testimony, said Planning Board Chair Vincent Pascale.

Following closure of the public hearing the planning board will have 62 days to make a decision, or the site plan will be granted approval by default.

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