Islip Town property can't become part of Islandia, officials say

Islip has rejected a property owner's plea to allow land within the town to be absorbed by the Village of Islandia, arguing the request was an attempt to skirt town oversight that would limit the size of a future medical office campus on the site.

The property is on Veterans Memorial Highway, between Long Island Motor Parkway and Spartan Lane. It houses the Crossroads North Corporate Park, an office complex with four buildings surrounded by a large parking lot.

It’s just north of Islandia’s border in Hauppauge, so it falls under Islip Town’s development rules — something property owner Crest Crossroads North LLC has been trying to change since at least July, when it asked Islip’s town board to allow Islandia to annex the site.

Attorneys for the company said Islandia’s zoning rules would allow it to build a larger medical office campus on site, which would, in turn, increase tax revenue and allow the development to connect to a nearby sewer system.

Last week, the Islip Town Board took less than a minute to unanimously reject that pitch. Board members said the request was “motivated by a desire to avoid the town’s” rules by carving off a chunk of Islip’s territory.

“Obviously, that would set a bad precedent,” Islip Town Councilman Jorge Guadrón told Newsday. “Any village may come later on and do the same.”

An Islandia spokesman told Newsday the village had no comment on the town decision. Crest Crossroads North's attorney Anthony Guardino did not comment on the vote.

In July, Guardino described the property as about 175,000 square feet of office space that’s “bisected” by the village-town border. He said Crest wants to “expand and convert the existing professional office buildings … to create a medical office campus on the overall project site.”

He said “development bonuses” from Islandia would allow the planned medical campus to be larger if it were part of the village, which would benefit the public because it could increase the property’s value and generate additional tax income.

The site’s tax bill would increase by about $170,000 per year — from about $930,000 to $1.1 million — if redeveloped as part of the village, according to Michael Guerriero, another attorney for the property owner.

Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter argued that if a nonprofit healthcare system were to buy the property, that estimated tax increase would never come to fruition. “What happens if Northwell or Catholic Health decides to purchase this property?” she said in July. “Then it comes off the tax rolls, so all of your arguments for increased revenue go out the window.”

Guardino also argued that annexation was needed to connect the property to the Wind Watch sewer district, as well as remove certain private restrictions placed on the land that would limit future development.

But neither of those things required the land to be absorbed by the village, according to Islip Town Planning Commissioner Ela Dokonal.

She expressed concern in July that the proposed annexation was a way to avoid town reviews of issues such as the project’s potential building height and scale, traffic and impacts on the nearby residential community.

“The board should consider whether annexation is being pursued to avoid the review of substantial cumulative impacts, rather than because the proposed development or sewer connection cannot reasonably be considered within the Town of Islip,” Dokonal said in July.

Islip’s board wrote in a resolution last week that “no evidence has been presented that the land cannot be developed as currently zoned.”

The board also wrote that the annexation “would not be in the overall public interest.”

By Sam Kmack

sam.kmack@newsday.com

Sam Kmack covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and previously worked as a city watchdog reporter in the Phoenix metro area, as well as an investigative journalist at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.