The Oyster Bay Civic Association hosted an open forum for AvalonBay Communities to talk to local residents about their 300-unit luxury apartment complex proposed for Oyster Bay. The site, owned by Island Properties is in contract to AvalonBay Communities conditional on their receiving permits to construct the proposed apartment building.

The meeting was held at the Italian-American Citizen's building on Summit Street on Thursday, Sept. 23. Many members of the East Norwich Civic Association attended the forum and were vocal about the present traffic problems and were concerned about AvalonBay adding to them.

AvalonBay representatives have said most of the traffic exiting from the apartment house will head south to the Syosset LIRR station. That is what has concerned East Norwich residents, since to get to Syosset, people will drive through East Norwich and will add to the traffic currently on Route 106. At the meeting the East Norwich residents said they already have trouble exiting from the side roads onto Route 106.

Matthew B. Whalen, VP Development AvalonBay Communities said they are involved with the pre-application process with the Town of Oyster Bay. He said, "This is not a hearing. We are working with the community so we can achieve something for the community." They have been working on the project for about 17 months and he said, "We will have as many meetings as we can. We are happy to speak to individuals or groups." Jack Scheich, president of the Beautification Committee of East Norwich later requested that they speak to the East Norwich community.

Mr. Whalen presented the credentials of AvalonBay saying they are based in Washington, D.C. and are one of the largest multifamily housing providers in the country with 145 communities with over 45,000 luxury apartments with amenities package of pools and fitness centers. There are currently two dozen under construction or reconstruction. They recently received a top award in 2004 for having the best Luxury Rental Community, which is located in the Boston area. He said they want to enhance the lives of their residents through integrity, caring and improvement. They have a Long Island office in Melville with five employees and the corporate company has 3,000 employees. He listed the Long Island complexes they have built in Glen Cove, Long Beach, Smithtown, Melville and Coram.

He said the corporation believes in being involved with the communities they are located in and showed a picture of their support of Soccerfest 2003 in Glen Cove. They also help at blood drives and with food drives, he said.

Mr. Whalen said he is aware of the comments from Oyster Bay residents, that the 300-unit apartment complex is too large. In response, he had a new rendering of the proposal. They kept the 300-units but made AvalonBay look smaller when viewed from Pine Hollow Road. He said they have "buried the garage" and chopped down the front so it is smaller. It was four stories high and is now three stories high with dormered roofs, which will be used for lofts for some of the apartments. He said the Oyster Bay unit is much smaller than the Glen Cove complex.

Rashid Walker, AvalonBay Communities development director explained the benefits of adding 300 apartment units to the current mix of local housing. He said it was tax positive; would add much needed housing to Long Island; would eliminate a defunct site and add a beautiful luxury community for empty nesters, young couples and single professionals. "Long Island is losing young people for lack of housing and this will add to the supply and will drive down prices and young people can stay." Someone said aloud, "at those rates?" (See rates at end of story.)

Mr. Walker said the apartment complex would conform to the Oyster Bay Hamlet plan, which mentions a need for affordable housing. Keeping younger and older people here is a benefit, said Mr. Walker.

He said the site, which is light industry, could have a supermarket (with more traffic than the proposed apartment house) and it could have a small manufacturing plant. He said the company is willing to make changes to the plan based on feedback from residents.

Mr. Rashid said one of the positives they see coming from the plan is that it will create between 76 and 102 local jobs. He said architects drove around the town and designed the building to be visually compatible with the community. He said it would generate less traffic [which prompted laughter from the audience] and he qualified his statement saying it was less traffic than potential use of the site. He said the AvalonBay would increase local spending by $7.9 to $10.6 million. He said, "We manage our own communities and want residents to stay and continue to rent from AvalonBay so we are committed here long term."

Paul Stevens of Sidney B. Bowne & Son, [their motto is "Where experience empowers vision"] commented on the traffic negatives further, saying they were working with Island Properties and that they were in business to make money and said, "They will develop it as something." He described the site and showed a footprint of the building on the land. He said drainage regulations from Nassau County and the Town of Oyster Bay say that all water on the site must drain on site and therefore they will have many, many drywells. He said there was no sewage connection to Route 106 at the present time but that they are part of the Oyster Bay Sewer District and intend to connect to it. They are connected to the Oyster Bay Water District already.

Robert Eschbacher of Eschbacher Engineering, P.C. testified on the traffic impact and gave figures on traffic generations for a supermarket, discount store, retail store and the apartment complex. He said, "We are now sitting down with Town of Oyster Bay officials to see what they want in a traffic study. We can't look at AvalonBay only. There are other Island Properties sites that are proposed and the town made it clear that we have to look at cumulative projects."

He said the traffic study will look at traffic accidents, volumes and intersections to see how to maintain them and not make them worse and even, possibly, to make them better. He said the town has its own consultant who will review the Eschbacher traffic report. Since Route 106 is a state road, they too will review the study. "The process goes on until they are satisfied that everything that needs to be done will be done," he said. "We've worked with a lot of developments with AvalonBay and they are very willing to accept our suggestions. We have asked AvalonBay to do expensive improvements and they have done them. In Coram they made improvements blocks away from the site," said Mr. Eschbacher.

He said most of the AvalonBay residents would be heading south in the morning. "If they were going north it would be more of a challenge." That is because they would have to cross Route 106 southbound traffic to get into the northbound lane. Coming home at night, he said, "The left turn striped area is there already. It will help us." In this case the traffic will have to cross the southbound traffic lane.

Mr. Whalen said they have been talking with the chamber on the concept of revitalizing the hamlet and said they have seen it happen in other areas they have served. He introduced the next expert. Terry Elkowitz of Freudenthal & Elkowitz Consulting Group, Inc. testified on the effect on the district schools and estimated that AvalonBay would bring in approximately 48 children using their highest projections. Using her projected tax revenues to the school district she said there would be a surplus to the district of about $35,000.

Rents for the apartments are for a studio, $1,500; one bedroom apartment, $2,250; two bedroom apartment, $3,000. Ms. Elkowitz said 35 percent of their incomes would be spent on disposable goods, which would increase the local economy by between $9.5 and $12.7 million.

The community comments are in a separate story.