Town Looks at Commercial Plans

By Dagmar Fors Karppi

Several projects have been scheduled to be heard by the Town of Oyster Bay Planning Advisory Board: the new site plan review ordinance for the Town of Oyster Bay. The meeting will be held in the Town Board Hearing Room, Town Hall East, Audrey Avenue, Oyster Bay, beginning at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 11.

Commissioner of Planning and Development Patricia McGuire explained the concept which uses its existing Planning Advisory Board to review and recommend the acceptance of some site plans for the town board. It is a way to speed up the process for local development.

Under the new site plan review, there are three criteria. If a minor application, needs less than 50 parking spaces and doesn't abut residential property, Planning and Development reviews the application and negotiates on site.

If a minor application needs less than 50 additional parking spaces and abuts residential property, then it goes before PAB to hear and negotiate and they then recommend action but the case is not heard by the town board.

If an application needs over 50 parking spaces it goes before the town board to hear.

Among the projects to be considered are:

Woodbury Plaza Shopping Center, southeast corner of South Oyster Bay Road and Woodbury Road, Plainview, has an application for a 1500 square foot addition to the rear of the building for retail use.

Tenjin Restaurant, 615 Jericho Turnpike, Syosset, has an application for a change of use from retail to restaurant. Located in the rear of a shopping center on Jericho Turnpike, (that is roughly, behind McDonald's), wants to expand into a section of retail space that is adjacent to the Tenjin Restaurant.

"The benefit of the new PAB to the community is that it provides a mechanism where local residents have an opportunity to see what kind of site plan improvement the commercial groups are doing and allows them to voice their concerns to those entities," said Commissioner McGuire.

The hearings of the Town of Oyster Bay Planning Advisory Board are now announced by sending out notices to people living 200 feet or so around the property, as is done with a zoning change hearing. The public is notified through press releases sent by the town clerk's office and public information. Local residents interested in the hearings can visit the town clerk's office and see the plans.

The benefit of the new law is that it attempts to speed up the site plan approval process while it gives the town more control over that process and hopefully makes the process better and faster.

The board can have the commercial developer improve the site through: fencing, landscaping, lighting, buffers, signage, parking, curbing, re-paving and re-striping.

After the PAB makes its decision, any changes are submitted on a revised site plan that is filed with the Department of Planning and Development that inspectors can check against as the work is completed.

The site plan is kept on file for the Department of Planning and Development to use to be sure of compliance, said Commissioner McGuire.