Brookhaven Town Plan seeks community feedback

For the last three months, planners working with the Town of Brookhaven have been hosting workshops and open houses throughout the town to gauge community feedback for the upcoming Brookhaven Comprehensive Land Use Plan.

The plan, which is the first of its kind since 1996, aims to provide a blueprint and vision for Brookhaven’s future through addressing town and council districtwide needs, including housing, transportation, and recreation across the town, and land use, infrastructure, and redevelopment needs in each of the six council districts.

To spread the word about the plan, planners with MJ Engineering, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Land Surveying, P.C., along with town officials, met with residents at community centers, including the Bayport-Blue Point Library for Brookhaven Council District 5, on May 12.

“I think it’s a fantastic concept to bring town hall to council District 5,” said Town of Brookhaven council member Neil Foley, who walked around and talked with residents at the Blue Point open house. “[It] allows people to see information about today, tomorrow, and the future, and I love to hear input from my constituents; it’s the most important thing.”

At these open-house events, poster boards lined the room displaying town and council district demographics, from population and economic statistics, to map layers showing existing transportation options, environmental features, and community facilities.

Other boards asked residents to share the concerns and challenges they believed the town faces, along with what makes Brookhaven and their district special, and what they’d want the town to be like in five, 10, and 20 years.

Foley said that many residents of the Fifth Council District, which encompasses Blue Point, Patchogue, East Patchogue, and parts of Medford, Holtsville, Holbrook, and Farmingville, are concerned about preserving open space.

While areas like Patchogue are seeing more development, with apartment and mixed-use buildings continuing to come up, residents in other municipalities like Blue Point want to preserve their parks and open spaces from major developments, with the latest initiative, a passive park on Montauk Highway and Kennedy Avenue, soon to start construction.

Melia Hema, a planner with MJ Engineering, said residents at previous open-house events were engaged in the process by sharing their visions for Brookhaven, with residents in Council District 6, which includes Mastic, Shirley, and the Moriches and Manorville, expressing concerns about preserving historic places.

Hema added that the plan is still in its early stages, with the total project expected to take around two years to complete.

The last comprehensive plan for the Town of Brookhaven was completed in 1996. The 243-page document had goals similar to the ongoing plan project, with a “conservative approach” to land-use planning issues that would limit growth and maximize environmental protection and enhance community quality of life, as listed in the 1996 plan.

While the open house events for the current plan have since passed, residents can fill out an anonymous survey about their vision for Brookhaven’s future, and post comments on a map about the places they gather and are most important to them on the plan’s website: www.planbrookhaven.com.