Developer Asks Town to Drop Restrictions on Vacant Lumber Yard

A developer has taken the first legal step towards building small offices and apartment units on the site of the former Nassau Suffolk Lumber and Supply Corp. on West Main Street.

North Fork Management & Maintainence has submitted a change of zone request to the Town of Smithtown on Jan. 15 requesting permission to remove an existing covenant on the property to build an apartment building and a office space on the condemned lumber yard.

Smithtown Planning Director Frank DeRubeis told Patch in October that North Fork Management is looking to divide the property into two buildings – one 30 feet off of West Main Street that would be used for retail space on the first floor and apartments on the second and third floors, and the other building in the rear of the property between Planned Parenthood and the Assessor's Office that would be used for small offices and apartments.

In order to construct the buildings, North Fork Management will need Smithtown town board to lift the current zoning restrictions on the property put in place in 1987.

The site of the former Nassau Suffolk Lumber and Supply Corp is approximately 3.62 acres. Originally, the front two acres of the property along West Main Street were zoned central business, while the last 0.91 acres of the lot were zoned residential. In 1987, the back acre of the lot was rezoned to central business to accomodate the expansion of the lumber yard with provisions limiting its use to a lumber yard.

North Fork Management hopes to have the restrictions requiring use a lumber yard lifted in order to build a guilding that will have a small office on the ground level with residential apartments on the upper levels. 

In order to have the covenant lifted, a public hearing will have to be scheduled before the Smithtown Town Board. A date has not yet been set. 

The former lumber yard was condemned by the town's building department in the beginning of October 2012, citing the building is "unsafe and its use or occupancy has been prohibited." 

Smithtown Planning Department employees said no official plans for construction of the apartment buildings has been submitted by North Fork Management. 

If Smithtown elected officials agree to lift the covenant on the property, the developer will need to go before the Board of Zoning Appeals for variances necessary to build, have plans approved by Town Board then take complete plans to the Building Department.