Developer's Plan Again Requires Supermajority OK
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A developer’s plan for the historic street corner at Park Avenue and Main Street in Huntington, above, the former location of the Platt’s Tavern, is once again being protested by neighboring property owners. (Long Islander News photo/Andrew Wroblewski)
By Connor Beach
cbeach@longislandergroup.com
A developer will once again need to convince a supermajority of the Huntington Town Board members to vote in favor of a zone change that would allow for the construction of a medical office at an historic street corner.
Dominick Mavellia – owner of the southeast corner of Park Avenue and Main Street, former site of the Platt’s Tavern, where it’s said George Washington once dined – re-submitted earlier this year his plans for a 10,064-square-foot, one-story commercial building “with space intended to be used for medical office,” according to town documents.
Mavellia wants to convert the 1.06-acre property from R-15 residential to C-1 office-residence.
Owner of the neighboring 416 Park Ave. property, Joseph Bigelow, sent to the town board on April 12 an official protest regarding the zone change required in order for Mavellia’s plan to move forward.
New York State Town Law states that at least three-fourths of the town board is needed to approve a zone change when there are objection(s) raised by “owners of 20 percent or more of the area of land immediately adjacent to that land included in such proposed change.”
The new application is almost identical to the original proposal submitted by Mavellia in 2014, with the only difference plans for a wider westbound left-turn lane to reduce traffic on Main Street.
Mavellia’s prior plans for the property stalled before a prior town board administration in November 2016. The board twice did not vote on a necessary zone change application before deadlines hit.
Prior to the town board considering that zone change neighbors also filed letters of protest.
Former Huntington Supervisor Frank Petrone said at the time that the proposal “just didn’t have the votes to be put up to pass.”
Paul Warburgh, a member of the Huntington historical preservation group Old Huntington Green, said Wednesday that “the other adjacent landowner to that is east of the subject property will be filing a similar objection to the zone change.”
Warburgh said he feels the design of the newest proposal is “completely inappropriate to the Old Huntington Green historic district.”
He said, “It’s too big and it doesn’t look historical in connection with the other historical buildings in the district, and that was what was rejected the first time.”
It is now up to the town planning board to make a recommendation to the town board and a SEQRA determination.
