Rocky Point charette agrees on how to develop Fairfield parcel By CAROLINE LINTON ROCKY POINT--They came. They met. They had a charette. And when it was over, Rocky Point had reached a consensus on what to build on a parcel of land that has divided the community for years. After staging the charette last weekend, Vision Long Island (VLI), a Northport-based nonprofit group that organized the gathering, then worked up a plan for the development of the Fairfield property. The parcel of land north of the McDonald's on Route 25A has been a hotly debated topic within the Rocky Point community for many years. The charette (pronounced sha-RET), a fancy name for a meeting of all interested parties, was the first to be staged on the North Shore of Brookhaven, organizers said. "I urge you all to support this program," said Rocky Point Civic Association land use committee chairman Rich Johanessen. "It will really be a wonderful project ... I think it was a great presentation, it was a great product -- it's an absolute win/win." In the tentative proposal, VLI decided on creating 225 units for both rental use and for sale. The housing would be made up of townhouses, single-family houses and live/work units, with a small business space on the first floor and living quarters on the second. A minimum of 10% of the development would be deemed work-force housing and there would be units for a planned retirement community, but the percentage has not been determined yet. In addition to the 225 units, an 8,000-square-foot school administration building would be built, with a 1,300-square-foot pool inside. A full-size regulation soccer field, which can be divided into two Little League baseball fields, would be set up as well. What's more, the development would have a 3,000-square foot clubhouse, a large public park with a gazebo at the center and three smaller parks. And the area on the northwest end, near Hallock Landing Road, would become a wooded area for the community. To access the development from the road, there will be an entrance on Rocky Point Landing Road, as well as an entrance and right-turn-only exit on Hallock Landing Road. Gale Road will also be extended to connect Route 25A to the development. All the houses will be arranged in a grid. "In my view, it doesn't get any better than this," Mr. Johanessen said. "And if this project is built, it will lead me to believe every minute of every fight of the last 15 years is worthwhile." Bought by Fairfield Properties in 2000, all 33 acres of the land is zoned for single-family homes on half-acre lots, which could yield up to 60 single-family homes for the area. Fairfield originally asked to change the zone to 180 units, with no age restrictions, but after receiving such a backlash from the town, it decided to go back to the drawing board for a new proposal and hired VLI to help, "I think Vision Long Island did a tremendous job," said Fairfield partner Gary Broxmeyer. "They worked all weekend to get a sense of the Rocky Point community." At the introduction of the proposal on Friday night, VLI program director Eric Alexander received so many impassioned responses from the community, he said people were calling him the Dr. Phil of the charette. Mr. Alexander complied a list of "hopes and horrors" of the community, and then incorporated those into the design. Mr. Alexander and project designer Alex Latham also showed a number of images from across the country of different housing developments to find out what type of design the residents wanted. On Saturday, VLI took residents on a walking tour of the site, and then it asked them to draw up sample designs of what they would like to see for the community. Using the hopes and horrors list, the image surveys and these drawings, Mr. Latham and a team of designers from VLI created the tentative proposal to the community. VLI president Ron Stein also presented the community with preliminary numbers of how the community's taxes would be affected. He said he based these estimates on the tax assessor's records of the tax rate. If the development has no age restriction, he estimated the cost to the district to be $929,000 and the deficit to be over $312,000. If the community is 90% age restricted, he estimated the cost to the district to be $92,000. This would cause a surplus of around $500,000. "You're basically running a tax-positive development to the community," Mr. Stein said. Mr. Stein estimated the rent for the live/work apartments to be $1,200-$1,800. The retirement community apartments would rent for around $1,700 a month and sell for $275,000. The townhouse apartments would rent at around $1,800 and would sell for around $325,000. Mr. Stein said the offer to take part in a development project such as this is rare. "You have the opportunity to create something glorious and magnificent," he told the crowd, "and I encourage you to do that."
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